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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-10-27 TranscriptionOctober 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 1 October 27, 2003 Council Work Session 6:30 PM Council: Champion, Karmer, Lehman, O'Donnell, Pfab, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Atkins, Boelk, Dilkes, Fosse, Franklin, Helling, Karr, McCafferty TAPES: 03-74, SiDE TWO, 03-76, BOTH SIDES; 03-77, SIDE ONE TAPE 03-74 REVIEW ZONING ITEMS a. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR NOVEMBER 10 ON AN ORDINANCE VACATING A PORTION OF THE ALLEY LOCATED SOUTH OF KIRKWOOD AVENUE AND WEST OF DIANA STREET. (VAC03- ooooD Franklin/OK. First item is to consider setting a public hearing for November 10th on an ordinance vacating a portion of the alley located south of Kirkwood Avenue and west of Diana Street. Did somebody say something? Yes? Karmer/Karin? I did. Franklin/Yes, Steven. Kanner/If the rezoning of this property does not go through is it the intention of the property owners adjacent to the alley to withdraw their offer? Franklin/I don't believe so. Kanner/You think it's still on? Franklin/Yeah. I mean, they understand; the Lensings who are the instigators--- Kanner/Oh, OK. I'm mixing this up--- LehmaW With what? Kanner/I was thinking--- Franklin/You were on Dubuque Street? Kanner/I was thinking Dubuque. Franklin/OK. We'll get there in just a second. OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 2 b. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR NOVEMBER 10 ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE DEFINITION OF RESTAURANT. Franklin/Item b is to consider a motion setting a public hearing for November 10 on an ordinance amending the definition of restaurant. This deals with restaurants in the downtown. We'll have more on that before the public hearing. (See additional discussion next item) c. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF APPROXIMATELY 13,500 SQUARE FEET FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2), TO PLANNED HIGH DENSITY RESIDENTIAL (PRM), LOCATED AT 512 S. DUBUQUE STREET SOUTH OF COURT STREET. (REZ03-00021) Franklin/Item c is a public hearing on an ordinance changing the zoning designation of approximately 13,500 square feet from CB-2 to PRM. This is the property at 512 S. Dubuque Street. Pfab/Before you go any farther on that, can I ask you--- Franklin/Mm-hmm. Pfab/Why did when the original (can't hear) all the rest, why--I know why we want to change it, but why did we dump this in the first place? Franklin/Well, I'll take a stab at that because that happened many, many moons ago, even before I started here. Yes, it was, wasn't it? (Laughter) Franklin/I believe it was a way to get at drive-in restaurants and why the choice was made to look at the seating area, I'm not sure. But I think the thinking was that if you looked at restaurants as anything less, anything that had less than 50 pement of the floor area for seating that then it was more auto-oriented. Pfab/Is that--- Franklin/But I'm speculating there. Pfab/Right, and my point is, is--do we want a drive-in type situation or--- Franklin/ No. Pfab/Is this by not having this--or as I'm taking away or not requiring as much--by not requiring as much seating, do you take away from the ambience of downtown? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 3 Franklin/I don't think so, but that's one of the things that we'll have to talk through as we go through this. Pfab/OK. I mean, that's my only concern. Karmer/What brought this about? Champion/Starbucks. Franklin/We've had--no it wasn't just Starbucks. We've had a number of these. I mean we don't do ordinance amendments just because one thing comes flying up. We've had a number of these where restaurants have come in to get a permit and they have found that they're right at the cusp of that 50 percent seating area and so what they have done--and this is what Starbucks did, too--is that they have modified their floor plan such that they meet the seating area requirement. In Starbucks' case, they just took out a vestibule. So, it's something that has come up enough number of times that we felt that it was appropriate to address it. Kanner/They can go though to the Board of Adjustment. In fact, there was a case in our minutes about a restaurant and a drive-thru out--- Franklin/No. Kanner/...not in the CB-10. Franklin/Right, and that's the distinction in terms of the zone. The Rack had the same situation, but they had to go and get a special exception for it, and they went ahead and did that. And that's all taken care of. In the CB-10 zone, there's no option for that. Kanner/And are we looking at making that option or just changing it from, before it gets to that point of special exception? Franklin/I can't tell you that right now. We're having a joint staff meeting on it tomorrow. I haven't even looked at the packet yet to see what the proposal is, but the goal in the end is that in the downtown, we are able to have restaurants that have a seating area which is less than 50 percent of the floor area of the whole place. And we can talk about specifics on that. I mean, I think we're just--it's on now for just setting the public hearing on November 10th. And so we'll have all of that for you in anticipation of the public hearing. Kanner/So we don't know what the ordinance is yet when we're setting the hearing? I feel a little uncomfortable about that. Franklin/The reason that we're doing that is because you've got three meetings between now and the end of the year. If you don't wish to set the public hearing, if you wish to take a This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 4 longer period of time, you certainly can do that. We're trying to meet people's needs. Kanner/Is it Starbuck's is the main--- Franklin/Starbuck's is the one right now. Kanner/...that's requesting this? Franklin/They and there's one other one I think it's on Iowa Avenue; I can't remember the name of the--- Kanner/One that isn't open yet? Franklin/Right. Kart/Steven, just to clarify, typically, you do not have the ordinance at the time you set public hearing. But it is required by the time we publish notice in the paper of the public hearing. So depending on that notification, it'll be on file as well. Karmer/But we usually have a little clearer idea of what's going to go into the ordinance and what--- Franklin/And you would if I had read the packet before I came to the meeting today, but the meeting is not until 1:30 tomorrow and I'm on the edge. Kanner/So, can we have something tomorrow evening that will--- Franklin/You'll have it then before the Planning and Zoning Commission has it. I mean I really don't understand--if you don't want to set the public hearing, don't set the public hearing. You can do that. Kanner/Well, I, yeah, I might vote not to but if I had a little more information--for instance, if you were saying you're leaning towards going the same route as with The Rack in the ordinance, then I'd be more likely to perhaps go for the public hearing. When it's up in the air and I don't know which direction it's going to go, if it's going to be a blanket uniform thing, I'm a little wary. Lehman/But setting a public hearing doesn't do a thing. All it does is gives us a chance to talk about it. Karmer/Well, it gets it in motion, and again, when we set public hearings, we're sort of setting a status quo in motion, kind of thing, so every little thing adds a little weight, but yeah, I know my option. Franklin/(can't hear) OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 5 d. VACATING A PORTION OF THE ALLEY LOCATED TO THE EAST OF 512 S. DUBUQUE STREET (VAC03-00002) (1) PUBLIC HEARING (2) CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/OK, 512 South Dubuque Street. This is the public hearing on the rezoning of this property. The request is to rezone it from CB-2 to PRM. Now this map doesn't reflect it, but you recently rezoned this property right in here from CB-2 to PRM. This was initiated by the Clark family for the Elderly Housing Project on Court Street. So, right now the properties that are CB-2 are the law office, the old vet clinic, and that's what remains of the CB-2 here. The CB-2 in this whole general area are remnants from what we had here before we did the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan in '92, and what we did at that point is we rezoned those properties in which we wouldn't make things nonconforming. This stayed the CB-2 because of these uses primarily here. Now this is PRM, and as I say, these are the only two properties that continue to be CB-2. We talked with the Willis' who own this property here, this is Security Abstract, to see if they would be amenable to rezoning at this point in time, too. They did not wish to do that at this point. So, if anything comes up on that property at a later date, we would probably be looking at PRM there, too. Bottom line is that the rezoning of this property at 512 South Dubuque from CB-2 to PRM is consistent with the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan, with the direction that the Council has set by policy for this area. So, we are--we, being the staff and the Planning and Zoning Commission--am recommending approval of this rezoning request. Pfab/A question. Is--the people that are asking for that mzoning--also wish to make use of their half of the alley, is that correct? Franklin/Yeah, and I'll get to that in just a minute--- Pfab/OK, but I mean, that's part of the package there? Franklin/Yes. Pfab/I mean, this rezoning is not an isolated--I mean, it's part of a--- Franklin/ Right. They go together. They go together. Now, ! can't say that if you deny the vacation that they would withdraw the rezoning. We have not approached that question. OK, so any questions about this rezoning on the face of it? OK. Kanner/Aside from the last year, has that storefront been empty in the last ten years or how long has that Benton area been--- Lehman/They just moved about a year ago or less. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 6 Franklin/Yeah, they moved within a year. Yeah. Karmeff How long had it been there? Lehman/Oh, my gosh, 25, 30 years? Franklin/Ten, 20 years, yeah. Yeah, it was Dr. Irwin's before it was Craig so--- Lehman/ Right, because I've been taking the dog there forever. Kanner/OK. And so at the apartment building that was built, I think in the CB-5 up on Linn Street and Court, there's empty commercial space on the bottom. Franklin/Right. Kanner/My theory is in part because they have a partial tax abatement. I believe they have on the commercial space? Franklin/No. Champion/No. Lehman/No. Kanner/Don't they have urban--- Franklin/They don't. Champion/No. Franklin/Nothing there. The one that's just south of the Northwestern Bell? Kanner/I thought they applied for a tax abatement a couple of years ago when that--- Franklin/Did they? Lehman/I think so. Kroeger's I think qualified for some sort of incentive--- Franklin/Well, I don't remember that. Lehman/But I don't remember exactly what it was. Franklin/OK. Lehman/But in any event, we require commercial on the first floor. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 7 Kanner/Right. So, my question is are they eligible in, if they were to do something with the commercial to create increased value of their property in the CB-2 where they were thinking ofrezoning, would they be eligible for some of those same tax abatement programs? Franklin/No, because in the Near South Side Redevelopment Plan, which was adopted by the Council, the direction was to have south of Court Street go for high-density residential development and north of Court to be the commercial extension of downtown. That distinction was made very clear along Court Street, and so any of the incentive programs are for commercial to the north and then south there's a residential provision and I'd have to go back and look at that as to see exactly what it's for. It may just be for low- to moderate-income housing, but I'm not sure about that. Pfab/But when you go down below, when you cross--what's the next street--Prentiss Street-- there's a lot of businesses on the--- Franklin/Yes. Yes, this area, if you go back and look at your Near South Side Plans, which you probably don't even have any more, but I can get you copies of those again, there was a commercial node that was down here in the Prentiss, South Dubuque area, where a lot of those Iittle shops are--- Pfab/Right. Franklin/...and then the remainder, it was institutional in this area, the post office, the courthouse, then we had envisioned this block where the federal parking lot is, a, some kind of a civic center, not like here--City Hall--but an area which was going to be a combination ora parking facility and an open space. At one time there was a discussion of having a skating rink or something there. And then this was to be all high-density residential development around it and then the University is over here, the idea being that you try to get high-density residential near the downtown where people can get to downtown businesses and the University without using cars. So that's all in that Near South Side Redevelopment Plan. Pfab/But, OK, when a person looks farther south--- Franklin/Mm-hmm. Pfab/...is that something that would anticipate remaining as it is or would that eventually turn into more, higher-density residential? Franklin/South, whoops, 1 didn't want to do that--south of here is the railroad tracks and then it gets down into that much more commercial-intensive kind of area as you go down toward the County Administration building. Pfab/But there's also--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 8 Franklin/So, no. Pfab/But there's a lot of residential in there, too. Lehman/Not very much. Franklin/There's smatterings and it's above sometimes--- Pfab/Yeah, and then behind, across the alley there's a lot of residential in there. And there's quite a number of apartments down in there. So I'm just saying--- Franklin/North of the tracks. Pfab/Let's see. No, south of the tracks, too. You go past--it was a gym or something now--and then right next door is a--- Franklin/ There's a house or two. Pfab/There's apartments on the top three or four floors. Franklin/But it's commercial on the ground floor. Pfab/Right. Franklin/Mm-hmm. Yeah. Pfab/Right, so if this--is this going to be an island in there with commercial or is there, are there plans to drive high-density residential farther down? Franklin/The high-density residential is in this area which was determined to be a reasonable walking distance. P£ab/And so, primarily, north--- Franklin/But ends at the tracks. Pfab/OK. All right. OK. Franklin/OK, now--- Pfab/Karin, I have one more question. Franklin/Yeah? Pfab/If it goes to the tracks, what about the present commercial that's south of Prentiss Street? Most of those are real low building, one or two. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 9 Franklin/That was the small kind of commercial node that was anticipated as a commercial area that might serve some of this residential in here--- Pfab/OK. Kanner/But you're saying--- Franklin/...at a lower scale. Kanner/But you're saying now it maybe, it might go to PRM? Franklin/No. Not south of Prentiss Street. PRM is--and I don't have a whole area map of the Near South Side and I obviously should have brought one of those--that the PRM is in this area as you get on Clinton and Capitol where there are existing multifamily, that it also is in this area between Gilbert Street and the institutional uses of the courthouse, the post office, the school district offices. And then you have the commercial extension of downtown between Burlington and Court. You have commercial coming down Gilbert Street. You have a small commercial area by the tracks and then south of the tracks was not part of the plan. We never got that far. Lehman/But this particular little area--- Franklin/This piece right here--- Lehman/...is in character with all the rest of the zoning around it. Franklin/Yes. Lehman/Right. Franklin/Yes. Vanderhoef/Karin? There was a comment in staff report or something that said the owner of this property also owned 522 South Clinton, which I presume is that little narrow piece just to the south? Franklin/South Dubuque. Vanderhoef/Uh-huh. Franklin/Right here. Yeah. Vanderhoef/Uh-huh. Are those going to be combined? Franklin/No, not in any plans we've seen, and I'll show you those in just a second. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 10 Vanderhoef/OK. Pfab/That's residential? Franklin/Yes. OK, this is an aerial of the area that we're talking about and the blue outlined is the property in question. This is the apartment building you're talking about, Dee, I think, right here is the rooftop. That's a rooftop. The alley, which is the next item for vacation, comes down here and at this point is vacated from here south. So the alley is roughly configured like this. And as you can see, a lot of it right here, which is going to be the subject of vacation, is steep. Now, I don't know--(can't hear) that's not bad. The shaded area is that very steep topography that I just showed you on the previous slide, and this is the boundary of the alley along here. What is being proposed is that that be vacated and that one-half be sold to this property, a piece be sold to the Mostafavis', who have the apartment building on Harrison Street, and then this piece is to some letters, LAJR--I don't remember. Too, it's Kevin Kidwell and the people that own the apartment building down here. What is proposed is that a retaining wall to create the platform for these parking spaces and for a couple of dumpsters be built right here where the cursor is going at this moment. Pfab/Ho~v tall of a retaining wall? Franklin/Oh, I can't read that, Irvin. It's not tall--it's just, it would be, as I understand it, would be at grade or a little bit above. It's just to hold--- Pfab/(can't hear) Franklin/No, no--it's just to hold the dirt back and to provide, as I say, a platform for these parking spaces and for dumpsters for, one for the Mostafavis' and one for this project here. Pfab/Now, where is the, where's the Willis (can't hear)? Franklin/OK, Dubuque Street's over here--- Pfab/Oh, OK. Franklin/Security Abstract is here. Pfab/OK. Franklin/There's an apartment building here. Let me go back. Pfab/How far is that alley opening? Franklin/Just to here. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 11 Lehman/The part we're vacating, asking for vacation isn't open. Franklin/No. And it will not be opened. Pfab/Now is, above it is the Willis (can't hear) Franklin/Here's the Willis'. Pfab/So that alley is open now? Franklin/Yes, you can drive right in here, and as you can see there are a number of cars parked here and those are for that apartment building. OK? Everybody got it? Lehman/Got it. Franklin/So, that's the request. The dimension of what's being vacated has been changed to 68 feet, the south 68 feet as opposed to 70 or 77 or whatever it was originally. They just figured that they need less. And this site plan that is on the screen now is one that is still being reviewed. It's not a final by any means. Vanderhoef/Karin? Franklin/Yes. Vanderhoef/The rest of that alley going on south--- Franklin/Down here? Vanderhoef/Yeah. Lehman/Didn't you say it was vacated? Franklin/It's already been vacated, has, yes. Vanderhoef/It has been vacated. Franklin/Yes. Vanderhoef/That's what I needed--- Franklin/And part of it goes with Haywood Belle's stuff down here that's--- Pfab/That's vacant right now, right? Franklin/Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate t~'anscription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 12 Vanderhoef/OK. Franklin/We have a plan approved for it, but it hasn't been done. OK? Lehman/OK. e. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF VILLAGE GREEN PART 19. (SUB03-00029) Franklin/And then the last item is a final plat on Village Green Part 19. This had been held up for legal papers, and as I understand it, everything or most everything is in and it's ready to go. O'Dormell/Good. Lehman/Good. Franklin/OK? O'Dormell/Thank you. Franklin/Thank you. Kanner/The handouts we got for d. and e., are they.just some technical corrections or is there anything we should--- Franklin/Yes, the resolution for Village Green, we just neglected to get back in the packet after it had been deferred indefinitely. So that's what you had in your packet previously. The ordinance changes the number of feet from 70 feet to 68 feet. Kanner/And that's the only change? Franklin/That's the only change, yeah. Kanner/Thank you. AGENDA ITEMS Lehman/Okey-doke, Agenda Items. 16. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING FEES FOR SERVICES RELATED TO GEOGRAPHIC COMPUTER DATA BASE SYSTEM MAPPING ACTIVITIES OF THE IOWA CITY ENGINEERING DIVISION. Kanner/I have a question about number 16. I don't know if this is Dale or Steve, in regards to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 13 the fees for the--- Atkins/Rick can you do fees and--- Kanner/And relate it to Geographic Computer Database system? Atkins/No, but Rick is here, and I'm pretty sure he can do it for us. Kanner/Now, some of this will go out on a computer disk of some sort. There's a fee--it says here--CD. Now, what's to keep some company from taking that and then charging other people less than we charge? Do we, is there a copyright, what's the deal on that? Fosse/Eleanor, do you know the answer on that? Is there a copyright just by virtue of us issuing that, the mapping information? Dilkes/Well, I mean, we'd have to assert copyright, but, and ! don't know that we've had that discussion. Fosse/Yeah, OK. Karmer/So, is it, I would think it's likely that someone will do that: get the information from us. We charge $60 per half-hour, they'll get all the information and then they'll sell it for a little bit less. Fosse/I hadn't anticipated that. What we expect primarily is that consultants will wanting to be using it for clients that want to do a development project. And they'll use this as base information. If we find that people are buying and reselling it, then I think that Eleanor and I need to sit down and talk about means to prevent that in the future. But I've not-- that's one thing that I've not heard other communities complain about that are already have fees established. Kanner/I would think there were companies out there that are probably doing this already, selling this, intuitively I would think that it's out there, and I mean maybe it's easier just to come here and get it and pay the fee and not worry about going out there. Vanderhoef/What do you figure you're recouping with the one-time fee, your hourly fee plus the printing fee, but are you at a break-even with these charges or are you below or above? Fosse/We're a little above break-even for our time to assemble the information and then the media to put it on. We're not looking to recover our mapping costs, the initial mapping costs. Lehman/Well, actually, if all we're looking for is to recoup the cost of giving folks that information, then we're not out anything if somebody copies it because all we're doing is doing it for what it costs us anyway. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 14 Fosse/That's a good way to look at it. Lehman/So, there is no losses. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Lehman/We're not making anything on it anyway. Fosse/Yeah. Lehman/OK. Kanner/That makes sense, too. Vanderhoef/Then is there then, if somebody says I want two copies, then do you just sell the extra copy but there's no time charge to it? Fosse/I doubt we double our time. I can't remember off the top of my head. I think we just double the disk charge. Vanderhoef/I would expect that but--- Lehman/OK. Other agenda items? 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING ADOPTION OF DEFERRED COMPENSATION PLANS WITIt THE INTERNATIONAL CITY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION RETIREMENT CORPORATION AND NATIONWIDE RETIREMENT SOLUTIONS. Karmer/I got most of the gist of number 15 in regards to deferred compensation plans. Atkins/OK. Kanner/Although I was wondering if you could reiterate a bit--first of all, define "deferred compensation program." Is that like a pension? What's the difference between that and a pension? And then explain what this resolution is doing. Atkins/Deferred compensation allows an employee to take within limits that are identified by federal law, they are permitted to take a portion of their income and in effect defer the taxes on that income. It has to be set aside in a separate account. It can't be drawn upon. There's a whole set of rules and regulations. Of our 600 employees, we estimate about 200 of them take advantage of this, the thinking being is that I'm at a higher tax rate while I'm working now than at the time of my retirement. There are regulations obligating you to draw the money out, I think by age 70, you must start taking the draw-down. In its simplest terms, it's somewhat like the City paying his money but you give it back to us and we hold it in trust in this deferred compensation account, and it's This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 15 managed by you--you decide what your investments are going to be--and our fiduciary responsibility here is oversight. There are approximately about 37 different such plans out there. This resolution limits ours to two. These are the two that are used by our employees. Quite frankly what we would prefer not doing is opening it wide open, because it would be of some consequence with respects to our payroll administration, and if we're going to do due diligence and be responsible for these things, we've chosen to recommend to you that we limit it to these two. Now, we'll go back over it again sometime in the future, but right now if an employee wishes to be a member of a deferred compensation plan, it's one of these two. Kanner/How is this different from an IRA? Atkins/It's not substantially different because you can put money into an IRA, you know, tax- free upfront and you pay the taxes on the way out. And if you have a Roth IRA, it's a little different. But in effect, Steve, it's not dramatically different other than it's administered by your employer. If you want to belong to an IRA, that's up to you, and you usually do it at the time that you file your federal income tax. Kanner/So, we don't have to offer this administration? Atkins/We do not have to offer it. We've chosen to do so. Kanner/Is this a negotiated benefit? Atkins/No. It's a benefit made available to all employees. Kanner/And so, a person can contribute to their IRA to the federal maximum and--- Atkins/And this, as well. Kanner/Is there a federal maximum, a state maximum on that? Atkins/Yes. There's a federal maximum and I believe it's 25 percent of your annual compensation or $11,000. Kanner/And do we get--- Dilkes/Thirteen maximum. Atkins/Is it more than 11 now? Dilkes/Thirteen maximum. Atkins/Thirteen. OK. Kanner/And do we get some of the interest on this? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 16 Atkins/No. All the interest accrues directly to the employee. Karmer/And we get no money at all? Atkins/No fees, no. We do it as, to be a good employer. Kanner/How long have'we been doing it? As long as you can remember? Atkins/Twenty-five years. Helling/At least. Atkins/At least, yeah, 25 years. Champion/So, it is a real benefit. Atkins/It's something fairly new in the sense of the whole compensation system and the federal government created these things, again 20-25 years ago, because quite frankly, they saw that Social Security was being relied upon as a full, as a pension, and they simply were not in a position to fund the level of pensions that were going to be out there in the future. And so this gives an employee a choice. Kanner/Is it only public employees or is it any private or public? Atkins/I assume private companies have deferred compensation plans of some way, shape or form managed by their company, but this is for public employees. Karmer/And it's--there's state oversight or is there? Atkins/There's both state and federal oversight. You do have to pay Social Security taxes on the monies. Champion/Oh, you do? Atkins/Mm-hmm. Lehman/Very similar to an IRA, except the City administers it. Atklns/You may have heard the numbers 401,457, that's the section of the Income Tax Code that refers to these. Champion/Well, you know, that's a good benefit for employees because there isn't any of us who, our retirement funds have a (can't hear) Lehman/Right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 17 Atkins/You may have to pay fees to this, to the retirement corporation--but that's up to you. That's between you and the retirement corporation. The City does not pay that fee. Pfab/The City provides a service and takes on a certain amount of responsibility at its--- Atkins/Yes. Pfab/OK, so, but the City gets nothing out of it? Atkins/That's correct. Pfab/OK. Now, how--- Lehman/You basically invest the money, is that not correct? Atkins/No, we do not invest the employees'--the employee invests the money. Lehman/Well, no, no--you transfer it to one of these two--this is the extent of our involvement. Atkins/We transfer the money on behalf of the employee--- Lehman/Right, but they manage it. Atkins/The employee manages their own money. Kanner/And we're not liable for any of this money? Atkins/No, we're not. Kanner/So those companies go under for some reason, we have no liability? Atkins/That's correct. Lehman/It's actually--we're putting the money in the bank for the employee. Only we're saying now that there can be only these two banks because of thc hassles. Atkins/This is income you would have earned and therefore it is being deferred and it's being deferred by you, as an employee, by choice, you're not obligated. It's not like an IPERS pension where you must pay. This is called a defined contribution. IPERS is a defined benefit. Pfab/Now, I think the information stated there's 37 potential--- Atkins/Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 18 Pfab/...and how were these two chosen? Atkins/History. We've had both of these 20 years plus. Pfab/Now, is there a number of people in different ones now? Atkins/We have about 200 of our 600 full-time employees that are involved in it. I would suspect it's heavily into the ICMA Retirement Corporation, simply because it's the largest and the most diverse. Dilkes/But all but about five employees, I think, participate in one of these two plans. Pfab/OK. all but, OK, that was the number--- Dilkes/Very few employees have asked to--- Pfab/So the other people, they will not be able to add new money, the City will not send new money to those--- Atkins/You can, up to the $13,000 limitation, that's up to you. Pfab/No, no, but I mean, when you select two, that's going to mean that the City will no longer send the money to those other five--- Vanderhoef/No. Helling/To those other five, we will continue those. Atkins/We'll honor them. Helling/We just won't make any new ones. Pfab/You'll grandfather those in, all right. Atkins/We would honor those, yeah. Dilkes/Well, and remember within each one of these plans, there's many investment options that are available. Kanner/And can City Council Members participate in this? Helling/Sure. Atkins/Yeah, 20, whoops, hang on--- Kanner/Don't get excited--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 19 (Laughter) Pfab/That's a great idea. Lehman/Irvin, you need to remember though that you can't put over $13,000 of your salary in there. Pfab/I know. Kanner/It was 50 percent or $13,5007 Atkins/25 percent or $14,000. Now that regulation changes periodically, Steven, by the way by way of Congressional action. But, yes, City Council Members can take advantage of it too. Pfab/Why didn't you-~- Karmer/Thank you. Atkins/Yeah. O'Donnell/Breaking news. Pfab/No. O'Donnell/Did he happen to get any on you, Ross? Wilburn/No, not this time. (Laughter) 4. b. (6) RECEIVE AND FILE MIN[ITES OF IOWA CITY HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: JULY 23. Kanner/Can we--Eleanor in the Human Rights Commission minutes from July 23rd, they're talking about revised Human Rights Ordinance. I was wondering if you could just briefly explain what the major difference is in regards to the Commission reviewing the case or not reviewing a case? Dilkes/That's going to come to you November 10th with a memo that explains those changes. There have been a number of changes to address the procedure that takes place once a public hearing is set; the last couple times we've done that there's been some gaps in our ordinance that we've we had some guidance on so we've added a bunch of stuff there. Basically, just tracking the state provisions. There's a change in the probable cause determination and how that is made. There's in a change in the determination This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 20 made once probable cause is found and the conciliation efforts fail, how a decision is made, whether to go to public hearing or not. Those are the main ones that come to nfind, but they'll be more detailed in the memo you'll get on November I 0th. Karmer/Thank you. 17. CONSIDER A MOTION APPROVING A LETTER TO FEDERAL LEGISLATORS REGARDING THE USA PATRIOT ACT. Lehman/Other Agenda Items? You all, I'm sure, saw the letter, item 17, which is, it'll be a motion tomorrow night on the Patriot Act. Champion/I thought we would just discuss this tomorrow night. Lehman/Right. Kanner/Well, can we all sign it? O'Donnell/I would prefer that we all sign it, if we're voting on it. What's our policy in the past? Lehman/We haven't done any like this before. It's up to the Council, I don't care how we do it. Pfab/I think it was--- O'Donnell/I think it's--- Pfab/Is that to go on the Patriot thing? Lehman/Yeah. Wilburn/Yeah. Pfab/There was one part that I kind of felt bad to see it go by the wayside, and that was the (can't hear) our concern that it has a sudden (can't hear) closing out period. Kanner/Sunset clause. Pfab/Sunset clause (can't hear) and that was taken out of the original one, and I think that's something that should be in it. That would be it's--basically we're saying that we are concerned that it just doesn't drag on, and it doesn't say it can't be renewed, but I think it was, one of the reasons it got passed was there was a sunset clause on it, and I think we ought to support the--that was different than what the letter that ~vas sent to us, and I really--- Champion/What you're saying this letter, this is not the letter that was sent to us. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 21 Pfab/I know. This one doesn't have it, but the one that was sent to us, I think that really should-- I think we ought to go back and reinsert that. Champion/I think it says, "However, to the extent that any such measures may threaten those fundamental rights upon which our democracy was built, we urge you to join in opposition." I think that says it pretty clearly. Pfab/Well, but also, the sunset thing--we went through that with the Police Citizens Review Board. It's not that it can't be renewed, but I think we're saying that thing was put in at a very panicked time, and I think we ought to encourage that it also be sunsetted out unless there is strong support for it. Lehman/And, you know, we can obviously offer an amendment to that effect tomorrow. O'Donnell/Yes. Pfab/So, I mean, I would definitely plan to do that. Atkins/If you can settle on it, we can have it prepared and ready for signature tomorrow night. Champion/Oh. Lehman/My personal feeling is that if the Legislature looks at the Patriot Act, removes those sections that are particularly onerous and those sections that are considered to be and could be found to be unconstitutional, as long as the law is changed to protect those things about which we have concerns, then I don't really care if it ever sunsets. As long as it's not hurting anybody. Pfab/But it doesn't say that it will be; it says that we urge them to change it. But it doesn't say it has to be. Letunan/I'm well aware of that. Champion/But it does have a sunset clause already. Pfab/Right, but I also think that we ought to support that sunset clause in a sense that's saying let's take a hard look at it, let's have a--just like we did with the Police Citizens Review Board. We gave the citizens and whoever's involved a chance and we (can't hear) to take an especially hard look at it. Champion/I don't object to it being added. Pfab/Yeah, I mean, I think I really would like to see that. And if you do that, then what? Now? Does that mean--- Champion/ Well, there's only two of us. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 22 Pfab/No--- Kanner/Well, I think it makes sense. The sentence they had in the proposed letter they had from Julie Spears is "Likewise, we oppose any attempt to eliminate the sunset provisions of the USA Patriot Act that would provide unnecessary Congressional review of the law before making it permanent." Champion/Now, that's good. Pfab/Yeah, so if we're going, can that be amended--- Champion/We can do it now and then we can (can't hear) tomorrow. Pfab/Where are we? Dilkes/Well, it's on your formal for tomorrow night. Pfab/Right. Dilkes/And you can--- Pfab/And so is there anything that we should or could do this evening? Dilkes/Well, just like in any item, you can talk about it and if you, if it appears there are four of you who want to do that, we'll make the change--- Pfab/And that tomorrow night is ample time to do that? Atkins/No. Lehman/Tonight, if we all agree, if there are four people that want that added, we will change it. It will be in what we vote on tomorrow night, and we won't have to make a change tomorrow night to that effect. Pfab/OK, I would really like to see if that were possible--- Lehman/I see four people. All right. Atkins/OK, now--- Lehman/I don't know what they said. Atkins/Weli--- Dilkes/We do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 23 Lehman/Eleanor knows. Atkins/We will add those sentences. Lehman/Right. Atkins/We will have a letter for you tomorrow night with seven signature blocks? Pfab/I think so. I would think that would be (can't hear) Atkins/I mean, if I've got you all there, you can all sign it; it's over ~vith and it's on its way. Pfab/That's fine. Wilburn/That's fine. Atkins/So, we'll add that, there will be--in fact, I'll bring three letters--one for Grassley, one for Harkin, one for Leach. Lehman/Hey, way to go. Wilburn/That's great. Lehman/All right. Atkins/So, each of you will sign each letter? That's what you want? Lehman/OK. Wilburn/OK. Dilkes/OK. O'Donnell/Mm-hmm. Lehman/Other items? 4. £ (3) CORRESPONDENCE. KEVIN BOYD (DTA): SELF-SUPPORTED MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT (SSMID) Vanderhoeff Under Correspondence, number 3, from Kevin Boyd, the self-supporting municipal improvement district. When is that coming to Council and have we looked into conflict of interest for all of us associated with businesses downtown? Dilkes/We have a meeting with the petitioners--we, staff, have a meeting with the petitioners on This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 24 Wednesday. I've got some, kind of identified some with the petition and the submit process that ! want I've talked to our bond counsel about, I want to talk to the petitioners about. And we'll have to see what happens from that point. I don't know if-- I mean, there's a couple options. But it will come back to the Council in some form, either by a memo saying there are some that need to be worked out, and this petition has been withdrawn, it's going to be changed, or here it is for you to vote on, or first to send it to Planning and Zoning. What we had originally anticipated is that before I wanted to step back a little bit and take a look at some of these is that we would just have you in an informal session send it to Planning and Zoning because that's a mandatory requirement under the SSMID Statute. We don't have any discretion with that. And then I would talk to you about the conflict issue. If anybody wants my opinion on conflict, I'm going to know what your interest is in a downtown property, and then I can give you an opinion on that. Lehman/And we'll all have that in adequate time--- Dilkes/We'll have adequate time to do that once you get the petition. Pfab/So, there's no chance we will be voting on it tomorrow? Vanderhoef/No. Lehman/It's not on the .... Dilkes/It's not on your ...... Champion/No. Pfab/All right, OK. Karmer/Well, but--- Vanderhoef/I was just wondering when it was going to come to a work session. Lehman/Probably after the first of the year. Dilkes/No, I think--- Lehman/I mean, by the time it gets through P and Z. Dilkes/It may be as early as your next meeting; it just depends--you'll certainly be informed at your next meeting as to what the are. Vanderhoef/OK. Pfab/There was one question that I had and it was in the bylaws, I can't pull it up right now, but This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 25 I think it was about--was there, did anybody else have any questions, anything come up in the bylaws of the organization itself2. Dilkes/The bylaws that are attached to Kevin Boyd's letter? Pfab/Right. Kanner/Well, I'll tell you one thing I had a concern about--well, maybe you're looking, if you had anything--the Board of Director membership. I think we should talk about whether we want to ask for Iowa City Council representation. I think it would be good, one or two members, perhaps just one out of the 15. This is a taxing body, and even though it is self-imposed it is going to be under our purview as a taxing body, and ! think it might be appropriate for us to have some representation, official representation on there. Dilkes/Well, I think there may be a bigger issue than that and that's one of the things that I need to look at and talk to the petitioners about. Pfab/OK, but anyway, one of the things that I can't bone up right now, but it was about if the Board of, if the people on the board, somebody resigned, and it was how they were replacing them, I would be a little concerned. I was a little concerned about how that was done. Lehman/We're going to get all of that. Pfab/Well, I mean, ! was just, yeah, it wasn't critical but I was saying if you were looking at things, that is something that I ~vould--- Lehman/Well, that's something we'll look at when we get it. Pfab/OK. Kanner/Maybe we ought to have a work session. It doesn't sound like you were planning a work session. Dilkes/Well, I think there's some legal that I need to take a look at before I'm going to be prepared to talk to you about at a work session and that's what I'm in the process of doing. Kanner/Well, that's what I'm saying that perhaps after you're done with that we should note that we'd like a work session, if people are agreeable to that, because I think it's a major issue. Dilkes/I think it depends on what the legal review reveals, what the are, whether you have a mandatory obligation to send that petition to P and Z or not, before you have a work session on it. All those are yet to be determined and if you can just give me some time to look at those, I'll give you a memo with my best advice. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 26 Lehman/Fair enough, fair enough. Pfab/So at this point, it could go either way? OK. Lehman/OK? 4. f. (9) CORRESPONDENCE. CYNTHIA PARSONS: APPLICATION TO REPLACE WINDOWS, 702 E. WASHINGTON STREET. Vanderhoef/OK, and then I have one other correspondence, the one from Cynthia Parsons, number 9. And I called Shelley this afternoon and asked for the rest of the story on what happened there, and I would like Shelley to--- TAPE 76, SIDE A Vanderhoef/...in the packet. Pfab/Yes, but--- Lehman/There was a letter. Vanderhoef/Well, the letter that came--- Lehman/This is from Shelley to--- Vanderhoeff Yeah. Lehman/...and it's a response to--- Vanderhoef/No, I don't have a--- Karr/Yes, ! do. Dee, it was stuck in loose, hard copy. What you've got on your CD was the letter from Cynthia Parsons. What got distributed, hard copy to you, was the response from staff. Karmer/Yeah, it was a little confusing. Lehman/Right. But we did get the response. Karr/Yeah, it was in there. Champion/Oh, yes. Kanner/But it still might be appropriate to just summarize what happened real quick. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 27 McCafferty/Yeah, just quickly, essentially I spoke with the owner, Gary Klinefelter, this summer regarding regulations for replacement of windows in a non-, what will be classified as a nonhistoric building in a conservation district. He was informed of the regulations. This fall I then received an application for windows that are not compliant with the regulations. He had already pumhased the windows, wanted to install them. We are currently revising the handbook which would allow greater flexibility for nonhistoric buildings, which this will be classified as with the new handbook, and he was informed that once that regulations go through, he can, he will likely be able to install those windows. The Planning Preservation Commission reviewed this again for a second time on Thursday at their meeting and they voted 3 to 6 to deny the application, but informed Ms. Parsons and Klinefelter that indeed they would try to expedite getting the handbook approved. You'll likely see revisions to the handbook coming to you in December. O'Donnell/So when the handbook is redone, it will be--- McCafferty/It will be compliant at that time, yes. Lehman/Yeah, I think that's what it says here. All right, thank you. Pfab/OK, Shelley? Before you go, another question. If, as a situation that we know is going to happen, what is the reason, if it's already in the process of being approved, is there any reason why they can't do that now? Lehman/Let me answer that, Irvin. McCafferty/Yes. Lehman/Council doesn't have to do anything to change it and to allow someone to do this now when it's against the regulations with the assumption that we're going to change the regulation, if we don't change the regulations, it would just violate--we can't let, we can't violate the regulation--that's why we change them. Pfab/OK. Vanderhoef/The only thing that I see in all of this is also the fact that the only thing that Council can do is rule that it was arbitrary and capricious on the part of Historic Preservation to turn them down, and--- Lehman/But I think--- Pfab/So in other words--- Vanderhoef/...and we would have to make that distinction while it's still law. So, I don't see that that's a--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 28 Pfab/OK. O'Donnell/But we do have (can't hear) and capricious if it's written down, they're following an existing guideline. Dilkes/They only contacted our office for legal advice and that's exactly what we told her. If you've got guidelines that don't allow any flexibility, then, no you would have to deny it until those guidelines change. Lelunan/But in December we're going to be looking at different changes which we then adopt, is that correct? McCafferty/Correct. Lehman/Right. McCafferty/Correct. Lehman/And then we would essentially be changing the guidelines which would allow this to occur. Pfab/And I can't remember, I read it, the owners were adequately and clearly informed that it was not OK to go on? Lehman/Right. McCafferty/Yes, they were. Yes. Lehman/Right here. O'Donnell/Thank you. Lehman/OK. Vanderhoef/Good show. Lehman/Are there other items? COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS Lehman/Well, then I'm ready for a council appointment to the Human Rights Commission. Wilburn/I'd like to put in a word for Valerie Garr. She's an assistant director of admissions at the University. She also was formerly with Opportunity at Iowa, which did a lot of work trying to recruit young people into the University setting, young persons of color. She's done a lot of diversity presentations, she's--I've seen some of those presentations, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 29 she's really knowledgeable. O'Donnell/I'll second that. Lehman/Do we have four people for Valerie? Champion/She was on my list. Pfab/Yeah. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. Lehman/Is that Garr? Valerie? Wilburn/Yes. Garr. Lehman/OK. Thank you. Wilburn/Thank you. COUNCIL TIME Lehman/OK, Council time. Vanderhoef/I have something I would like staff to just take a look at. I received a letter today and I suspect you all did from a citizen about marketing plans and so forth for the Senior Center. It was June Braverman's letter. Anyway, there was one little piece in the letter that talked about the safety of the locked door where the workout equipment is and only a tiny little window and there--she was just concerned about someone being alone in the workout area and the locked door and nobody able to see through the window, who was in there, and it might be something that we'd look at. Lehman/Well, I would assume we should pass that onto--- Vanderhoef/That's what I--- Atkins/Find out about that. Lehman/We'll pass that onto the folks at the Senior Center. Atkins/I didn't get a copy of the letter. Karr/Yeah, we don't have a copy. Pfab/I didn't either. But isn't--I understand that the only time that a person can be in there, there's, there are other people in the building. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session o£October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 30 Champion/But being in the building and being able to get into the room are two different things. Pfab/With what? I didn't--- Champion/Not being able to get into the room are two different things. Atkins/Yeah, let me just find out the specifics and I'll get an answer for you. Vanderhoef/Yeah, if you would, please. Atkins/Yes. Lehman/OK. O'Donnell/I had one quick thing. Lehman/Yes? O'DonnelI/Iowa City should consider itself very fortunate that Steve Thunder-McGuire lives as close to the Iowa River as he does. (Laughter) O'Donnell/Twice in the last eight years, he's made heroic rescues. Lehman/Yes. O'Donnell/I think we should have some kind of award for him. The Steve Atkins Memorial Award. Atkins/No, no--- Lehman/ Don't use the word "memorial." O'Donnell/Or the Ernie Lehman or something. But the guy's a tremendous asset down there, as he's pulled two people out in eight years. It's fantastic. Lehman/Yeah. Vanderhoef/Well, I think probably there would be some sort of a lifesaving award through the Fire Department or a state organization that I think--- O'Donnell/Well, I think we ought to--- Atkins/I mean we've traditionally given one when we have a direct involvement. In this case, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 31 Steve, Professor McGuire, bails out and takes care of business. Lehman/We should have something for him. Wilburn/We did something when there was a woman who did CPR out at one of the hotels. It was, I think that's (can't hear) the fire. Vanderhoef/We could initiate a recognition. Atkins/I hear what you want. Lehman/OK. Kanner/Yeah, we got a report from Irvin's committee, the Emergency Management, I forgot what it's officially called. Pfab/Emergency Management--- O'Donnell/Commission. Pfab/Yeah. Kanner/Something else. Pfab/Johnson County Emergency Management Commission. Kanner/OK. And there was a plan there for dealing with emergencies and how they would operate. I was wondering if people would be interested in sometime in the future having a work session to go over some of that because there were some things I was not quite clear on. And it would be good to know how they list their order of what the major concerns are and how they're dealing with it and how we would fit in with the plan because they have proposals for their plan for the next four or five years in what they'd like to implement in terms of emergency response. And I was wondering if anyone might be interested in that sometime in the future? I think it would be good for Council. And we could perhaps invite the director of that to talk with us and we could ask questions about the plan. Pfab/While you bring that up, that gives us a chance to speak. There was an emergency drill at Procter and Gamble about a week ago; it was the same day that the School Board put on that seminar over there. And I guess it went very well. And also there's one other thing that the Emergency Management Commission has some radios, radios, for people who are out of range of hearing the sirens. There are new radios that automatically come on and they're willing to make some fantastic deals for people who need them, and apparently a very high-quality radio so if you're sitting out somewheres and you're beyond the reach of the sirens, they'll automatically come on for you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 32 O'Donnell/It's a weather radio. I think they've got a couple boxes for 10 bucks apiece or something. Pfab/Well, these are quite more expensive than that but I think there's some very good deals available. Kanner/Anyone interested in? Vanderhoef/A presentation from the director of Emergency Management, I think would be a nice idea for information purposes. Pfab/OK. We'll see that they get invited and put on the. Vanderhoef/I don't plan on changing the plan, but if he wants to come and visit with us and give us just an update and review of what's happening, I would--- Pfab/Maybe on a work session then? Kanner/Yes. Atkins/I'll take care of it. Lehman/OK. Atkins/Yeah. Lehman/Done. Champion/It'll be interesting. Vanderhoef/I think so. Lehman/OK. Anything else for Council time? O'Donnell/I just wanted to comment also that the job these leaf pickup crews doing--that's tremendous (can't hear) to the City. I took down about 812 million leaves last--- (Laughter) Champion/It was only 7 million. O'Donnell/...last Tuesday night. I counted and they were gone in an hour. It's amazing. Letunan/You know and I'm all--~ O'Dormell/They really do a tremendous job. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 33 Lehman/Steve and I were at the former Owens Brush, which is Gillette Braun--- Atkins/Oral B Braun. Lehman/Oral B Braun, for a little event on Friday, which was mally, really impressive, I thought. That's one of the first industries that located It's been here 45 years. They have reduced their Gillette bottom and then Braun, is that correct? I think in that order. Atkins/Braun's part of Gillette. Lehman/Anyway, there was a very good chance that we would have lost that business. They have sucked it up. They now make, I would hesitate to guess at the number, it was--I mean I don't remember the number--but they are making, their productivity in Iowa City is higher per toothbrush, paying our employees 10 times what they get paid in Mexico, we make them cheaper right here. Now that says a lot for the folks who work in this plant. But it was a really impressive sort of presentation of what they've done the last couple years to keep that plant here for the efficiency. And then they had plant managers who have been here since the last '50s or early '60s, which was just--I mean, these were really neat--- Atkins/The couple I sat with came her in '58. Lehman/Char, Miss, Ilene Door? Atkins/Yeah. Lehman/I mean these were just--it was really a fun thing, and it was nothing--it wasn't done for the press, it wasn't done for the politics, it was done to say thank you and to let those folks know what was happening at that time. It was really an exciting place out there. O'Donnell/Did you get a free toothbrush? Lehman/I--- Pfab/They were $1.99. (Laughter) Pfab/I think that plant is also presently owned by Warren Buffet, true, right? Lehman/Well, I don't have any idea what Warren Buffet owns but it is owned by Gillette-Braun. Kanner/Oral B or Gillette? Lehman/In any case, is there anything else for Council time? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 34 HISTORIC PRESERVATION Lehman/Historic Preservation. Franklin/This is a follow-up to your meeting of July 14th when you outlined a number of questions, issues for us to address, and I guess I would just like to place this in a context to, that all of us remember where the Historic Preservation Policy came from. We have a Historic Preservation Plan that was adopted in 1992. Councils over time since then have adopted Historic Districts, Conservation Districts, and guidelines for reviewing properties within those districts. And I believe, in fact, this Council has adopted all of the Conservation Districts and the current guidelines. Shelley has submitted to you a memorandum which is in your packet. She's not going to go over that word for word because you certainly have had a chance to read it. But she's put together a presentation about some of the general principles of Historic Preservation and then to give you some idea of how the Commission and the staff go through an evaluation of a Historic Preservation project. This will be a fairly brief presentation. Then she can take any questions or comments from you. McCafferty/Just for starters, this is a map, just to show you a visual briefly of where the districts are and where that overlaps and coincides with the Neighborhood Conservation zones. The pink here illustrates the historic districts, the blue, you have the conservation districts. These areas up in here in the orange, this one here, here, and here, these are the proposed North Side Historic Districts, which are currently, Marlys Svendson is preparing a nomination to the National Register for these districts. The chair asked me to go ahead and illustrate here, this vicinity in Goosetown. This is the area that Marlys Svendson recommended to have as a Conservation District in Goosetown. We have currently received a number of signatures, I think probably about 10 percent of the residents here have signed a petition to have this area designated. Vanderhoef/And all of that area is considered the Goosetown? Franklin/Yes, that's currently as Marlys Svendson has recommended it. How it actually falls out once we do a further evaluation and neighborhood meeting, it could get smaller, larger, likely not larger, ho~vever. Just briefly to show you a little bit in terms of the process of district designation, the gray at the top illustrates the planning process. The preservation plan has set the policies and the priorities within that plan there is recommended that surveys and evaluations are done of various neighborhoods. A professional architectural historian is then hired to evaluate these neighborhoods and make recommendations on where there are districts. When we do historic districts, there's another process that's involved. That's the National Register. All our historic districts are also listed on the National Register. A nomination is prepared. We usually use CLG money, grant money, or HRDP grant money to prepare these nominations. And then these nominations are later, if we have the public support, designated as a local district. On this particular diagram, all the areas that are in white are--it's basically the part of the process where public notification is given to individual property owners, not simply This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 35 published in the paper but they actually receive a letter to the door of properties within the proposed districts. When dealing with the Conservation District, we don't go through the National Register, however, we do have a more extensive neighborhood participation process which is involved. This usually involves one to two neighborhood meetings. Often it, a petition's received from the neighborhood and there's a preliminary report before we actually proceed. Once these two processes are completed for both the Historic and Conservation districts, we then actually go into the rezoning process. Historic and Conservation district designations are, there's actually an overlay rezone which is applied to the base zone. And so, basically, this is just a rezoning process to actually bring this to ordinance. The second process diagram I'm showing to you has to do with historic review, what happens when a property owner has a proposed change. An application is submitted. I usually, staff reviews this application to determine where the property's located, whether it's a Historic District or a landmark or a Conservation District. Oftentimes at this point there's a meeting with the property owner or the contractor to discuss the application. There are essentially four different types of review. If your project is located within a Historic District or is a landmark, if you're simply repairing the project, the chair and staff can issue what's called a Certificate of No Material Effect. This is not, does not require going through the entire review process with the full Commission. Any other type of project within a Historic District has to go through major review. Again, this (can't hear) meetings with staff, this is highly recommended; a notification letter goes to the contractor, the owner and any other consultant that might be involved, and then it's reviewed by a quorum of the Historic Preservation Commission. In Conservation Districts, there are a couple alternatives to the major review, which is intended to shorten the process. It's intermediate review. This is typically fairly straightforward projects for contributing properties, things such as window replacement, roof replacement, repair with like materials, that type of thing. And then there's also minor review. Intermediate review is approved by staff and the chair, whereas minor review can be approved simply by staff. Minor review typically involves, almost exclusively involves projects that are to noncontributing properties. If everything's approved, the Review of Certificate of New Materials (can't hear), where the certificate of appropriateness is issued and then a building permit can be issued. In the case if there's a denial, the applicant does have the option to appeal to City Council, as you are well aware of. At the last meeting I told you I'd give you some photographs, some examples of different types of buildings, different classifications within different districts. These are all located on the East College Historic District. The upper left is the key property; this is basically a property which has either been designated a historic landmark or is eligible for designation. The property on the upper right, this is a contributing property. This particular property does have wide aluminum vinyl siding on it. It has an addition on the back; however, the primary architectural defining characteristics are still intact of this particular property. So it's considered contributing. The lower left of noncontributing--it's a historic property, it's old but it's, really all of its architectural defining characteristics have been removed or covered up. Therefore, it's noncontributing. And finally, nonhistoric. It's less than 50 years old. more recent construction. And if we look at a Conservation District--this is the College Hill Conservation District. These ones that I'm showing here are fairly comparable; we have a key property which is an Iowa City landmark, This represents ~nly a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 36 upper left; on the right is a contributing property. This one, fortunately, has not been covered; it hasn't lost much of its character though it's a very simple building. At the lower left is noncontributing. It really doesn't fit into the context of the neighborhood. It has had significant changes and this is a scale that's much smaller than anything else in the district. And then finally to the right of nonhistoric--I think the categories that people tend to get most confused about are properties such as these. These are historic properties, but they've had significant changes made to them. And this is where we get differences in terms of the classification where (can't hear) most obvious to change Historic and Conservation district. In Historic District, because we have to meet the standards for the National Register that's established by the Secretary of Interior, this would be considered a noncontributing property, the property on the left. It's lost, you know, its porch, defining elements on the porch, they've been removed; it's been covered with siding and has lost sort of some of characteristics. On the right, you have a similar situation, however, this is a Conservation District. The historic research has not been completed to the extent that it has been done on the National Registry District, this building on the right could potentially be demolished; however, further research would want to be carried out to determine whether it's structurally sound, not structurally sound, whether there's any cultural significance to this particular building. But for both of these buildings, the guidelines--there are a number of exceptions to the guidelines which make the guidelines less stringent. There are things that can be done to them that could not be done to a contributing building or a key property in a Historic District. And one of the questions I often get when I talk to people, owners of houses, like I had just shown you is (can't hear) just an old house, why do you care about this? And this is to illustrate why we consider that to be important. This is located at 1009 E. College Street. When the district was designated, it was considered a noncontributing property, lost its pomh, had a few brackets left, covered with slate; to the right is the complete rehabilitation. It's now a two-unit rental. Kanner/And so it's considered--is it still considered noncontributing or is it considered contributing? McCafferty/Before we revise the handbook and the guidelines which includes the maps, we will consider this a contributing property. We will reclassify this as contributing. These next few slides I want to illustrate how neighborhoods can change, how they are allowed to change, and how the design review or historic review process influences that change. This is that little noncontributing property in the College Hill Conservation District. The owner of this property submitted a plan. They worked with the Commission and staff to come up with the plan on the right. This has been approved. We looked at other buildings within the neighborhood as a precedent as well as other historic apartment buildings, and we were able to approve this within basically two meetings. So, in less than a month, this particular project was designed and approved by the Commission and will be constructed sometime soon. The little house has since been demolished. So this has had a very strong influence by the Commission in terms of the historic review. In contrast, we have this particular structure, project, property--there was no design review, historic review involved with this particular project. The owner of this property was able to get his permits and again commencing construction on this project prior to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 37 the designation of the district. So this little bungalow was demolished because it's a duplex. There was no requirement for multifamily review, design review, and this is what's going up on the right. It's currently under construction, it's a 10-bedroom duplex. As you can see, it does not have the sympathy, it does not fit with the character of the district, and there's really been no consideration to the context. O'Donnei1/Can you go back one frame, Shelley? McCafferty/Yes. O'Donnell/That little house, one more? McCafferty/Oop. O'Donnell/That little house was tom down and to the left there, is that an alley and is that on Dodge Street? McCafferty/Yes, that's on Dodge, 14 North Dodge, and there's an alley--it's just south of the alley. O'Donnell/So the parking is going to be behind--- McCafferty/The parking will be behind the building. O'Donnell/OK. McCafferty/And there'll be an exterior stairway on the back, which is all sort of enclosed in brick and brick arches and so forth. Kanner/What's the nearest cross street? McCafferty/It's right by Lou Henry's, since Iowa Avenue would be just to the south. O'Dormell/South of (can't hear) Pfab/Just north of--- McCafferty/In this particular project, this is where Casey Hayes had lived and so the Commission worked with Friend of Historic Preservation and Habitat for Humanity who built Casey a new house. And we all worked on the demolition of this; we pulled off the deck--she really wanted a deck on the back of the property so, kind of a nice example of corroboration between the various organizations. Pfab/Correction. You didn't build her--- Champion/You tore down--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 38 McCafferty/OK. Yes. They moved one and substantially rehabilitated that house, remodeled that house. This is an addition in which there was historic review involved. I think we've probably seen a lot of additions where there wasn't, prior to any of the Conservation Districts. This was at 521 South Lucas. It was recently approved, a nice little four- square rental house, craftsman details. The upper drawings show what was proposed by the owner. One thing I'd like to point out is this nice little sun porch on the back. The upper proposal demolished the sun porch; they did this sort of three-story addition; they had large expanses of blank walls which is clearly disallowed in the guidelines. Once it went, the owner met with staff, I worked on preparing some sketches with him, and it went through two meetings of the Commission. The bottom drawings are what were approved, and he was, he ended up very pleased with the results and I think also, a plan which would be much more usable by a family and not just as a rental for students-- made a lot more sense. Also, should note that the front sun porch was saved with this. A bedroom was added underneath it and there's a sort of link that has a laundry room and then essentially sort of another little house