HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-07-02 AgendaSubject to change as finalized by the City Clerk. /:or a final official copy, contact the City Clerk's Office, 356-5040.
ITEM NO. 1
ITEM NO. 2
ITEM NO. 3
AGENDA
CITY OFIO~F~I CITY
CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING
July 2, 1996 7:00 p.m.
Civic Center
CALL TO ORDER.
ROLL CALL.
MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
a. Respect for Law Week - July 1~7, 1996.
CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS PRESENTED
OR AMENDED.
a. Approval of Official Council Actions of the special meeting of
June 11, 1996, as published, subject to corrections, as recommended by
the City Cled(.
b Minutes of Boards and Commissions.
(1) Historic Preservation Commission - April 11, 1996. '
(2) Histodc Preservation Commission - April 22, 1996.
(3) Iowa City Airport Commission - May 2, 1996.
(4) Design Review Committee - May 9, 1996.
(5) Histodc Preservation Commission - May 14, 1996.
(6) Design Review Committee - May 20, 1996
(7) Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission - June 6, 1996.
(8) Iowa City Board of Adjustment- June 12, 1996.
(9) Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission - June 20, 1996.
.July 2, 1996
City of Iowa City
Page 2
c. Setting Public Hearings.
(1)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR
JULY 16, 1996, ON PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF
CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONSTRUCTION
OF THE WELL HOUSE IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT 1N
CONNECTION WITH THE WATER SUPPLY AND TREATMENT
FACILITIES PROJECT, DIRECTING THE CITY CLERK TO
PUBLISH NOTICE OF SAID HEARING, AND DIRECTING THE
CITY ENGINEER TO PLACE SAID PLANS ON FILE FOR PUBLIC
INSPECTION,
Comment: This project involves the construction of four well houses
and one submersible installation. The work also includes pumps and
motors complete with all appurtenances for each well house. The
estimated cost of this project is $801,080 and will be financed with
General Obligation bonds abated by water revenues.
d. Permit Motions and Resolutions as Recommended by the City Clerk.
(1) Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for Pamela J.
Sabin dba The Kitchen, 215 E. Washington St. (Renewal)
(2) Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for New
Walt's, Ltd., dba Memories, 928 Maiden Lane. (Renewal)
(3) Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for Vito's of
Iowa City, Inc., dba Vito's, 118 E. College Street. (Renewal)
(4) Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for Keith W.
Dempster dba The Mill Restaurant, 120 E. Burlington St. (Renewal)
(5)
Consider a motion approving a Class B Liquor License for Larkin
Iowa City, Inc., dba Holiday Inn Iowa City, 210 S. Dubuque St.
(Renewal)
(6)
Consider a motion approving an Outdoor Service Area for Larken
Iowa City, Inc., dba Holiday Inn Iowa City, 210 S. Dubuque St.
(Renewal)
(7)
Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for Fraternal
Order of Eagles Iowa City Aerie #965 dba Fraternal Order of Eagles
Iowa City Aerie #965, 225 Hwy. I South. (Renewal)
(8)
Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for American
Legion Roy L. Chopek Post #17, dba American Legion Roy L.
Chopek Post #17, 3016 Muscatine Ave. (Renewal)
(9)
Consider a motion approving a Class E Beer Permit for Amedcan
Drug Stores, Inc., dba Osco Drug Store #2393, 2425 Muscatine Ave.
(Renewal)
(10)
Consider a motion approving a Class E Liquor License for American
Drug Stores, Inc., dba Osco Drug Store #2393, 2425 Muscatine Ave.
Renewal)
.July 2, 1996
~- I~
City of Iowa City
Page 3
(11) Consider a resolution to issue Cigarette Permit.
(12) Consider a resolution to issue Dancing Permit.
Motions.
(1)
CONSIDER A MOTION TO APPROVE DISBURSEMENTS IN THE
AMOUNT OF $9,079,789.2'1 FOR THE PERIOD OF MAY '1
THROUGH MAY 3'1, 1996, AS RECOMMENDED BY THE FINANCE
DIRECTOR SUBJECT TO AUDIT. DISBURSEMENTS ARE
PUBLISHED AND PERMANENTLY RETAINED IN THE CITY
CLERK'S OFFICE IN ACCORDANCE WITH STATE CODE.
f. Resolutions.
(1)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR
TO EXECUTE THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A SUBORDINATION
AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND
FIRST NATIONAL BANK FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT
'16'12 EAST COURT STREET, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: First National Bank has requested that the City approve a
Subordination Agreement for the owner at 1612 East Court Street.
On August 26, 1992, the owner of the property received loans in the
form of a No Interest Promissory Note, a Mortgage, and a Life Lien
for a total amount of $7,450 through the City's Housing Rehabilitation
Program. First National Bank is about to refinance the first mortgage
of $58,500. The appraised value is $110,000 which provides enough
equity to cover the City's second lien position, which was the City's
original position.
(2)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE EASEMENT
AGREEMENT FOR TEMPORARY USE OF PUBLIC RIGHT OF
WAY BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, AND LITTLE
DONKEYS, INC, DIBIA AS PANCHERO'S FOR A SIDEWALK
CAFE,
Comment: Little Donkeys, Inc., (Panchero's, Inc.) has filed an
application (including fees) for permission to operate a sidewalk cafe
on the pub!ic right-of-way in front of 32 S. Clinton Street. City staff
inspected the area and recommends approval. Design Review
requirements for sidewalk cafe renewals have also been satisfied.
The application and supportive material is included ~n Council's
packet.
Ju~y 2, 1996
(3)
(4)
City of Iowa City
Page 4
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR
TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE
RELEASE OF A STORMWATER MANAGEMENT EASEMENT
AND ACCESS EASEMENT LOCATED ON LOT '1 OF THE
RESUBDIVlSION OF A PORTION OF GOVERNMENT LOT 4 IN
SECTION 15, TOWNSHIP 79N, RANGE $W, OF THE 5TH P.M.,
IOWA CITY, IOWA, AND TO APPROVE AND EXECUTE A
SUBSTITUTED STORMWATER MANAGEMENT AND ACCESS
EASEMENT AGREEMENT FOR THE SAME PROPERTY.
Comment: The City currently possesses a stormwater management
easement and a 15' access easement over Lot 1 of the Resubdivision
of a Portion of Government Lot 4 of Section 15. Township 79N,
Range 6W of the 5th P.M., Iowa City, Iowa (the new Contractor's Tool
and Supply Site). The site plan for new construction on the site calls
for a reconfigured stormwater management and access easement
which accommodates the new construction. Public Works has
recommended the release of the existing stormwater management
and access easement and has recommended the execution of a
substituted stormwater management basin and access easement
agreement to conform to the actual construction. This Resolution
authorizes release of the existing stormwater management and
access easement and authonzes execution of the substituted
stormwater management basin and access easement agreement for
this property.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN
AMENDED ESCROW AGREEMENT CONCERNING
STORMWATER MANAGEMENT OBLIGATIONS FOR PARK
WEST SUBDIVISION, PART ONE, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: During the platting process for Park West Subdivision,
Part 1, it was anticipated by both the Subdivider and the Public Works
Department that stormwater management facilities for the subdivision
would be constructed within Kiwanis Park. An escrow agreement
was entered into whereby the Subdivider deposited the sum of
$62,000 with the City for the construction of such facilities within
Kiwanis Park. However, upon further development within the area, a
study performed on behalf of the City determined that stormwater
management for Park West Subdivision, Part One, would be better
provided by an existing basin located within West Side Park
Subdivision, and that the creation of an independent facility within
Kiwanis Park was both wasteful of valuable park land and
unnecessary. This Resolution authorizes the execution of an
amended escrow agreement between the City and the Developer
which releases the Developer's obligation to pay for an independent
stormwater facil~y and releases the majority of the Developer's
escrow while obligating the Developer to pay for improvements to the
existing facility and obtain all necessary easements to allow Park
West Subdivision, Part One to use the West Side Park stormwater
facility as a "regional" facility.
July 2. 1996
(5)
City of Iowa City
Page 5
CONSIDER RESOLUTION APPROVING AGREEMENT FOR USE
OF PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA
CITY, IOWA AND CHESTER A, PELSANG III AND RETI'A E.
PELSANG.
Comment: Pelsangs are applying to the Board of Adjustment for a
special exception to reduce the required parking spaces by one
space. The proposed Podiatdst Clinic is in an area where the F
Street right-of-way has a more than ordinary right-of-way width, so
the proposed handicapped parking space and secondary ddves will
present minimal intrusion, and overall public benefit. Public Works
and City Attorney recommend approval.
Co~espondence.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Abbey Lane Neighbors regarding overflow and flooding.
Laureen lpsen .regarding First Avenue.
Robert Dostal regarding underage drinking.
Dale Yocom regarding library.
Sesshu Foster regarding library.
Memoranda from Civil Service Commission submitting certified lists
of applicants for the following positions:
(a) Information Services Clerk
(b) Parking Enforcement Attendant
(c) Parking Cashier
(d) Associate Planner
(e) Maintenance Worker I - Rec Center
(f) Customer Service Representative
h. Applications for Use of City Plaza.
(1)
(2)
(3)
Shae McMillan to sell handcrafted items
June 10 and 11, 1996. (approved)
Jerri Lynn Larsen, Church of Latter Day Saints to distribute literature -
vadous dates July and July 1996. (approved)
Susan Rogusky, Council of Elders to sell quilt raffle tickets -
July 29 through August 2, 1996. (approved)
July 2, 1996
City of Iowa City
Page 6
i. Applications for Use of City Streets and Public Grounds.
(1) Bill Summers, American Heart Association Heart Ride
June 15, 1996. (approved)
(2) Denise Britigan, Oakridge Avenue Block Party
June 15, 1996. (approved)
(3) Michael Richey, First Annual 5th Avenue Block Party
June 21, 1996. (approved)
END OF CONSENT CALENDAR.
ITEM NO. 4
PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA).
ITEM NO. 6
PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS,
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on a resolution to
annex an approximate 80 acre tract located southeast of Sycamore
Street and north of the South Wastewater Treatment facility.
(ANN96-0001)
Comment: At its June 6 meeting, the Planning and Zoning
Commission, by a vote of 5-0, recommended approval of the
annexation of the property. This recommendation is consistent with
the staff recommendation.
^ct,on=
#4 page 1
ITEM NO.4 PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA).
Nov/
Public Discussion. This is for items that are not on today's
agenda. We ask that everybody sign in and limit your comments
to five minutes.
Dick Dolezal/ I want to thank the council. I came here a month ago
or six weeks ago and requested that you remove the trucks, the
forestry trucks from Oakland Cemetery and then it came out
that that couldn't be done immediately but we did reach a
compromise where the trucks will be removed on weekends and I
appreciate that. It's noticeable and I want to thank the
council for your action. At that time, when I was here, I also
told you I was going to return and try and discuss with you
the expansion of the Oakland Cemetery and I gave each of you
a handout up there. If you go to the last page of the handout,
there's a map showing and tonight I don't expect any action
but I'd like to have you start studying this and reach some
conclusion in the next month or so if you would. Basically the
Hickory Hill, I'm going to expand into Hickory Hill Park into
that part of the land that was the Glocker purchased in 1919.
It was purchased as an expansion for the cemetery. There was
48 acres at that time. Eight has been used and 40 acres
approximately are part of Hickory Hill Park. There was three
sections. There was the north section. 40 acres obtained from
the woods and the south section was from the Irish Estate. But
in 1980, the council at that time moved, dedicated the Woods
Addition into the Hickory Hill Park. The Irish Addition came
in part of the parkland but at that time decided that the
Glocker Addition that was purchased in 1919 should remain as
expansion for the cemetery. And I know that there's been some,
I don't know if it's be some disagreements. There were some
just a gray area there and the documents that I came up with
I believe show that that land was never dedicated to the
cemetery. I mean never dedicated to the park. It was just
loaned to the park to use until the cemetery needed to expand.
The cemetery's now to approximately 150 spaces. Most of those
spaces use a flat marker instead of, you can't put a monument
in. There are a few monument spaces left but they're not the
most desirable spaces. Jim Wonick tells me, the manager of the
Cemetery, that they need to get more lots. I think there's
enough land in my opinion between the Glocker Addition and
most of it is very hilly and steep ravines. There's two
section that have two ridges that run down it near the south
border of it and it would appear to me that if you expanded
the cemetery 300-400 foot into that area and filled as a
ravine between these two ridges, if that was filled in by
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scraping off the ridges, there should be enough land there
that would last the cemetery by perhaps 20 years and it would
be expensive to buy other land and go across town or go other
places to move the cemetery, I've heard that being said. And
it would be, we already own the land and wed have to have two
operations if you moved it. So it doesn't make sense to move
it. It would also seem to me that cemetery use and park use
could be very compatible. That's better than putting a
landfill next to the park or putting a sewage plant. I think
the park people would like a cemetery. And I don't see, it
seems to me if you moved in 300 foot into the park, that the
first path is 600 foot in, I estimate, 600 foot into the park.
If you went in 300-400 feet, I don't think most park people
would even realize that the cemetery had came in to what they
considered their area now. And I'm asking that you people give
it consideration and keep an open mind on the subject and do
what's right for all the citizens of this town. We do need a
cemetery.
Nov/ Thank you very much.
Dolezal/ Are there any questions?
Nov/ I'm sure this is going to come up as part of our CIP. I doubt
that it's going to be within a month, but it's certainly on
our list of things to do.
Dolezal/ I know that you've beat it around the bush a little bit,
but I guess I'm here trying to bring it to a head in a month
or two if I can. Get some action going some way or another. So
Thank you.
Karr/ Madam Mayor, do you wish to accept correspondence?
Nov/
Moved and seconded that we accept correspondence from Mr.
Dolezal. Moved and seconded (Kubby/Lehman) that we accept
correspondence on Mr. Dolezal. All in favor please say aye-
(ayes). Is there anyone else who would like to address
council? Mr. Thornberry has some special thing he wants to do.
Thornberry/ This is very-
Lehman/ Would you state your name and sign in please.
Thornberry/ Sure.
Nov/ This is certainly an item not on the agenda.
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Thornberry/ My name is Dean Thornberry and I would like to present
to Mr. Norton a birthday cake from the council. We ran out of
candles for his birthday but I do have a rain check here for
an additional 80 candles. We're not saying how old Fnr. Norton
is, but here's your cake Mr. Norton.
Norton/ Thank you. 80 only, huh.
Thornberry/ There's a rain check.
Norton/ That's good. I love it. Thank you very kindly. I didn't
bring all my grandchildren. They're assermbling. I may inflict
them on you in a future date.
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F070296
July 2, 1996
City of Iowa City
PaRe 7
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on an ordinance
amending the Zoning Chapter by rezoning an approximate 80 acre tract,
from County RS, Suburban Residential, to ID-RS, Interim Development-
Residential, located southeast of Sycamore Street and north of the
South Wastewater Treatment facility.
Comment: At its June 6 meeting, the Planning and Zoning
Commission, by a vote of 5-0, recommended approval of the proposed
rezoning. This recommendation is consistent with the staff
recommendation.
Action:
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on an ordinance
amending the Zoning Chapter by rezoning a 2.29 acre tract from RS-12,
High Density Single-Family Residential, to OSA-12, Sensitive Areas
Overlay/High Density Single-Family Residential and approval of a
Sensitive Areas Development Plan for Meadow Ridge, Part two, a 4-lot
residential subdivision located on The east side of North Dubuque Street
and north of Bjaysville Lane. (REZ96-O011/SUB96-0010)
Comment: At its June 20 meeting, the Planning and Zoning
Commission, by a vote of 5-0-1, with Gibson abstaining, recommended
approval of the proposed rezoning and Sensitive Areas Development
Plan. This recommendation is consistent with the staff
recommendation.
Action: , ~ __ ~'~
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on an ordinance
amending City Code Title 14, Chapter 6, "Zoning," Article H, "Industrial
Zones," to allow trucking terminal facilities as a provisional use in the
I-1 zone.
Comment:
Zoning Commission recommended approval of
amendment. This recommendation is consistent
recommendation.
Action: ~~/ ~~-z.~7
At its June 6 meeting, by a vote of 5-0, the Planning and
the proposed
with the staff
#5c page I
ITEM NO.5c. Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16
on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by rezoning a 2.29 acre
tract from RS-12, High Density Single-Family Residential, to
OSA-12, Sensitive Areas Overlay/High Density Single-Family
Residential and approval of a SensitiveAreas Development Plan for
Meadow Ridge, Part two, a 4-lot residential subdivision located on
the east side of North Dubuque Street and north of Bjaysville Lane.
(REZ96-0011/$UB96-0010)
Nov/ Moved by Kubby, seconded by Norton. Discussion?
Kubby/ Why did Gibson abstain? Does he live there?
Miklo/ Dick Gibson abstained because he had missed one of the
meetings where there was extensive discussion on the project.
Nov/ Any other discussion? All in favor please say aye- (ayes).
Motion carries.
Thisrepresents only ereasonably accuratetranscriptlon of ~elowe City council meeting of July 2,1996.
F070296
July 2, 1996
City of Iowa City
Page 8
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on an ordinance
amending City Code Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled "Zoning," Article K,
entitled "Environmental Regulations," Section 1, entitled "Sensitive
Areas Ordinance."
Comment: At its June 19 meeting, by a vote of 9-0, the Riverfront and
Natural Areas Commission recommended approval of the proposed
amendments. Also, at its June 20 meeting, the Planning and Zoning
Commission, by a vote of 6-0, recommended approval of the proposed
amendments. These recommendations are consistent with the
Sensitive Areas Committee's recommendation.
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on an ordinance
amending City Code Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled "Zoning," Article O,
entitled "Sign Regulations," to delete the specific regulation of "political
signs," and to amend regulations applicable to all temporary signs,
including political signs.
Comment: At its June 20 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed
amendments. This recommendation is consistent with the staff
recommendation,
Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16 on an ordinance
amending City Code Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled "Zoning," Article E,
entitled "Commercial and Business Zones," Section 1, entitled
"Commercial Office Zone (C0-1)," to allow small-animal clinics in the
C0-1 zone by special exception.
Comment: At its June 20 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed
amendment. This recommendation is generally consistent with the
staff recommendation.
Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by
designating 37 properties as Iowa City histodc landmarks.
Comment: At its May 16 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission.
by a vote of 6-0. recommended approval of designating 37 properties as
Iowa City historic landmarks. This recommendation is consistent wil;h the
recommendation of the Historic Preservation Commission~_~_~
Action: ~//~'/~ 4~'~,.
#5g page i
ITEM NO.5g. Consider a motion setting a public hearing for July 16
on an ordinance amending City Code Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled
"Zoning," Article E, entitled "Commercial and Business Zones,"
section 1, entitled "Commercial Office Zone (CO-i)," to allow
small-animal clinics in the CO-1 zone by special exception.
Nov/ Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Kubby/ This is the seventh public hearing we've set for one night.
Norton/ We'll be busy.
Kubby/ Yeah. I thinkwe should try to spread these out. Even though
many of them may not be controversial, you never know.
Nov/ Sometimes things just have to get done. I think this usually
happens when we skip meetings. We get stretched a little bit.
But we're moving on. All in favor please say aye- (ayes)
Motion carries.
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ITEM NO.5h. Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning
Chapter by designating 37 properties as Iowa City historic
landmarks.
Nov/ P.h. is open. Please sign in, state your name, and limit your
comments to five minutes.
