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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-05-02 TranscriptionMay 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 1 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session 9:05 PM Council: Lehman, Champion, Kubby, Norton, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef. Asbent: Thornberry. Staff: Tapes: 98-63, all; 98-64, all. Miklo/ I want to thank you all... encouraging to see that there is this much interest in the peninsula project. We have a good cross section of citizens, board and commission members, council members... I will make a quick introduction .... We have several members here to day... Stave Atkins... Karin Franklin... Jeff Davidson... several associate planners... Scott Kugler, Melody Rockwell, John Yapp... Also Maurice Head .... Also with us... firm of Dover, Kohl & Partners from Miami, Florida .... they have some real expertise... introduce... Victor Dover, Joe Kohl, Sergio Vazquez, James Dougherty, Dora Garzon, Robert Gray, Glen Summer, and Suzanne Martinson. We also have the council here today... Ernie Lehman, the Mayor, Dee Vanderhoef, Connie Champion, Dee Norton, ....Mike O'Donnell .... Karen Kubby ..... Lehman/I am really tickled to see all of you folks out here... It is the first project ... that we have seven people thoroughly enthused about the possibilities that could happen out here on the peninsula .... Spent money.. consultant... We think it has tremendous possibilities... Interested in input from the entire community .... We are looking forward to day for the input from everybody... There really are no rules. We would like everybody's input .... I want to point out... thanks very much, again, for coming. Victor Dover/Thank you very much for inviting us to be here. This is a great pleasure for the members of our team... Very nice of the church to make this space available for holding the event today .... We are pretty enthusiastic about this piece of property because it is very obvious in a map like that one (refers to map) why the peninsula property... uplands... so strategic for the future of neighborhood form in Iowa City. Great opportunity with close in in-fill to demonstrate how great neighborhoods for the 21 st century could be formed .... We hope that... also think of the possibilities for this as a model for other areas ....I am going to run through some basic of urban design and neighborhood planning... what makes a traditional This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 2 neighborhood and how is that different from conventional sprawl .... stuff between buildings... that goes on... that has a lot to do with how we live in cities, including details like streets and the mix of dwelling types .... I will go over some ground rules today... table sessions .... Karin is going to give us a little run down on how we got here ....Following that there will be an opportunity for general questions and answers ....tour of the site ....we will carry out the table sessions .... There is this question about what kind of neighborhoods to make. That question is being asked now all over the country. People are asking in very mainstream places... how do we get home from nowhere? How do we make cities and towns more livable, walkable again? Many of the critiques of conventional sprawl come with a recognition that the old way of building held tremendous promise for livable communities... rediscovery .... traditional neighborhood design really means reincorporating things that come from the 5,000 years of shared experience on how to settle cities, how to settle towns. We have a long track record. Now we have a 50 year experiment with other ways to build that has not really worked out all that well and it is called .... into question now. Like how do we make an architecture of community and not just the architecture of buildings? But the way those pieces fit together to make something that adds to something greater than the sum of the parts. We need a new neighborhood model. Our current one creates a series of public problems .... problems very family to folks in Iowa City .... traffic, affordable housing, concerns for what kinds of neighborhoods children were growing up in. I am showing you these headlines... conversation you are having here is mirrored in a great national and international conversation that is going on all over the place, especially on this continent in the public realm. When you open the real estate ads on Sunday, they always emphasize how many square feet, how many bedrooms, is there a Jacuzzi .... that kind of thing. In fact, the real estate industry .... has really spent a lot of efforts studying what our buying preferences are and so on and perfecting the interiors of homes .... Conventional real estate model is that you emphasize all the bells and whistles and features and benefits of what goes on inside the building. Now we are discovering that consumers, home buyers, neighbors and citizens are very much concerned with what goes on outside .... what kind of street... public park... concerned about exterior features of buildings like the front porch .... I show you these two southern examples... high growth areas like Florida... Iowa City... your great old neighborhoods are wonderful textbooks on how to shape the public realm .... You would be surprised to learn how many times I have used my pictures of Iowa City in the six months since my last visit .... I came first during the fall colors .... Great old neighborhoods of Iowa City which are simple and modest... well put together... turn out to be quite lasting .... it is an on-going sustainable enterprise .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 3 We also find in Iowa City in the more contemporary development radically different physical forms .... forms that really haven't done much to take into account the great lessons of urbanism found in the old parts of Iowa City. You can see in these more contemporary building we have begun to enshrine on the front of them those things we consider most important, the car. But there are great penalties paid when we begin to urbanize in those kinds of ways .... So folks do retreat inside to hold their remote control and forget about their neighbors. And the public realm has a lot to do with whether we form those bonds of community that are so important to a sustainable community. So we see that going on, that same debate of which way to build in Iowa City. Iowa City has found that traditional urbanism generates lasting property values, resales, great sentiment... historic preservation movement is active here and so on .... Question when the details are lost, whether that same kind of sentiment and cherished feeling will be engendered in some of the newer development. This is a gentle critique but look at what happens with the details. Here the sidewalk is detached and there is room for a street tree between the sidewalk and the street .... that one little detail changes when you move to the move more contemporary street design example. Now the sidewalk is attached to the back of the curb. Look at the difference for the pedestrian in those two environments .... Also what happens with the design of the units is very very important. The traditional building types have been, during the last decade or so, really re-introduced into the national building industry and we have brought with us a large collection of examples, home plans... that show how it is possible to get a contemporary interior and meet contemporary requirements in terms of square footage... and still not have a garage across the front. Suzanne Martinsen, architect, will be in charge this week with the specific task of working with local builders to see if we can evolve a set of building types or examples... of building types for the peninsula upland that demonstrates that idea and others. The reason many of these great old streets look as great as they do without the garage in the front is .... partly the custom of having the narrow driveway to the side. It is also because of the alleys .... question .... How do we make the fronts and backs on the lots once creates in the developed part of the peninsula upland. This notion of this public realm extends to a lot of other things .... For example .... mixed use in commercial environments in town centers. It is not that we are expecting that there would be a mainstreet... in this peninsula uplands but you can kind of see how, in the traditional downtown, the public realm was a big priority and that is not something that is just American. It is something that comes to this whole millennium of tradition and this contrasts it with the way shopping has been transformed where the public realm between stores is, again, completely sacrificed. Not to say that parking is unimportant .... parking does not have to be right there .... shopping