attached to it. And I just wanted to illustrate quickly just some examples of other additions which have been approved by the Commission. Some of these came to us, had been designed by a design professional. Others we worked with the owner or the contractor to design these. And some other additions. Probably the most visible one that we have here in Iowa City is the Carnegie Library, which the Commission worked with John Shaw and Jim Clark to come up with this. Pfab/Where is the first of (can't hear) McCafferty/It's on Iowa Avenue, yes. This is an earlier addition before I joined the Commission. All these others have been done in the last couple of years. I think we've approved a total of about 41 additions, the Commission has approved them. In terms of new construction, there's not a lot of opportunities for new construction but certainly in Conservation Districts, nonhistoric properties, we encourage those to be replaced with more appropriate buildings. We've done a--the Commission's approved a number of garages, such as the one on Clark Street, and as well as some new construction. The one at 656 South Governor is currently on the market. We recently approved the one at 407 South Governor Street. The one, these two in the Conservation District here, the ones on Governor Street, in that case vinyl siding was allowed because it is in a Conservation District. That's one of the exceptions that apply for Conservation Districts and not Historic Districts. On Summit Street, that's a party plank, I think a number of you are familiar with the project. And in Historic Districts, the vinyl is not allowed. And finally I have heard some concern about dealing with Code issues with Historic Preservation. The Commission does not want to prevent being able to address life safety issues or accessibility issues. In the house on the right, this is a rental on Summit Street, and the applicant needed to provide an egress window to the attic where he had a bedroom in order to have his rental permit reviewed. What was proposed was just removing those three sashes and putting in a single slider window with no mutton bars, it would have really changed the character of the house. It's a very simple house so those details become, I think, pretty critical to defining, to maintaining its historic This represents only a reasonably accurate h-anscription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 39 character. What the Commission came up with was actually doing a slider that looks like the three original windows. We were anticipating that the owner of the property was just simply going have a new window built, and the solution was he took the old sashes down to a local craftsman, Charlie Miller, who builds windows, and he was able to reconstruct the windows into making it a slider to comply with Code as opposed to just putting in the original blank, plain slider that was originally proposed. And then secondly as another project, this was actually approved a number of years ago before I was involved with the Commission, and this is just a handicap ramp. Basically, you know, it's allowed; it's not a historic structure. Ramps aren't, but the intent is to do them in a manner that's compatible and an unobtrusive as possible, and so this was an example of dealing with accessibility. I'm certainly open to any questions. We also have the chair of the Commission here, if you'd like to address him. Do you have any questions? O'DonnelI/It's all real-- Champion/ I'm very--- Vanderhoef/I read through it and wondered. I had posed it the last time and it's how you're dealing with these houses that are in that 40- to 50-year-old vintage that they still could possibly be contributing to a district and when they finally reach the 50 years guideline, do you go back and reassess and move some of these into contributing or what do you do with them? McCafferty/Yes, certainly that's something that's a (can't hear) as all those 1960s', 1950s' ranch houses become 50 years old. At this point, based upon the revisions to the guidelines, what is established at the time the district is designated remains, particularly in Historic Districts. You know, Historic Districts are also, there's a context, there's a lot of historic reseamh, cultural research that goes into that. And so just because a ranch is now 50 years old doesn't mean that it will contribute to the historic context. And the same policy we're basically taking with Conservation Districts, even though we don't have extensive research. If we do new districts in the future that incorporate, that have ranch houses and they contribute to the character, then if they're 50 years older they make very likely be considered contributing. Vanderhoef/OK. Is a statement like that needed? Am I the only person that would ask this question or would that--- McCafferty/I think it will be clear in the new guidelines. But I'll certainly verify that that's been addressed. I can look at that. O'Donnell/You're probably the only person. Champion/I mean, a ranch house on Summit Street, wouldn't it, it would be a contributing factor but it could be a (can't hear) with everybody at City High? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 40 O'Donnell/That's a conservative. Champion/If that ever becomes a Conservation? McCafferty/Right. And then there was a real tough issue dealing with Dearborn Conservation District, because there are houses there that had historic character that were, you know, just around, we were just postwar, and there were also houses that were just prewar that had no architectural character, so I know drawing that line was a real issue when they were doing that district. Lehman/Shelley, I read this (can't hear). I'm not sure I understand it but I read it. McCafferty/OK. Lehman/Do I read correctly that you have exceptions for nonhistoric property? Where we have properties that are noncontributing or nonhistoric or whatever, am I reading this correctly you--we are creating the ability for the Commission to approve certain level of exceptions as long as they don't further detract from the historic character, it does not, I mean--if they want to do things that, in fact, I think some of the things that you're, some of the exceptions, the use of vinyl or plaid windows, these sort of things, I mean these are exceptions that would not have been, or are not available at this point. McCafferty/Correct. That is indeed why the Parsons-Klinefelter property was, there was a resolution of denial for that. Lehman/Right. McCafferty/But with these new guidelines, there is sort of this broad exception for all nonhistoric properties, provided they meet these revisions. Lehman/Yeah, but still, at the discretion of the Commission. And I think it's, you know, if it does not further detract, which I think is first fold--- McCafferty/Right. Lehman/I mean, there are, it has to follow certain guidelines but if it does those, then there can be exceptions to those--- McCafferty/Right. Lehman/...regulations that we--- McCafferty/If it clearly meets those two criteria, then they can have the exception. Lehman/I have one question though. Use of dimensional lumber for porch floorboards provide the gap between the boards is no more than an eighth inch. What do you care how wide This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 41 the gap is between the boards? McCafferty/So you don't have--I was involved in that--- (Laughter) McCafferty/But, you know, I think if you have, you know, were really doing it on the cheap and you had wide boards, one thing from the close up, those gaps would be visible, stuff falling through, I--- Lehman/ This one's going to be tough. If you're going to use dimensional lumber, you could use 1' x 12's, as long as you don't have mom than an inch gap, which might be really ugly. McCafferty/True. O'Donnell/I think--- McCafferty/And look at that. O'Donnell/...(can't hear) everybody that puts down the boards and wants any gap at all uses that eighth of an inch screwdriver. It's pretty basic--- Lehman/That depends on if they have the screwdriver. McCafferty/You know, now this was approved by Council already. This is a guideline that has not been changed. Lehman/But an eighth of--- Champion/ Well, I'm sure we read that little detail and--- (Laughter) Champion/I know I did. Lehman/Anyway. Good. Champion/I'm pretty pleased with the changes. I think that's going to solve a lot of problems. Kanner/Can I ask you a question? Lehman/Go ahead. Vanderhoef/So do I. Kanner/I appreciate the work put into this. I also appreciate your histories when you write those This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 42 up in the past for when we were looking at different districts for nomination and approval. To me, that's what really adds the spice to the City, to know what happened here, and that makes it important to remember that. I have a few concerns here and some things that perhaps the Commission and the Council would consider. My biggest concern is, it's on page 6, your page 6, 1.4 Classification of Property in Districts, and then at the bottom of the page, noncontributing and nonhistoric properties. McCafferty/Yeah. Kanner/I have trouble when we are encouraged demolition of existing nonhistoric buildings. Now, if these are buildings that are in bad shape safety-wise, that's one thing. We might want to encourage that. But I don't like to encourage demolition of any healthy building and I'd like to see some more discussion on removing that or putting in the words "non-safe nonhistoric building." I was wondering if you might want to comment on that. McCafferty/The intent of saying that is I think there's a perception perhaps that once you have a district, a district cannot change, and indeed there are a number of these properties which the Commission isn't concerned about preserving and if indeed that land could be more efficiently used, then the owner of that property is free to do so, provided that the new building does meet the guidelines and fit with the character of the neighborhood. And so it's to make clear that there are those options and that indeed it's not just frozen, that you can do that. Kanner/Well, I'd think there's better ways of putting it. I, that's I mean, part of the politics of Historic Preservation, what is the aesthetics, I mean, this is something we talked a bit before with looking at the issue of the cars and so forth in the yard, and you brought up the point that we're regulating aesthetics to a certain extent. And we wanted, we discussed how far do we want to go? Now, I don't think though we want to go that far to encourage demolition of a healthy building. There's a lot of energy that went into it, a lot of costs, a lot of environmental consequences of building something, and then there's the same in demolition of it. I think that's part of the problem with so-called urban renewal, is they said demolition was good, and--so I understand your intent--but maybe there's a different way of putting that to encourage people to do changes if they'd like with nonhistoric structures. Vanderhoef/May I comment to that--- Lehman/Go ahead. Vanderhoef/...Steven, at the same time what Shelley.just said was highest and best use as long asit was in the context of the neighborhood, and this goes right down the line of what we keep talking about with infill and having density close to our downtown and to avoid urban sprawl. So, there are some tradeoffs that happen here, in my mind, and it isn't cut and dried that we're saving one little house that happens to be on a large lot near the downtown. And there certainly are some bungalows sitting on some rather This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003, October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 43 large lots down there that could well hold a duplex or a four-plex, so I think there are times that demolition is in the best interest. McCafferty/And by and large, Historic Preservation, the intent is to prevent the demolition of viable structures and so I think that that really strongly overweighs the issue of allowing a few, the demolition ora few buildings that are nonhistoric versus all of the viable buildings that we will be saving with this. Kanner/No, and I understand and it's not a matter of things being demolished. McCafferty/No. Kanner/Maybe it is to a certain extent. Lehman/Well--- Karmer/But the encouragement of that. This is plainly saying this is encouraging it and I don't think we want to encourage. Lehman/You could use the word "allows"--- McCafferty/Allows. Lehman/...instead of "encourages." Karmer/Yeah. Lehman/Earlier in those slides they showed that one building torn down with the beautiful brick building to replace it. Obviously, that's the sort of thing nobody ~vould object to because it's definitely and (can't hear) when you, I think what you envision in demolition is a perfectly good house being torn down so that we can put up a duplex, and I would agree with you. But I think if you used it, from "encouraged" to "allowed," it says it differently. McCafferty/Yeah, we can do that. Kanner/In the, in your opening memo, I was wondering if in the next two days or before we vote on some of these things if you can give me how many districts in terms of percentage of people in our City that live in the district versus the overall City population of 62,000 and also the percentage of acres, and then if possible the percentage of units. Lehman/What's the relevance of that? Karmer/Well, because I think the relevance is if we're talking about how many districts is, how big is it getting, there's concern in the community that there's too many happening, and I think the numbers to look at are these percentages to see if it's a significant This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 44 percentage. If there's concern that we're going to be going willy-nilly as much as possible--- Champion/They're going to be doing what? O'Donnell/Willy-nilly. Kanner/Willy-nilly. Champion/I don't know what that means. O'Donnell/It's Willy Nilsen. Lehman/No. Kanner/Willy Nelson. (Laughter) Kanner/Scattering and just going at, with no end in sight. And so it would help me, I think, in my decision making looking at the overall idea of Historic Conservation and Preservation to know what pementage we have now in those terms. Champion/Well, what percentage would be acceptable? Kanner/I don't know. I think that's what we discuss. This gives us a basis to at least discuss that and say, maybe it's at 20 percent, maybe we'll find it's only 1 percent, and it's very insignificant and we can say, well, there's room for more. Maybe we'll find that it's quite significant. We look at that map that was presented there and it looks pretty significant up there, and if I had some figures on percentages that would help me in my decision making in terms of where we're going with this. Lehman/The only thing that I would say--I don't care what the percentages are, I don't care what percent of the population, I really don't care what percent of the area. These sort of things are appropriate only in certain areas of the community. And in almost every case, they're older areas of the community. If the older area of the community is 40 percent of the community, then so be it; 40 percent of it could logically be Conservation or Historic zones. If it's only 5 percent, then obviously it's only 5 percent. But the character of the neighborhood will determine, you know, what's appropriate and not a percentage. Kanner/No. Lehman/I don't see the percentage having any relevance at all. Kanner/Well, because we might want, one--we might want to say there's a limit to how many of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 45 these we want to do; maybe we don't, maybe the debate is that, even though there's more that are eligible, we might want to hold off for a while. The second thing is we're going to find that there are more districts available, as Dee was talking about as time goes on. And are we going to, what's our limit on how much we allow--- Lehman/I don't have a limit. If--- McCafferty/Well, if it--- Lehman/...the character of the neighborhood--- Kanner/Well, maybe you don't, but I do, and I think there are other people that are concerned and I think it's appropriate to have some of these figures if they're easily attainable. I don't think it's such a big thing. But I think it's open for debate; that's part of the debate and the process. Champion/I don't think it'd be easily attainable. But here's a Preservation Plan. McCafferty/Yeah, this is an executive summary of the Preservation Plan, and what I'd like to come back to is the City policy and in the Preservation Plan, there's only limited areas that were established in 1992 where there might be potential districts. So before we would go outside of that boundary into areas where we might have ranch houses, City High area, that direction, we would have to reevaluate the policy, so already there is in a sense a limit based upon the Preservation Plan. Lehman/Which is included in these areas? McCafferty/Pardon? Lehman/Where these areas were all included? McCafferty/Yes, these are all within the Preservation Plan, areas that have not been surveyed are the areas around Kirkwood and Manville Heights. Otherwise, everywhere else has been surveyed and evaluated. And at this point, those two areas are not high on the list of priorities for the Commission. Vanderhoef/Shelley, that flow chart that you had of the process, that one and the next one. Are those going to be in the guidebook, the handbook? McCafferty/You know, we had not talked about having a flow chart. We spelled out the process much more clearly, but I could certainly present that to the Commission. That could be an idea. Vanderhoef/I wished you would. Too often, things get finally down to Council and say we didn't have any opportunity for public input. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 46 McCafferty/Mm-hmm. Vanderhoef/And ~vhen it shows in the flow chart the times and places where there is opportunity for public input--- McCafferty/Mm-hmm. Vanderhoef/...I think it would give us all a leg to stand on, that this is the process we use. McCafferty/Certainly. The visual is always nice to be able to--- Vanderhoef/Upfront--and then if they don't understand the flow chart right from the beginning of their process, they can ask what is this and when does this come in? McCafferty/I would also like to note that when the--- TAPE 03-76, SIDE TWO McCafferty/...by this time there'll be a lot more flow charts and process-oriented information in that as well. Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. I like that. Kanner/Shelley? Vanderhoef/Then one other thing in your memo, you talk about historic preservation plans and economic incentives? McCafferty/Yes. Vanderhoef/When and what--I see the five listed here that you're talking about. Is that imminent, coming to us when the handbook is completed, or what are you talking about on timeline? McCafferty/We haven't, the Commission has not specifically set a timeline. My sense is as I take calls from property owners, there are a couple questions that are real common. One is do you care what color I paint my house? Which of course is no. And the second is where's the money at? Right now, Friends of Historic Preservation are working towards reestablishing their grant program, which I've gotten a lot of positive feedback. This is a modest $500 - $1,000 grant program, and perhaps Maharry, Mike Maharry can address that further since he's also involved with Friends. So that I see as a real potential positive thing. Another--I think we've also talked about this somewhat in terms of downtown and what happens with downtown in the SSMID District and doing some sort of facade improvement. I would anticipate that probably next year sometime once we get through the handbook, kind of get Goosetown and the North Side on its way, if, that we'll address incentives. But I see it as a priority at least. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 47 Vanderhoef/OK. Thank you. Kanner/Yeah, well, on those lines I guess what I look for is that if there's a difference, if it can be shown that there's a difference by complying with the Historic Preservation rules and otherwise, and if you can prove that you're of a low income, that hopefully there would be some assistance available-- McCafferty/Mm-hmm. Kanner/...in the City or--- Lehman/ Or if there's a hardship, I think--- Champion/ But there is, I mean, we do have housing rehab money, and that does pay for correct restoration, which if you qualify by certain income guidelines, you can apply for housing rehab money. Karmer/For Historic Preservation? Champion/No, for a house. Kanner/In a house that's in a Historic District? McCafferty/Right. Champion/But they--- Lehman/They take the situation for a couple on a fixed income or whatever, living in a rather historic building. Champion/Mm-hmm. Lehman/It needs new windows. Champion/Mm-hmm. Lehman/And they really, because of the regulations or whatever, complying with the regulations that we have really are an economic burden for them as long as they choose to live in that home. Using the criteria that you have here, based, with the cash flow based on rental values and whatever, it--you're right--you could probably, it'd be very difficult to show that there's an economic hardship. But there could very well be a hardship for that couple in that house at this time. And I do think there has to be some sort of provision for that family or that whoever. They need to do something. They cannot afford to comply, and there had to be some way they can either be assisted to do what is appropriate or some way that they can have a, some sort of a reprieve on a temporary This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 48 basis or something. I just think that that--an economic hardship really needs to be addressed. Probably very seldom would it ever come. McCafferty/Right. Typically, that's true. And that's looking at municipalities that have a more depressed economy and much lower property values than we do in Iowa City. Lehman/Some of these folks could have owned their houses 40 years and bought them when they were worth very little. McCafferty/Oh, yeah. Lehman/They're worth a ton today but they can't get out of them; they have no place else to go, so I mean, I just think that's an issue that we need to--- McCafferty/Sure, yeah. I don't think the Commission would disagree with that. Pfab/That's a good idea to keep in mind. Champion/That's a good point. Kanner/So, two other things. One is we are told that there's a Historic Preservation expert that makes the determination in a district, what's contributing, what's noncontributing. Is there a process where a homeowner could appeal one way or another whether or not they want to be contributing or noncontributing? I suppose there are some would want to go both ways, but they could appeal. Is there an appeal process? I think it might be a good thing to have if there isn't. McCafferty/Well, I think, certainly you need to treat all, everybody fairly. When you're dealing with the National Register, you know, that is something where we have to comply with national standards; that's like standards of the Secretary of Interior. There have been cases where we get into a property and discover that it really was not classified appropriately because it wasn't the in-depth research, and in that case, we will reclassify it when we do a revision to the guidelines like we will be doing. But there's not officially an appeals process. Kanner/I think it might be something to look into because even within your Commission, in our Commission, there was the debate about hiring someone else to go back and reevaluate some of the earlier historians for the first couple of districts, and then the Commission was saying, well, we don't want to do that at this time, mostly I think because of the expense. I would imagine that was the main issue. McCafferty/Mm-hmm. Kanner/But I think it would be valuable for the few people that don't want to be in it, they think they're not a contributing to be able to formally voice their opinion at that time, because once you're in, there are a lot of obligations then, I think you should be fully This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 49 vested in that. McCafferty/And it would--if you're contributing, noncontributing that does not mean you're exempt from all the guidelines. You still have to comply with guidelines. There is some more flexibility for nonhistoric or contributing and et cetera. Karmer/There certainly is. McCafferty/But it does not mean that you are not zoned for a district or that you do not have to comply with guidelines. Karmer/But it is a lot easier to do certain things if you're noncontributing versus contributing or the possibility is better for you to do certain things that if you're contributing, you've been through. McCafferty/Yeah, at this time there's not an appeals process, though again when the Commission has reclassified properties based upon further evaluation of it. Lehman/Well, if I have a property that you say is contributing and I really do not believe that it is, can I not come to one of your meetings--- McCafferty/Well, certainly. Lehman/...and ask, and point out why I believe the way I do? McCafferty/Certainly though we've had--yeah--- Lehman/ My property probably is or it's noncontributing. My wish is that it be one way or the other isn't going to change what it is. But if I can convince you that my property is noncontributing, I can try to do that, can't I? McCafferty/Oh, certainly, if you've, you know, come look at my house. We get closer to evaluation, you bring us your abstracts. Maybe there are some things that are actually incorrect. We don't, you know, we do the best or the historian certainly does the best, to do as much research of the ownership and cultural significance, but certainly you can make that argument. Lehman/Well, I think you're on the right track. Kanner/Maybe it's just like now, if you're, if you want to appeal once you're in the district and you want to appeal something, maybe if you can get an expert to say that this is noncontributing, there should be an official appeal process too where you would, before the district is set in stone, that it would go to Council. Because even experts--they differ on what's contributing and what's noncontributing. So right now we're using one expert. But, he's fallible--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 50 McCafferty/Well, there are--we have three or four different historians who have done work in the district. All this work then goes also to the state who reevaluates it. We do have historians on the Commission so that there tends to be more than one point of view in defining contributing and noncontributing classification. Lehman/Yeah, I'm sure there are various points you go by. I mean--- McCafferty/And sometimes the line is difficult to draw, admittedly. And in that sense, that is why the guidelines and the noncontributing, contributing, etcetera is not an ordinance, so to speak. It's guidelines. It's the classification. And indeed that does allow some flexibility if the case can be made that they should be exempt or reclassified or something similar. Lehman/Does this come up? McCafferty/No. Once. But, you know, he wanted his house to be contributing and not noncontributing, so--- Kanner/Well, I would like us to--- McCafferty/But, no, we have never had this otherwise. Kanner/Well, like the person on Summit on the other side of the railroad tracks, he was included in the district, didn't want to be included in the district. Champion/Could not be included in the district (can't hear) Lehman/Are you talking about (can't hear) behind his house? Kanner/Yeah. There's just a fence. It just came up recently. Champion/(can't hear) Lehman/And that would be allowed under the new regulations. Champion/No, no, it would not be. Lehman/He was noncontributing. McCafferty/No, in this case, for historic--- Champion/(can't hear) and not Conservation. McCafferty/Yeah. In Historic, because, districts, because we still have to comply with the Secretary of the Interior standards, state, federal regulations, we aren't able to relax that for that case. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 51 Lehman/Oh, nonconforming structures in Historic Districts still have to be done--- McCafferty/Right. Lehman/...there are no exceptions? McCafferty/Well, there's some flexibility but not the broad exemption for nonhistoric properties that we have for Conservation Districts. Kanner/But the point is he was on the edge of the district and the question is where is the district is drawn is as much subject to some debate, possibly, as to whether it's conforming or nonconforming. Champion/He wasn't the last house on the district. Dilkes/But that district designation goes through the rezoning process, and there are appropriate times to object during that process. O'Donnell/Ernie, we'd better finish this up tonight. We've had Shelley up there--- Lehman/Well, we're going to come back to this again obviously. O'Donnell/Yeah. McCafferty/Yes, certainly you'll see the entire handbook, all the guidelines likely in December. Lehman/When you do the book--- McCafferty/Yes. Lehman/...could you highlight at least my copy--- (Laughter) Lehman/...no, I'm sorry, but it's--- McCafferty/Highlight it in what? Lehman/Highlight the changes. Can that be done somehow for the Council? McCafferty/Yes, certainly, I'm working on that. The first section that I gave to you, I will likely not show the deletions because it was so dramatically changed that I'd end up adding several pages. Lehman/Oh, then OK. OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 52 McCafferty/When you get to the actual substance of issues, the guidelines themselves, I will show both the deletions and the additions. Lehman/OK. Vanderhoef/Good. Lehman/Because I think that's helpful. O'Donnell/All right. Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. O'Donnell/Very helpful. Pfab/I was looking for the deletion (can't hear) McCafferty/We just kind of scrapped that whole front end and started over. Kanner/Shelley, is there anything on about solar energy additions or things like that? Solar panels? McCafferty/There is a guideline that says that they are allowed on non-prominent street elevations. At this time the general feeling of the Commission in discussing this is that solar has not yet become mainstream. It's difficult to write guidelines that would last, you know, for multiple years when indeed the technology is changing, when it's not sort of a common construction practice. They will evaluate on a case-by-case basis. They've indicated that they certainly do not want to discourage solar; likewise, they do not want to have it in a very prominent location that could detract from the character. Kanner/So if the front of your house faces south and that's where you need to place some sort of panel, it's not allowed? Lehman/Probably not. McCafferty/Depending on the design. This is a case by case. If you want to put, you know, plaster your front gable with, you know, several panels, then no that would not be allowed. If it can be done in a manner that is more sympathetic to the character, then it could be allowed. Champion/I don't think it'd ever become (can't hear) because it'd be very different (can't hear) solar energy in an old house because of all the overhangs and the (can't hear) porches. McCafferty/I know the chair of the Commission here, Mike Maharry, has looked in to actually adding solar to his house. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 53 Champion/Can you do it on the roof?. Kanner/Well, yeah--- Lehman/Collect the energy. Kanner/...you (can't hear) whether passive or solar. But on the roof and it sounds like it probably isn't allowed because the roof, you could still see a pitched roof. McCafferty/Depending on the pitch and depending on the color of the panels and the roof. There's a lot of factors that go into it, and so that's why at this point it's just a case-by- case basis until it becomes a more standard procedure. Kanner/So, it might be allowed in some cases on the front? McCafferty/Sure. And again, you know, if you want to address anything to the chair here, he's done more research into that subject. O'Donnell/Well, once again, we don't have to finish this up now. Lehman/OK. Thank you very much. McCafferty/You're welcome. Kanner/Thanks, Shelley. Lehman/I've been asked by 12 people, one person--- O'Donnell/Great job. Lehman/...eleven times that we take a quick break. (BREAK) STORMWATER UTILITY 4. d. (2) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR NOVEMBER 10 ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 3 ENTITLED "CITY FINANCES, TAXATION & FEES," CHAPTER 4, AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE," CHAPTER 3, "CITY UTILITIES," ARTICLE A, "GENERAL PROVISIONS," SECTION 14-3A-2, "DEFINITIONS," AND SECTION 14-3A-4, "RATES AND CHARGES FOR CITY UTILITIES"; AND AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE," CHAPTER 3, "CITY UTILITIES," TO CREATE A STORMWATER UTILITY AND ESTABLISH A STORMWATER UTILITY This represents only a reasonably accurate h'anscription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 54 FEE. Lehman/Let's start on managing the stormwater. Fosse/OK. We've talked about this before. We visited about the stormwater utility, and one of the concepts we talked about was the EPA Phase II regulations are now beginning to take effect, and they're mandating a change in the way that we think about stormwater. In fact, that we need to look at quality now as well as quantity. Just to be clear on it, it is an unfunded mandate, and that's really what we're talking about tonight is how are we going to pay for this. Most communities have dealt with it by establishing a stormwater utility, and the last time that we met together, basically ~ve confirmed that that is the road that we want to take as well. And since that time, Brian's been working on the details and we want to share some of those with you tonight. The ordinances necessary to establish the utility have been drafted. There are three of them because the Code needs to be changed in three places, and it's setting the public hearing for these ordinances is on the for tomorrow night's Council meeting. The utility collects a fee. It's not a tax, and it's proportional to use. The increments that we use to measure that use are what we call equivalent residential units. Basically, how many houses is this use worth? For example, ifI have a Handimart and we've measured that it's the size of 11.24 homes, their monthly bill's going to be $22.48. And we'll get into more on that later. But that's, you know, you go to So-Fro, you buy fabric by the square yard; you pay for stormwater by the equivalent residential unit. One of the biggest challenges for us has been setting up the billing system. We would have liked to piggybacked completely on our existing billing system, but it's not quite possible to do that, especially because of the commercial and multifamily customers. So, Brian's been working with Finance to work out those details, and they've been meeting weekly for a couple months now and it looks to continue for another couple months. It's, that is just the most difficult aspect of this. You've got some handouts in front of you, and on the first page, it's just a quick summary of the three ordinances that we'll be setting the public hearing for tomorrow night. And Brian can walk you through those details if you choose, and then also, there's a possible schedule there to follow. That's what we're set up to do now, set up the public hearing on the 28th, November 10th hold the public hearing, and then have first, second and third readings, so it would go into effect in early January. On the second page of the handout, you'll see how the money will be spent, and it's broken up into categories there. The first one is program management and that includes a lot of the public education and public programs that are one of the six control measures that are mandated by the EPA. Because stormwater is a different animal than wastewater. We're not just going to send it all to a wastewater plant and treat it. A lot of the treatment is going to occur as prevention up in the watershed. That's where the public education and public participation is so important. Also, in that first category there are some billing and mapping database management costs. Then we've got the engineering and administration of the entire program, and then the inspection and enforcement--Irvin, do you have a question? Pfab/OK, go back, I missed something. You said when you talked about the program management it was one part of six, did you say? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 55 Fosse/Right. Do you want to know what all six are? Pfab/Yeah, what are they? Fosse/Brian, do you want to cover those? Can you remember them--- Boelk/Yes. Fosse/...off the top of your head? Pfab/They're not part of this, are they? Fosse/No. Well, they're all covered in here. Lehman/They're included. Boelk/Yeah. Fosse/Right. Boelk/Yeah, there are six control measures. One is public education; the other is public involvement; illegal illicit discharge; post-construction; (can't hear) construction is one and post-construction is another; and then pollution prevention is the sixth. Kanner/I'm sorry, could you repeat those last three? Boelk/There's construction, post-construction, and pollution prevention. Fosse/Now the inspection and enforcement aspect of it, we're already doing some of that now with our Grading Ordinance and Sensitive Areas Ordinance and in our subdivision regulations. And the expense items that are outlined here have been discounted to account for the fees and the permit fees that we're already acquiring for that. And then that last section there, operation and maintenance, is just what it sounds like: it's taking care of our storm sewer system out there. It's a housekeeping thing so that the pipes, the channels, and the watershed itself, which includes things like street sweeping and steam cleaning in the alleys, and leaf removal and that sort of thing. Pfab/I--just as I look at this alley cleanup, $11,000--that isn't going very. Fosse/That's something we're already doing and--did you say it's not going to go very far? Pfab/I mean, $11,000--which alley are you going to do? Champion/We don't do private alleys. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 56 Fosse/It's in the central business district, and we rent the steam cleaner and clean them up and we're working on managing the dumpsters better as well, but that's going to help--- Pfab/Oh, gosh, that would be great. Fosse/But that's a whole another--- Lehman/Right. Fosse/We're not going to go there tonight. Vanderhoef/And you're saying all of these are ongoing expenses. I look at the program management and I'm wondering if all of those charges are truly annual. Pfab/Well, the Stormwater Ordinance might not be. Fosse/The outfall map--our biggest expenses are upfront, but that's something we're going to need to keep updating throughout and one thing I forgot to point out is some of those have a star behind them and those represent things that we're already doing, perhaps not to the extent that we're going to be required to do it but we're already spending some eftbrt in those regards. And that's one of the nice things about our community is we were already working on a lot of these things before the feds said you've got to do it. Vanderhoef/But other~vise they're going to be annual costs? Fosse/Yes. Steven, did you have a question? Karmer/Do we have a baseline view of what our stormwater is like now? Fosse/As far as quality? Kanner/Yeah. Is that part of the requirement from the feds? Fosse/No, it's not been. For some of the larger communities, they have done some monitoring but it's proven to be a very difficult thing to do, and I won't go into those details but it's just tough to monitor during a rainstorm versus taking a sample of what's coming out of a sanitary sewer service for a business. So, what the feds have put together are these six control measures that we talked about earlier with the presumption being that if you implement those six control measures, you're going to have improvements in your stormwater quality. But they're not requiring that we spend the money to go to a lab and document those things. Kanner/So we have to report to them every year or every two years that we are implementing these six control measures. And where does that show up in the--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 57 Fosse/That's under the engineering and administration where we're doing the permit requirements. Kanner/OK. So we're hiring or expanding someone's position, and a lot of that will be reporting? How much will be reporting to the EPA? A half-time person? Boelk/Right now we have submitted what they call an MS-4 permit application, which is to cover the whole federal regulations, and then--that's still in the process with the DNR and review and everything. They don't expect anything back until sometime in 2004, I think it was, but I'd be surprised if it's by the end of 2004. But once that is established, we will have to report annually and document what we have done to all of our, what they call "best management practices," which are items that we say are covering each of these control measures, and you have to document what you have done and how you have done it, and you have goals and everything else that are in that permit that are specified. And so, yes, there will be a lot of tracking and reporting included. Kanner/And is that going to take up most of that half-time position? The reporting? Boelk/That will certainly be a good part of it. You could also--a lot of that can be as far as advertising, communicating; public education will be another big area of that engineering, in fact, probably a pretty good amount. And then they'll also be, you know, taking phone calls, say, with questions, handling the questions with the actual utility itself and the billing system, and your rates could be addressed in there. Kanner/Thank you. Fosse/The last item on that list is capital improvements and that's the Sandusky storm sewer type project or the storm sewer component of the reconstruction of Dodge Street, however, you choose to spin this on storm sewer. The--and right now that's projected at about $345,000, based on what we've estimated here. All these numbers up in this area are a little bit soft, because we've never done that stuff before, and if things--haven't done all of these before--and if the things that we are doing are right now absorbed into the other programs, we don't have an exact accounting of them. So, if we're a little bit long here, the money left for capital programs is going to be a less. If we're a little short here, we're going to have more money for capital. Lehman/On the capital improvements line, you have $345,000 with a star which indicates--I mean, are we going to be doing capital improvements differently than we have been? Fosse/What this will do is it'll give you another revenue source to--when you're putting together your capital program, you're going to have more money to work with. Lehman/I know, but what I'm saying is that we're not going to be doing anything any different than we have been. Fosse/No, that's not--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 58 Lehman/This is just another place to find the money for stormwater sewer. Fosse/That's what we are doing, right. Lehman/All right. Karmer/So, in a sense it will reduce a little bit of the property tax that--- Vanderhoef/Debt levy? Kanner/Debt levy. The debt levy a tiny bit, and it'll come from another source. Lehman/Right. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Yup. Kanner/So this is like maybe $30,000 a year that we use for capital projects. Lehman/Oh, we could use some years a lot more than $350,000. Kanner/I mean bonding. We're paying from our property taxes like--- Lehman/ Right. Kanner/...$30,000 a year. Pfab/So you're saying reducing the charge for bonds by coming out of this source? Kanner/Right, we're going to get it from another source of money, a little bit. Lehman/It should be a revenue fund. Fosse/I'm sorry, Connie. Champion/What are you going to build for it? Fosse/That's--we'll get into that right next. Turn the page. Champion/Voluntary? Fosse/Yes, volunteers. That's how we're doing it. For our residential customers, if you live in a home, it'll be $2 a month. If you live in an apartment, it's a dollar a month. It's that straightforward. And the measured use gets in for the commemial, governmental, industrial, and schools, and this is an area--or means that's consistent with other major communities throughout the country. So they're pretty much all basing their utilities on This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 59 an equivalent residential unit. Now, we've got some examples here. The commercial, the Deadwood--they'll be paying about $2.86 a month versus Mennards which would be at $280.77 a month. Your average commercial customer is in the neighborhood of $22.86. Lehman/But we are individually measuring these commercial properties? Fosse/Yes. Yep. Lehman/OK. Fosse/We have cross-eyed interns who did that. Lehman/OK. No, no, I understand. Fosse/Lowered the maps and measuring these. Lehman/OK. Fosse/The govermnental ones, City Hall right here will be paying $48.82 a month. Vets Hospital will be up at $243. Industrial, Oral B about $404 a month. A big one like Procter and Gamble's over $1,000 a month. Schools and nonprofits--Lincoln School would be around $31 a month. City High would be up around $413. I would expect that it is this category that you as Council Members are going to hear from the most; you know, that the schools, their budgets are tight now and the nonprofits, of course, their budgets are always tight. And the experience from other communities is this is the constituency they really hear from during the implement of a stormwater utility. And generally they advocate that it be implemented as a tax rather than a fee since their tax exempt status. But what, excuse me, what the fee does is it does a better job of distributing the costs out to the generators of the runoff, you've got a lot of the commercial and industrial users. And then on the next page you'll see a bar graph that represents how those are distributed. Lehman/Is the University included in this? Fosse/No, it is not, and what we talked about last time is that the University pretty much straddles the Iowa River, and most of their storm sewer systems are self-contained, and they actually get a permit from the state for the operation of their system. Lehman/OK. Fosse/Where we do have a commingled, the University has been very good about ponying up and going 50-50 on repairs or upgrades. Lehman/OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 60 Vanderhoef/Do they have to report their water that goes into the river though for water quality because I know there is river quality issues about what the water quality is when it leaves the City. So, at the south edge of the City and certainly they are putting a lot of drainage off of parking structures and so forth. Fosse/I suspect that their testing requirements would be the same as ours and that there would be none in that regard but if they have continuous sources like cooling water or things like that, I think that they'll need to test those to make sure that they are appropriate for the storm sewer system and not sanitary. Vanderhoeff So--it boggles my mind to try and figure out though when we're responsible for what leaves the City at the south edge of the City--- Fosse/ Oh, I see what you're saying. Vanderhoef/...and then here in the middle, we've got the University putting a lot of water into the river and we're going to be responsible for it, however it looks when it goes out. Fosse/Right. The way the program's shaping up right now that the DNR will not be sampling at the downstream end and testing for constituents and saying, oh, you've got too much melythemum or whatever. So that will not be an issue unless they get into a sample--- Vanderhoef/It's coming. Fosse/Yeah. Vanderhoef/That's nationally, I mean they're talking about that. So how we integrate the University stormwater with our system right now I think we ought to be in conversation with them as soon as possible and address this upfront before we get the mandate and then try to redesign the whole system. Fosse/Mm-hmm. OK. Pfab/But there is a way to do that where they discharge into the river. I mean, if you say that they have some (can't hear) in the system primarily. So you test the water where they discharge into the river versus what the river is coming alongside of it. I mean that's not too hard to do, and where they commingle, wherever the inputs are, you can start--yeah, wherever the discharge into the mainstream, that's where you test it. Fosse/That in the communities that were in the phase one regs, that's where they do testing is at the discharge points. Pfab/It's not at the end of the river. That's kind of going down the hill--- Vanderhoef/It's coming that--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 61 Fosse/I don't doubt that. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. I have been in meetings in the EENR at National League of Cities, and it's been talked about and it was held off in the first go-round of setting all of this up and the mandates, but it's just waiting in the wings to come at us. Pfab/OK. You bring up a good point where I'm for. I'm going to come down which I have before so this is nothing new. And that is when I look at the residentials. Now Des Moines charges $5.25 per single family and we're charging $2. Now, that's--they've been at it since 1995. What do they know that we don't know? Fosse/They have a larger budget, of course. Pfab/Naturally they're going to have--but two and a half times? Fosse/Yeah. Part of what they're facing is this is Des Moines proper now, which is the core of the city, and it's got some very old infrastructure; whereas we're a community that includes both the core or the old infrastructure that needs a lot of work and stuff on the perimeter that's relatively new. So our operating costs are lower per foot of sewer than Des Moines is. Do you have anything to add to that Brian? Boelk/Yeah, can I? I believe they started around $2. Pfab/That's my point. Boelk/And they have, you know, of course, incrementally gone up every--I don't know if every year, but at least probably every couple. They also have--don't quote me on this but I believe 70 to 80 percent of their finance goes into capital improvements. They put a lot, they collect a lot of money for capital improvements. Atkins/If you would choose to increase ours, that would translate into more capital improvement money. We're not telling you that we will not still continue to finance certain stormwater improvement projects by General Obligation bonds. It's just that these rates, it generates this much money. If you'd like to increase that, then we can go back and recalculate the rates if you'd like to do that. We're not recommending that particularly going into it right now. Pfab/It comes back to the point that I've said before. Sure, we're starting out and every house, every single family unit's going to stay the same. And you say, well, that's the only way to do it. Well, there's another way to do it. What about doing assessed value? That's pretty simple. (Several talk simultaneously) Dilkes/No, there's no--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 62 Lehman/That has nothing to do--- Pfab/I think as a way to determine the cost, the share of the thing. Dilkes/No. Pfab/At $2 it doesn't look like a burden for a lower income family, but once it starts creeping up. Here you see in five or ten years, it's 2 1/2, 3 times. So--and what starts out looking pretty even or no big deal, but I think you're building an inequity here, and I think this is wrong, and I think there should be another way to look at this. There is--- Dilkes/There has to be a rational relationship between the assessment tool you use; what we're trying to measure is the contribution to runoff that these properties make, and you can't do that with the assessed value of the home. Pfab/Well, you can't do it by one house either because there's