Doug
Russell/ I am a member of the Iowa City Historic Preservation
Commission which brings this ordinance to you and strongly
recommends its adoption by the City Council. The Historic
Preservation Plan which was adopted by the Council in 1992
recommended that landmarks become part of the Iowa City
ordinance. This plan is part of the city Comp Plan. Last fall
the Council voted unanimously to grant itself the authority to
designate Iowa City historic landmarks for the first time. The
process is that a citizen may bring to the attention of the
Preservation Commission a building notable for its
architecture or history for nomination as an Iowa City
landmark. The Commission may also initiate these nominations
and in the first series of landmarks before you this evening,
we have done so. The 37 nominees are all listed on the
National Register of Historic Places because of its
significance for its architecture or its relationship to Iowa
City history. National Register listing however provides no
actual protection of the building for either inappropriate
renovation or from demolition. The Iowa City Landmark
Ordinance would provide such protection. Under the ordinance
the landmarks would receive the same protection and face the
same rules as the 168 buildings already subject to this
ordinance which are located in the four Iowa City historic
districts which have been designated by the City Council. In
the process of bringing these nominations to you, there has
been plenty of notice provided to the owners of the 37
properties. In the last ten months, since September 1995, this
landmark list has been an agenda item on our published agenda
for the monthly Historic Preservation Commission meetings. The
minutes of our meetings are public record. For the eight
months before that, the Landmark Ordinance itself was an
agenda item, so there was plenty of opportunity to meet with
us about it. Whereas most zoning changes only require only one
written notice to property owners, such as a downzoning
ordinance change. We have done better than that. In November,
1995, we sent a letter to each home owner inviting them to our
regular December Historic Preservation meeting and inviting
their comments. In March of this year, we sent written notice
to each homeowner of a p.h. that we held on March 30 on this
list we seek to designate. In April of this year, we sent a
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F070296
#5h
page 2
second, actually a third written notice to each homeowner
announcing a p.h. in the P/Z which as scheduled for and did
take place on May 16. On June 18 of this year, we sent an
additional written notice to each homeowner announcing this
p.ho before the Council on July 2. In addition to that, there
were the usual statutory required newspaper legal notices
about the zoning change proposal and there was an article in
the Cedar Rapids Gazette in March, 1996, which listed all the
properties by address. The article was based in part on a
press release we sent to all the media about what we had in
mind. The proposal has received wide support. We have received
13 responses from the 37 property owners. There are 24 owners
who did not contact us with their views. Of the 13 who
contacted us either in person at one of the hearings or
meetings, by letter, or by telephone, 12 were in favor. One
was against, Mr. Bruce Glasgow who is part of the partnership
which owns the Burner-Fry building, also known as the Davis
Hotel Building, was against. The Historic Preservation
Commission voted 8-0 to nominate this list when it was made
aware of the views of all these persons. The P/Z had Mr.
Glasgow's views as well and approved the 37 nominees 6-0. The
State Historic Preservation Office has reviewed the proposal,
proposed statute and has granted its stamp of approval as
well. As has been pointed out in our memo to you and as you
are aware from reading the statute, owner consent is not
required for the Council to designate a landmark. Nor is owner
consent required for any zoning in Iowa City. And the fact
that you're building may be RM-something or RCN-something else
does not require your consent. Similarly, none of the health
regulations or building codes or fire codes require owner
consent. We ask for the same consideration that other zoning
changes would receive. The Preservation believes that there is
a very strong public interest in preserving historic
structures in the community. We believe that the community is
better for saving historic structures. Where would we be
without Old Capitol for example or the Pentacrest or the
Johnson County Courthouse or these 37 buildings or the fine
neighborhoods protected by the Historic District Ordinance.
And where will we be in the future? Perhaps this century there
may be 100 or fewer landmarks. Perhaps in the 21st Century,
this building may be a landmark and newer buildings will be
made of plastic or some other substance. In any event, we
believe that these 37 are well worth preserving we think that
the City Council can do a service to the community by honoring
the past by preserving these buildings and also do a service
long into the future for future generations of the community
by saving them. We thank you for your support. If there are
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#5h page 3
questions, we would be glad to address them for the committee.
Nov/
I have one question for clarification before we go any
farther. You said you had sent letters to homeowners. I assume
you sent letters to all property owners.
Russell/ All property owners. Yes.
Nov/ Okay. Just to clarify.
Russell/ All 37 received four mailings from the Commission.
Nov/ Thanks.
Lehman/ Doug, I think I asked you this last
record, what are the privileges that
owner by having such a designations?
night but just for the
ensure to a property
Russell/ There are a series of thom. There may bo financial
benefits. First of all as a landmark owner, if a building
which is landmarked or in an Historic District is used for
commercial uses, federal tax credits may be available to that
owner for renovations. The Johnson County Board of Supervisors
is now considering a tax abatement resolution which would
grant a tax abatement or tax moratorium for a period of five
years on the increased value to a landmark or a historic
building occasioned be renovation or improvement. Then the
building would be returned to the tax rolls at its new
evaluation and during the five year moratorium period it would
continue to pay taxes at its then current rate of taxation.
But the point is that there would be some financial incentive
and some financial benefit to renovate a historic building
that would not be available to all buildings. In addition, the
City Council can always adopt financial incentives on its own.
And in that regard, the sky and the budget numbers are the
limit. There could be anything from a revolving loan fund for
renovation of historic building. It may be financial benefits
simply spread to more buildings by creating additional
districts for additional landmarks. Also it is possible that
landmarks may be able to obtain certain exemptions from zoning
or building code requirements that may not be available to
other buildings. This could be changes in parking regulations
for example. In addition, nationally history shows that
landmark buildings and historic buildings increase in property
value. And you see a remarkable number of advertisements for
home sales on the near east side that say either in the Summit
Street Historic District or occasionally near the Historic
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F070296
#5h page 4
summit Street District. So it is a sale point. In addition the
homes will have the opportunity to be honored by the placing
of a brass plaque on the building designating them as Iowa
City historic landmarks. So there is the honor of the thing
which we don't mean to belittle. And finally, landmark owners
and residents of Iowa City historic districts have the
opportunities for some very sound and free legal and technical
advice from the Preservation Commission when they set about to
renovate the building or make changes in it.
Lehman/ In your opinion, after your mailings to these 37 folks, and
I think you said there were four mailings and at least our
information there's been one objection°
Russell/ That's all we were aware of.
Lehman/ Which would indicate to me that the rest of them really
favor this or have no really strong objections. Do you feel
the incentives that are available by such a designation are
such that most of these owners would like to be a part of
this?
Russell/ I can't speak to them but if they ask my opinion I would
say there are advantages to you and really no disadvantages to
you in having your building landmarked. That would be my
advice to them.
Lehman/ Thank you.
Nov/ We had one more letter today approving.
Lehman/ Right.
Russell/ From the sorority.
Norton/ Could you briefly comment Doug on the restrictions? That we
saw in at least one letter that somebody said that this costs
money to have this designation or to meet the guidelines.
Russell/ The buildings that we seek to landmark would be subject to
review by the Preservation Commission for exterior changes
which would require either a building permit, a demolition
permit, or a moving permit. The standards are national ones
set by the Secretary of the Interior. We have some history in
dealing with the standards. These ten standards which
basically require that modifications to the exterior of these
buildings be compatible with their architectural style and
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F070295
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their history. The standards are applied by the eight
Commissioners which are appointed by the City Council, and I
should point out that five of the eight live in historic
districts and are subject to the same rules, so we don't apply
them without some knowledge. In the years that we have records
for back to 1983, we have records of 41 applications for
certificates of appropriateness which is the seal of approval
of the Preservation Cormmission for an exterior change to a
building in a historic district. All 41 have been approved by
the Commission. Some of them have been modified in discussions
with the Commission. A number of the modifications have saved
the homeowners money much to their surprise and to their
delight I believe. No one has ever exercised the right of
appeal of one of our decisions on a certificate. The right of
appeal is to the City Council. None has been made. And I
should say as well that the city has not been sued by anyone
over any of our decisions. We try to make the process as
accessible as we can. There is no financial cost in applying
for a certificate of appropriateness. There's no fee. The only
cost is in time. And we meet monthly in a regular basis. We do
meet periodically in special meetings for the purpose of
speeding up the process for homeowners. In the last 12 months
we had 12 regular meetings and we had six special or extra
meetings and of those six, I believe that 2-3 were for the
specific purpose of reviewing a homeowner's plans in advance
of a regular meeting.
Kubby/ Do you mind a hypothetical?
Russell/ I'll give it a try.
Kubby/ Say I own one of those 37 buildings. Someone buys it from
meo It's in good structural condition. They apply for a
demolition permit and it goes to the Historic Preservation
Commission. Do you have the power to deny that demolition
permit?
Russell/ The Commission has the power to not grant a certificate of
appropriateness for the demolition and that is binding unless
the City Council disagrees. Just like a review of a renovation
or building permit, the City Council has the final say. Now in
a more extreme example, the Parkhouse Hotel is one of the 37
buildings we're seeking to designate and at the present time
it's under a demolition order from the building official for
being structurally unsound and unsafe. Although I understand
an extension has been granted, in the final analysis the
building official and the City Council may demolish a landmark
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F070296
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over our objection if health and safety require it.
Norton/ In this first batch, did you consider only ones that were
on the National Registry, or did you give any consideration to
identifying others as potential landmarks or just go with this
because there was an available list?
Russell/ We did ask that question and we decided that the best way
to get a series of landmarks before the Council quickly was to
take the ones that are tried and tested by being on the
National Register. We have in preparation a second series
which will also De notable Iowa City landmarks and buildings
that you will probably agree are suitable. But we thought that
because of the historical and architectural research required,
we could most quickly move by using the buildings found on the
National Register. And this list comprises every Iowa City on
the National Register that is not already within an historic
district or is not owned by the state or the county and
outside of our jurisdiction.
Vanderhoef/ Doug, you just qualified the examples that you have
given Karen. The City Council can authorize the demolition
with health and safety questions. Is that the only way the
council can override?
Russell/ That may
understanding
period.
be a question for the City Attorney° My
is the City Council may over turn our decision
Vanderhoef/ For anything. I understood you to say if their were
health and safety questions in there.
Russell/ The building official may do so on that basis. And the
City Attorney will have to answer the other question.
Vanderhoef/ But we could-
Woito/ You could do it for any reason or no reason as long as it
was not arbitrary.
Kubby/ So there's not a second criteria we need to live by in order
to over turn that denial?
Woito/ You have to have some reason, but it doesn't-
Kubby/ They're not laid out in a law.
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F070296
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Baker/ An applicant could just say it's a hardship and the council
could agree with that person.
Woito/ That's true.
Vanderhoef/ That's what I wanted clarified.
Russell/ The statute is designed to give the com~mission the
opportunity to delay a demolition to find an alternate
solution. And often demolition decisions are made simply on
economic grounds. And if alternate buyers can be found for the
same property to keep it standing leaving the original owner
with adequate money for a different project, that's the kind
of solution that the time to would allow us to reach.
Baker/ Doug, can I ask you some questions about clarifying the role
of your review process in the role of this council and this
ordinance. You said the only cost to the applicant is time. Do
you have a self imposed deadline or time limitation on when
you have to get back with you r decision? What's an avera§e
turnaround time that you're going to pass?
Russell/ I think two weeks is probably the reasonable average time.
We do not have a rule or by-law that determines what our
turnaround time is. Sometimes it simply depends on the owner
and we encourage people to come to us as early in their
planning process as possible. They have to see us before their
building permit issues. What we find is that in established
districts, particularly in Summit Street and Woodlawn, the
owners and builders and architects come to us before they even
apply for the building permit and they do sort of a test run
of their plans.
Baker/ Do they have to turn in any documentation other than that
which is required in the building permit?
Russell/ I don't believe that they do. Mr. Miklo could answer that
a lot better than me. When they come to our meetings, they
generally bring a set of plans and a set of photographs.
Baker/ Okay.
Miklo/ That is correct. It's the same material as is required for
a building permit.
Baker/ The standards that you're using, those are national
standards that were not developed in accordance with the
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F070296
#5h page 8
properties here. They're just sort of arbitrary? I'm being a
little bit the devil's advocate. But they're arbitrarily
imposed federal standards that you apply or you use a standard
here. Doesn't that require some subjective interpretation on
your part as to what's appropriate?
Russell/ I would leave it to others to determine whether they are
arbitrary or not. I assume that the adoption of the rules was
through a process that provided due process and fair hearings.
The rules come to us from the Secretary of Interior and as I
say, there are ten of them. It is up to Commissioners to apply
them in a reasonable way. And my experience in eight plus
years on the Commission is that reasonableness really is the
guideline. Reasonableness of the decision makers.
Reasonableness of the builders. And we found a very
comfortable process of compromise occurs when these decisions
come forward. It's not unusual for an owner to change his
plans based on a suggestion. It's not unusual for an owner to
contact us later and thank us for the improvement. But as to
the subjectivity, I think all judgements have an element of
that. I don't like that name for judgements that are made. I
think the judgements we make are based on the standard. I
think they are based on some good background information. Our
Commission presently has two lawyers, two architects, and an
architectural historian, so there is some expertise on the
Commission in both legal matters and design matters and in
history matters and I think that we act reasonably by giving
them every opportunity to make their presentation. So I'm not
worried that the decisions are going to be arbitrary and
capricious when wee make them.
Baker/ But you've got a set of standards that you apply reasonably.
Now that's a mandatory review process we're talking about.
Russell/ For a person whose building's a landmark or located in an
historic district, it is mandatory review before a building,
demolition, or moving permit may issue.
Baker/ Okay. And if in that review process, they have plans that
you as a Commission disagree with, they don't get their
certificate° They don't get their project done. They come to
the council. The Council can agree with you. Then what is
their option?
Russell/ Then they can sue.
Baker/ They have to take us to court.
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F070296
#5h page 9
Russell/ That's right.
Baker/ So we do have the power to dictate to people what they can
do with their property.
Russell/ The same way that you impose other zoning laws, buildings
codes, health codes and fire codes, you have that power as a
Council. Yes, sir.
Baker/ Would this ordinance work if it was voluntary?
Russell/ I don't think it would. I frankly think that if it were
voluntary, you would lose important buildings that are subject
to possible demolition in the future.
Lehman/ I find that-
Kubby/ Nicely done, Mr. Baker.
Lehman/ I find that interesting because you've indicated that only
one out of 37 folks that you have written to have objected.
Now the incentives that you have indicated, the pride in
ownership, perhaps the increase of value, or whatever, your
tone kind of comes off that this would be a real advantage to
the property owner. Why wouldn't they then voluntarily want
this designation?
Russell/ I guess the answer for that is that they may not take the
initiative to do so. We have 24 of 37 who have not bothered to
give their opinion about the matter. And I think if the truth
be known, I think a lot of people would be happy if the
government simply delivered the mail and made the fire
department and police department available when they called.
But I think there is a public interest in a reasonable role
for government in historic preservation. I think there is a
public interest that needs to be protected by the government
in preserving these buildings.
Baker/ I'll give you another example where the mandatory nature is
probably necessary, would come in when, say this property
owner who liked this designation now were to sell the
property. Now if it's mandatory now, that transfers to the
next owner automatically. The next owner might have a
different view of the property, different use of the property
in mind. So for real protection, the only way you're going to
do that is by mandatory review.
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F070296
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Russell/ There are a number of examples in recent Iowa City history
where a buyer purchased a historic house from an owner saying
I love this building for its history and I will take care of
it. And when the seller came back from vacation the building
was gone and the apartment building began. Because there was
no contract, there was no regulation on that building. It does
happen.
Kubby/ It's not really affecting just that property. It's affecting
the whole neighborhood. When we protect the historic nature of
one property, we protect the whole neighborhood.
Russell/ We do believe on the Cormmission that the ordinance has the
benefit for each neighborhood and each community in protecting
the whole fabric of a neighborhood by protecting individual
buildings.
Norton/ You would agree though that the issue of taste is not very
heavily involved in your decision.
Russell/ I don't think taste is an issue because we're really
dealing with historic buildings of a given type with
identifiable history and identifiable standards. I think the
question would arise somewhat in the context where a new
building was sought to be built in a historic district to
replace one that had been perhaps razed by fire. Then the
Commission would have to make a judgement about what is a
compatible new structure for that historic neighborhood. So in
Summit Street they would probably require that a new building
be set back from the streets similar to other buildings. That
it be constructed of wood or brick or stucco rather than
aluminum or styrofoam and so forth. And I guess opponents
would call it subjective taste and proponents would call it
appropriate regulation.
Baker/ There's a fine line between taste and compatibility.
Norton/ I hear you, Mr. Baker.
Nov/ Are there any other questions? Is there anyone else who would
like to address the council on this issue?
Karr/ Can we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Nov/
Moved by Norton, seconded by Kubby that we accept
correspondence on this. All in favor please say aye- (ayes).
Motion carries.
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F070296
#5h page
Baker/ Just for the record, we are going to arrange to have the
slides shown at the end of this program on the districts.
We'll sort of give the viewers 15 seconds.
Miklo/ It won't be showing this evening, but the re-runs of the
Council meeting, it will be shown after that.
Nov/ Also there is a book which has pictures and explanations. And
that is available here at the Civic Center for anyone who
wants a copy. That's it. Hold up the book.
Baker/ I hold up. This is my job on the council, to hold up the
book.
Norton/ Hold it.
Nov/ Iowa City Historic Landmarks. There also copy at the library?
Kubby/ I am just saying they would let him do that at the library.
Nov/ Okay, I am guessing that the library will have a copy of this
that can be borrowed and the Planning Department will have
extra copies for anyone who wants them. Okay. P.h. is now
closed.
Lehman/ Before we go any further, is it and I realize we have had
four mailings to these folks. Is there anyway that we could
possibly, conveniently get more information from those who did
not respond prior to our next meeting? And I guess-
Russell/ I am sorry, I didn't hear your question.
Lehman/ is there anyway that we can get some sort of response from
the 24 people who did not respond, or 25, before our next
meeting?
Russell/ The Commission would certainly agree to contact them and
try to ascertain their views for you.
Lehman/ That would be helpful for me personally because I get a
real strong feeling that this is strongly supported. Just the
fact that we have regulations that say you have to do this,
this, this, and this to my property would say hey, I don't
like that. They are not saying that.
Russell/ Our experience is that the proponents of our proposals
whether it be the Preservation Plan or the Brown Street
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F070296
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District, do come to public meetings at some level, usually at
the council level.
Lehman/ Yeah and we are not hearing that. So I guess for my own
peace of mind, I would like to hear, if at all possible, from
those folks that have not responded.
Russell/ We will try and do a telephone canvassing to get
additional information to the council°
Lehman/ I appreciate that.
Thornberry/ One additional question. I understand all 37 properties
are listed on the National Historic Register. Is that correct?
Russell/ Yes sir, that is correct.
Nov/ And we have one objector who has enough of the requirements
that it will require a supermajority. We will separate that
one property, vote separately, and then put the others all in
one resolution.
Woito/ Want me to separate out the Fry Boerner Building as a
separate ordinance.
Nov/ Separate ordinance and separate vote. It has a formal
objection.
Vanderhoef/ (Can't hear).
Kubby/ The p.h. is closed and the objections have to be received
before the end of the p.h, right?
Woito/ Well, the formal protest, yes.
Kubby/ To trigger that extraordinary majority.
Woito/ Yes. Some people may just not want to respond.
Lehman/ No, I realize that.
Woito/ We need to respect that right for them not to-
Kubby/ As well as we don't do that for any other zoning. I mean I
am very interested because this might be slightly different
kind of a zoning ordinance where an individual,s property is
being highlighted in some way. I feel all right about it but
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F070296
#5h page 13
I don't want it- I don't think it is practical for us to do
it. If we don't do it to let people know that their yards are
going to be torn up because Iowa Illinois or U.S. West is
going through which I actually think we should do. Then we
need to be consistent in how we notify people about it.
Lehman/ I totally agree but just because these are separate parcels
here, here, here and here and not in a general area that I
guess I am concerned that those folks are comfortable with it
and we may not get responses from very many of them.
Russell/ We will tell you yes, no and no comments or unavailable.
Lehman/ Thank you°
Russell/ Mr. Thornberry, did I answer your question adequately?
Thornberry/ Yes, you did. I am towards not voting for this because
of the additional restriction. Since they are already on the
National Historic Register, that to me would be designation
enough for it to sell a house being on the national Register
and whatever. If these people don't want to be on this, I
don't think I would force them to be on it. When they- If they
were to sell their residence or their building, that would be-
The new buyer would know that it is under this restriction. If
it was a sale point, I think the National Historic register
would be enough as a public sale point. Not to overly restrict
by mandatory review a homeowner's property.
Russell/ The National Register Designations may not be made without
the owner's consent. So at some point, an owner of that
building has agreed and I would say that Mr. Glasgow was the
moving party to have the Boerner Fry Building designated on
National Register.
Thornberry/ So that may be enough.
Russell/ It may- It is something certainly to consider and we
believe that the important difference between the National
Register and the local designation is to provide some
legislative protection.
Norton/ Your argument, Dean, suggests that it doesn't protect the
public interests in a way. I think that is what we are talking
about here. That the public has an interest in preserving
these things even if the individuals want to tear it down.
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F070296
#5h page 14
Thornberry/ It is not a public building.
Norton/ True.
Kubby/ It has public affects. It can have negative public affects
if it is not preserved appropriately.
Thornberry/ I just hate taking people's rights away from them.