centers don't have to look like that. One of the things that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 4 has gone on also is the kind of manic belief in our country over the last few years that keeping land uses separate and keeping densities low .... will somehow guarantee the results... some better outcome. In fact what happens when one keeps land uses separate is that living takes place in one lace and shopping or working takes place in another and one has to use the automobile to get from one place to another. This is particularly a challenge for the peninsula upland because of its odd combination of being close in and yet relatively hard to access for automobiles. It is sort of a question being asked in communities all over about what do we want to be when we grow up. What will the memorable center of our community be if we live here? What will we have to do to get an ice cream cone or a popsicle? Or a quart of milk? When every little piece of land is dealt with as an island or an asteroid they don't add up .... You really need to be thinking in terms of the greater whole, beyond the size of one parcel as you do planning. The peninsula property has this great luxury .... Iowa River... gives it this combination of remoteness and individual identity and yet being part of the city .... Our team... always descends on the city and measures things. Here is a picture of Robert and Joe .... walking around town with measuring tapes and cameras... specific reasons... Those little dimensions hold the genetic code for how to make great streets or great neighborhoods in the new stuff. How far apart is the building face...setback from the property line? Where does the fence go? Where is the private and public space delineated? These are the kinds of things we measure when we come to a town like this... begun learning the genetic code of Iowa City neighborhoods. That experience over the last 11 years of going from community to community of measuring things and asking questions about why is it like that has led us to understand that there are some conventions .... Some things that just keep coming back over and over and over .... about the design of neighborhoods. There are really five things that happen over and over and over ..... One is the idea of an identifying about center and edge to the neighborhood. The neighborhood just doesn't go on forever .... physically those things are defined. Secondly it is limited in size... it doesn't go on across the horizon and infinity .... The neighborhood is limited in size to about five minutes walk from center to edge. There is a reason for that. It tums out that that five minute is a comfortable walk that people will use if they have the alternative to walk on safe walkable interesting and beautiful streets. They will often make that five minute walk in modem American instead of getting into a car .... The next feature is the neighborhood tends to have not just one thing. If it is only houses, it is probably not a neighborhood .... A mix of land uses in fact characterizes the great traditional neighborhood .... around the comer grocery... idea of mixing some attached dwellings with some detached ones. As you can see in the diagram, large houses sometimes at the edge. Houses for the bank president and houses for the bank This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 5 teller in the same neighborhood. You may find detached and attached, small lot, large lot, apartments over shops .... Traditional neighborhoods tend to have an integrated network ofwalkable streets. Network is the operable word here, not necessarily grid. It might be and in may cases in Iowa City we find a very regular grid. But the important thing is that the streets are connected. They have to lead from one place to another which is in contrast to the cul de sac and long loopy roads to nowhere that characterizes sprawl. The great thing about having a network of streets... is that traffic is dispersed across a network of streets and so no one road, no one intersection has to take the entire load. Again, another challenge for the peninsula upland because of its remoteness and single connection back. Think about this, wouldn't it be great as you are walking in the neighborhood or contemplating a walk down to the park in the lowland if you had many ways to get there. The integrated network of streets is important for the pedestrians, not just the motorists. Last, special sites are reserved for civic buildings. Maybe they anchor an important public square or terminate a dramatic view down to the church, a library, or daycare center .... positioned in a spot where it is geometrically more important. That gives you an opportunity to actually give some significance to those institutions, to send a message about how important you consider the things inside. If there is one thing that is absolutely constant in all scales, from the hamlet to the village to the neighborhood to the town to the city that is made of many neighborhoods it is the idea that when you put a building down on the ground, you do it in such a way that is shapes the public space. The stuff between is not undesigned leftover but rather with a specific form. We call the streets public rooms that have floors and walls and it is given specific dimensions .... exaggerates example of where an apartment building is very close to the street and across the street is a bed and breakfast .... house that has a deep front yard and across the street is another house with a shallow on. There is a subtlety to this. There isn't a one size fits all absolute rule. But the important thing is that the public space actually is given a shape of some deliberate design. Human beings created that sense of enclosure that is created by the positioning of buildings and so while in another spot open space and the feeling of openness might be the most important priority often in a neighborhood street, getting it as small and as intimate as possible. It can be very very positive. You can kind of see what happens on a street like this one in terms of natural surveillance. There is a great feeling if privacy.. houses are lifted up a few feet from the level of the sidewalk... they happen to have their curtains open, you will see their chandelier. You don't see the folks sitting on their living room couch because of that raising of the foundation of the house. How different from the slab on grade house in conventional sprawl. Here the public space is given an extra measure of definition This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 6 by those picket fences. There is a reason why those picket fences keep showing up in all the Frank Capra movies ....great fences make great neighbors... really does apply. Now reintroducing all of these ideas about traditional neighborhoods is going on in virtually every real estate market on the continent. Here is a Canadian example. It is such a big deal that even Disney has gotten into the act .... New town of Celebration .... 900 pound gorilla of the new urbanism and like all of the other projects implemented, it is far from perfect. But the irrefutable fact is that Disney's Celebration already has, in just 18 months, 1,000 families living there. They have re-calibrated real estate expectations throughout the Orlando area by virtue of the fact... all of the competitive projects have basically gone to sleep because buyers are choosing homes in Celebration first .... That speaks to the pent up consumer demand for better neighborhoods. Consumer Report did a cover story on the subject of traditional neighborhood not long ago. I think there is a real reason why developers and builders are being attracted in such great numbers to this. It is not... because of all the social, cultural and environmental objectives that are accomplished by building traditional neighborhoods. It is because you can make more money and make it faster if you do something better .... Wall Street Journal brought about this subject. So if you are talking to builders and develops today and you are working across the table .... Don't start with the cultural, social and environmental objectives. Tell them why... it might make more sense. There are some specific reasons why traditional neighborhood development tums out to be a good deal businesswise and our friend Dan Camp, a self made wealthy person... in Mississippi has been building on these principles for 25 years. He has been a symbol of this. First of all, in the traditional neighborhood vocabulary, one doesn't have to spend all much as you might think on that stuff that is between buildings. In fact, when the street is an amenity, that is as much simpler to deliver than, for example, than an elaborate country club as the amenity offered to buyers. More land can be specifically available to private outdoor open space on the lots and or working more units into the land. Traditional neighborhoods are very tolerant of simple buildings. Have you noticed that in the sprawl the house of the 75 gables. It still has the triple wide garage door on the front. It has all of these peaky roofs, incredibly ostentatious because they are grasping to that sense of history and wonder that came from older traditional buildings. But in fact, those great old houses I showed you from Iowa City were for the most part rectangles of land with simple roof lines. The new urbanism of traditional neighborhood design ideas are very tolerant of simple buildings. You don't need to jazz them up. It is, of course, possible when you build in traditional ways to build in more compact ways. So one might explore possibilities of doing more with land yield-wise. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 7 Traditional neighborhoods tend to be the kind of place where you don't have to build a whole lot of before the homebuyers can see how cool it would be to live there .... being passable in natural ways. Conventional sprawl, you do all of the infrastructure at once and you build everything as fast as you can because, after all, people are going to be angry when more of it gets constructed. That is the thing. If you sell isolation .... everything you add takes away from selling. If you sell community, every time you add another phase, it gets more complete and adds to what you are selling. That is one of the reasons why people will, when they are offered a traditional neighborhood design of some integrity and offered conventional sprawl and within at least reasonable comparable price points, they will choose the T & D first. Nationally builders are finding there is something of a premium that can be earned by doing traditional neighborhood design. They found in the different projects that have been surveyed, it might be as much as 15- 20% above prices of conventional sprawl. We urged our builder and developer clients to think of that as an extra, as gravy on top of a reasonably conservative pro forma. There are a whole lot of people .... a traditional neighborhood can appeal, not just one kind of household .... So these are some of the reasons why builders and developers will be attracted to traditional neighborhood design. But the most economical place to implement traditional neighborhood design is the place where the local government will not have it any other way. So, that is something to keep in mind as voters. Now it was absolutely normal for a long long time, on this continent from colonial times until the 1940's, to develop in these traditional neighborhood ways. And master plans looked like this. They tended not to have a lot of land use colors on them. They tended to have a simple framework of blocks and streets, special sites set aside, specific buildings. Some idea of how the land meets the water .... It also occurred in modest examples .... At the stage when they were just ripping the town out of the wilderness, they already had the idea of the sense of the squares of Savannah which played such an important role in Forrest Gump, for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But Savannah started as a large lot single family detached subdivision/See the little houses. Over time it intensified and became more city-fled. So anyway, this idea of thinking about the physical form the town would have was the normal way to plan cities. Right into this century this was a similar plan in Outlook but a more grand regional vision as part of Daniel Bums plans for Chicago. Yes, the mid- west was the center of gravity, the epicenter of thinking about city planning in the early part of this century. Now then what happened? Then after W.W.II, we threw out as a nation the old way to design and plan neighborhoods, towns and cities. That idea of doing the diagram, the official map of streets and blocks and lots and public spaces, the parks and boulevards, the special sites for civic buildings. Those were replaced This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 8 with a bubble diagram technique that generates maps that look like this. That is the future land use map of the future land use element of the comprehensive development master plan of metropolitan Dade County, Florida... That map could be anywhere U.S.A. because it is a very conventional tool. Instead of that vocabulary I described earlier, town and country side, hamlets, villages, neighborhoods, towns and cities, streets, blocks, lots- The vocabulary here is blabs of color. The yellow zone if the residential zone .... the orange is the multi- family, the red is the commercial. Never shall any of these meet... See how the vocabulary has shifted and the graphic technique and the mapping technique changed, too, with 20th century zoning. The little circle means activity center .... obviously a place where people would gather .... This is what the activity center actually looks like. Last fall in Iowa City.. activities here are really just driving and road widening and the reason for that is because all of the zones and land uses that have been separated from one another is just a formula for more and more driving from one thing to another. Road rage .... Road rage is probably just because of this. The outcome of that model, separating land uses, keeping densities low and depending on the automobile for all movement are phenomenal for our culture. Quite dangerous... it wasn't suppose to be like this .... the fascination with the city of the future, again, led by state of the art mid-western planners .... recalibrated our expectations on what cities would be. In the City of Tomorrow, Futurama presented at the 1939 World's Fair. This is the city of tomorrow. Pedestrians, express traffic. local traffic all will be given a clear path by 1960. But today, four miles and five are stop and go... message brought to you by Super-Shell .... highway lobby propaganda film that says, "Right now in our country." Two miles of roads are wearing out for every one being built ..... meant to scare you... What they just told you is that 1/3 of the road inventory in the whole country is under construction even just now .... We devoted ourselves to this idea of driving more because we were assured, don't worry, economies of scale will take care of it. Well, this has turned out to be a quite bankrupting idea. The great national cost of driving to keep up with the rising traffic movement-demand is very very expensive. This approach road cost $1 billion and it is not finished yet .... We don't have the money anymore. Meanwhile, there has been a re-awakening and some new assertiveness on the part of pedestrian and bicycle advocates and transit advocates .... backlash now that says streets aren't just for movement of cars but they are multi-purpose things. Pedestrian friendly streets. It is not rocket science. They are very simple. The first thing is in the real world it is going to be very hot a big part of the year and you need shade. The second thing is the street has to go somewhere .... Safe... properly positioning buildings close to the street, front porches, eyes on the street .... natural surveillance. All of those things are really effective at diminishing the temptation This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 9 to crime. Also safe also means safe from the moving cars. Traffic calmed streets. There tend to be narrow... you have a whole range here in Iowa City. Remember wider roads are a clear invitation to higher speeds. So when in doubt, try to keep the pavement down and encourage the cars to move through in a very alert way. The old mentality was broaden up the curbs, widen the road because after all this is the place where someone might drive fast .... So engineering disciplines for a long time thought let's make it wider, let's make it safer just in case someone speeds .... Now everyone is going too fast in the neighborhood or around the comer. So that is the dilemma of modem traffic engineering. Pedestrians also demand memorable places. They want diversity. They want it to be beautiful and that is not extra. You have streets that meet everyone of those criteria right here in the great old streets of Iowa City... same time they accommodate topography, deal with a range of affordably and other kinds of things. Look at the experience a pedestrian can have on that street. The parked cars and the moving cars are over here ..... safe is in place. It is safe to walk there for any number of reasons... You actually might met a neighbor on that street. Interesting and beautiful speaks for itself there. Look at the detail .... great old granite curbs of older Iowa City .... organized at the radius where one tums the comer into a very small turn. This neighborhood is getting garbage pick-up... well protected from fire prevention... medical response and so on. Look. What is it... maybe five feet from the turning radius