hundreds of, multitudes often times, maybe more, in some of these. So the valuation I contend is a lot closer to being the amount of stormwater that's generated rather than to the individual house. I'll lay out. Lehman/We've gone through this before. Kanner/Let me ask this and maybe gets some of what you're saying. We have a utility discount program. Would people be eligible for utility discount? Fosse/Do you know the answer to that, Steve? Atkins/We don't know yet. Kanner/I think we need to implement that. That's something that we've--- Atkins/We have traditionally done those sorts of things. We have not factored that in yet. Kanner/So, then we have to look at maybe the fee would have to be a little higher if we're going to implement--- Atkins/Not necessarily. That would simply reduce your capital amount to half the money. Pfab/But if you need to capital it, I think that we're starting off definitely on the wrong foot here, but, you know--- Fosse/ Yeah. One thing you can look at is the, on this page, the bar graph. Look and you'll see that we've got 16,721 single family residences out there. And if we went out there and started to measure those, even at $10 apiece, we're talking an expense of about $167,000 to determine--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 63 Pfab/That's basically a one-time expense. Fosse/But it's a database that would need to be updated every time an addition occurs and every new home. Pfab/OK, so you go back and do it every four or five years. Fosse/But for that much money and our recommendation is that's a point of diminishing returns because we can spend that much money to find out that Dee pays $2.20 and Emie pays $1.87 and we didn't see the value there. We didn't see the payback to the customer. Pfab/OK, but when you go from one extreme to the other, it's pretty dramatic. And there's homes here in Iowa City, what $900,000 or possibly more. Lehman/Irvin, some of those million dollar homes probably have less runoffthan small houses in Goosetown, because they're surrounded by yards that absorb all the water. So what are you going to do with that? Pfab/OK. But when you look at how much imperabl¢--- Lehman/Impervious surface and where it goes, it runs right off the roof into the storm sewer in Goosetown. In Walnut Ridge, it runs into the yard and never makes it to the creek because it soaks in, so there probably isn't any runoff2 Are those folks going to get a break and not pay anything? Pfab/Well, maybe they should. Because what you want to do is you to reduce the total runoff and there's no incentive here to do that. Lehman/No, no, but I think we just demonstrated is why you've gone to an average of $2. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Pfab/And is that realistic? Lehman/If the dang thing was realistic, we wouldn't be looking at it. Pfab/Well, I mean, we looked--- Vanderhoef/Two dollars, I think, is probably low-bailing it. Pfab/Yeah, so what it does, it hides the, you know, tomorrow, the next day, the next year, you keep adding it up, and it makes it even--it gets farther and farther away from the real world. Fosse/And that monthly fee is in the control of the Council, that $2. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 64 Lehman/You have to start somewhere. Fosse/You do need to start somewhere and that's really what we're--- Lehman/You need to start there and see what happens. Champion/Does that mean you can't add this to our, like our water bill, is that what you said? Fosse/Well, for many of the customers we can, but not for all. Champion/Oh, right. Not everybody gets a water bill. Fosse/Right and also for a lot of your commercial customers, you have a number of customers within one building, and it's that owner that needs to be billed and then split that up. The last page shows how we compare to other communities on our monthly bills, and Irvin, so we're pointing out we're kind of middle of the area on the single family, and on the--for nonresidential certainly those that have a flat rate are going to be lower than us. As I pointed out earlier those flat rates tend to favor the commercial/industrial customers and put more of a burden on the residential customers. Most of your larger communities do it the way that we're doing it. And we question whether or not the flat rate is allowable under Iowa law, even though a lot of communities have implemented it. Lehman/It would be very difficult to justify that legally, I would think. I can't, you know, you have a grocery store with a, like a HyVee on First Avenue, and you're going to charge them the same as a small house--- Fosse/ Mm-hmm. Lehman/...I don't know how you can justify that. Fosse/Right. And Eleanor's advice to us has been to don't do it that way. Pfab/But I'm going to be, I'm going to use an example, it's a little ridiculous, but maybe they're on a bigger pot of land and maybe a lot of the water never gets to the storm sewers. Lehman/No, that's a parking lot out there. Ever been to HyVee on First Avenue? It's a parking lot. Pfab/Some houses have basically parking lots also. Fosse/OK. Steven? Kanner/You had more to say? Fosse/No, that's pretty much it. The process begins tomorrow night. We're setting the public This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 65 hearing and we'll hold and get started if you want to move forward. Atkins/And, Rick, make note that your January 3rd is probably not a practical date--15, 16, Marian, something like that? Kan'/No, it's not-third reading would be January 5th and 6th, but I was going to suggest potentially you'd want to take a look at either having the reading the 24th and the 25th or December 15th and 16th. Atkins/OK. Kan'/And then you'd wrap it up in December. Fosse/OK. Karr/And it'd allow publication and ample notice. That might be something that you might want Atkins/The idea, folks, is that if we can get this wrapped up by January, I see us on the way, then I can incorporate it into the budget. Lehman/OK. Atkins/Now that's the plan. O'Donnell/I mean it's truely something we have to prepare for. Atkins/It is a mandate. You have to do it. Vanderhoef/It's mandate. We've got to do it. Atkins/It's just a question of how. Kanner/Emie? O'Dormell/Great job. Kanner/Two things I'd like to propose if--one is that if we get a budget, that Council adds that a budget be prepared with a discount for low income. I imagine the first year it would be $10,000 to $20,000, look at the figures and try to figure out what the discounts might be for those people that qualify. Or yearly for the other discounts for the other revenues, utilities, there's not that much. Lehman/No. Pfab/Well, maybe on the same percentage or something like that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 66 Kanner/Yeah. And you know, I was wondering if there's interest in Council to fill that into the budget. Atkins/We have traditionally provided those kind of services and I don't have any trouble doing it; it's just a matter of calculating it and we can certainly provide that. Lehman/Steve, do we know the percentage of our water bills that we offer discounts, I mean--- Atkins/No, but that's what I'll find out. Lehman/I mean, I would think that--- Atkins/I don't know. Lehman/...like 8 percent? Pfab/I've seen them recently. Atkins/I know we've got the number. I just don't know what it is. I'll find that out for you. Lehman/That ~von't be hard to figure out. Atkins/No, it won't be. Vanderhoef/Rick? Fosse/Uh-huh. Vanderhoef/Tell me how you came up with the $345,000 for capital improvements. Fosse/That at $2 a month, we backed into it a little bit. At $2 a month we generate $915,600. We deduct out of that all these other expenses for operating our system and we're left with this much for the capital improvements. Brian's gone through numbers. If we want to have roughly a half a million a year, we charge--- Boelk/$2.50. Fosse/Uh, $2.50 would be your ERU charge. Atkins/Dee, can I help answer that for you also because I think I know where you're going. (Laughter) Vanderhoef/You usually do. The (can't hear) thing said. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 67 Atkins/We have $345,000 available for capital improvements. This is identified in the summary. That assumes that the services that you've identified are charged against stormwater. We do not have to do that, and that's why I--if you tell me this is generally OK, we can improve the $345,000 because services, for example, leaf and yard waste removal of $100,000, we charge that to road use tax. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't continue charging that to road use tax, thereby that would increase the capital funding here. Vanderhoef/Maybe what I need to see then when the budget comes out is the tradeoffs of other funding som;ces for those kinds of things if we need a larger stormwater capital. Atkins/Yeah, and I'm fine with that but I need for you to adopt the concept; then I can do exactly what you want done. Yeah. Vanderhoeff OK, because I think Steve's probably asked you for the watershed for down south because I had the opportunity last week to tour the new project in Ames, and when they showed me the three areas that are being run stormwater into the lakes up there on their park project, it's like, oh, and I truly asked, I said, are you using any of your stormwater funds for it. And they said, no, we came up with enough funds without having to use it. And I said, well, it would certainly qualify to use stormwater funds for help building an amenity, and I immediately started thinking about our sandpits and that watershed down there and how we could address capital dollars into a project like that. Atkins/OK. Yeah. Pfab/I have a question. Is, where are the incentives for new construction to be attentive? Champion/It's in our Code. Pfab/Pardon? Champion/It's in our building, when they come to us for a subdivision, those things are all looked at. Pfab/Yes, but what is the incentive to do it? Champion/You have to do it. O'Donnell/It's--- Vanderhoef/It's mandated. Fosse/Right now those things are covered in the Sensitive Areas Ordinance, and there are no financial incentives related to what you pay for your stormwater bill in place as part of this. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 68 Pfab/Is there a way to do that? What about buildings that are not on, not in the new construction? Fosse/There is a way to do it, and some communities are doing that but as Ernie suggested earlier, what we're proposing is we need to start somewhere. Pfab/Right. I know--- Fosse/ To get up and running and then think about those incentive programs and those types of things. Pfab/But should there be something in the budget to indicate that you are doing that? Fosse/We can examine those things and the engineering time that's spent on it, if it's desirable. Pfab/I think to wait and say, well, another (can't hear) people start getting into the thing, you start out looking pretty simple. Every time people are billed, there's a new bill in there and it's going up. So, I think the way to do it is to put the public on notice that if there, if they look at keeping the City from spending this money, it's to their benefit too. So how do we do that? Lehman/Well, this is--go ahead. Kanner/Well, right now we do have requirements if you build a parking lot, you have to have so much tree space and green space. We might want to say put some money aside in the top program management for additional incentives to have more green space. Because the more green space, the less runoff you would have. But I would assume that is the case. Fosse/That is built into the system as it exists now because for commercial and industrial customers, you're measured on impervious areas. So the more green space you have, it's to your advantage. Kanner/Wait, you're saying that commercial and industrial, we look at the individual lots? Fosse/You bet. Kanner/And we're looking at impervious, OK, so there is some of that in there. Atkins/Case by case. Pfab/OK. What about subdivisions where you have an alternative to put in--- TAPE 03-77, SIDE A Pfab/Is there a way that that can be put in the money, the development areas, I mean, like you're This represents only a reasonably accurate ffanscription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 69 saying? Champion/We do deal with it. Lehman/Well, the only thing--- Atkins/We have a subdivision code--- Lehman/And the only thing with that, Irvin, if, let's, my suspicion is that for $2 a month, which is $24 a year, few if any homes are going to make any changes at all for that kind of savings. Pfab/Right. But what about--how do you build it as you go forward? Where is the incentive for a developer to, when, if you say it's not going to be in the house, in the home, where's it going to be in the development? Where's the incentive to--- Lehman/ I don't think we're interested to have any incentive to have less impervious surface on a single-family home. It's still going to have a roof on it. It's still going to shed water, and there's still going to be a driveway. Why would there be an incentive for that? Basically, less pollution coming off that house, out of the house, perhaps. But the impervious surfaces on that house aren't contributing to the pollution significantly, not like an industrial area or an alley downtown. Champion/Or a street. Kanner/Well, perhaps, but in the subdivision view as we look at it, as opposed to the individual houses, maybe there are ways to have less concrete in total, which is where we're trying to get to through incentives. Atkins/Well, you can narrow the size of the streets and do things such as that, but that opens up a whole separate set of issues. A principle which you're suggesting is let's have big lots and small houses. Lehman/Right, which is the opposite of--- Atkins/Which would be contrary to--- Vanderhoef/So, then we build more roads to get traffic. Atkins/There you go. O'Donnell/What if they're gravel roads? Lehman/No. But it seems to me--- P fab/But when we look forward, we see what countries are using this because as the problem This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 70 becomes more severe as the population and building goes up, there's a lot of roofs now. Our earth--that's something that they're getting into. So there must be something coming down the road and like Dee says, this is just the beginning. We haven't opened up into chapter 2 or 3 yet. We're just getting it implemented. Lehman/No, but it seems there's a lot of wiggle room built into this. When I look at the number of things that we're going to do with stars after them that we're already doing-°° Fosse/Mm-btam. Lehman/...and the $345,650 is the cushion which we may or may not spend--we don't ever have to spend a nickel of that. We can always continue the way we are if we choose to do that. But it appears, it seems there's a lot of wiggle room. I mean, it appears that this is a pretty good starting point. Fosse/That's it exactly. This is the starting point. It'll become more refined as the years go by and we get experience with it and really define what we want to do as a community there. Lehman/And even if you've had some magnificent miscalculations, there's enough wiggle room that we should--no, seriously, it appears that we've covered ourselves fairly well. Fosse/Yes. Champion/Even a college town? Pfab/It appears that maybe at this point we're still trying to figure out what are the real costs of running it? Lehman/Yeah, we don't know that. Pfab/Right. Lehman/But there's lots of wiggle room in the proposal (can't hear) Kanner/In regards to that, I'd like to have some assurance that--it seems that there's quite a bit of road use tax here with the ones that we're currently doing. You said leaf and yard waste is road use tax? Fosse/Yes, that's correct. Kanner/That's $110,000. Storms, street sweeping--- Atkins/That's road use. Kanner/That's road use, that's $80,000; so we're up to $200,000. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003. October 27, 2003 Council Work Session Page 71 Lehman/But the street sweeping, I'm guessing, is going to be more intensive than it is now. Fosse/A little bit more, yeah. Kanner/Well. I don't know about that. I guess what I'm getting at is I that I want assurances that we're going to continue to use road use taxes. I'd rather use road use taxes and see us reduce the fees fight offthe bat. If $200,000 is more than a fifth of it right off the bat, and there's probably a few other things, and I think that is appropriate to use road use taxes for that. Champion/It (can't hear) the tradeoff of that is, Steven, if we--no, I see what you're saying. (can't hear) it's not what I wanted to say. What I'm thinking is if we continue, if we use that money that's accumulative, then it could average (can't hear) when we do a single property tax, or it's road use tax, not property tax. Lehman/No. Vanderhoef/Well, the road use tax can be used for something else in roads or transit or--- Champion/ Right. Vanderhoef/...some of those things. Atkins/When you think of road use tax, think of a right-of-way. That's, I mean, it goes to the street, storm sewers, curb, gutter, sidewalks in many instances, just think fight-of-way. Vanderhoef/So, over with? O'Donnell/OK. Vanderhoef/OK. Fosse/Thank you. Champion/Thank you. Lehman/Thank you. Atkins/Thank you, Rick. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Lehman/We're history, mom. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council work session of October 27, 2003.