Nov/
That is the one who owns a commercial property such as the
hotel that is falling apart that is requiring demolition. We
have cited them. Their rights have been violated.
Thornberry/ If it is falling apart then it should be demolished
because it would be a danger.
Nov/ Well, I am saying this kind of thing is done. There are rights
of public good that-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 96-78 SIDE 2
Norton/ But the other doesn't protect anything. That's the problem.
Thornberry/ Well, this ordinance doesn't protect the land owners
from the right to do what they like with their property
either.
Lehman/ Well one more comment and I'll leave it alone.
Nov/ Okay.
Lehman/ Dean, I thinkeach of the 37 folks who have been nominated
here have had tha opportunity to object and we have taken the
one objection seriously enough that it has to be a
supermajority. If there aren't objections when you have the
opportunity to object, then I guess there's implied consent,
at least in my opinion. So if these folks, and I don't
disagree with what you're saying, but I'm just saying, most of
these folks really seem, this is something they want.
Thornberry/ Then I'd like them to so state.
Lehman/ Which is why I asked Doug if we could get more information.
But if they don't object and they have the opportunity to
object and it requires a supermajority to pass it, I feel a
lot more comfortable with it.
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F070296
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Norton/ You are going to strange route there, gentlemen, in my
judgement. A strange route because if that is the case, people
could back out of all kinds of ordinances if they don't
prefer.
Thornberry/ But they don't seem to want to back out of.
Norton/ I mean, suppose several of them did. You know, you really
don't have anything then. You don't really have what we are
trying to accomplish here. I think the Historic Preservation
people- Now there maybe there is a different argument when
this comes to Design Review, Larry, you know. That is a
different-
Nov/ All right, we are not going to talk about that one today.
Norton/ I think your point really eviscerates the purpose.
Nov/
We do understand that a supermajority is required only if
someone files a formal objection before we close the p.ho So
there is going to be only one. Okay.
Item. i. is a p.h. on an ordinance-
Woito/ Are you ending the p.h.?
Nov/ We did. I did. I definitely did.
Woito/ I missed that.
Nov/ Anyway, next p.h.
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F070296
July 2, 1996
City of Iowa Cit~, Page 9
Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by rezoning
the following properties owned by The University of Iowa to P, Public: 1 E.
Park Road (RNC-20), 234 N. Madison Street (RM 4-4), northwest comer of
Dubuque and Church Streets (RM-44), 230 N. Clinton Street (PRM), 324 S.
Madison Street (CB-2), 300 Myrtle Avenue (RS-5), 421 Melrose Avenue
(RS-5), 315 Melrose Avenue (RS-8), 121 Grand Avenue Court (RS-8), 127
Grand Avenue Court (RS-8>, 129 Grand Avenue Court (RS-8), and 2222
Old Hwy 218 S. (I-1).
Comment: At its May 16 meeting, by a vote of 5-0 with Gibson absent, the
Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the rezoning
of University of Iowa properties listed above to P, Public. This
recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation contained in
the staff report dated May 16.
Action:
j. Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by amending
the Conditional Zoning Agreement for WestPort Plaza to eliminate the
requirement for a "cohesive, integrated development," and to remove the
requirement for the facades of the buildings to provide "horizontal
continuity," for property located in the CC-2, Community Commercial zone
at 855 Highway 1 West. (REZ96-0010) (.~.~)
Comment: At its May 2 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and Zoning
Commission recommended denial of the proposed amendments to the
WestPort Plaza Conditional Zoning Agreement. The Commission's
recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation contained in
the staff reported dated Apdl 18. In a letter dated May 29, 1996, the
applicant (Staples, Inc.) requested Council consideration of this ~m. /~,~
k Consider an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by con~iti~-~y
rezoning a 2.32 acre tract from I-1, Industrial, to Cid, Intensive
Commercial, for property located east of Sunset Street on the south side of
Highway 1. (REZ96-0006) (First consideration)
Comment: At its May 2 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and Zoning
Commission recommended approval of the proposed rezoning subject to
conditions. The Commission's recommendation is consistent with the staff
recommendation contained in the staff report dated Apd118.
................ ' ......................
#5j page
ITEM N0.5j. Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning
Chapter by amending the Conditional Zoning Agreement for WestPort
Plaza to eliminate the requirement for a "cohesive, integrated
development," and to remove the requirement for the facades of the
buildings to provide "horizontal continuity,', for property located
in the CC-2, Community Commercial zone at 855 Highway 1 West.
(REZ96-0010)
Nov/ P.h. is open.
Rick
Berndt/ I am with Shire Hattery, Inc. and I am representing
S%aples in some work that we are doing on this project that is
under consideration. I am also, I would just like to start out
by saying, I'm also a resident of Iowa City and I've lived
within a half mile of Westport Plaza for 16 years so I know
the area. I was down there before Sunset went through and when
Highway 1 was a two lane road going out of town and before
Wal-Mart or Mennards, so it's certainly something I'm familiar
with and I'm speaking as a representative of Staples but also
obviously I'm considering my own interests so another item I'd
like to bring to your attention because there's some confusion
when we spoke with the Planning Commission is that there are
two parcels of land in the main body of Westport Plaza,
there's two outlots, but there's two parcels of land in the
main body of Westport Plaza. One of those parcels is owned by
Wal-Mart and the other parcel is owned by Randali's
International° They operate Cub Foods. The Joseph Company
which is the original developer that signed the CZA etc no
longer owns any land at Westport Plaza. And Staples is
interested in buying a portion of the Cub Foods lot to build
a Staples store. Staples is a office supply store. They are
moving into the Midwest. They currently have stores open in
Dubuque and Waterloo. They are currently building a store in
Cedar Rapids and they'rebuilding a store in Davenport at this
time. They also hope to come into other communities in Iowa
including obviously Iowa City. I'd also like to mention that
the site that Staples is looking at, the portion of the
Randali's site, is approximately 1000 feet from the nearest
public r.o.w. or Highway 1. It's well back in the center and
that's also been a confusing thing. Because of our impression
of what control I guess the Planning Department does or
doesn't have over this land it's been somewhat of an issue.
The site plan when it was submitted to the Planning Department
was rejected and we were told that there was language in the
CZA that required a cohesive integrated development, which
there is, and that required horizontal continuity. The issue
is what are those two segments of the CZA mean. The Planning
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F070296
#5j page 2
Department is interpreting those to mean that the build out of
Westport Plaza has to include a complete line of buildings,
complete closure from Wal-Mart to Cub Foods, an L shaped
shopping center complete with no gaps. That is what they have
interpreted that wording to be. Is there an overhead here that
I can use? Previously when I've been here, there's been an
overhead projector. I don't know if I can use this new fangled
technology they have.
Kubby/ If there's technology out there, I expect you can use it.
Berndt/ It's coming. Unfortunately it's not as readable as I hoped
it would be.
Kubby/ Jerry to the rescue.
Berndt/ Generally what I was wanting to point out was the context
in which this language occurs. In the CZA, it indicates
parties acknowledge and agree that the proposed rezoning from
I-1 to CC-2 which was the rezoning that was occurring at the
time, will permit commercial uses not otherwise contemplated
under I-1 zoning and that the rezoning request will generate
higher traffic than under the I-1 zoning and Joseph Company,
who was the developer at the time, agrees that in order to
lessen the impact on the surrounding areas it will construct
certain capital improvements more particularly described
below. And the next statement is this statement that has the,
I can't seem to get it down that far. That states the Joseph
Company agrees that the 28 acre parcel known as Westport Plaza
and referred herein as the development site will be developed
as a cohesive integrated development with one major entrance
on Highway 1 West. It's obvious to me and this is the way that
I interpreted it to Staples before this issue ever came up
that the intent was that the shopping center be developed as
one shopping center that there be developed a drive onto
Highway 1 and not as three or four separate stores each with
an entrance onto Highway 1. That to me is a cohesive
integrated development. Those words did not mean to several
people that I've had review them that it necessarily has to be
a continuous strip shopping center. The other language and I
won't take you through it is similar in that it simply says
Joseph Company agrees that the final design of the development
site shall provide facades and retail centers that are
compatible and provide horizontal continuity. Again our
interpretation of that would simply be that they didn't want
a bunch of up and down high buildings low buildings that they
were looking for some kind of continuity in whatever was
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developed. It doesn't necessarily mean to us that there can't
be a gap in there somewhere which is the interpretation that
this zoning planning department has made. I was going to show
you some other things but I guess on the success of maybe I
can show this one. This is what Staples is wanting to build.
The current Wal-Mart is located here. The Cub Foods is located
here. And the proposed Staples store is located here. The
Staples store would be built to within about 30 feet of the
property line. This line right here is the property line
between Randali's property and Wal-Mart's property. Of course
we have no control over what might be built from this property
line on to the existing Wal-Mart store. We can't in any way
assure you that that will ever be closed in but we're willing
to close from here to here and build a sidewalk and a
pedestrian area to come across and at the request of the
Planning Department, we also submitted a small drawing of how
we would propose to treat that corner where you come around
the corner and head toward Wal-Mart.
Kubby/ Does Staples find it necessary to, in their business, to
have that parking on the far side, on the south side?
Berndt/ There are two reasons why that parking is necessary. One of
them is just for good retail business. They have to have
parking for their customers as do Wal-Mart and Cub Food. The
other reason is that their is covenants on the land, covenants
with ECR, easements and restrictions, that require any builder
on the land to provide 5.3 parking spaces per 1000 sq. ft. of
store. Those requirements are above or higher than what the
city zoning requirement requires. But they are similar to
requirements that Wal-Mart has on properties all over the
country. I've seen the covenants and restrictions on Cedar
Rapids property that Wal-Mart owns. It's the same parking
requirement. It's the parking that they feel is necessary in
order to have adequate parking for their customers. And
obviously they do other things, I'm not here to defend
Wal-Mart but they, I know I imagine the Wal-Mart lot will be
full Thursday night when we have fireworks and I know they
allow parking in their for people to bus to the fair and so
they have certain reasons for wanting that amount of parking
that they found that they need and in order to meet those
covenants that were placed on the land, we would have to build
the parking that you asked about.
Kubby/ It does prevent for a different interpretation of horizontal
and continuity.
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Berndt/ Yes.
Kubby/Which I believe, I was the only council member was currently
here who was on Council at that time, but the reason that that
interpretation,s there is because that's the direction of
Council at that time that that CZA was negotiated. That that's
what we wanted. That was our vision. It may be that we could
of found a better choice of words to more clearly indicate to
everyone what that meant, like a continuous L as Dee kind of
whispered to me but there interpretation is based upon the
language of council and the design of council.
Berndt/ When we appeared.
Nov/ There was also a picture that went with the Conditional Zoning
Agreement.
Berndt/ Yes. There is a drawing and a picture and I have the
drawing here because I intended to show all the deviations
that have occurred from the CZA which I could get into if
you'd like to bear with me but this was the concept plan that
was with the CZA and it showed an 88,000 sq ft. anchor one it
shows retail shops in front of anchor one which obviously
weren't built. Apparently the Planning Department didn't feel
strongly about that. They approved the construction of
Wal-Mart and the parking in front of it without the retail
shops. It showed anchor two which is substantially the size of
the anchor two which is now Cub Foods and it showed an anchor
three which I believe was about 14,000 sq.ft. which has never
been built and then it showed additional retail shops here.
Kubby/ Did you ever check in with the Planning Department before
getting your interpretation to Staples to clarify what exactly
meant?
Berndt/ I was reviewing, this was back in September, I was
reviewing the CZA, there was an LSNRD on the land. There's
easements covenants restrictions. There's obviously Zoning
Ordinances. There's sign ordinances. There were a number of
documents I was reviewing on an early on basis just to
determine whether it would be feasible to build a Staples here
and it was our interpretation they couldn't have a sign. They
couldn't have a pylon sign for example° We knew about the
parking requirements. We pointed out a lot of things to them
but we didn't pull that language out as being particular
language that would prevent us from building the Staples
store, I guess to be quite honest. This is, and I can't show
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them both at the same time because of the projector, but what
has been built today and then with the proposed Staples and at
this time the Staples was oriented differently and working
with the Planning Department we did agree that we would rotate
the Staples to get the long access, to provide more closure if
you will that they were interested in.
Kubby/ It would be butted right up to Cub Foods?
Berndt/ It will be butted right up to Cubs Foods.
Kubby/ But is that the point that you are making? That is wasn't-
Berndt/ No, the short side of Staples was aligned with the front of
Cub Foods and we turned it so that the long side. So that is
provided more closure at the corner. In fact, it extended to
the face of Wal-Mart. If the face of Wal-Mart were to be
extended, it did extend that far which I had showed you
earlier. I am taking a lot of time here I realize. But this is
with the store rotated and it actually comes far enough to
line up with the face of Wal-Mart at that point. Anyway, one
of the members on the P/Z Commission was also the only member
of the P/Z Commission that was on the commission, Tom Scott,
when this was first considered, the CZA was first considered
and Tom spoke adamantly in favor of granting this amendment at
the first P/Z Commission meeting that we attended and then the
second meeting where the vote was taken he was not present and
I understand that he is no longer on the P/Z Commission° I am
not sure if that is the case or not. He wasn't present when
the vote was taken anyway after speaking quite adamantly in
favor of granting the amendment at the original meeting. The
only other thing that I wanted to show you. I guess one thing
here, that is not very visible, but there already is a drive,
a major gap and a drive back to the Wal-Mart loading dock
that, you know, goes right through the area that the Planning
Commission intended, if you will, to be a building. If any of
you have been down there, you have seen ito And the last thing
I wanted to show you, we did build this Staples Building last
night. I guess you didn't know it and I can't show this all at
once unless I can zoom back on this thing. But we did take a
photograph and insert the Staple Store adjacent to the Cub
Foods. Staples intends to use the same raw materials that Cub
Foods used, the precast vertical, same height parapet and from
the street where this picture was taken last Saturday, the
Staples Store does extend far enough that it is really almost
impossible to even detect that there is a gap there and
certainly if Wal-Mart ever expanded their store or finished
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the portion of the center on their property that small gap
would, in our opinion, would be unnoticed. So I would like to
again request that you, obviously, that you vote in favorably
on this and I do have some packets for each of you with some
of the correspondence, a letter from myself, and a letter from
some folks representing Staples and Randalls that I would like
each of you to have to have an opportunity to look at before
you vote on this.
Kubby/ Do you think that the more restrictive private covenant
weren't there that you would be able to do what you want and
still be able to live out the CZA by basically not having that
parking on the side?
Berndt/ If the covenants weren't there we could meet every legal
requirement in terms of zoning requirements, the covenants,
the other requirements. It is also in a flood plain. It is
also in the FAAairport zone. But we have already got approval
from the FAA and we have tackled most of these other things.
If the covenants on the parking were not there, we would not
have to build a parking lot what I call west of the building.
We wouldn't necessarily build anything else. It is very
doubtful that that would be good space because in a corner of
an L-shaped shopping center is not a very desirable spot
because parking is horrible.
Kubby/ I guess that is my question. Could you-
Berndt/ We could build the Staples and we believe that the
planning, if we did not build the parking next to it, that the
Planning Department-they had indicated that they would approve
our project. So it really is the parking, yes, that is an
issue that we would have to build.
Kubby/ For me it almost sounds like it is really not the city that
is the stumbling block. It is the private covenant that is the
stumbling block and I guess I would like to hear about any
kind of detail of any effort that Stapes or yourself went
through to talk with the owner of the covenants, whoever
placed them on there being Wal-Mart, to change that.
Berndt/ We did that before this issue even came up and I had some
dates. I lost them. We did approach Wal-Mart. I have a rather
lengthy two page letter that I wrote to them. Staples attorney
also talked to them and literally got no response. There was
no interest in Wal-Mart changing. There is no benefit to
Wal-Mart changing the covenants. They don't care if anybody
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ever builds there and they certainly don't want to compromise
their parking situation. So there was really no- we had no
optimism whatsoever of getting Wal-Mart to relax their
restrictive covenants.
Kubby/ Are those letters in that packet as well?
Berndt/ They are not in this packet but I can sure get them to you.
I can get a letter to you that I wrote to Wal-Mart that fell
upon deaf ears.
Kubby/ Wal-Mart not known for great communication in these kinds of
situations.
Berndt/ There are some other issues. Obviously we know that Staples
can't have a pylon sign because that is a specific requirement
of the CZA and Staples also tried to negotiate with Wal-Mart
about getting some space on their sign and that was also a
complete failure. You know, they will live with that. That is
sort of the situation.
Kubby/ I guess I bring that point out not so much for Staples but
for when the community says sometimes that the city council is
anti-business, this is a case where it is not necessarily the
city's long standing zoning agreements that were voluntarily
signed onto by the city and the developer at the time but it
is the private sector who is creating a problem and it is like
we're suppose to undo what we carefully negotiated in order to
make things work and it is frustrating.
Berndt/ Of course Cub Foods also had some input in this and there
is a representative from Randalls International here tonight.
They also were concerned about Staples building a store there
with no parking because they are also protective of their
parking for their customers. Parking is an issue with
retailers. It is particularly important they have parking for
their customers as I am sure the council has had lots of
conversations about that.
Kubby/ But we're trying to evolve into, especially in a development
like this where there's shared parking that a customer might
go into Cub Foods and Staples so you can not only a shared
customer but a shared parking space as well to try and
decrease the amount of pavement that we are continually
putting down. To use that space for economic activity and not
a place to store hunks of metal.
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Vanderhoef/ I'm presuming that you will be using the space in
behind there for a loading docks and so forth like Cub Foods?
Berndt/ There is, Staples has one loading dock in their store. The
rest of the space beside and behind the store is parking and
of course a lot of the land that they will be buying, almost
half the land that they'll be buying, is the storm water
detention basin which is of no use for parking unfortunately.
There's a lovely flock of ducks out there but.
Vanderhoef/ How many parking places do you get?
Berndt/ 96.
Vanderhoef/ 96.
Nov/ Thank you, Mr. Berndt.
Kubby/ Thanks for answering all our questions.
Nov/ Is there anyone else who would like to address the council on
this topic? We need a motion to continue the p.h. to July 16.
Oh, okay.
William Bell/ I'm sorry. I thought someone else was going up. My
name is William Bell. I am Vice-President of Randali's Stores
of Mitchell, South Dakota. And we own and operate the Cubs
store and also the vacant tract of land which we're
discussing. I just wanted to let you know what our position
has been. We bought this land in 1993 after the fact of the
CZA and ECR. And we built the Cubs store which we opened in
1995, 1994 excuse me. And since that time, we've been trying
to market the land. We've had it listed with a Realtor since
March of 1995. We've only had two offers on that land, and thy
were both from single user tenants. One of them happens to be
Staples. We have had no interest from a developer to build a
strip center or a group of shops. We have talked to two or
three and quite frankly the price of the land is just too
expensive for them to make any kind of economic situation out
of a number of shops. So what kind of fits with the situation
being Randali's is that we can either sit on the vacant land
or we can try to sell it to a single user because we don't see
an option being able to develop shops. So we're in a situation
right now where we're asking you. We think Staples is a
quality operator. They're compatible to a Wal-Mart. They're
compatible to a Cubs store as far as a discount type
operation. In lieu of not having them there, I'm afraid we'll
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just have vacant grass there for the foreseeable future. Miss
Kubby, to answer your question about the parking, Cub Foods is
a franchise. When we franchise~ we had to get a special
dispensation if you will from Cub because they require 6.0
parking ratio. And that's just as a convenience to customers.
Customers spend some time in the store and we like to have the
customers, as many as possible, to park as close as possible
to the store. So 5.35, I don't want to defend Wal-Mart but
they're not really being unreasonable. That's quite a
realistic figure because we like to have 6. We live with 5.35.
We would not like to live with much less than the 5.35 either
as far as Cub Food just as a service to our customers. Thank
you.
Nov/ Thank you.
Gerry Ambrose/ I'm a local broker here. I own the Prudential
Ambrose and Associates Real Estate Company here in Iowa City.
I was asked on Friday to come here and give my opinion of why
or why not Staples should be in this location. I frankly was
surprised when I heard their was any objection at all to it.