there around that curb. Just for contrast. See what happens when the streets are sleeked up for freedom of movement .... distance that a pedestrian has to cross to get from one side of the street to the other is greatly increased by the broad turning radii and the wide lanes. A tree or two would be a good suggestion there. So we use to make streets as public rooms that had all of those pedestrian features in place and porches that are so important in older parts of Iowa City .... one of those ingredients .... you say hello to a friend on a porch swing... great socializing thing that takes place when the fronts of buildings have features like that. Why do it? What plant trees even though they might not grow right away?... because the public realm is what is for sale. These neighborhoods that have those features, narrow intimate streets, fences .... turn out to be great places to grow up. I did not stage this. I did not know this five year old kid who was jumping rope on the street in the morning I shot that photograph. Or this jogger was going by. While I was standing there shooting this photograph a gentleman came out from the house that sits to the left and is a little stooped... in his 70's or early 80's... came out to get his newspaper. This little kid said, "Hi Mr. Brown and Mr. Brown said hi Tommy, how are you today?" Wow, just little things like that that aren't going to happen in the garage-scape. Special sites for civic buildings. They are not always big and grand... sometimes it is as minor as a daycare... Look at what it does to make the neighborhood real. You all have this idea of creating and saving special civic spaces. It is very evident in places like College Green Park. It just wouldn't This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 10 be the same neighborhood without that little square. So the public realm is what you show people. In Winter Park, Florida the Realtors who sell homes tell us that they take people who are prospects for new houses, they take them first to Park Avenue and Central Park and then they take them on a drive to see a house that is for sale. When was the last time you heard about somebody being taken on a drive by the strip shopping center on the way to the house that is for sale .... So the public realm is actually an important part of the real estate thing. One of the old traditions is that of the comer store. I don't know how feasible that might be on this site. You do have to ask the question, where will be people go for a quart of milk on Sunday morning or to get a newspaper? How will they get there from the peninsula upland? Until recently you all had a great trip capturing comer store function right there in old Iowa City .... shortening trips .... to pick up things .... We need to get the rules fixed so that is possible again. Affordable housing or more affordable housing is another of the great dilemmas facing modem American cities. Part of the reason is people look at places like this and that is the mental image they conjure for more affordable units. Here are some apartments in the typical anonymous apartment complex. Design is rarely part of the discussion but should be because this is basically what happens when one forgets which side of the building is the front and which side is the back. Here in the public side is faced by blank walls, dumpsters, parking and by what should be private outdoor open space for those units and you can see how the architects went through regular rigmarole of attempting through saw-tooth gymnastics to create visual entrances. And you an judge for yourself whether they have been successful. This is also an apartment building. This is an apartment building in a neighborhood that in which it is surrounded by s.f. detached homes and here are eight units .... You have a classic example right here in Iowa City of an apartment building and its immediate close neighbor .... large s.f. detached house. These things can be close together... There is a great noble tradition of providing affordability through size by making it small .... Contemporary projects reveal the same thing. There is a ground breaking effort in Maryland called Windcrest which is very successful and you can see the numbers that the homes have been sold for ..... Here, the way they did it is they did some row houses amongst the detached units. They made some of the row houses a little smaller in footprint .... grander ones... Front of that house is just as dignified .... They even went the extra mile. The cheaper houses have a brick facade .... Just basically shows that in the marketplace, there is great acceptance .... for being next to those that are more affordable. And the affordability occurs very naturally. Maker it smaller, sell less land, have a lower per unit land cost .... I see in Iowa City the same thing going on. Here is a market rate full size house. Its immediate neighbor, three Sears... mail-order houses and the world did not come to an end .... All sorts of other This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 11 naturally occurring forms of affordable housing, one of them... the accessory apartment and out buildings. Here is a... garage... granny flats ....a very normal way of making the neighborhood more intergenerational .... A plan makes a huge amount of difference. It is very difficult to understand it until you go through the process how much difference a plan can make. The little town of Fort Royal, South Carolina .... CHANGE TAPE TO 98-63 SIDE 2 Doveff A total population of 3,800 people. They have an annual budget there of $1.5 million. What they also have is an entrepreneurial vision about how they can fonn public private partnerships with the developers and builders in the area and at a small scale and a large scale they are putting their town back together. Historic preservation... The plan works in Fort Royal... this is actually the City Manager's office ....The Plan is there ....The plan is an action blue print that they actually use ....As a result of those plans and of the public private entreprenuership on the part of the town, they are diversifying their housing stocky. They have built in the last year about 5060 new houses... combination .... some are cottage size, some are the biggest grandest houses in the town. They are actually diversifying their stock as they do this. Their downtown has also seen a renaissance. Little buildings recaptured .... Old tavern... now reoccupied... a new main street .... suddenly people saw value in it... I am talking about a level of progress that happened incrementally here over the course of 18 to 24 months .... The in-fill of new buildings has inspired improvement to the neighborhood that is already there. People are adding porches .... all done by private people. Row houses have been added. They are finding places for homes like these .... they are learning as they do it. What my point there... idea of in-fill and using the plan as an action plan. It is not just for great big projects. It is something for small ones, too. On a grander scale, a project called the Jordan Tract ....in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina .... applying these same principles. Our firm ....collaborated on the plan ....So this stuff starts as drawing... It is really gratifying when it tums three-dimensional and real. First phase in Ion Village had 61 houses and even though they have only framed up at this point 7 or 8, they have 52 commitments. The sales are outpacing all projections .... It is actually turning out like the pictures... A plan can motivate things... get private sector funds behind things that are beneficial to the builders and beneficial to the neighborhood. But what kind of plans and how to make it? I challenge you that you should make a plan that is a citizen's plan for the peninsula upland. The people plan for what would be ideal there is very doable and it is doable without compromising This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 12 economics or a good deal for the private builders that will come along. There is no reason for the public to be left out of the process. Today's event .... I want you to visualize the process. We are going to ask you to gather around those tables right over there with maps and with members of our team and with members of the city staff assisting and actually develop a physical vision .... We are going to produce as many plans as we have people to occupy those tables and then we will pin up the results and compare them. You will find that this is a very useful process because you put yourselves in one and another's shoes. Neighbors are going to have to sit across the table from builders and they are going to have to think like one another and work on a win win plan .... Maps are important but I think that you will also discover that the visualization are even more important. What will these streets look like? .... In Davidson .... they didn't want a name... sell it as Davidson .... New homes are available now .... That is the kind of thing .... Bottom line is that even though it is new development, it can be better for local government and therefore more approval. It can make more money and be more lasting in its value. It can be more attractive to people ....It can be a great livable neighborhood for Iowa City. Let's talk about ground rules for today .... How many of you know we call this a charrette? Any hands? Okay, we need to cover this... Robe~ Gray/A charrette is a French word, it means a little cart. What happened... great architecture school of French era .... They used to assign a project over a weekend or four days... draw it up and on Friday we are going to collect your drawings. They would actually send a guy around with a little cart to collect all the drawings. The students would put the drawings on the cart when they were finished. Of course .... if you weren't finished and you happened to be in the front of the room... you would actually sit on the cart to finish drawing your drawing .... You then had to jump off the cart and hand it in. So the term has come about for architects and designers if you are on charrette, it means you are on the cart... trying to get that drawing done as fast as you can... get your ideas out for reflection and for a grading. Doveff In a charrette there is always a hypothesis. So we are going to push you to get all the way to an answer, a physical vision of what it could be under pressure of time. It won't be exactly right. And then we will use the next few days to smooth the plans into one voice .... The first rule is we don't want you to get hung up on details. We want you to produce a large quantity of ideas at your table and present those ideas back up to the others .... Here is one of the most important rules. It is not about talking, it is about putting it down on paper .... If you give us what you really want it to be .... that is much more useful. Here is a rule: no one cares how This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 13 well you draw or talk. It isn't about making beautiful sketches or having perfect lettering .... rather about what is the content. You are going to work as a team. Emotions run high on a project like this. People in Iowa City have been debating what to do about this peninsula upland for how long? Years .... enthusiasm... consternation .... Let that come out but we want you to operate as a team .... stay positive .... make a proactive suggestion of what will work and that requires you .... to be respectful of one another. That rule matters a lot more .... There is one more rule... want to get to maps... So we have a rule that says no speeches .... We are going to ask you to not just tell us in words but tell us in pictures what kind of towns you want .... Think about the physical .... If we have a picture we might find out we have a very different idea... physical vision is very important. I want to make a comment about what you should expect and what you should not expect. What you should expect is that it will not all be worked out by the end of the day ..... Don't expect it to be free of contradictions .... They will be questions .... I want you to expect a little bit of creative chaos .... This is a creative process .... So it may get a little wild and noisy in here .... normal, it happens every time. What not to expect. Don't expect all the problems of the universe to be solved today on this site .... Let's concentrate on this site, this very defined problem and try not to go far away from that ..... We are not going to be able to solve all of those old things in today's exercise. What we can do is come up with a plan, that consensus vision for what could be on the peninsula. And you should expect that next Friday night, in this room, on the screen, you are going to see pictures of what the peninsula site could look like .... You will see pictures of what it could be like .... That means you have got to let us know today what you are thinking... If you sit up in the middle of the night... come to the city hall .... Friday night... have all of that input incorporated and it will be much more intelligent because of your help. Karin... John Shaw/...could I ask you to address a little bit about what it is that defines a neighborhood ..... As I was growing up, neighborhoods were defined more by consensus of the people that lived within them .... very few physical demarcations. Doveff Sometimes it is a street .... sometimes there is something geographic like a river .... or a large open space... fomfing natural edges. Sure... many cities... boundaries run more along ethnic lines .... church .... Today we see much more heterogeneous neighborhoods .... The thing I think that applies here is that we want to think about the peninsula upland and have a specific plan but the study context is the bigger picture .... connection to be made... to some other area of the city .... or if there is a boundary that needs a special design sensitivity ....or a concern about traffic... don't hold back... incorporate those ideas as well. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 14 Franklin/One of the things... John... that we want to accomplish with this whole project... try to have a model of a traditional neighborhood that we can use to translate to other parts of the city. So even though we are focusing right now on the peninsula, think about it in terms of the whole city also. Marian... first slide... I am going to get down more to the detail... need to have some background of how we got to the point we are at right now. Some of you are very familiar with this... We want to start all on the same page. This is the property that we are talking about... large tract of land that the city purchased on 1995 and we purchased it for two reasons. 1-to use some flood hazard mitigation money that we received after the 1993 flood to get the lower part of the peninsula out of any potential development... with federal money... prohibited from having any development on that lower part .... lower... 115 acres is for open space, recreation and for water wells. The water wells is the second purpose of why we bought that land .... The piece that we are talking about today is the upper part of the peninsula. This is Foster Road coming into it... 92 acres that we are talking about in terms of development of the site .... some constraints .... going to have influence on what we can do there. When we purchased this property in 1995... policy. of city council... to sell that upper terrace... to reimburse the general fund .... Options for this property... focused on development of the property such that we can reimburse the General Fund $1.3 million .... Constraints .... have to do with access to it .... Foster Road .... current development project... upgrading that road .... from what it is right now... next slide .... What this map shows is a drawing... the access for the entire piece we are talking about .... on this drawing .... Foster Road which goes through the Elks Club .... Capital project for improvement of that road ....all the way and to this point (refers to map)... going to begin next summer .... Dover/(Can't hear). Franklin/That expense is for a street that is going to serve this whole area .... essential for development .... Marian... This is to give you some context... that is going to have to serve this entire area in terms of any access .... also for property owned by Washington Park... Bill Ams... possibility that at some point in the future... Elks Club would be abandoned as an Elks Club and would be sold for development. We have done calculations on the potential development... served by single means of access .... We believe that we can develop this area .... RS-5 .... However, under that density you may cluster the development... different kinds of housing... important that we keep that 5 dwelling unit per acre density .... overall density .