This is a center that is a natural big box, what is known as
a big box center in the industry° Predominately you see stores
like Wal-Mart and Cubs Foods as a destination oriented store
where people go to Wal-Mart, they're unlikely to go shopping
at a small store next door. It would be pretty obvious that
Wal-Mart is pretty tough competition so I'm not sure how many
small store owners would like to be next to Wal-Mart to begin
with. If you take a look at the way the store would be laid
out for small shops, I think that the glaring and obvious
point is that there would be very little parking for a small
store operator near their front doors which I think is the
reason they're having trouble trying to sell this to anyone
who'd want to develop it in that way. So I think the City's
maybe option would be to allow this store to be built,
creating local sales tax, jobs, and maybe stopping the Staples
store from going west to a new shopping center in Coralville
that might happen some time. So I think that the city should
be in favor of this to happen and be grateful at the
opportunities there. Thank you.
Kubby/ I guess it's really important for people to know that this
isn't about Staples or no Staples. This is about how the
community is developed and how the physical structure of our
community is decided. It's not about the specifics of the
store, about whether we want this particular business in the
community or not. That's not what our decisions are about for
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Ambrose/ ! didn't understand you. I didn't understand what you
said.
Kubby/ This is about how this shopping center is developed. It's
not about what specific store is there. So this isn't for me
a prouStaples or anti-Staples vote. This is a vote about do we
have an integrated shopping center, whether it's big stores or
small stores, that is connected. That doesn't have parking
lots in between individual stores. And it's not dictated that
they have to be small shops. It's not about whether Staples
comes to town or not° Now our decision may affect Staples
decision to come to town or not. But my vote is not about the
specifics of the content of the business° It's about how the
shopping center is going to look and function in the long run
when it's completely developed.
Thornberry/ With or without Staples.
Kubby/ You've asked people not to put words in your mouth. I guess-
Thornberry/ How can you tell Wal-Mart to enclose their patio?
That's open space, right?
Kubby/ Yeah.
Thornberry/ They own it. How can you say enclose it?
Kubby/ I don't know that we have the power to do that. But there's
some space in there, there's potential for some other activity
to go on that's economic activity and not parking.
Thornberry/ Mr. Ambrose just said that Staples, that type of store,
a Staples store, is a destination point. Is that correct?
That's a destination store and you've got to understand the
difference between a destination store. It's like putting gum
at the end of the front counter when you check out. They put
it there as opposed to down in the aisle because you know you
don't go in necessarily for gum. You pick that up on the way
out. A destination store, they go there to go there.
Kubby/ I understand.
Thornberry/ Okay. There aren't too many destination stores that are
going to, other than destination stores that are going to go
beside a Wal-Mart.
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Kubby/ I understand that.
Thornberry/ Okay. All right. Good.
Kubby/ We just disagree about what the end product should look
like.
Berndt/ I just need to come up here to get my picture. Could I say
one more word very quickly or is there not?
Nov/
Go ahead. Since we have started this project of course the
hearings have been published and mailed out to adjoining
property owners. The property has been posted that we're
attempting to rezone it and from the public, we have had not
one person show up at a meeting. Maybe there will be some here
tonight but we have had no one that has spoken against this
project. There has been absolutely no one in the neighborhoods
or in the adjoining property owners that were notified. There
has been zero opposition so I find that to be some sort of
indication. That doesn't happen very often in Iowa City that
somebody doesn't come to speak against something. So to me
that tells you something right there.
Nov/
Thanks. Is there anyone else who would like to talk about this
issue? Okay. I understand we have to continue this p.h. to
July 16. Moved by Lehman, seconded by Thornberry. Is there any
discussion?
Baker/ Why are we continuing it?
Nov/ We don't have enough paperwork signed is what I heard.
Baker/ So it's external factors to us.
Nov/
Right. I think we're supposed to keep it open until we have
all the paperwork signed. If it is continued to July 16, we
can have all that work signed and we can also have a vote on
July 16. Okay. We also need a motion to accept correspondence.
Should we do that one?
Karr/ We have still the motion to continue. All those in favor of
the motion.
Nov/
Okay. All those in favor say aye. (ayes) Motion to continue
carries. Now we need a motion to accept correspondence on this
issue. Moved by thornberry, seconded by Vanderhoef. And
discussion? All in favor please say aye (ayes). Motion
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carried.
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F070296
#Sk page
ITEM NO.5k. Consider an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by
conditionally rezoning a 2.32 acre tract from I-l, Industrial, to
CI-1, Intensive Commercial, for property located east of Sunset
Street on the south side of Highway 1. (REZ96-0006) (First
consideration)
Nov/ Moved by Norton, seconded by Lehman. Discussion.
Kubby/ This whole area use to be zoned industrial, including where
Westport Plaza is which is the development we were Just
talking about. And at that time I had voted against changing
the land that is now Westport Plaza from industrial to
commercial because it was some of the largest tract of
industrial land in the city and we were changing it from
industrial to commercial without replacing larger tracts of
industrial land and it seems like an okay place for industrial
land. But since this is a very small parcel and everything
around it is commercial, at this point is makes sense to
change it to commercial so it is consistent with the
surrounding property and it can develop in a compatible way.
So I will be supporting this.
Thornberry/ Glad to hear it.
Nov/ Any other discussion? Roll call- (yes). First consideration
has been approved.
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F070296
July 2, 1996
City of Iowa City
Page 10
Consider an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by rezoning a 1.79
acre tract from CC2, Community Commercial to OSNCC2, Sensitive Areas
Overlay/Community Commercial Zone and approval of a preliminary
Sensitive Areas Development Plan for property located at the intersection
of Sturgis Corner Ddve and Highway 6. (RE~8) (Pass and adopt)
Comment: At its April 18 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed rezoning and
Sensitive Areas Development Plan. The Commission's recommendation is
consistent with staff recommendation cited in the staff memorandum dated
apd118.
Consider a resolution approving a final plat of Saddlebrook, Part 1, a
62.59 acre, four-lot residential subdivision, located south of Highway 6
and the Bon Aire Mobile Home Lodge. (SUB95-0028)
Comment: At its June 6 meeting, by a vote of 3-2, with Chair and
Supple in the negative, the Planning and Zoning Commission
recommended approval of the final plat of Saddlebrook, Part I, and of
the final site plan of Saddlebrook, Part I, Lot 4, subject to staff approval
of legal papers and construction plans prior to City Council
consideration of the final plat, and conditions pertaining to the
construction of Heinz Road and sidewalks, The legal papers are being
reviewed by the CiW Attorneys office. Construction plans are being
reviewed by the Public Works Department. The Commission's
recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation contained
in the staff report dated May 16. Chair and Supple indicated that their
negative votes were against the conditions pertaining to the
construction of Heinz Road and sidewalks, and not the development
itself.
Con~ide,~.~? resolutiod appro~)ing a final site plan for Saddlebrook, Part 1,
Lot~'4,"~222-1ot, 40 acre, manufactured housing park, located south of
Highway 6 and the Bon Air Mobile Home Lodge. (SUB95-0029)
Comment: See item "m" above.
#5m. & n. page
ITEM NO.Sm. Consider a resolution approving a final plat of
Saddlebrook, Part 1, a 62.59 acre, four-lot residential
subdivision, located south of Highway 6 and the Bon Aire Mobile
Home Lodge. (SUB95-0028)
ITEM NO.5n. Consider a resolution approving a
Saddlebrook, Part 1, Lot 4, a 222-1ot, 40
housing park, located south of Highway 6 and
Home Lodge. (SUB95-0029)
final site plan for
acre, manufactured
the Bon Air Mobile
Nov/
Item m. is a resolution approving the final plat of
Saddlebrook, part 1 and item n. is a resolution approving a
final site plan for Saddlebrook, Part 1, lots 3 and 4. Both of
these items are not complete and I would like a motion to
defer both of them.
Moved by Lehman, seconded by Vanderhoef, that these items be
deferred to the July 16 meeting.
Kubby/ It seems like the developer is unknowledgeable of this and
what is not completed? We didn't- There was no mention of this
last night. So we are going to move forward.
Miklo/ The construction drawings and legal papers are not completed
and needs to be deferred for that reason.
Kubby/ They haven't been completely reviewed on our part or they
haven't been submitted?
Miklo/ They were submitted and there were revisions and they we
resubmittedo They were further revisions and that third
submittal has not be completely reviewed and approved by the
Public Works Department.
Kubby/ So it is our end that is a problem. There is really no
choice.
Baker/ We are a little short handed in Engineering this week.
Thornberry/ I think we asked last night if this paper work would be
done and you assured us that it would be done this afternoon.
Is that correct?
Miklo/ That was for Windsor Ridge, the next item that is was to be
done.
Nov/ This was still a question mark last night and it is still a
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question make today.
Kubby/ Well, it is not a p.h.
Nov/ This is not a hearing. This is just two resolutions and we may
or may not discuss it but there is a motion on the floor to
defer items m. and n. to July 16th. All in favor please say
aye- (ayes).
Kubby/ I guess I would like to apologize to the developer for not
notifying him before the meeting that this is the case. That
we didn't- I don't know if we tried to get a hold of you and
couldn't.
Miklo/ I believe he knew it was to be deferred. In fact we have a
letter consenting to the deferral. I do believe thought that
he expected to be able to present some information to you
regarding the escrow for the street construction and also the
sidewalks on lots 1 and 3o
Kubby/ And actually if council would allow that to happen, I would
like that to happen so I have a couple of weeks to digest it
instead of hearing it next week and then having 30 seconds
later to vote on this. I would like the chance to hear it
tonight and have sometime to have the public get a hold of me.
Nov/ Is there anyone else who wants this?
Baker/ Is it better to ask the developer to put it into print and
let us have a copy and study it.
Kubby/ I would like it to be presented tonight and have things in
print so the public- I can have the benefit of public input in
the next two weeks.
Thornberry/ We can have a question and answer if there is something
we don't understand now.
Nov/ There seems to be a consensus to go ahead and allow the
presentation tonight and-
Woito/ We did ask him specific questions last night and he is here.
Nov/ Okay and please come forward, sign in and present your
comments.
Jim Miller/ Good evening. Thank you for taking the time. I would
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#Sm. & n. page 3
like to address some of the issues that were discussed in the
P/Z and also in the staff reports that have come out. Also in
your informal meeting last night. As soon as the overhead
comes up here I think that I can better explain our position.
But basically there are three conditions subject to approval
of-
Nov/ While we are waiting for the overhead, would you state your
name for the record.
Miller/ My name is Jim Miller and I am representing Lake Calvin and
Saddlebrook Development. What I would like to do is to make it
plain why we are disputing the three conditions which are laid
upon approval of this final plat. Just to quickly reiterate
what the conditions are is the extension of Heinz Road to the
south, the installation and pre-funding of sidewalks around
lot 4 which is on the south and also on the east side and then
the third issue is to put a sidewalk from the development out
to the Highway 6 for safety and for the bus stop. I want to
make sure that everyone understands that we are not opposed to
the infrastructure and street continuity. We think the
extension of Heinz Road is necessary. Obviously we are
required to put the sidewalks in and around our development.
We fully intend to do that and through the normal course of
development, the sidewalk out the Highway 6 will be done. So
none of the three issues we re opposed to. The only thing that
we are opposed to is the pre-funding in regards to the
requirements in the conditions laid forward here. What I would
like to do is just briefly go through each one of the
conditions and let you know why we are opposed or disputing
those conditions. Number one, historically our project is
about affordable housing. We have been in this process going
on four years. A few of you have experienced all of this with
us. We are continuing to try and respond to the community,s
request for affordable housing. In the early days we had many
many commitments from the city in regards to cooperation,
working with private development to accommodate the deed that
was obviously required through the CHAS report and real estate
market and other avenues that plainly and concisely laid out
that affordable housing is needed in our community. So that is
what we are all about. We are still about that. And really
that was an integral piece in ou~ due diligence as far as
putting the concept together for affordable housing. We relied
on those commitments that the city brought forward. Several
issues over the past 23-4 years have surfaced and surrounded
this project and the project has really endured surprisingly
so from my perspective. That it is still a viable project.
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 4
That we are still moving forward and from the privatization
side, we still think that it is going to turn a profit. So
therefore we are still in the process. Just quickly, bullet
points as far as what we have done. We have dedicated 190
acres which is approximately 50% of the entire Sycamore Farms
annexation to a conservation easement perpetually held for the
protection of sensitive lands. We have agreed to incorporate
a mitigation plan for the protection of those 190 acres that
we have dedicated. Beyond the mitigation plan we were asked
and we will install that entire mitigation plan, which really
accommodates development for 200 acres before the very first
occupant lives there and that is a huge huge huge financial
burden on this project but we can do it. We also have
contributed 15 acres to the Iowa City School system. We have
also dedicated or will dedicate an 85 foot r.o.w. right
through the middle of this project to accommodate the city's
need of an east west parkway. We have oversized utilities
solely at our cost. We have incorporated internal trail
system, to accommodate going to the new soccer complex, not
throughWhispering Meadows up to the north. The list goes on.
The requirements have been many. Some of the requirements have
been burdensome but yet we continue. The importance of this is
not so much what the individual savings for each individual on
each particular homesite is. It is more critical than that.
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 96-79 SIDE 1
Miller/ We are required to accommodate these three, the Saddlebrook
Project probably will cease to exist and I say that because I
will go through each item briefly. The road extension is not
needed at this time. The Heinz Road, from Highway 6 down to
the entry level of lot 4, will accommodate all of the
homeowners that are going to be in this development. This
section of property will only be needed when the balance of
this property gets developed. Now the concern that staff has
and legitimately so is that the burden is not, on the
extension is not accommodated to this sliver onlyo So what we
have done is submitted to the city attorney the legal document
which says that we will accommodate this road in future
development by assuring when future development happens,
namely this piece, that it incorporates also this piece. So
this piece will never be a satellite. When we come in to plat
the balance of this property, these will all be a contiguous
piece. Part of that will include the platting of Heinz Road
extension and it will also immediately include the escrow
funds for the development of that Heinz Road. So, what we are
doing is we are building the road when we need the road. We
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F070295
#5mo & n. page 5
are not building the road when it goes nowhere. We are not
putting funds aside for a road that is very expensive. In the
name of affordable housing, we can't afford to do that. As far
as then the other concern that potentially the city will build
this east-west parkway before we do any subdividing down here,
in that document, if that happens and the city builds that
street, we will fund and or build the extension of this road°
So I think that that covers all the concerns that the staff
has. We will pay for it when it is needed. The dispute is that
whether it is not needed or not, we are not disputing that. In
regards to the sidewalk, similar issue. The sidewalk goes
around the south and also the east side. Right now there is no
roads there. So obviously we can't build sidewalks. This east
west parkway is a thought. We think that it is going to be
there but we don't know that it will be there. If it goes
there or if it was there now, we would put the sidewalk there.
There would not be a dispute. But what do we do when we escrow
funds for this sidewalk and this road doesn't happen or it
doesn't happen for ten years or 15 years. What we have
suggested again, in this legal document, is as we build our
project and as it goes along the north line, comes to the
south, then comes back from west to east. As these lots are
developed, we will escrow funds appropriately in a phased
approached to accommodate the building of that sidewalk. That
is what we propose to do. Again, we will build a sidewalk when
the project can support it and when it is needed. The third
and final issue, then, is the sidewalk that goes out to
Highway 6. This one is the most puzzling to me, I guess,
because in the name of safety we are building that sidewalk.
But yet we are bring in people from their living environment
and we are dumping them onto the shoulder of Highway 6. They
need to walk 1/4 mile along the should be that highway to get
to the bus stop. It seems to me, not really to flow with
reasoning in the name of safety, to require us to build that
sidewalk to bring people and dump them onto the shoulder of
Highway 6. Normal course of development, we are obligated to
build sidewalks as we develop lot 1 and lot 3 and we intend to
do that, probably at 3-5 year time frame. Those sidewalks will
be in place.
Kubby/ Has there been any discussion with the owners of Bon Aire
about being able to have tenants in this mobile home park be
able to walk through somehow so that they can get to a bus
stop?
Miller/ We, in the preliminary plat situation and stage, we talked
about some kind of access right through here and some easement
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 6
right that we would all agree to and go through. I am not
aware that Bon Aire was brought into that discussion by staff.
We were brought into discussion. We did not want that to
happen because our club house facility is going to sit right
here and it is really kind of a security point for the people
that live in here and we did not want to invite I guess a
pedestrian access way between the two. We feel that the two
were separate and distinct and that is the way that we wanted
to design and to market our facility.
Kubby/ What is your time frame for building south of the east west
arterial?
Miller/ Well, it is dependent upon the development of this. We
think that this will probably build out in 3-4 years. I think
that this will probably take somewhere from 4-7 years. And so
that would be representative of how manufactured housing has
been accepted in our area in past years.
Kubby/ I guess I am asking that because the way the money is going
and the way this council is going in terms of how we are going
to live out our support to transit, I don't believe we are
going to be able to get a route down there for a long time, if
ever. And so we are going to need to find a way to get people
to the route.
Miller/ I think- It seems to me that if there is access from here
over to the bus, it is less of a problem for us. But in the
name of safety, to get people off of this street, we are
required to build a sidewalk and it doesn't make sense from
them to come, where a four lane goes into a two lane and cars
are speeding up racing the other to make sure they get in
front of the other car. It is a very very dangerous situation.
And I guess that it is difficult for us in marketability of
this project to say that that is a sound safe planning thing
to do. So if the city would put up a pedestrian access along
the highway, then I think that it makes more sense for us to
put to that sidewalk in.
Kubby/ And that is in the hopper but I can't remember what the time
frame is.
Nov/ It is not this year.
Kubby/ I know that. Maybe that is something in between now and when
we talk about this on July 16th that David could give us that
time frame.
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 7
Norton/ Does lot 4 develop first?
Miller/ Lot 4 is the first to be developed. That is correct. And
that is 22 home sites there and I guess basically what I want
is to reiterate that this is an affordable housing project. It
is only going to work through cooperation. It is still alive.
It still has a heartbeat but it is on the floor. To dump this
extra burden in advance, I really highly doubt that this is
going to survive and I think that we all have intentions of
providing the affordable housing to our community. I see
people living in manufactured housing as we proposed in all of
our surrounding areas but I don't see them living in Iowa City
and we intend to correct that. We intend to give people home
ownership anywhere from $25,000 to $60,000. People can't buy
things that they can call their own that is a s.f. residence
that is less than $500 per month to live there and that is
what we are all about and I want to ask you to continue to
cooperate in that effort and to go forward.
Kubby/ What is the total amount that you would have to escrow if
all three conditions remained part of the deal?
Miller/ I had a sneaking suspicion that you would ask me that, so
I had our engineer put together a cost estimate. His estimate
is based upon extending the road as currently sits with the
topography. One thing that you don't know and that there is
really no need for you to know is that this basically a slew,
it is a low area. It requires about 150,000 square yards of
dirt for that road to sit there. If your engineer said what is
it going to cost to build that road today, he is going to
apply $200,000 just to get the fill dirt there. This road as
it currently stands today is over $360,000 to build that road.
The sidewalks exceed $42,000 and they are split approximately
evenly° I think one is like $1130 and the other $1150. But the
two sidewalks together are about $42,000. So we are looking at
over a $400,000 commitment to do this. TO put money aside and
there is really no outlet. We don't know that that road will
be built. So what happens, we have $400,000 sitting with the
city and in ten years the road is not built. What happens?
What happens to our money? How do we get it back?
Nov/ You will get your money back° I am not concerned about that.
How about a letter of credit, to do that instead of an escrow?
Miller/ I letter of credit? I checked about a letter of credit. I
have dealt several times with letters of credit and basically
from our perspective, it is basically a bank loan. But as it
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 8
refers to this particular project, a letter of credit has a
term, a term life. Banks typically like 12 months and not to
exceed 12 months. Sometimes you can twist their arm and they
will go 18-24 months° But given that it is a two year
commitment and we secure a letter of credit to cover that, at
the end of two years, we do not perceive that we will be out
of lot 4 development. So therefore no further subdivision will
occur. The east west parkway probably will not be there. I
think it is scheduled for you to talk about in the year 2002
and we have no assurance and no guarantee that a letter of
credit will be renewed. So it comes back and falls back on us
that it is a promise to pay. That you are secure for an
interim term but not for the long haul because there is no
definite end to this. So, in my opinion, a letter of credit
doesn't work. I think it probably works for us but it doesn't
give the security that the city is looking for.
Kubby/ Once we negotiate with a financial institution about this
specific situation, about a much longer term letter of credit
than they are used to doing which may be considered part of
their Community Reinvestment Act portfolio.
Miller/ I don't know.
Kubby/ If the time frame worked better, would that be an acceptable
form for you?