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 15 Called a planned development .... Don't let that RS-5 density preclude you from thinking about different kinds of housing types. Sandy Rhodes/(Can't hear). Franklin/No, it just includes the 92 acres of the upland. Dover/(Can't hear). Franklin/The total acreage that could be RS-5 is 92. (Refers to map). On this site we have some unique features... woodlands .... slopes... This property has been farmed for a number of years .... Talking about using the top part .... where it has been farmed as the area where we have development and preserving these wooded slopes. We also have a commitment to the Elks that they will be leasing a portion of this property (refers to map) for two golf holes ....constraint... We have a golf hole that is going to be built on that ground... Dover/ Franklin/We are designing Foster Road differently than we would design a regular collector street. It is going to be designed in such a way that it is going to have more limited access than you would have as a developer on a collector street .... setbacks from the road will be greater .... Only options that we had were to bring a road over here (refers to map)... or .... We would have to be cutting through a lot of these steep areas... Option for access in this area are very limited. Consequence .... keep density down and build the road differently. It is unclear, too... RS-5... that does not mean that you have to go to that many units... Also, with the full development of this area, we anticipate there will be another road that will come north here and through this area down Laura Drive .... At this point (refers to map) you have the option of going down to Taft Speedway .... one means to move out of this area... from this point west. Benjamin- Ben Chait/(Can't hear). Franklin/The underlying density would have to remain at five dwelling units per acre .... mixed use in terms of commercial. Dover/In preliminary thinking .... We are keenly aware that 400 roof tops... is not a lot from the point of view of attracting any kind of potential retail establishment in there .... mixed use .... I am not ruling the idea .... very modest comer store .... might be possible .... mixed uses .... day care .... things like that... For today... good idea... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 16 envisioning stage .... think of it as freely as possible. We will come back and overlay .... mix of dwellings and other things... economically do-able .... Franklin/...potential for getting bogged down in details is big. We do need to keep in mind that we are talking about a design concept at this point .... George Gay/ ....How many acres would you be taking out of the woods? .... Franklin/Probably will come out to about 60 in terms of what the flat part is without trees and slopes .... Gay/ Franklin/Part of the decision making... today... start from it thinking about what you would like to see .... describe... to create a neighborhood. Don't worry about this density stuff.... You need to know that there are these parameters out there ....keep them in the back of you mind .... Dover/I think the numbers game is a real trap .... remember the slide of Savannah .... now... more city-fled scale... Thing we have to get right this week is the fundamental framework of blocks and streets .... It is kind of a trap... temptation .... When we actually try and put real world marketable units on the land .... may be... more potential than we thought .... nothing is going to go wrong .... Karin is giving you the background of how we got here so that you understand the agreements that have been made with the Elks and the understandings with regard to road improvements .... You can think outside the box. Franklin/ .... Get to point... P/Z .... principles that they have discussed that are guiding their thinking so far .... First of all that this project is economically feasible.. development will provide reasonable return to the developer while enabling the city to reimburse the General Fund. Attractiveness... attention to good architectural design .... compatibility .... Affordability .... serve as a model as to how housing may be provided for a range of income levels in a single neighborhood .... achieved by providing a mix of owner occupied and rental housing. An emphasis on owner occupancy is desired. Sense of community. Iowa City's vision for the future is based on the concept that Iowa City is a community of neighborhoods .... Important aspect of this development should be that the physical features of the development allow for and stimulate a sense of community in the part of those who live there .... ideas that have been articulated to date. Questions .... Bud Louis/...flood plain. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 17 Franklin/115. Louis/Natural slopes .... Franklin/Any of the land which we purchased with the federal money .... 660 mean sea level line... (refers to map). Louis/ Franklin/...you can't go farther than down the hill ..... We cannot build down in this area (refers to map)... because that was purchased to get development and keep development out of the floodplain .... Doveff Here is something that almost never happens. It almost never happens that a private developer will acquire 200 plus acres... is not going to develop .... The fact that the grant was involved here is just changes the whole equation about the do- ability ...compact development ....valuable... because everyone of these lots that we create in the uplands now ....they will have the amenity of the public park .... wonderful experience of an-iving home by passing through scenic open space .... Opportunity to live in the middle of the country while living in this part of the city .... This is great. As the people .... routinely walk the site .... You probably know where those most special scenic views are at this point... We are getting up to speed... mark them out .... Show us where something that is important to preserve .... What our jobs is... will be to tell you when you are proposing something that there is no economic way to do .... We will serve that purpose .... mark the maps for us. Sam Bolton/In terms of neighborhood or community (can't hear). Franklin/When I use the term neighborhood or community, that is thinking in the very large sense. We could include commercial development. On this site .... There are special things about this site... it is so isolated .... When you put commercial development there...economic aspect to it. Is there enough in that very localized market to support that commercial development? And if not... is if it brings people in to support it and that creates another dynamic that I think you need to think about .... may be the matter of scale and exactly what the uses are .... very narrow kind of market... some possibilities there .... We had a picture of Seatons .... wonderful at the time... It is hard to do those kinds of things now. Dover/It is all on the table .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 18 Nancy Purington/(Can't hear). Franklin/First one was the economic feasibility ....last one was the sense of community that we create in this space. Purington/(Can't hear). Franklin/ ....what we are talking about today are possibilities .... David Thayer/(Can't hear). Franklin/ .... The thing that I would like to see come out of this is a concept that we can use and translate to other parts of the city .... If we have something else out there to show people how you could do this type of thing... It is another choice that we have as we look at new development in other parts of the community. Dover/If we find that there is something in the land development regulations... that is working at odds with those objectives... Franklin/That we may need to make some changes. Norton/(Can't hear). Franklin/So when you are thinking... don't concern yourselves about whether a grocery store could make it or not. We will try to figure that out. If what you define as your sense of community... is that it has that component... throw it in there then... What we want today are your ideas. Bob Bums/What about a land use like assisted living or student housing...? Franklin/Throw it out there for your table to consider .... Bums/Public transportation (can't hear). Franklin/Not yet ..... I think that is consistent... public transportation... consistent with the concept of this being an accessible space .... We need to look at ways to connect the peninsula with the rest of the community ....Everything goes in the hopper today. Jim Throgrnorton/Could I make three very brief points (can't hear)? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 19 Franklin/There is a point that Jim made that I would just like to build on... bike trail- CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-64 SIDE 1 Franklin/(Refers to map). Come up through the development, along Foster Road, connect via Taft Speedway with the Iowa River Corridor Trail .... Nancy Siberling/(Can't hear). Franklin/ Dover/These points are dead on... suggest ... let's work at the tables and see how often these same things come up at table after table ....let everybody have access .... Maybe this is a good time to transition to Bob .... Miklo/Take about a 20 minute break .... We do have a small bus... muddy out there .... take a few minutes to go look .... Robert Gray/ Dover/...I would rather do a huddle with our team during the break. Thank you all very much. [Break 10:50- 11:301 Dover/We have six tables of you... Sergio is going to read offa list so we all know who is where. Miklo/Some of the name tags didn't get numbers .... Dover/ If your name tag didn't get a number, that just means you are free to sit down wherever you find available seats ....Designers and facilitators working with each table could just stand up. [Breaks into table groups.] Dover/I am going to rotate between all the tables along with Bob Miklo .... We are going to spend time at each of the tables .... There are a couple of things you need to know about the process .... don't start yet .... First we want you at your tables to go around the tables and introduce yourselves... give us three things.. who you are... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 20 background.. interest .... Give us a one liner about why you are here and what your interest is about this process .... Step #2- sign up sheet... phone numbers.. tie names to table groups .... 3- One person at each table needs to be designated as the spokesperson .... present your groups results to the larger gathering .... I am going to give you a warning .... Are there any questions about process. Remember that.. Franklin... Mike and I will be floating around ....So we are a resource team .... Okay, you may go. [Table discussions] Dover/ Give them a few minutes... lights ....pile in those closer seats ....Congratulations... You just completed the impossible .... You did it .....With a charrette there is always a hypothesis, some idea on the wall .... You just did the blank sheet of paper to some starting point step which is always the hardest part. Here is how the format is going to work for the next part. We are going to go one at a time, one through six... I would like you to take 3 - 4 minutes each .... If there is a question about what someone meant .... I think we will treat this informally, raise your hand... If you want to critique an idea or start cross examining the presenters, let's wait until we have all six done and talk about them as a set .... The final plan will not look just like any of them .... We will taken these six and synthesize them into one plan .... smooth them into one planning voice... find out what is similar .... At the close of this one week intense activity, we will have a presentation of work in progress ....Friday night in this same spot we will have a presentation of work in progress ....get an in-depth look at this ....In this whole procedure ....moving toward hopefully a city council endorsement of this plan, in all of the meetings... that is the most important one to attend .... because at that presentation there is still a lot of time to incorporate late breaking input ....Friday night... recording that .... mic that we will pass around... Table #1- Table #1 Brenda Nelson/The concept behind ours... wanted to try to keep the public space and the mixed use commercial or whatever this mix use space is kind of towards the front of the site so that the neighborhood feel would be more in back of the site .... Came into a central space, turn about in the middle... central gathering area that would include playgrounds, picnic area .... slow the traffic down as it comes into the site. From there the streets would radiate off of that .... (refers to drawing) .... planning unit developments .... Our residential areas would have sort of a feel of an old town by creating alley system in the back and street trees in the front, garages in the back, narrow driveways .... service things happen in the alley .... Mix use would be on this portion of the turn about .... We also take advantage of the views out to the river .... double loading streets... build one story unit with bottom This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 21 floor with a walkout on the hillside here .... interconnect the neighborhoods... pedestrian and bike access... bridge in the wooded area ....create a trail system or walkway system throughout the site...access the park area ....Proposing possibility pedestrian or bike access across the river towards the University way .... Possibly an educational or nature center .... We wanted to keep parallel parking along the street... no parking... off street parking for central gathering area ....That is kind of the jest of it .... Dover/I should make a statement about the ground rules here. Members of a group are welcome at the close of these presentations to stand up .... I have to say Table #1 wins the sheer square footage of tissue paper award .... thank Group #1. Now Table #2 .... If you see consensus emerging, alert us. Table #2 Bob Bums/My name is Bob Bums... Our five main points: 1- To avoid the steep slopes and the ravines in the development. 2- The public realm should include the vistas at the end of the ridges. 3- We propose a mixture of housing types .... 4- The design should conform to the lay of the land and the contours. 5- Daycare should be part of the commercial area. Our design concept was to have a street system... loop that went around the site .... quite a bit of discussion whether that should be single or double loaded street design .... From a design standpoint we would prefer that it be single loaded. But from an economic standpoint we wanted it to be double loaded .... met in the middle and compromise... housing in red... green areas the concept of public realm .... We recognize that the golf course was an amenity .... We haven't dealt with it as a housing type... We also had a central street... terminus was a community center... end of the development. Higher density housing we wanted to have along that center street .... Red dots are to represent the different housing types. There was some discussion about the second access...review of the history .... John Shaw/Three houses shown contiguous to the golf course are for Hayden Fry, Tom Davis and Angie Lee. Bums/ The black lines are major streets... blue lines are alleys .... important aspect of our plan .... We may be completely out of scale .... We think we need to get 450 units on this site ....Toward the end we brought this street up ....sort of let it drift off here. Something has to happen down here with that street .... I know that it is suppose to remain a recreation area... there should be something happen there. We think the entrance is important .... Dover/Thank you. Table #3 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 22 Table #3 Melody Rockwell/Our first point was to have a focal point at a gentle slope that was a wooded area... neighborhood center and open space... amphitheater .... restrooms... limited parking.. maintain a scenic view. 2-We looked at the entrance... road should split around the existing oak trees... Use the oak trees as features in the entrance to this neighborhood. 3-Mixed densities... integrated throughout the neighborhoods. 4- Street system... perimeter loop road ... with modified grid in the center. No strictly through street. Trails were on the perimeter .... street system... create a single loaded street along the golf course so the infrastructure would be in place if the golf course is developed in the future. 5- Team wanted strong... district overlay rules that would govern the preservation of the character of the area .... place utilities on the alley, narrow streets, tree planting program right up front and have restrictions on tree cutting .... Doveff ...appreciate those last comments about how it would be implemented and governed... conclude this process .... how to get there from a regulatory and implementation point of view .... This is really really useful. Table #3 has got to win the tree drawing award ..... Table #4 Rich Russell/ ....First main point was to respect the existing tree masses. We took about an hour to figure out that was very important. 2- Have mixed housing types with all sorts of citizens participating in the physical amenities .... public access to the views. Foster Road would enter the site and come to one of the public spaces where the street would be split up a little bit so that it wasn't a straight shot through the neighborhood .... idea of pedestrian bridge a good idea .... emphasize underground utilities .... provide a pedestrian-bike access to the park and preserve that view as well .... We also debated the issue of a single loaded versus double loaded street around the perimeter. We also... should be spaces where it is single loaded... appreciate the views from the street. Dover/Good job... thank you. Russell/We wanted to emphasize the use of alleys for access to parking and also use it to be utilities in... underground. Table #5 Jim Throgmorton/ .... Table #5... spent a lot of time trying to figure out where this neighborhood center ought to go... agreed that we wanted to have some kind of neighborhood center... comer store, daycare center and ...town square .... serviced This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 23 by some form of public transit .... We hope to... orient the road... buildings.. achieve passive heating.. preserve a view... going southwest .... other smaller points of view... like to maintain .... We have a perimeter walking path .... In the