Miller/ The other part of that is from our perspective from the
financial side of things and the way a letter of credit is
treated is basically what we need to do is to deposit the
amount of the letter of credit in the institution.
Kubby/ So it is like an escrow anyway.
Miller/ Like an escrow.
Kubby/ What was the other option, Linda? CD but that is still money
up front. And it is 100% of the cost of the road, correct,
that we require an escrow?
Woito/ I think that was what was discussed at staff and P/Z.
Kubby/ Are there any other options besides escrow money, that we
keep escrow via a letter of credit that the bank keeps?
Woito/ There are other options. I want to take a closer look at
these conditions. Does Sarah have a copy of these, this
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 9
agreement?
Miller/ As far as the agreement, yes. We submit that in the P/Z. In
fact, I have put together a letter and also had attached to
the letter, because I didn't know what my time commitment
would be here, is the legal agreement that we submitted.
Kubby/ That you would be willing to sign.
Miller/ We drafted and we gave to the city attorney's office and-
Nov/ We would like to read that.
Woito/ I will ask (can't hear) to look at that.
Thornberry/ Even a bail bondsmen only requires 10%.
Baker/ We will be talking about this on the 15th?
Nov/ We will discussion this again. There is no question.
Baker/ Are we going to discuss it on the 15th?
Kubby/ It will be a P/Z matter.
Nov/ You are not there on the-
Baker/ That is why I am asking.
Nov/ Can we discuss it on the 16th?
Baker/ Either or. If you were going to d~scuss it on the 15th I was
going to say something tonight. But if you say the 16th-
Nov/ I don't know. We may discuss it-
Baker/ Because I listened to the discussion last night and I was
initially skeptical about doing anything other than an escrow.
But the more I think about this, there are other issues coming
down the line and issues in the past which cause me to think
that one of the things we ought to start talking about is not
just this particular project because I don't want a developer
to come in and say unless you give me a break here, this
project will not fly. There ought to be a better way to handle
it for everybody. As long we can guarantee that in the future
what the city needs happens.
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 10
Kubby/ And it is funded by the appropriate parties.
Baker/ When we did parking impact fees a couple of years ago, one
of the changes that we made is that instead of collecting a
fee at the building permit stage, we collected it at the
occupancy stage and then we broke it up over a three year
period° As long as we got our money, we were secure. The road,
sidewalks, as long as we somehow can reach an agreement that
is legally binding, that protects the city's interests and
doesn't require money up front, I think Mr. Miller is
absolutely correct that until the demand is there, until the
road needs to be built, why pay for it as long as the city is
protected° What we don't want to have is ten years from now,
five years from now the road is being built by the city under
the assumption that earlier somebody else was going to pay for
it that should have paid for it. So if we could figure that
out, that is going to be a benefit not for just Mr. Miller but
to everybody else. We are going to have a project on the east
side of town coming within the year along court Street which
the same question is going to come up again. How much upfront
money are we going to need for-
Norton/ But we have been requiring escrow on a sidewalk issue. The
Heinz Road Extension is somewhat unique I understand in this
situation. But haven't we been requiring it in previous
situations like this?
Miller/ I have a comment in regards to that if you would like to
hear ito As far as, I did a little bit of work with that today
because it was used last night as a comparable. In my opinion
it is a stretch to be a comparison because Rohret Road has
been there for 100 years and because of the pressures of the
new school and development out Rohret Road, there was a
definite need to improve that road and with the new
development at the corner of Rohret Road and Mormon Trek,
there was a term. We knew that we were going to improve that
road. We knew that we were going to need new sidewalks on that
road. So it is understandable that a developer could secure a
letter of credit because with in a couple of years it is going
to be improved. That doesn't parallel what we are talking
about here because there is no road, there is no promise to
build the road and in fact the road may never ever be there.
So, to me the precedence doesn't fly.
Thornberry/ Just because we have always done it that way doesn't
necessarily mean-
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F070296
#Sm. & n. page 11
Norton/ Some kind of consistency.
Nov/ We need to somehow, in this document- In this document we need
to somehow protect the city's interest in roads and sidewalks
even if the property is sold. So though Mr. Miller may have
good intentions and he signs this document, if he goes
bankrupt and sells it to someone else, they are not bound by
this document. So we need to protect the future interests
somehow.
Thornberry/ Get Linda to do that with a second mortgage or
whatever.
Kubby/ She can do it. I am sure she can figure it out.
Miller/ Well, I think that you will see when you review the legal
dccument that we submitted that we address that issue and its
an obligation that runs with the land and nothing can happen
to the land until this is addressed, until this extension of
Heinz Road is done. And so, therefore, I think that it is
naive in the last 200 years to say that this property is
annexed, it now has sewer, it has streets, it has
infrastructure to it. That it is going to sit there
perpetually and nothing happen to it. So we have to have trust
and faith that we annexed, we have zoned, we have applied the
infrastructure, somebody is going to do something with it and
prior to them doing anything that they need to accommodate and
take care of this issue and that is the way that we have tried
to approach this solution.
Kubby/ The trust factor with a legal binding document to back it up
which you are quite willing to do.
Miller/ That is correct. I have plenty of papers.
Lehman/ This is a job for Legal.
Nov/ This is. That is why I am saying Linda will figure it out and
be sure that the ¢ity's interests are held up.
Kubby/ So the other thing we were kind of talking about last night
because it is easy and a compelling argument to say this
creates, this makes the housing more and it is denigrating our
original goals of trying to provide more affordable housing.
One of the things that we are talking about is what does this-
how does this get spread out and what does it really mean in
terms of your ability to start or how it gets distributed to
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 12
each pad over what period of time so that I can better
understand what those words mean. That it makes it that you
can't do the project.
Miller/ I think to look at it on a micro-level like that is
difficult because of what has transpired because of the issues
that I pointed out earlier that are very costly and so we have
modified out thinking over the past couple of years and have
allowed the project to be flexible enough to accommodate the
needs that were being asked of us. What does it mean to the
individual home site owners? I think it goes beyond that and
we need to be competitive with the market and our basic
premise is that people are going to view us as an option. If
we don't create a value in their mind and we are not
competitive in the market place, we are not going to succeed.
That is basically what drives what we are doing/ So if we have
another umpteen thousand dollars dumped up front on this
project, we can't stretch it and say people, we are going to
charge you $50 more than anybody else is charging you and
blame it on you, the city. People will say adios, I am going
to live somewhere else and so we can't afford the luxury of
passing it on because we are at the top. We are marketing
within the market, we can't go beyond the market. So, I can't
really distinctly answer your question to say it is a $10
issue per homesite.
Kubby/ I feel the need to ask that question because people will
come to me and say I heard this developer say at your council
meeting that if you don't figure out a way to make this
happen, I can't do the project. But Karen, you are accountable
to me, what does that really mean? Do you know what that
really means? How do you know what he is saying is true
without some more information?
Baker/ I would like to remove that question from the policy. That
indeed we- That everybody who develops who needs
infrastructure needs to pay for it. That we have a policy that
says when it is needed, you pay for it.
Kubby/ But we are not going to do that by July 16th I predict.
Baker/ We might be able to work something out with Mr. Miller that
is sort of a precedent for the larger policy question. It
removes that particular question about how much individual
cost per unit with respect to viability of overall project.
Kubby/ Although on one hand, we don't change the rules in the
Thlsrepresentsonlyareasonably accurate transcription ofthelowa City councilmeeting of July 2,1996.
F070296
#5m. & n. page 13
middle of the game when it is negative for a developer because
that is not fair. So why do we do it when it is positive? Why
don't we start with the next one? I mean it could be an
argument that someone says. We changed the rules in the middle
of the game because it is to the advantage of one party. Is
that fair to the process? And it may be that we decide because
of all the mitigating circumstances in the school site, half
of the land being a conservation easement to protect wetlands
and the mitigation plano Those are expensive things that makes
this different than most developments this community has ever
seen.
Baker/ Then every development will come in with its list of
expenses and if we gave Mr. Miller a break and then the next
development wanted the same break and we didn't give it to
them because it is not the same issues involved, they have got
every right to cry foul. That is why changing- accommodating
him sets a direction, I think, for the council, that we want
to accommodate everyone°
Kubby/ It sounds interesting. I don't know what the long term
implications are. There are tradeoffs with every way that we
have done it. This may be a negative tradeoff in this
development, the way we have been doing things. So I don't
understand. I need to have that outlined for me what are the
negative outcomes of having it. It is an interesting idea.
Lehman/ I would think a great deal of this discussion is going to
revolve around what sort of agreement you come up with, Linda,
that protects the city's interests.
Woito/ We will talk about it.
Baker/ An iron clad unambiguous agreement.
Nov/ All right. May we have a motion to accept correspondence?
Moved by Kubby, seconded by Vanderhoef. Thank you, Jim.
Kubby/ Thanks for (can't hear) such direct questions.
Nov/ All in favor, please say aye- (ayes). Now, did we vote on the
deferral?
council/ Yes.
Nov/ Good. Try hard to keep track here.
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F070296
#5m. & n. page 14
Thornberry/ That was a three minute question
there.
Nov/ Three and a half.
Kubby/ Life is more complicated that three minutes.
and answer period
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F070296
July 2, 1996
City of Iowa City
Page 1 1
Consider ar resolutionSapproving a preliminary plat of Windsor Ridge-Part
Seven & Eight, a 22.05 acre, 42-1ot residential subdivision, and
approving a final plat of Windsor Ridge-Part Seven, an 8.75 acre, 18-1ot
residential subdivision north of American Legion Road and west of Taft
Avenue. (SUB96-0011/SUB96-0012)
Comment: At its June 6 meeting, by a vote of 5-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the preliminary plat of
Winder Ridge Part Seven and Eight, and the final plat of Windsor Ridge
Part :~, subject to staff approval of legal papers and construction
plans. The construction plans have been approved; it is anticipated that
the legal papers will be approved by the July 2 Council meeting date.
This recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation
contained in the staff report dated June 6.
Action:
ITEM NO. 6
PUBLIC HEARING ON ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE III, "CITY
FINANCES, TAXATION AND FEES," CHAPTER 4 "SCHEDULE OF FEES,
RATES, CHARGES, BONDS, FINES AND PENALTIES," OF THE CITY, TO
INCREASE ON- AND OFF-STREET HOURLY PARKING RATES IN IOWA
CITY, IOWA.
Comment: This public headng is to allow public input on the proposed
increases in on- and off-street parking fees. The specific fees to be increased
are all parking meters, the Swan and Dubuque Street parking ramps, and
reserved spaces for contractors. Staff memorandum and correspondence
included in Council packet.
Action:
#6 page
ITEM NO.6 PUBLIC HEARING ON ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE III, "CITY
FINANCES, TAXATION AND FEES," CHAPTER 4 "SCHEDULE OF FEES, RATES,
CHARGES, BONDS, FINES AND PENALTIES," OF THE CITY, TO INCREASE
AND OFF-STREET HOURLY PARKING RATES IN IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Nov/ P.h. is open. Please sign in, state your name and keep your
comments to five minutes.
Victoria Gilpin/ Four minutes or less. 1807 East Court Street. Also
a dot. business owner, Preferred Stock. I have spoke on this
issue before and my feelings are basically the same. I know
you have all received a letter from the DTA Parking committee
and Suzanne Strites also asked me to be here tonight to
represent the board's feelings on this. Basically the DTA and
my business neighbors d.t. feel very strongly that if you want
to raise rates in any of the parking systems in d.t. Iowa
City, that that money should be used d.t. and that our lack of
opposition to any increase in parking rates is based solely on
the condition that the money remain d.t. As I have said
before, it doesn't make any sense to me to use money raised by
people who park doto to subsidize or any other city wide
system or any other part of the city. It would be like asking
Towncrest store, the Sycamore Mall to tax their parkers and
then send the money d.t. for the painting we need in our ramp.
So this is a very conditional lack of opposition. I do have a
question about when this money- If this money is going to be
used for ramps or for things d.t., when we need this money,
therefore, when to we need to increase rates? I am not really
clear on an immediate need for this money. I am speaking for
myself personally. I am not representing the board at this
moment. But there is a lot of discussion by d.t. business
owners as to what exactly this money is going to be used for
and when exactly it is needed.
Kubby/ We were talking about raising ramp rates and the outlying
permits to be mid to late August to correspond with a lot of
people coming back into the community so they don't come back
and have one rate and then a couple of months later, a week
later have the fee raised. I think that creates bad feelings.
We want to do it before they come back. But some of the meters
are going to take a series of 3-4 months to convert to have
and then take a different amount of money for a different
number of minutes. So that's going to have to be phased in.
That's 3-4 months, right Bill? So it's going to be some things
happen all at once and some things phased.
Baker/ The thing will be accumulated slowly and spent very quickly
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F070256
#6 page 2
when the time comes.
Lehman/ Well I think Joe's proposal for renovation of the parking
ramp and I would assume some of those are taking place as we
speak° Is that not correct? They were doing some research.
Joe, give us some answers as to when this money's going to be
spent. It can't be very far away.
Fowler/ Right now, we're doing a renovation that was previously
budgeted. It will start next Monday. It will be approximately
$250,000. That will be mainly in the Capitol Street ramp. We
got a report that was dated June 20 from ShiYe Hattery,
preliminary report for upgrading the Capitol and Dubuque
Street facilities and that that includes lobbies, elevators,
some colors, better graphics, and better signage. It would be
nice if we could start that yet this year and have it in place
by the Christmas shopping season this year.
Kubby/ Could we put this up on that weird machine so that people
know what we're talking about when we're parking rates and
fees?
Norton/ Talk about a weird machine.
Kubby/ What's it called?
Lehman/ Nicest thing you ever said about ito
Kubby/ I know. I'm kind of down on the machine. I'll try to
understand it better. Maybe if I played with it I'd like it
better.
Nov/ We have to call it la machine. You'd better reduce that so
people can read it.
Kubby/ We need a bigger screen.
Council/ (All talking).
Kubby/ But then you can't read it.
Norton/ I think maybe a 75 watt bulb.
Kubby/ You're so practical. So for me the interesting thing I had
asked that this last column be added when things were last
amended. For example the outlined meters have been the same
since February, 1986. We shouldn't let changes things go for
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10 years without updating them.
Nov/ A lot of us felt really strongly that it was time to increase
those.
Gilpin/ What are the rates for the parking meters in the heart of
d.t., the hour and half hour meters?
Lehman/ Currently?
Gilpin/ ¥eaho
Nov/ Currently 50¢.
Gilpin/ Because I do feel and there is support in the d.t.
Association that the ramp hourly rate should be less to
encourage people to get off the street, put their cars in a
garage and stay there. So you know if anything I know d.t.
merchants are more favorable in terms of keeping that
relationship of a little slightly higher hourly rates on the
street than in the ramps.
Kubby/ It is a more privileged place to park.
Gilpin/ It's a very high premium. So I would like to ask the
council is there support for this notion of this money should
stay d.t. and if so I know that the board and d.t. merchants
are very strongly want to see that wording in the ordinance so
that the spirit is not lost over time. The spirit of
increasing these rates to, I mean we have many many needs d.t.
for this money whether it be color coding the ramps. Many of
the proposals in the Monday Forum that talk about signage and
the renovation of the pedestrian plaza. I'm curious as to how
the council feels about this relationship between increasing
the ramps and using the money d.t.
Thornberry/ What do you call d.t.? Is near southside d.t.?
Gilpin/ Well certainly the ramp, I'm supposed to call this a garage
right?
Norton/ A parking garage.
Gilpin/ He keeps telling me. I'm just thick. The garage that we...
Thornberry/ The ramp garage.
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Gilpin/ Thank you. Change comes slowly. That we need or are going
to need soon on the southside. Yes. Parking structures that
serve this the d.t. business community.
Baker/ Victoria, why don't you come right out and say what you want
to do which is to put in to print a policy that says that at
no time ever in the future as long as we breath any dime
collected under these rate increases will ever go into the
transit system.
Gilpin/ Well that would not be consistent with what is happening
right now which is I think $90,000 is going into.
Baker/ Is that what you want?
Gilpin/ Well I am not proposing that we rescind the money that is
currently going to subsidize the bus system. I am a huge
supporter of the bus system. But I am not in favor of any
increased funds going into subsidizing a city wide system of
bussing paid for by a small group of people who park d.t. I
don't think it's fair and I don't think it's right. And Yes,
if you want to put in until your last breath that no
additional funds from parking, I'd be happy with that.
Baker/ We're going to have a great debate, I don't know if we're
going to have fight about the relationship between parking and
transit° And maybe this council needs to have that debate.
Nov/ We've had that debate.
Gilpin/ I've heard it. It's a good fight.
Nov/
We've not resolved it. But there is a basic premise, an
assumption that there will be fewer places to park d.t. if
there were not a bus running d.t.
Kubby/ I think there's even more to it than that, that even though-
Thornberry/ We're getting into it.
Kubby/ I'll try to say it in one sentence, Dean. I believe that
d.t. benefits disproportionately from the rest of the
community by having the transit system the way we have it, by
having a hub d.t. And so that, I don't know that I necessarily
buy the argument that why should d.t. pay for it because
transit benefits the whole community. That's true but there's
another part to the sentence, that d.t. also
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disproportionately benefits from transit.
Gilpin/ Yes, absolutely, and I feel that that relationship is being
supported by the $90,000 but if you look at the last 8-10
years, you see that increasing parking rates is not increasing
ridership on the bus. It is not a cause and effect
relationship. In fact ridership is decreasing all on its own,
no matter how high these rates go, so to continue to increase
parking in hopes of encouraging bus ridership, you know there
isn't that relationship. And as I said, I do support the
relationship. There is a very strong relationship already. I
do not support increasing that relationship.
Kubby/ Ridership is not decreasing. Ridership is fairly flat over
the last ten years. It kind of dips up and down and up and
down but it is a fairly flat and in recent years some
increase. That is important.
Gilpin/ No, I am sorry. You know you are right, the costs have
increased due to federal funds going down. You are right, I am
sorry I misspoke. The costs have increased and ridership has
not.
Lehman/ Victoria and I appreciate your comments. I think it is
rather significant that the last time we increased rates d.t.
in the ramps was in '92 and this was also an increase
supportedby the d.t. business people because those increasing
rates were going to be used to provide another parking ramp.
So now 2-3 times in the last three years we have talked about
raising the rates in the Dubuque Street ramp and there was, I
think, very solid opposition because there was no use for this
money that it earmarked. At this point in time we do have a
project or a couple of projects that is going to require extra
funding and I find it significant that the d.t. merchants are
willing support this increase if in fact that money is going
to be used to improve the facilities of doto I don't think
there is anyway, well, there is no way this council is ever
going to bind future councils in how they spend parking
revenues. I think it is very significant that the business
folks who support an increase, support that increase because
they hope that money will be used to improve the d.t. and I
guess I wouldn't limit is strictly to parking facilities. If
we want to put directional signs or whatever, use that money
d.t., I agree with your philosophy. I don't think- Well, first
we can't bind future councils and I am not sure-
Kubby/ We bind future councils every night that we vote on stuff.
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It creates future obligations. Every meeting we bind future
councils.
Lehman/ We can always change that.
Baker/ We are very clear that we are looking at substantial
expenditures in the parking system and at least for the next
couple of years, this money is accounted for. It is spent.
Nov/
And we have not only co~uitted ourselves to improving the
appearance in the parking structures, we have also committed
ourselves to better signage.
Gilpin/ Right.
Norton/ And there is plaza renovation probably coming, another
thing. Plenty of places to spend the money d.t. so it is easy
to commit it in that direction. I object also to saying there
is no connection between that and transit. I think transit
runs d.t. It may not bring as many shoppers as we would like
but it is certainly contributes.
Thornberry/ It certainly frees up a lot of parking spaces.
Nov/ That is the main thing it does.
Baker/ I am glad that we didn't hear tonight that increases are
going to drive people to Cedar Rapids.
Gilpin/ Thank you, Ernie, but I would like to slightly amend your
observation of what we are saying because as opposed to
support for these increases, there is lack of opposition and
I would like to say more strongly not for the hope that this
money is used d.t. You know, I just don't see how this council
could think that it is fair to use this money for outside of
d.t. Other wise it becomes a tax of a small group of people to
benefit a larger group. So I agree with the spirit of what you
are saying wholly but I would like to see some wording to that
affect in the ordinance because you are right, future councils
can change that. But, you know, I am sure you will all be
around for a long time. You are doing a great job. But in case
there is any turnover in the future of any individuals, I
would like it to be known what the spirit of this was
intended.