center... proposing a white oak... or burr oak.. having this area planted with tall grass, prairie and flowers .... We settle upon a one way pair at the entry way .... also wanted mix density and mixed housing types throughout the area .... Lastly we did not get to some topics... how close to the streets the buildings should be and other specific design features .... Dover/Thanks .... Table #6 Vanderhoef/We had a lot of ideas that have already been spoken to at this point. Our big thing was to start right out and to preserve the natural flow of how the land is there without interrupting any of the natural features... We put in our trail .... road from the well heads at either end... Trail is going to follow the high ridge and go out to Foster Road... want to preserve the oak tree .... recognize we need access to the land to the north .... take access in .... We are using street coming in... highest density and commercial space .... we do have a green space in the center... A plan that the vistas... public spaces at the end of each of the four peninsula areas. We also are using a system of an alley down here, perimeter road here. We also have a cut through area here for intra-neighborhood trails .... from peninsula to peninsula. This is an alley system here... keep our river trail clear up to the end here. We want the mixed housing... some commercial .... a commercial area perhaps off site where we have more than single access... out at the intersection of Foster Road .... No Name Road and still unbuilt road that goes to the north... Look at the historic river architecture .... I would like to look at conversation with church area... parking lot could be a trail head for out of town visitors... access the trail system .... Audience/(Can't hear). Vanderhoef/Our higher density stays in closer to our urban core and as we move out the lots get larger for s.fi dwellings. Everybody gets a view .... Dover/Let's thank Table #6 .... This is a good time... 10 - 15 minutes.. share observations... Everybody gets something they want and nobody gets everything they want .... Plan is a win win kind of scenario .... I walked to the back of the room... remarkable how similar some of the things are .... Table after table the same things came up .... Now we have to go back and look at the greater subtlety This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 24 of that .... We have to analyze those options and compare .... Very similar things are happening in page after page .... Lehman/One of the things that we talked about... important that we don't create a road system that creates a collector or arterial going down the center .... Dover/...network of streets should share the load trafficwise. Norton/...one commonality among all of us .... peninsulas of land.. trying to preserve... public view .... Have to make that open somehow. Dover/...one of the groups... preserve and protect... natural features ....long views are going to be important .... Norton/ ....didn't need to ...fill in ravines... Dover/ Ann Bovbjerg/Has a lot to do with land... people... I have a great fear that this whole peninsula would become a very precious gated community .... exciting neighborhoods in Iowa City, they are eclectic .... very important that we build and make it available for all kinds of people to live their lives ....not Barbie and Ken dolls .... Nancy Purrington/I had a similar concern .... Since this is a very organic stage, very fluid ....Will you be able to specify smaller areas ....We are #6 ....I see the density ....mixed income ....so that it is random and fluid... Dover/ Great suggestion .... What tools can we use to insure that .... Raises the question of where we go from here .... Thinking at the moment is what will happen is that after some planning parameters are in place, then the city will advertise for a request.. for proposal to developers or builders to implement the project .... those applicants... would have opportunities to refine the plan from their point of view ....That means they are going to have to receive... desired instructions in that ....Thinking isn't we would draw one plan one way and build only this... What they will get is something with a little more room to maneuver .... public process... important for citizen planners to stay involved .... You are going to have to watchdog that process .... If you keep that demand for quality high. Robert Gray/Egg yoke scenario. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 25 Doveff This is the egg yoke diagram (draws drawing) .... stuff we illustrate and promote... buying 115 acres of adjacent open space .... subsidizing... This is the center of the target... make easiest to do... outside of that is a larger range of possibilities of what you consider acceptable .... range of things you consider acceptable .... that is what you pre-approve... range of design possibilities... easy to get a permit for... Somewhere out there .... is the universe of other design alternatives .... The stuff that is out there in that ambiguos, boundless... is stuff yet to be understood and scrutinized ....We are trying to define the edge of acceptable... and define the edges of ideal ....We are going to draw pictures .... Gray/(Can't hear). Dover/Doesn't it look like an egg. Dan / I had two comments... noteworthy that there was real consensus in this group on the need for environmental preservation on the property and also the way that that seems to naturally translate CHANGE TAPES TO REEL 98-64 SIDE 2 Dan / These passive solar design features. The other thing.. consensus ...need for affordable housing .... important for you to look at how the city has defined the specific areas of need we have for housing .... How we are going to maintain affordability... in an area we expect to be very desirable .... Dover/Do you have something... of affordable housing foundation .... operating in these areas? Miklo/We do have some non-profit groups .... Dover/Anything city chartered? Housing Authority .... better if we can find good ways to work with existing organizations. Liz Swenson/I think it is really a question about how you might emphasize the ideal kinds of opportunities .... developers... new housing in Iowa City... not particularly inventive .... You sound like you have more faith in developers creativity than what I have seen .... Wondering... show ways that are more creative .... Dover/ .... I have met enough developers who are excited about delivering the highest possible quality .... they do exist .... My faith is sort of... trust to verify... You do have to have the right guidelines in place... have to have a very good staff working This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298 May 2, 1998 Council Work Session page 26 Miklo/We do have some non-profit groups .... Dover/Anything city chartered? Housing Authority .... better if we can find good ways to work with existing organizations. Liz Swenson/I think it is really a question about how you might emphasize the ideal kinds of opportunities .... developers... new housing in Iowa City... not particularly inventive .... You sound like you have more faith in developers creativity than what I have seen .... Wondering... show ways that are more creative .... Dover/ .... I have met enough developers who are excited about delivering the highest possible quality .... they do exist .... My faith is sort of... trust to verify... You do have to have the right guidelines in place... have to have a very good staff working on these things with some empowerment. The biggest gap is with the consultants .... If they are not aware and up to speed .... old bad habits... You need to expect... staff needs to feel comfortable about... re-drawing it .... reactive thing. Guidelines. We will be producing some guiding principles .... as part of this .... Going to have to get to a fork in the road in the process .... street standards are a concern, utilities are a concern .... Also all the big opportunities .... We will provide some guidance .... as part of the implementation step here... give even more detail... have to have the right rules and the right coaches ....If you have good plays, you win .... Throgmorton/Three brief topics. 1- In terms of affordability... model... 412 Church .... 2- School Board .... important to connect with them .... Other thing has to do with Coralville, right across from the dam and importance of connecting... improve the quality of that connection on their side of the river .... Dover/Okay, so some inter-governmental coordination called for there. We are reaching the end of our time .... Mr. Mayor .... Lehman/I just appreciate everybody coming .... very very proud to if.. We have got to stay with this thing... Friday night... It is going to take all of us to do it... Thank you all for coming. Adjourned: 2:20 PM This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of May 2, 1998 WS050298