Kubby/ And it probably wouldn't be a language in the ordinance. It
would probably be a resolution if we did it. I cannot commit
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F070296
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to that because I believe in that linkage and that
relationship.
Thornberry/ When you say outside of d.t., does that mean that you
oppose putting anymore money towards transit? IS that what you
are saying? Or exactly what did you think we are going to do
with the money from the parking?
Gilpin/ I think transit, the bus system, has always been an issue
and while I support the bus system when you look at what is
happening over the last few years, if we were to continue to
subsidize it with the shortfalls that are coming up, it would
just- It is an impossible situation to put the burden on just
d.t. parking systems. But I have also know that, you know,
people park d.t. and this is a great revenue generator. There
are, as you all noted, many many places we need to use this
money d.t. and I know that you have all expressed a great
desire to look at the vitality and health of d.t. in lieu of
some other factors. So I feel like we need to say upfront, any
increases in the parking we are earmarking for- I am not
speaking on behalf of the board right now, okay. Whether it is
beautification of the plaza or whether it is the signs to get
you to d.t., whether it is the renovation of the ramps, this
is all in relation to d.t.
Thornberry/ To answer my question, when you said other then-you are
opposed to spending the money other than for anything d.t.
That is a pretty broad- Anything d.t., signs or bricks or-
Gilpin/ Tulip plants.
Thornberry/ Whatever that may be d.t. or Near South Side° My
question was does that mean that you would be opposed to
spending any more money for transit or what else did you think
we would be spending it for?
Gilpin/ Any more money for transit. What do you define as transit?
Are you talking about-
Thornberry/ The bus system.
Gilpin/ Yes, today that is how I feel, absolutely. I am not saying
that in the future there could be some different relationship
that could change my mind but yes.
Thornberry/ So you are saying you want us to limit the amount of
spending for the bus system to $90,000 a year?
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Nov/ That is the transfer from parking because there is a lot of
General Fund money in there as well.
Thornberry/ That is correct. I meant the money from parking.
Gilpin/ From parking and this council realizes that that commitment
of $90,000 was to be made for a commitment of three years and
that was five years ago.
Thornberry/ What about if we just committed the increase to d.t?
Nov/ That is what she is saying.
Lehman/ That is what she is saying.
Thornberry/ All right° What about all the money we are getting
already from the parking meters is what I am saying? There is
only like 5 cents per meter.
Nov/
But we have already a policy that commits parking money to
stay within parking except for this $90,000 and she is saying
we ought to consider spending it on something other than
parking. Signs or tulips or whatever else d.t.
Thornberry/ Just the increase or the total?
Nov/ She is talking about the increase.
Gilpin/ I am talking about the increase because I feel the policy
that is already in place limits the amount of money that goes
to transit and is, as you have said, is used for parking
systems.
Thornberry/ Okay.
Kubby/ Although, in looking at it in kind of a reverse way, we put
a lot of money that is generated from all over the city
through property taxes and we spend it d.t. and we are going
to spend it d.t. in terms of improvements and I think it is a
good investment. I mean, for me, I mean I think the council
has a policy that our Comp Plan says that d.t. is the
commercial hub of Iowa City and we aren't going to have other
large commercial areas and I would say that is a huge
commitment and we need to- To me the bricks on Gilbert and
Burlington are part of that overall tax money being funneled
into this one area which is a good thing.
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Gilpin/ Yes, that is a good thing and I appreciate that. However,
you have to realize that d.t. itself generates over $1 million
to that tax revenue. Now if we were to say d.t. should have
proportion to the revenue generated in services we would not
be close. So I appreciate what you are saying but I think we
are contributing our fair share.
Nov/
We are not going to argue about fair share. I don't question
that the property owners of d.t. businesses lead the rest of
the city. If you didn't have bunches of people who didn't
contribute their share you wouldn't exist but we are not even
going to talk about that.
Gilpin/ Thanks.
Atkins/ While Victoria is sitting down and John is coming to the
microphone, I want to remind the council Victoria made a
statement about parking moneys for the plaza. We do not use
parking moneys for the plaza. That is General Fund money.
Kubby/ There is a possibility that we might choose in the future to
do it.
Atkins/ A possibility but it has not been used for the plaza. I
just wanted to remind you.
Nov/ She was just asking that we consider using the increase for
that.
Atkins/ I just wanted to make sure it was clear that we have not
done that in the past.
Nov/ Right, in the past we have not.
John
Gross/ I am a d.t. business owner and I am chair of the
Parking and Transit Committee for the DTA. Good evening and
happy birthday, Dee. I just wanted to restate Vicky really got
to all of the points that I wanted to address. It is
important, we feel, to commit this increase to the
improvements and maintenance of our parking facilities. If I
could get Joe to get all the permit holders clickers and
everybody would really know they're garages. But I think until
that happens it is going to be a battle. Having a parking
problem is a lot better than having no parking problem. I
think as we see the- And that is Joe's advice to all of us
always. The staff has worked very closely with us in talking
about these increases and we have, as Vicky indicated, decided
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F070296
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not to object to them as long as the increases go to
maintaining the various garages, the various facilities. And
some forward funding on the new one possibly. I want to
mention that down the road as we look at ways to preserve this
million dollar tax base and hopefully the property values will
continue to go up d.t., we may need to look at free weekend
parking if we are going to compete with the mall west of here.
We need to convince people that parking is free d.t. We are
doing that now as best we can with the seven magic works, Can
I stamp your parking ticket. And we are also giving away bus
rides to shoppers as much as we can° We are very supportive
and we just like to see a solid commitment that these fees
will go to the parking system and as the bonds get paid off on
the existing parking garages, hopefully there will be funds
available that we can do free weekend parking and maintain the
vitality and property values and tax flow. Thank you.
Nov/
Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to talk about
parking? Okay. We need a motion to accept correspondence.
Moved by Norton, seconded by Thornberry to accept
correspondence. All those in favor please say aye- (ayes).
Motion carried. We are going to close the p.h. Anybody have
any-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 96-79 SIDE 2
Nov/ Ready, yeah. Okay. P.h. is closed. And we are going to take a
short break.
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F070296
July 2, 1996 City of_Iowa City Page 12
ITEM NO. 7
PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE IOWA CITY LANDFILL FORCE MAIN
PROJECT, ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY
EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR
BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Comment: This project involves construction of a force main and gravity sewer
to connect the new landfill lift station to the sanitary sewer system of Iowa City
for treatment of the landfill leachate. The estimated cost of $350,000 will be
funded by landfill revenues.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Action: ~q.O
b. CONSIDERA RESOLUTION APPROVING
%-/79
ITEM NO. 8
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION OF RIGHT-
OF-WAY AND TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION EASEMENTS FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCCER SITE ACCESS ROAD PROJECT.
Comment: This resolution authorizes staff to negotiate right-of-way acquisition
and temporary construction easements for construction of the Soccer Site
Access Road. including authorization of condemnation if necessary. This road
is needed to satisfy the County's request that access to the Soccer Facility
come from the north.
/
#8 page i
ITEM NO.8 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION OF
RIGHT-OF-WAY AND TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION EASEMENTS FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCCER SITE ACCESS ROAD PROJECT.
Nov/ Moved by Kubby, seconded by Vanderhoef. Discussion.
Baker/ Can we get some discussion and clarification on this. We
didn't discuss this previously, have we? I am missing
something somewhere about the amount that we are talking
about, how this fits in to other potential developments down
there. I mean-
Nov/ This is just the authorization to negotiate easements.
Baker/ But it gives him the authorization to condemn without having
to come back to us. Is that the way that I read this.
Woito/ Generally I do come back to you before we condemn.
Baker/ That is my basic question to make sure you do come back to
Kubby/ We talked about possible general alignments whether it was
the soccer road or a more city standard road and that the
development is going to happen and now it is not going to
happen and we need to live up to our agreement with the
county.
Baker/ That is my question is that we are dealing with the lowest
level road. Okay.
Kubby/ But some of the money is double duty because it creates the
base of a bigger road later.
Lehman/ Actually we are not dealing with the road at all, we are
just dealing with the easement.
Norton/ No but I mean the road will be coming.
Atkins/ We need the authorization.
Norton/ This all has to happen pretty rapidly, doesn't it? I mean
this road needs to be in by like Tuesday.
Atkins/ Yes.
Kubby/ The landowners were talking about it, the Langenbergs and
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the city. Are there other property owners?
Woito/ Calvin Lake, Lake Calvin, whatever it is. And we think there
may be another owner. Craig Willis is doing a title search.
Atkins/ We got that little sliver.
Woito/ Because there is an access easement that runs to the east
from the Sycamore L point. It goes back to multiple dwellings
and the north part may be owned by someone other than Jim
Miller.
Norton/ But this alignment will be the alignment. That whatever
happens to the alignment will be that of the more permanent
road that ultimately will go in there? We are surely not going
to do it twice.
Woito/ Maybe, maybe not.
Atktns/ That is the desire. That is the desire on the thing but I
think we have to be realistic about it.
Norton/ There could be two acquisitions?
Rick Fosse/ If the road that ultimately goes in for development
varies from this alignment we could do a r.o.w. swap there so
that it shouldn't be throw away.
Atkins/ In anticipation that a developer would come in, propose to
develop the ground, would like the road moved over, fine, we
can deal with that and you can trade the r.o.w. We don't
expect to be paying twice, Dee, that is what you are saying.
Our intent is to avoid that and still fulfill the obligation
that we have to get the road in.
Kubby/ All right, let's play soccer.
Norton/ What is the deadline. When does it have to be done?
Arkins/ Well, there are a number of- We would like to have it done
by this fall. There is a number of peripheral issues that I
will just sort of have to articulate. It is pretty straight
forward. One is that we may be cutting that sewer pipe line
right through where the road and the soccer field. That may
occur- In fact, it is very likely to occur which means we will
go back to the county to get authorization to be able to use
the road from the south temporarily. Another issue is that the
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F070296
page 3
soccer field needs to be overseeded. Evidently they may not be
ready this fall. We have our fingers crossed if weather works
out° So there is just a number of other issues.
Kubby/ That is different than the road, the soccer fields being
ready.
Arkins/ Absolutely. We are making the assumption that those soccer
fields will be ready. We have an obligation to build a road.
Let's go. Other things may get in the way and we are hoping
they don't but it looks like they will.
Norton/ We could have a road to nowhere or an inaccessible soccer
field.
Arkins/ We will get you to the soccer field.
Woito/ And we need some authorization to be out negotiating
hopefully.
Atkins/ Quite frankly folks, we have been talking to property
owners now for several months. This is not new news for them.
Nov/ Okay. The resolution is to authorize the construction easement
negotiations. Roll call- (yes). The resolution has been
approved.
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F070296
July 2, 1996
ITEM NO. 9
ITEM NO.
City of Iowa City
Page 13
PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCCER SITE ACCESS ROAD
PROJECT, ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY
EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR
BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Comment: This project will provide access from Sycamore Street to the
Soccer Facility at the South Wastewater Treatment Plant as required by
agreement between the C'~y of Iowa City and Johnson County. The
preliminary cost estimate for this project is $190,000 and will be funded by
Road Use Tax revenues.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Action:
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING
Action:
PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE ABBEY LANE SANITARY SEWER
PROJECT, ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY
EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR
BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Comment: This project consists of installing a sanitary trunk sewer through the
proposed Kiwanis Park and along part of Abbey Lane. The total estimated
construction cost of $100,000 will be funded by General Obligation and
Revenue bonds.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Action:
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING
#9a page
ITEM NO. 9 PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCCER SITE ACCESS ROAD PROJECT,
ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY EACH BID,
DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS, AND FIXING
TIME ~3~D PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
a. Public Hearing
Nov/ P.h. is now open. Please sign in and state your name for the
record and then tell us what you want to say.
Bernard Fox/ We own property right at the end of the street,
Sycamore Street, and it borders on the lane going down to
those private- Well I have a problem. I have had three heart
attacks and I have had six by-passes and I have been 13 years
taking 13-14 pills a day and they tell me I am going to have
a problem in speech and a problem of memory. So my main memory
is just practically gone. So when I have to name something you
will have to kind of give me a little bit of prompting at the
time. Anyway, We live there and when I was here going to have
those trailers and stuff over in the next lot there from us on
there, my concern there was I didn't care what went in there.
I still don't care what goes in there. But my concern is a
road going in there. And the road there, you have got those
high lines and they are just 44 foot from our house. Okay. On
this new- I was told at that time you got all that acreage and
acreage on the west side. Ain't a damna thing- They have built
some new houses since then but there is plenty of room to go
over there. But why move over. They got what they show me
here. They are going to take 33 feet from the center of the
road east. Then when they get to my property they jump over to
45 feet for the full length and they come back 50 feet more
from that same road there and hell, that is going to put that
damn high line right up over my house there and put a pole
just 19 foot, an extension over it. That is a health hazard.
Not only a health hazard, it is suppose- You can't guarantee
what storms are going to do. One can blow that over there.
Kubby/ What pole?
Norton/ The utility line pole. The high line.
Fox/ I mean they are not small one. You got two. You got one that
takes care of the property owner and the other one is a high
line. I mean it is powerful.
Norton/ A big transmission line, yeah.
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Fox/ Right. And hell, they tell me living under it the way it is is
a hazard. But if you move it back over and put it within 19
foot of my front door and that one pole would be right on 19
foot from my door.
Kubby/ I though all that new stuff went underground.
Atkins/ I am a little confused, Mr. Fox. Rick, can you come up to
the microphone. I am not familiar with the relocation of the
powerline in conjunction with the temporary road.
Rick
Fosse/ What Bernard is talking about is a different project
and that is the extension of Sycamore, the reconstruction of
Sycamore which is in the seven year plan. The plats were
developed for the very south end of that in conjunction with
this project but there is no current plans to get that
additional r.o.w. at this time.
Kubby/ So the soccer road is much further to the east?
Fosse/The soccer road will be south of Bernard's property and then
go to the southeast from there.
Woito/ I was going to say I don't have him on my list.
Fosse/ Yes but what he is talking about will be true for the
Sycamore Street project when it occurs and the reason the
r.o.w. is wider on the east side than on the west side is that
is where the eight foot sidewalk will go because it leads up
to the school that is on Lakeside Drive there. That project is
off-
Atkins/ I was going to say that is not even in our seven year, is
it?
Fosse/ There is a part of Sycamore that is. I think it is split
into three phases. This is the southern most. I don't even
remember if this is in the seven year.
Norton/ How do power lines get into the issue?
Atkins/ This project, so Mr. Fox knows, this project that is being
considered tonight, does not have a bearing upon what he just
said. Is that correct?
Fosse/ That is correct.
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Arkins/ So that is settled. However he does have a concern about a
future project on Sycamore and my question would be the same
as Dee's, what relationship does that project and the
powerlines have to each other?
Fosse/ There are currently overhead powerlines along there and it
is probably a feeder circuit that is more difficult to put
underground and generally, when we get additional r.o.w. those
power poles go out the back side of the sidewalk such as we
did along Rohret Road out there. Depending on our funding
source, sometimes we can put them between the sidewalk and the
street but that enters into clear zone issues that sometimes
federal funds have a problem with.
Atkins/ Can we answer Mr. Fox's questions tonight?
Fosse/ No, we are not in a position to do that tonight because we
are-
Atkins/ Can the two of you spend time together?
Fosse/ Yes.
Fox/ Okay. Thank you gentlemen.
Kubby/ So Rick, can you put in your file that when we start
designing Sycamore Street, I mean the whole neighborhood will
be notified. But to make sure Mr. Fox specifically can express
himself.
Fosse/ Sure. Okay.
Nov/ Is there anyone else who would like to talk about the soccer
road?
Kubby/ All right, Jerry is going to say something.
Nov/ No, he is just going to push buttons. Okay. P.h. is closed.
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F070296
July 2, 1996
Cit~, of iowa City
Page 14
CONSIDER A MOTION TO ACCEPT THE FORM OF TAX EXEMPTION
CERTIFICATE PERTAINING TO THE $295,000 GENERAL OBLIGATION
CAPITAL LOAN NOTES, SERIES 1996.
Comment: This certificate is executed and delivered in connection with the
issuance by the City of $295,000 General Obligation Capital Loan Notes,
Sedes 1996. This certificate sets out in detail a number of facts, promises and
obligations which must be met and agreed to by the City in order to maintain
these Notes as tax exempt.
Action: 7/~~
ITEM NO. 12
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING A FORM
OF LOAN AGREEMENT AND AUTHORIZING AND PROVIDING FOR THE
ISSUANCE OF $295,000 GENERAL OBLIGATION CAPITAL LOAN NOTES,
SERIES t996, AND LEVYING A TAX TO PAY THE NOTES.
Comment: This resolution provides final authorization for issuance of the
$295,000 General Obligation Capital Loan Notes. Note proceeds will be used
to pay a portion of the cost of a new fire truck ($120,000) and the lighting
project at the University of Iowa Softball Complex ($175,000). Closing will be
July 16, 1996.
Action:
ITEM NO, 13
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY
CLERK TO ATTEST TO A CHAPTER 28E AGREEMENT WITH JOHNSON
COUNTY AND YELLOW CAB COMPANY FOR FY97 SUPPLEMENTAL
PARATRAN$1T TAXI SERVICE.
Comment: This agreement will provide for supplemental paratransit service for
persons with disabilities who do not need a lift-equipped vehicle for FY97. The
service will be provided by Yellow Cab Company of Iowa City, the same
provider as this year. There is $38,000 budgeted for this service in FY97.
#13 page 1
ITEM NO.13 RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY
CLERK TO ATTEST TO A CHAPTER 28E AGREEMENT WITH JOHNSON COUNTY AND
YELLOW CAB COMPANY FOR FY97 SUPPLEMENTAL PARATRANSIT TAXI SERVICE.
Nov/ Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Lehman. Discussion.
Thornberry/ I have a question. There is $38,000 budgeted for the
service in FY97. How much was used or will be used in F¥96
approximate?
Atkins/ I don't know, sir. I would have to find out for you.
Thornberry/ $38,000?
Kubby/ But the contract says something like $35-
Arkins/ Last year's budgeted amount was $38,000. We budgeted the
same amount and the bid was just ever so slightly- I can find
out for you how much was actually spend on that contract. I
just don't know that.
Thornberry/ I mean is $38,000 a high point? Okay.
Atkins/ $38,000 is sufficient in the sense of I don't expect it to
go beyond that. But I can find out the exact numbers for you.
Nov/ It does sometimes go a little bit beyond that.
Lehman/ Well, I think it is significant this year though. I think,
I may be wrong, I think Joe Fowler indicated that we were only
getting somewhere around 30% of the riders paying anything and
this year we are going to require-
Arkins/ He made a number of changes.
Lehman/ Which should impact this in a very positive way.
Thornberry/ Which could possibly lower it and some left over?
Atkins/ Yes, very possible.
Kubby/ Do we, when we say bid, do we competitively bid this?
Arkins/ Yes, put out a proposal, two companies did.
Kubby/ And what was the amount of the other?
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Atkins/ I don't know.
Thornberry/ I mean if it is lower, we pay lower, right?
Arkins/ This was the low bid and the other was Old Capital.
Kubby/ I mean if some (can't hear) for this population to have some
consistency so every year you don't have to change.
Arkins/ We used Yellow last year°
Kubby/ It is good to competitively bid it, too.
Thornberry/ So this isn't really a contract price. This is Just
what we are budgeting to use°
Arkins/ It is a contract price, Dean. We have a budgeted amount for
the administration of this contract. We enter into an
agreement with Yellow Cab. They charge us so much per mile,
whatever the circumstances are and it is built into the
contract.
Thornberry/ We contract with them but we are budgeting $38,000. But
if the ridership is down and we don't need to use that much-
Atkins/ You pay for services you use.
Thornberry/ Got it.
Nov/ Okay. Roll call- (yes). The resolution has been approved°
Kubby/ I have a related question. In the past when we have
negotiated with the county, we had a couple of council
members, in the past it was Sue and Ernie, negotiating with
the county and when we talked about- We just now had a six
month agreement with the county for SEATS. I am assuming that
we are not going to wait for the last minute to negotiate a
new contract.
Arkins/ No.
Kubby/ I guess I like that process of having a couple of council
members be who are more intimate with the issue because it is
pretty complicated. Some people who will just stick on top of
it because there is a lot of emotion as well as numbers
involved in that negotiation and would like that process of
having a couple of people from council be on that negotiating
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or at least having knowledge of what is going on. A couple of
people sounds good.
Lehman/ I think it is a good idea.
Nov/ We have done it that way before.
Atkins/ We skipped one year. A year ago I did it.
Kubby/ But you did really well.
Atkins/ That is why they yelled at me.
Kubby/ Somehow this year they are only paying $90,000 for SEATS and
two years ago they were paying $200,000.
Atkins/ I hear you.
Kubby/ We need to get them back up a little bit. Thank you.
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F070296
~July 2, 1996
ITEM NO. 14
ITEM NO, 15
ITEM NO. 16
City of Iowa City
Page 15
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING CONSTRUCTION
AT THE IOWA CITY MUNICIPAL AIRPORT OF A 'i00' X '100' HANGAR
BUILDING WITH A 20' X 40' ATTACHED OFFICE AREA,
Comment: At the May 10, 1996, Airport Commission meeting, the Commission
voted to request Council financial assistance to construct additional hangar
space at the Airport. The aircraft hangar would be 100' by 100' with a 75' door
and room for three to four corporate aircraft. The Commission received three
bids for the project. The bids are listed below. The Commission recommends
accepting the bid from Henningsen Construction of $356,900. Hangar rental
would be used to repay an internal departmental loan. This item has been
deferred from May 21, June 4, and June 11.
Mid-America Construction
Modern Builders Inc.
Henningsen Construction
Action:
CONSIDER A
LITIGATION.
$437,900.00
$428,850.00
$356,900.00
RESOLUTION RATIFYING SETL~"~'L~MEN~'- T OF PE~'DING
Comment: On August 17, 1995, the City filed a quiet title action in distdct court
against the City of University Heights as a result of a dispute over the location
of the corporate boundary limits between the two cities. The City Attorney has
negotiated settlement in consultation with the Finance Department. This
resolution ratifies settlement of the litigation, as required by Chapter 21, Code
of Iowa. The City Attomey recommends adoption.
Action:
ANNOUNCEMENT OFVACANCIES,
a, Current vacancies.
Airport Commission - One vacancy to fill an unexpired term
ending March 1, 1997. (Robert Hicks resigned.)
(4 males and 0 females currently serve on this commission.)
(2)
Board of Appeals - One vacancy to fill an unexpired term of a
Licensed Plumber ending December 31, 1997. (Jane Hagedorn
resigned.) (5 males and 1 female currently serve on this Board.)
These appointments will be made at the August 6, 1996, meeting
of the City Council.
#14 page 1
ITEM NO.14 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING CONSTRUCTION
AT THE IOWA CITY MUNICIPAL AIRPORT OF A 100' X 100' HANGARBUILDING
WITH A 20' X 40' ATTACHED OFFICE AREA.
Nov/ Moved by Kubby, seconded by Lehman. Okay, discussion.
Kubby/ Well, I guess the first question is are there any leases
signed for the hangar?
Howard Horan/ From the Airport Commission. The two potential
clients that we had in mind we don't have their leases signed.
Okay. That business at this point is dead, to answer your
question. Okay. Now we had and I- We realized that this was a
special opportunity based mostly on the- especially on the
price that we had and the bid that we had and some changes
that we anticipate in the airport based on the master plan and
we would urge you to approve it on the feeling that we can use
this space productively. That we can help develop the airport
and develop opportunities at the airport. I don't know what
else. Go ahead, do you have a question?
Baker/ No. As a group we had this discussion six weeks ago whenever
and we decided at that time that that rationale was not
sufficient for us to approve the project.
Lehman/ I am going to vote in favor of it.
Norton/ Building it now or going ahead to build it.
Lehman/ I do believe it is better to have contracts on it but to me
we are just going through a airport master plan that will
require the expenditure of some $10 million, hopefully not
more than a million dollars of our money. I think that is a
commitment on the part of the city to the airport. Something
that is going to be here for a long long time. We know that
over the years we are going to have to have another hangar. We
know that the United Hangar is going to be either moved or
torn down. So we are not building something that we know we
won't need. We are not building something we know we won't get
paid back for out of hangar rent, whether that be in a month
or two or five or six months. I guess I look at this a lot
like economic development. If the hangar was sitting there, I
don't know that this would have happened. But if the hangar
was sitting there it might have enhanced your ability to get
a lease from one of the two people you are talking to. It
would be there to be used right now. So I guess I look at this
the same way I look at industrial development properties or
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page 2
whatever and I think it indicates the kind of co~mmitment that
the city has to the airport and to the importance of the
airport. I am going to support it.
Baker/ Question for clarification (can't hear). Was there an
sngineer's estimate on the cost of this? We had a bid. Was
there an estimate?
Horan/ No.
Lehman/ I don't think so.
Baker/ Nothing to relate this to as we do other.
Norton/ Whether it is a deal or not.
Nov/ Well, this is a building and I don't know that other contracts
that we were letting for buildings. Engineer's will estimate
street construction.
Baker/ My point is I am not sure how good of a deal.
Thornberry/ To give you some kind of a relationship. Do you
remember, Howard, what the price of the last set of T-hangars
were?
Horan/ I think that was $110,000, wasn't it.
Thornberry/ No, it was more than that, wasn't it?
Horan/ $256-
/ (Can't hear).
Thornberry/ Half the price are in the doors, right? It was, I
believe it was a little over $100,000, $150,000 when I wanted
to build it. But by the time the city got around to building
it, it just about doubled.
Kubby/ While don't you build this one? It is probably a conflict
and you can't.
Thornberry/ A little conflict of interest.
Norton/ If this is built now, what will actually go in it right
away? You have no customers right now.
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Horan/ I think it would beholding us to find the customers. That is
the first thing we have got to do.
Norton/ It would be in principle that you could be having a
building that is sitting there vacant for X years.
Horan/ I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't take that on. I am sure we
would find someway to find-
Norton/ The United Hanger won't be leaving for awhile under any
circumstance.
Horan/ We don't know how long that long is.
Kubby/ It would be a spec hangar basically.
Norton/ And the office space as well?
Horan/ Sure but I would assume that would have an aviation related
use. That would be our first goal where it would be most
valuable.
Norton/ But there is no commitment to either party (can't hear).
Horan/ That is right.
Baker/ This question was asked in the first discussion but we need
to do it again for the camera. How quick can one of these
things be built?
Horan/ Well, I think the last set of T-hangars went up in about
four months but it might be less than that. Ron, is four
months reasonable?
Nov/ It is the airport manager for those of you who don't know.
Ron O'Neil/ We have in our contract, it is either six or eight
month clause where it has to be built in that time. It would
be built yet this fall.
Baker/ So we are trading off six months time for assurances that we
can get a good price now.
Nov/
Well considering the fact that the price of steel has
increased and this contract was based on the previous price of
steel and the contractor has held the previous price for us.
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Baker/ What is the difference in cost then with the increase in
steel.
Nov/ Well, we need to ask.
Horan/ The next bids were $70,000 more than this one and it would
be reasonable to assume that is where it would certainly jump
to plus or minus the cost of steel.
Baker/ Of these three the next one is $70,000.
Horan/ Well, I haven't done the arithmetic. Wasn't it $1428- or
something like that.
Baker/ But what is the connection between that and the price of
steel going up?
Horan/ If the price of steel did not increase, it would be
reasonable to think that this bid was so exceptionally low
that if we had to send it out to bid again, that relationship
would change and it would be close to the $400,000 if not
$430- or $428-.
Baker/ So it is just a matter of public disclosure of the bids and
not the price of steel.
Horan/ Our understanding that the manufacture, the contractor who
has the bid at this point has anticipated steel price
increases effective yesterday.
Thornberry/ Howard, with all of the other extenuating circumstances
regarding the building of this building and the other airport
related thing, would you assure us that you would not demolish
the United Hangar before you had to?
Horan/ We wouldn't, I don't think be disposed to do that. Had to is
timed by the first phase of the master plans
Thornberry/ Well, does it have to be demolished in the first phase?
Horan/ I believe that is in the first phase, yeah.
Kubby/ But whose discretion is that? Is that FAA"S discretion or
the airport master plan and how it is put together.
Horan/ How Jerry put the master plan together and how he phased it
and-
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Kubby/ That could be changed?
Horan/ I don't think it would be reasonable to attempt to change it
now because we are actually in the process right now.
Thornberry/ How long do you see the United Hangar staying there as
it is?
Horan/ The inside would be moved or changed within a year. That is
the shortest possible time for any action to be physically
done on the building. How long would it stay, I wouldn't
pretend to answer that, five to six years at the longest
probably.
Kubby/ So that gives us a range.
Thornberry/ So into the year 2001.
Horan/ We don't know how the FAA funding is going to work over the
next 3-5 years and that affects the speed of this project
regardless of their endorsement of it.
Kubby/ What is the source of money for this, Steve? Is it General
Funds?
Atkins/ I am not real sure just yet but I am inclined that we
would, since it is an internal service loan, the will be
billed as a part of their budget. I have not set up a schedule
yet.
Kubby/ But their budget comes from the General Fund.
Atkins/ Ultimately the General Fund will- The front end cash.
Kubby/ Are you people worried about the General Fund-
Arkins/ This is a General- It will end up being a General Fund
expense.
Norton/ What I worry about is a white elephant on our hands here
for at least a while. That is what makes me nervous. Somebody
says hey, you are building a building that is going no where°
That is what worried me although if we wait, I know it will
cost more. So I am kind of in a bind.
Thornberry/ Well, you can say build it and they will come or you
can say what we have said to them before is hey, get some
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contracts and we will build it and I think I am going to have
to stick with that without the assurance that the United
Hangar will be there for five years.
Vanderhoef/ I am going to go the other way. I am really interested
in this airport plan. I am interested in putting some industry
into this city. I think this is a co~mmitment to economic
development~ I think this is a commitment to the airport plan
and I am willing to put the money upfront.
Thornberry/ I am definitely co~itted to the airport. I have got an
airplane sitting out there in that new T-hangar that I wanted
to build. But I would like to see a lot of things happening at
the Iowa City Airport, not just a hangar building but a lot
more and sooner rather than later. But how it contract in a
building 100 X 100 with a 20 X 40 attached office and what
size door is that? 75 foot door. Without a customer. But you
know I built the Burger King without a first customer. You
know. Nobody walked through that door until I built that
Burger King down there.
Norton/ There you go.
Council/ (All talking).
Thornberry/ It is also General Fund money and we don't have that
much General Fund money.
Kubby/ I mean one of the things that challenge the Airport
Commission about is generating more money and one of the ways
you do that is to not put more debt into the airport. I mean
we are co~u~itted to $1 million of money that we hadn't
discussed exactly where that is going to come from in order to
implement the master plan, in order to keep the airport in
town. But having some clients to rent this building helps pay
for some of the payback of this building. It is not really
generating money. It is helping pay back the loan and so
without even that I have- It is like going backwards a little
bit in terms of how we challenge the co~u~ission to try to
raise-
Horan/ We understand that and I have had some serious personal
considerations about that. The concept of self sufficiency and
the fact that we are not leaning on the city budget is
important to us. If we are our word, if we are going to do
what we say we are going to do, then you are absolutely right.
Then again we have the chicken and the egg development issue.
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F070296
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Okay. And we have a- And who knows exactly how strong this
logic is but we have the possibility that if we don't have
space in the future, we are once again up against this self
sufficiency issue on the wrong side of it.
Norton/ There is no doubt that you are going to need this building
sometime. The question is do we want to take a risk and build
it now and maybe have it sit vacant for 3-5 years.
Horan/ Any period of time, any period of time would be a concern.
I agree with that.
Norton/ 3-5 years and the question is what is the rise in cost to
do it. But we could do it later. That is what makes me
nervous.
Kubby/ And part of the policy question for me might be is our role
to speculate in this instance on this particular kind of
issue. That I agree with Dee Vanderhoef that it is an economic
development issue. That it is a more indirect one than other
kinds of speculation on projects that we could put upfront
money on for economic development. I don't want to do that. I
want us to have a- And we were even asking for 100% of the
space to be leased upfront. We were asking for 50% and we
don't have that. So I am sticking with Dean.
Baker/ We can certainly say that a $1 million commitment with the
airport that we know is coming is a loud signal for the
support of economic development for the airport. I raised that
question at the beginning of the discussion. I just don't see
anything changing from our prior position and I agree with
Dean.
Thornberry/ God, I have got Larry Baker and Karen Kubby.
Kubby/ Life has funny twists.
Nov/
This is a very interesting issue because I don't think it is
economic development yet. I think until we have put in sewer
lines we are not going to have truly industrial development.
We are just basically going to have hangar rental and office
rental, right? And is this something that you have good guides
on in terms of somebody willing to rent it. A few months ago
or a few weeks ago you said yes, we were about to sign a
contract and we were already to vote for it.
Horan/ Sure.
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Thornberry/ I will argue that if it is there, it is a lot easier to
say gee, my plane would fit in there and it is just boom,
ready to go. I am going to vote against ito I am just saying
that-
Council/ (All talking).
Kubby/ I kind of like the good vibe government°
Norton/ Oh boy°
Nov/ Okay, is there any further discussion? Roll call- (Thornberry-
no, Vanderhoef-yes, Baker-no, Kubby-no, Lehman-yes, Norton-no,
Nov-yes). I think it failed.
Woito/ It passed, 4-3.
Nov/ It passed, okay. I lost count.
Baker/ It failed, 4-3.
Lehman/ It failed, 4-3.
Norton/ It failed, 4-3.
Woito/ Oh, Novick said no?
Nov/ I said yes.
Baker/ Norton said no.
Woito/ You are right.
Nov/ So this resolution did not pass. It was a 3-4 vote. Make sure
I am counting right.
Norton/ I am perpetually surprised.
Kubby/ There is plenty to do. They will go on.
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F070296
July 2, 1996
ITEM NO. 17
City of Iowa City Page 16
CITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS.
Consider one appointment to the Design Review Committee to fill a
vacancy for three-year term ending July 1, 1999. (Term ends for Laura
Hawks) (3 females and 5 males currently serve on this Commission.)
Consider a recommendation of the Project Green Steering Committee to
appoint Janet Maas to the Project Green "Green Fund" to fill an unexpired
term ending March 1, 1998. (Bernadine Knight resigned.) (1 female and 1
male currently serve on this project.)
ITEM NO. 18 CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION,
ITEM NO, 'lg
REPORT ON ITEMS FROM THE CITY MANAGER AND CITY ATTORNEY,
a. City Manager.
b. City Attomey.
ITEM NO, 20
ADJOURNMENT,
#17a page
ITEM NO.17 CITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS.
a. Consider one appointment to the Design Review Committee to
fill a vacancy for three-year term ending July l, 1999. (Term ends
for Laura Hawks) (3 females and 5 males currently serve on this
Commission.)
Nov/ We have had no applicants we will readvertise. I am urging
anyone who is interested in Design Review to apply.
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#18 page
ITEM NO. 18 CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
Nov/ Next item is City Council Information. Mr. Norton.
Norton/ I still have a- I just want to raise this question. I still
haven't seen our low income policy and I am- The rates are
going up here, here and everywhere and we need to get a handle
on it. I hope something still if proceeding. I am sure it is
but I just hope we get there pretty fast.
Kubby/ Do we have a timeframe, Steve?
Atkins/ No we don't except that I hear you.
other work. If you want to make it a
push it up.
I have been busy with
priority then we will
Norton/ I just try to keep it on the hopper a little.
Arkins/ It is in the hopper. I can assure you that.
Norton/ I commented last night and I want to comment again that I,
as you know the world traveler that I am, I had been looking
at signs, directional signs, and there is a lot of talk about
improving the signage d.t. and I hope to have some pictures
for you pretty soon of what looked to me like some pretty
interesting examples. Also I am hoping that we will be
reconsidering some aspects of our sign ordinance. I have seen
an awful lot of very elegant and attractive and appropriate
projecting signs and I wondered if we went too far in knocking
all such signs. We have a few but as long as they have "time
and temperature". but even Burger King has a projecting sign.
Thornberry/ It is grandfathered in.
Norton/ It is grandfathered.
I wanted to respond to a point John Gross made in his letter
to us regarding the d.t. parking thing in asking that we get
organized about d.t. visions statement and a coherent notion
on what we are trying to accomplish d.t. as a unit. We have,
I think we do need to owe that to the community and to
ourselves to think what we are shooting at in the way of
improvements in d.t. all together. So that is the end of my
concerns at the moment.
Nov/ Thank you. Karen.
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Kubby/ I want to talk for a minute about the process that we used
last night in talking about the library and I realized this
when I got home last night. One of the questions I had was I
thought we were going to talk about this on the 15th because
some of the library board, appoint people and staff people
were not available. And it seems like we made a very final and
big decision last night when lots of the library board folks
thought there would- I don't know if they knew there was also
a July 1 meeting and a July 15 meeting. But it seems like
there was some expectation that there would be continued
discussion on July 15 and not such a final decision on the
first. I apologize for not bring that up last night. We just
kind of started and ended our conversation and I feel real
uncomfortable about that process.
Nov/
I did bring up the fact that it was up for discussion on the
15th and that we can have the resolution vote on the 16th if
we want to or we can delay that even further. But we do expect
the library to come to us on the 15th.
Norton/ So the issue will be revisited in some time frame.
Nov/ They feel that they want to comment on it.
Kubby/ But I thought that they were coming to talk with us again on
the 15th and before they were going to come to talk to us, we
in the meantime have made it very final decision it seems like
and that this doesn't seem very fair, the process. I mean even
though the end result might not be any different. And I
suspect it won't be but it just doesn't feel right.
Thornberry/ Yeah, except for the fact that they needed to know
sooner than later how we felt so that they could do any
revisions that they felt were necessary to get more approval
for as quickly as possible to get it on the ballot for this
fall.
Kubb¥/ But there were no suggestions made last night.
Thornberry/ I think it is up to the library board to go back to the
drawing board real quick and make changes so that it could be
more compatible.
Kubby/ So, do other people agree with that that the library board
can make changes that make you feel comfortable putting a
resolution for a ballot issue on the ballot for November.
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Thornberry/ Depends on how far they scale it down.
Kubb¥/ That is not at all what I heard at all last night. And if
that were true, there weren't any specific things. It was more
of a general feeling that we just couldn't afford to do it.
There weren't specific goals about-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 96-80 SIDE
Now/ I did not say this 16% wasn't enough.
Kubby/ I don't know that we- We didn't really talk about that. I
mean, if 15% of the project were lopped off somehow, would
people still have the same viewpoint?
Nov/ We don't know that. We don't know that.
Thornberry/ I didn't think it was our privy or whatever to tell
them all right, you can spend this much money or scale it
back, you know, 50 or 75%.
Kubb¥/ That is our obligation if those criteria are what makes or
break a vote to put it on the ballot. It is our obligation to
make those kinds of criteria clear.
Thornberry/ They didn't come to us in the first place and say well,
gee, do you think $15 mil is going to fly. They just did it.
Lehman/ Karen, I hear-
Kubby/ They did it earlier enough for us to give specific feedback
and people had not given specific feedback about what would be
acceptable.
Vanderhoef/ Some of this feedback has happened on the one on ones
and communication with people and probably I will take a
little bit of criticism because I haven't spoken publicly. But
I felt it was one of those things that I would like them to
have an opportunity to have a chance to look at different
numbers and different possibilities rather than put them on
the spot in front of the group and come up with a new thought.
So I am real comfortable that they understand my personal
problems with the money issues but I have not stated them
publicly.
Lehman/ I hear what you are saying, Karen, but I think we- Although
our decision isn't final until the 16th or 15th, whatever, we
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certainly gave them a very strong indication last night that
this council will not support putting this on the ballot. But
for my own perspective I really feel- These people have put in
a tremendous amount of work. They are very dedicated, very
hardworking folks and I think they need to know as soon as
possible the feeling of the council and if we could indicate
that to them sooner rather than later, I think we are doing
them a favor.
Kubby/ But I think their understanding was different than what
happened and that is just a process issue I want to bring up
so we can check ourselves.
Norton/ It did jump up pretty-
Baker/ I want to talk about the process because I would radically
disagree with your characterization as what happened last
night as unfair. That is just a difference of opinion about
the process. At our last formal meeting there was discussion
about when the council would meet again to discuss this issue
among ourselves and we agreed at the last council meeting for
the first of July. Since then we were informed that certain
members of the library board and staff would not be available
for that meeting. My position back then and in the interim was
that this was a meeting for the council to discuss its
concerns about the library proposal and the library
representatives were here, the chair of the commission, the
chair of president of the commission was here and another
representative. But it was always, in my mind, designed for a
council discussion, not a discussion with the library board
because we knew they were coming back. But we hadn't, I
thought, talked adequately among ourselves about what our
concerns were and so I- Somebody asked me in the interim
should we not even discuss this on Monday night, the first,
and I said no, we should discuss it even though the full
library board or majority of the library board would not be
here. I don't think what we did last night was unfair. Now as
far as what our obligation is to them about defining the goals
for them, whether it is financial or specific details of the
project, I may, I am speaking now only for myself, I made two
comments in a long memo. One which is this amount of money is
not justified just for a library project and that if we can
have a different proposal at less cost, in particular
operating costs, then we ought to give it serious
consideration. You remember the meeting we had two months ago
with the library board when they were specifically asked was
there a money figure that would have stopped you and they said
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no, that their priority was to define the service level that
they wanted to provide and that cost was a secondary
consideration and that coming in at $18 million instead of $15
million, they would have still been here with the same
proposal. And so one of the discussions we had in the meantime
was well, is there anything else we need from them for us to
make our decision and I said last night that we basically know
what the library board is going to tell us. We can pin down
the project they want is going to be this range of money on
capital cost and this narrow range of operating cost and our
financial considerations were that that was an unfeasible
project. There were discussions about whether it relates to
working 64-1A urban renewal parcel and whether they should do
that. I don't know what else we could tell the library board
anymore fairly except that that particular proposal, for
various reasons, was unacceptable to the council. Now, do we
need to tell them to go back- We don't want you to spend $15
million, we want you to spend $10-. I am not sure that is what
the library board was requesting from us. I think they were
requesting us, our approval, $15 million. And if you want a
specific proposal from me by the library board about what
would be acceptable, a dramatic decrease in the long term
operating expense obligation.
Kubby/ It means you can't do any expansion of space for services.
Baker/ That may or may not be true unless perhaps there is a way to
manage personnel differently, there is a way to generate
revenue outside of the city council. There may be ways to do
it but if that is the concern-
Kubby/ The reason I brought this up is that I didn't mind having a
discussion about it. I think what I am feeling unfair about is
having such a final decision made last night before they have
the chance to respond to what they heard about the concerns
about money because through discussion people are willing to
do things differently and if people know up front- Everyone
says, you know, I support the library but, okay. So we need to
define what the but means and what level, minimum or maximum,
we are willing to support the library. We, as a group, haven't
done that and that- What we have given them is a no but they
have no idea, except new rugs and new roof, we are willing to
go. So I don't know how they are suppose to respond to us in
anyway whether it is through a referendum issue or whether it
is through a general fund or other kinds of funds that the
city has available to the library.
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Nov/ These are the kinds of things that we will discuss with them.
They come to us, they come back with a proposal that says we
can do things differently. It is open for discussion.
Baker/ We could say no on the $15- and then they have got to say
all right now, what do we do, we want some more time to talk.
I think Ernie is right that in the long run what we did last
night was a greater service to them than waiting until the
15th to express that same opinion.
Kubby/ That may or may not- I am just saying I felt like the
expectation understood differently than what happened and I am
feeling a little uncomfortable about it. That is really what
I want to say.
Baker/ I was completely- I was surprised that there was such- I got
to phrase this diplomatically. That we were as clear as we
were last night.
Norton/ I found it a little bit surprising that we got as final
last night as we did but they had a pretty strong signal the
last time we met with them that things were pushing us to the
limit or perhaps beyond it for many of us. There was not
attempt, as far as I could see, at that time to do any
revision. Now what are we going to talk about on the 15th?
About the nature of the revisions that we might wish to see
them consider? what is the purpose of our discussion on the
15th?
Nov/ They would like us-
Lehman/ An official vote.
Nov/ To vote on this officially. They would like us to listen to
them. Now they may come back with revisions, we don't know.
Thornberry/ What I got from them with the one on one discussion and
from the presentation was it's our way or the highway. Take it
or leave it and we left it.
Lehman/ We haven't officially left it.
Thornberry/ We haven't officially left it. We left it last night on
the vote of 6-1.
Nov/ They can also come back to us and say we are not going to give
you the resolution. We have decided that we are going to
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change it before we give you a resolution. They have the
option to do that.
Baker/ That had to happen to negotiate if indeed that is what the
library board wants to do. Is- The council had to be very
clear what was unacceptable and that happened last night.
Thornberry/ I don't know what they- They don't know at this point
what is unacceptable. What are the points that are
unacceptable. Is that what you are saying, Karen?
Kubb¥/ Yeah. How do they know how to react to us except that is
costs too much and so they-
Thornberry/ I think each councilor had their own reasons why it was
unacceptable at that junction and mine is going to be a little
difficult to overcome unless they can buy the Merdon, Suepple,
Downer and Hayes building for parking. But a maybe they can.
Lehman/ It would seem to me that this discussion would much better
to take place on the 15th when they are here.
Nov/ Okay°
Council/ (All talking)°
Baker/ The implicit discussion that we are having here is what is
our role with the library board.
Lehman/ I want to know what they want.
Kubby/ Our strings are financial and people need to be clear about
how they are willing to financially support tha library and
what your level is.
Baker/ But their responsibility is to determine what is it that
they want. They have said it. We determine what we want and
then we look at the cost, not what can we spend and what we
can get for that dollar. Now that is the approach that the
council wants to impose on them, we need to talk about that.
I don't think that is the proper approach.
Kubby/ How do they know how to revise their plan?
Baker/ One of the things that they are going to have to do is do
what many boards and commission do, is talk with us in sort of
parallel conversations with the plans.
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Nov/ Can we postpone any further discussion until the 15th? Have
you made your point? Please.
Baker/ It is not a matter of please or not. I mean, the two or
three big issues every council has to deal with and-
Nov/ But you and Karen have said your points multiple times. We
have all heard it.
Baker/ I am just saying that when you are cutting somebody off, I
am going to let that person talk.
Kubby/ I want people to be open to whatever the library may come
back to us with and that some people may choose to change
their mind about whether they vote for a resolution. I guess
what I want to understand is that the proposal that they put
in front of us, you would not support. That there might be
some form of this that you might be willing to put on the
resolution. I am hearing some people say yes and people are
like no way.
Baker/ Okay, we have been told all along-
Kubby/ But I don't think that is the message we gave last night. I
think the message we gave last night, there is no major
library expansion.
Baker/ Okay, but the message we have gotten all along- Karen, the
message we have gotten all along was this is the only plan on
the table.
Kubby/ Okay. If we are not clear on our messages and this happened
last night, too, which I was very frustrated about with Parks
and Rec Commision. They said if you say yes to this, it means
X, Y, Z and we said yes means we don't know what yes means but
we are saying yes as a group. And we need to be more clear as
a group and that means we need to have some leadership about
clarity with this group or else our volunteers in this
community- We are not communicating well with our volunteers
and the people who are making things happen. We need to have
a commitment to make sure that we are clear. Whether I like
the answer that it is clear or not is not the point. It is
that we need to be clear what the answer is the majority.
Baker/ I agree and that is a problem that goes back to other
issues, back to affordable housing issues as well about
clarity.
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F070296
page 9
Kubby/ I guess I want us to work on that.
Nov/ Another day?
Kubby/ I have one other item that is not so intense. I really want
to thank all of the people who are organizing, cleaning up
after, and performing at the Friday Night Concert Series, Arts
Fest and the upcoming Jazz Fest. It is- Even having all of
these events on one banner really depicts part of who we are
in Iowa City. There are so many people in the literary arts,
visual arts, performing arts in this community and we are out
on the streets experiencing it and enjoying it and dancing to
it and once in awhile buying it but partaking and it is really
a lot of energy and I hope that people will continue to
participate in this. Especially tomorrow the Jazz fest on July
3 starts at 4 PM on the corner of Dubuque and Washington. It
is the main stage and again, at noon, on 4th of July. So come
out and dance in the street. That is it. Thanks.
Lehman/ Just a couple of things and I mentioned last night. Most
folks really, I think, appreciate having the police visible
d.t. and I think I communicated that to you. You have to the
chief. I know the business people do. I think the same thing
is true to customers. There is also something d.t. that John
and Carolyn Gross about a week ago built a little fence around
their flower bed in front of Plaza Center One. It is very
inexpensive, it is very fairly affectire in keeping people out
of those flower beds which we have had a lot of problems
maintaining. But I think it looks great and I would like to
say thank you to them and I think we should maybe consider
doing that with some of the other beds because it is
reasonably inexpensive and one other thing. I don't want this
tonight, Steve,but I would like sometime and I am sure we all
get questions as far as the progress of our new water plant
and an update on the wells and whatever in a memo with then
next packet would be appreciated.
Kubb¥/ You know, one of the things that I had talked to Ed Moreno
about, our Water Superintendent, is having some kind of
graphics in the paper on some regular basis that shows the
money accumulating on one kind of visual chart and then
another visual thing that indicates what we are spending money
on and how much we are spending and what it is for and what it
is doing for people in terms of-
Lehman/ Do you really want to do that? People get their water bills
and they look at the paper.
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Kubby/ I think to maka us accountable for decisions that we make,
it is really important to keep people updated on what their
money is being used for specifically, yeah.
Lehman/ I don't disagree but I don't think I want to remind them.
Kubby/ They are reminded every month anyway.
Norton/ Down to Gilbert and Highway 6, you can here what you are
spending it on.
Kubby/ To know what you are paying is going for. It helps. You
understand your pain so you can work through it.
Nov/ Moving on. Dean.
Thornberry/ I have three quick things. The first is the Burlington
Street/Gilbert Street Intersection Improvement Project update.
The intersection that has been torn up for just a short period
of time. I understand that Burlington Street will be open to
two lanes of traffic the week of July 15 this year.
Nov/ If the weather holds.
Thornberry/ The brick crosswalks will be in place if they come in
in time again° The Gilbert Street will remain closed until the
completion of the project which is expected to be mid-August.
That is about the time the students will be coming back.
Hopefully that will be open about the time the students start
coming back and thanks to the city inspector and surveyor,
this project has been moving at a strong pace and the public
as well as the engineer will hopefully be pleased with the end
product. I inserted one word and that word being hopefully.
Norton/ I was going to say, I had a feeling-
Thornberry/ Yes but the bricks did come in as I understand it and
they were the wrong brick and they were sent back and we are
getting the right brick for that.
Nov/ And that is good. They need the right brick.
Thornberry/ I was the only one to vote against the bricks going
across Burlington Street. So I had to bring that up. And
another quick thing. It is my mother's birthday tomorrow.
Happy Birthday, mom. And I am not sure since it is Dee
Norton's birthday today- There were two cupcakes in the
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package,
other.
Nov/ The other one
Thornberry/ She is
so Norton got one and mom will probably get the
is for your mother, oh how sweet.
80 plus.
Baker/ So Dee could be the father?
Thornberry/ The last thing is I am getting knew surgery tomorrow
and I am nervous as a cat. Dr. John Albright, Sports Medicine
at the University of Iowa, will be doing the surgery and Sandy
Shank, his executive secretary, and if she is not an executive
secretary, she ought to be, she is super, set me up with Dr.
Albright and Dee Norton has had a should done by Dr. Albright.
Sandy explains that Dr. Albright is not only the best in town
and in the state but probably the planet. So I have-
Norton/ Nothing but the best, Dean.
Baker/ Do you get a discount.
Thornberry/ I have nothing to fear. The University of Iowa-
Nov/ There use to be a law about never advertizing. Remember that?
Norton/ Is this an illegal advertisement?
Thornberry/ I am-
Baker/ Let's see your final bill.
Thornberry/ Sandy Shank is the one that I am commending for this
project on my knee and I am perspiring here. I got to get home
and scrub up and stuff.
Nov/ All right, go home.
Thornberry/ I am ready to go.
Nov/ We will excuse you early, go ahead.
Thornberry/ This is early?
Nov/ Vanderhoef.
Vanderhoef/ The serious part first. I still would like to see the
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CIP prioritization discussion set up as soon as they can.
Arkins/ That is really very much up to you all. It is just a matter
of getting you together. We will be prepared shortly.
Vanderhoef/ Okay. I am ready for it.
Nov/ Save your calendar dates from Marian's list. We may need
another one.
Baker/ We don't have anymore five lane roads in mind, do you?
Vanderhoef/ No, not at the moment but I will check it out and see
what is happening.
Something that is on the desk tonight. Wednesday, July 10,
Mercer Park Aquatic Center, 6:30 PM, a Swim Fest for children
kindergarten through 6th grade. I can speak from experience.
This is over 25 years old. I had children who participated in
this way back when and it is a fun time for everybody and
please parents, take children out and let them experience the
fun.
Another fun thing that I experienced myself this last week and
it is new to our co,unity and it is here only because we had
a lot of co~Lmunity involvement to put this safety village
together and it was written up in a Press Citizen which I
thought was very nice. I had an opportunity to spend part of
the morning with the police officers and the firemen and the
ambulance people out there and they do a terrific job with
these young people and I comment them for what they do. That
is it.
Nov/ Thank you. Larry-
Baker/ I also wanted to add my voice to the congratulations and
praise for the people who worked on the Arts Fest this last
couple of weeks. A wonderful job and I had a lot of comments
from people about the Movies On The Wall and hopefully that
that would become more of a regular activity d.t. However, I
still was not satisfied with the clean up. Not towards the
Arts Festival people but in general, the city clean up of the
area d.t. and that is coming from being there late at night,
9:00, 10:00, 11:00 at night. But there has got to be a better
way to keep that place clean than we are doing. We have memos
about it. I just want to bring it up again.
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Kubby/ I was in an art fair in Omaha this weekend. Windy place for
an art fair. And they had the boy scouts out there emptying
trash cans twice an hour.
Baker/ Whatever it takes.
Kubby/ John Gross is a boy scout leader. You should talk.
Baker/ I use to be a boy scout but I couldn't swim. So
congratulations to the Arts Fest people.
A quick kind word and get well message to Bob Hardy who is in
charge of our television program for a long- still is. Had
major surgery a few weeks ago and is out and was down at the
festival this weekend and is looking better and I would like
to urge Bob to get back and he still has an obligation to make
me look better on television which he has not fulfilled yet.
Maybe guarantee him lifetime employment by the way.
Third thing is I had a long discussion planned tonight. I will
forego that. I talked privately to the individual about a
problem and I think it is probably better to do stuff
privately.
I meant to ask when we were discussing the Wal-Mart CZA
problem° Last night we had talked about Linda doing some
research into whether or not Wal-Mart was violating our CZA.
Is that research going to continue? Is that going to come back
to us, some word from you?
Woito/ From what I saw and heard tonight, it appears to me that we
ought to be looking at the proposal and whether it meets the
intent of the CZA. I mean I understand there may be some
disagreement (can't hear) visually. I didn't see a whole lot
of difference. So I think we need to step back and look at a
couple of things and present some recommendations.
Baker/ Okay, so-
Kubby/ So really the question it seems might be does the private
covenant make it impossible for the CZA to be lived out and
maybe that is the question we need to ask you.
Woito/ That is one question. But another question is is the
proposed development substantially satisfy their plans of the
CZA pictorially°
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Norton/ That was kind of Scott's position to some extent.
Woito/ I mean that with-
Kubby/ Their computer simulation of how it is going to look.
Woito/ Well, true.
Kubby/ Can you make it guarantee that that is how it really really
is going to be?
Baker/ And what do you do with the empty space or the parking that
is going to preclude the continuation?
Norton/ But given the realities, I don't know.
Woito/ I don't know.
Nov/
We started out with a single developer who was planning a
single development who then sold it to two different people
and now there is a third property owner and what are we going
to do. We really have to think about what is one-
Norton/ Do the best we can.
Woito/ We need to evaluate-
Baker/ I just want to
that was part of
Woito/ No, it didn't.
make sure that that didn't get lost. That
our discussion.
Norton/ But we are still going to do both things. In other words,
look at the-
Woito/ I think the whole thing needs to be re-looked at.
Nov/ That is what I am saying.
Woito/ Besides that initial question.
Baker/ And two very quick things, one of which I obviously don't do
enough advertising. All this birthday stuff. Last Friday was
my birthday.
Nov/ Happy birthday.
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#18 page 15
Baker/ And I get nothing.
Nov/ I believe that your family gave you a cupcake. I can't believe
they didn't.
Baker/ I turned 40. Finally, on a more serious note, I want to
plug a book. I want to say, call the public's attention to a
book written by an Iowa City resident, a member of our Human
Rights Commission, Osha Gray Davidson. And I want to put this
up there. Which camera am I going to be on? This one here. If
you could pull in and focus and fill up the screen with that.
The book is called, The Best Of Enemies. Let me just read you
one quote from the back from Studs Terkel. "For 80 years we
have waited a reply to Birth of the Nation. At last Osha Gray
Davidson has done the job. The story of C. P. Ellis, the
exulted cyclops of the KKK of Durham, North Carolina and of
Ann Atwater, a Watts civil rights advocate, his enemy for so
many years. It is one of the most moving love stories I will
every come across. More than that, in a time of bleakness, it
sounds a note of hope. The Best of Enemies is a glorious
work." This is a book I think that the city can be proud of
and I would urge everyone to stop into a local bookstore, pick
it up, look at it and you know- I will not advocate buying it
because that is a little bit too commercial.
Kubby/ We could advocate that our library purchase it.
Baker/ Certainly I would hope that the library would purchase this
book. It is a book well worth looking at and I think I am
proud to have Osha work with the city and I think the city can
be proud to have Osha with us. And finally, if that wasn't
enough of a recommendation, this is one of the books that has
been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and it will be given
serious consideration. So I urge the public to take a look at
this book and if you see Osha, say hello and congratulate him.
That is it. Thank you.
Nov/
Okay. I have a couple of little things here. We want to
announce some special meetings that are not on our ordinary
schedule° The city council will be meeting on July 9, in an
evaluation of employees at 4:00 PM. We are going to have a
meeting on July 6 at 7:00 PM which is a work session and on
July 6 at 7:00 PM-
Karr/ August.
Nov/ Oh, sorry, it is getting late. We are meeting July 9, August
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5 & 6. July 9, 4:00 PM; August 5 & 6 at 7:00 PM. Did I say it
right? Thank you. Okay.
Kubby/ Naomi, I am assuming that all the employees have requested
an executive session for the evaluation.
Woito/ Yes.
Kubby/ The public can come but-
Baker/ They won't.
Kubby/ But you can't hear what is going on.
Nov/
Well, that is true. We convene the meeting. We will move to
e.s. So there won't be really any public meeting. But we have
to announce the meeting.
We should also announce there will be a parade on the 4th of
July in Coralville and some of your city council members will
be in the parade and it starts at 10:O0 AM.
Oh, one more thing here. We got a letter from the federal
government this week telling us that we have money for CDBG
and HOME Funds and we did well this year. We have $1,549,000
to spend. And after all the scary predictions, this is good
news. That is it.
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F070296
CITY OF IOW..I CITY
Gity Goun¢il Work Session Agendas and Meeting Schedule
July 1, 1996
7:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m.
Monday
Special Council IVleeting - Council Chambers
Executive Session - Pending Litigation, Land Acquisition
City Council Work Session - Council Chambers
Times Are Approximate
7:15 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
8:30 p.m.
8:50 p.m.
9:20 p.m.
9:35 p.m.
9:45 p.m.
Review Zoning Matters
Highway 965 Alignment
Mercer Park Gymnasium Proposal Update
Library Expansion Project
Status of Tenant to Ownership Program
Council Agenda, Council Time
Consider One Appointment to the Design Review Committee
L July 2, 1996
7:00 p.m.
Regular City Council IV]eeting - Council Chambers
Tuesday
IJuly 15, 1996
7:00 p.m.
City Council Work Session - Council Chambers
Monday
bJuly 16,1996
7:00 p.m.
Regular City Council Meeting - Council Chambers
Tuesday
August 5, 1996
7:00 p.m. Special City Council Work Session - Council Chambers
Monday
IAugust_6, 1996
7:00 p.m. Special City Council Meeting - Council Chambers
Tuesday
JAugust 26, 1996
7:00 p.m. City Council Work Session - Council Chambers
Monday_y___J
JAugust 27, 1996
7:00 p.m. Regular City Council Nleeting - Council Chambers
Tuesday
6128/96