HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995-09-30 TranscriptionSeptember 30, 1995 Council Work Session 8:00 AM
Housing Issues
Council: Horow, Baker, Kubby, Lehman, Nov, Pigott, Throg.
staff: Atkins, Helling, Woito, Karr, Ogren, Boothroy, Franklin,
Milkman, Severson, Nasby, Long.
Tapes: 95-116, all; 95-117, all; 95-118, Side 1.
Tim Shields/ (Can't hear) In a way that, perhaps you're not able to
do around the specific issue or policy area. At the same time,
I'm going to be very, very time conscious and I apologize in
advance because unquestioningly through various points
throughout the morning, I will be rude and you're talking
along, you're about to say the most profound you've ever said
about this issue or about city government in general, or about
anything. Boy, that's yours. It's not mine. As I warn folks,
it better be profound. The point here is, we're going to try
and get through this and use this time in the most valuable
way possible for you. I think it's real challenging. Now, I'm
expected to have a new deadline. If we reach a point where
people have to stretch, let me know because otherwise I'll
probably just be charging ahead. Typically I would use breaks,
but if you think you need some, you let me know. Let me lay
out for you just a little bit about what I- here's my sense of
it and then I'm going to ask you what you want to do and
change my sense of (can't hear). But let's kind of stay on
(can't hear) with each other a little bit. As I understand
where we're at, what I want to do today is talk about,
obviously, housing, specifically housing policy. I think what
we're really after before we're done here today is to get to
the issue of helping the council be most effective in the
housing policy arena. I don't think we're here to do lengthy
educational program on the issues. You know the issues. I
don't think we need to be talking about a whole lot of related
things. We want to ultimately get to where the council is at,
where this issues is coming to your table and how you can deal
with it.
*** Chart One ***
Lay ground work
Implementation
Issues - subsidized
Agreements
What I hope to be able to do then with you is lay some ground
work around that, there's at least two pieces of that and if
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you're asking me for a couple, I think, very pertinent
questions around the issue of housing policy° Staff is
prepared to do a brief history to kind of bring us all up to
date. In brief, I hope that to the point I'll say give an
opportunity for the council to question around that. Then we
want to talk about implementation issues. That makes an
assumption that we have some understanding of the policy and
some agreement on that. And hopefully we will get to some
agreements on the part of the council about how to improve or
be more objective, or if you need to shift some direction in
regard to implementation policy. That's what I think we're
about here. One area- This area's fascinating to me, as most
of you know, I work all over the state, 40 or 50 cities a
year. This started showing up about 6-7 years ago. It was a
really small town I was working with when it first showed up
on a worksheet identified by a council member as an issue in
their community. And then as I was making my rounds around the
state about 6-7 more cities showed up. By the next year it was
on everybody's list of issues. It is a state wide issue.
There's no question about that. My experience also is that
it's very complex and although it's state wide, It remains
situational. There are specific elements of this issue in each
community. There are specific ways that cities are trying to
respond to it. I have not identified one solution that you can
carry around in a bag and take it city to city because of that
situational nature. To just kind of give you a short summary
of just the last few months, I facilitated this session that
the league and ISAC had back in August that was created by the
legislation last year that was leading some testimony with the
interim committee and presumably leading to some state
legislation in the next session. And it was fascinating to
hear that. We opened that program to talking about what is the
issue of housing and four hours later, we begin to talk about
what we supposedly there to talk about which was what does the
legislature need to do. I worked with the City of Ames for the
last couple of years. And one of the things that has been a
major issue there has been housing and they've taken a number
of strategic attacks on that. And not that we're the same as
them or they're the same as you. It has been very interesting
to watch their experience. One element that I had never really
thought of until working with the city of Ames, that there's
another element of this whole, and that is people's
expectations, the consumer's expectations. Maybe we'll talk
about that a little bit later at some point. It was
fascinating how that (can't hear). In the last few days, I was
up in Orange City. (Can't hear) Orange City? A fine little
Dutch community a long ways from here. It's 353 miles from my
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door and still in Iowa. They took on this issue last year. I
ran with them. And right now they're willing, in their town.
They have a city owned subdivision. Five houses build.
Simultaneously they worked with a contractor and developer
who just started a golf course development to build some very
high income houses. Orange City. If you think small towns are
not dealing with this issue. Well, they are. And Thursday
night I was in Muscatine working with a group called the
Muscatine Center For Strategic Action, a newly formed Private
non-profit, who as of this week, has identified their major
focus as housing. And they are doing everything from rehab to
moving houses out of the flood plain. And I could go on and on
because it's all over the state of Iowa. A couple of real
quick assumptions that I want to share with you and then I'm
going to be done.
*** Chart Two ***
1. Multiple
2. Market Driven
3. Partners
4. City Clarity
5. Political
6. Interrelatedness
One is, and I think this is going to be real important to keep
this in mind and I'm sure you already know this, there are
multiple levels of meanings that I've run into and I'm sure
you do too when you talk about housing policy or affordable
housing. It ranges from subsidized housing perhaps to, as I
said, in Orange City one of their major issues was getting
high end housing. So when we talk about this issue it is
multifaceted. I think slippery in that way because people are
talking to each other as I watch them debate these issues and
discuss them and they're really talking about different
things. And it creates some problems. I think the issue, and
this is an opinion, a professional opinion, is primarily
market driven. This is too simple and too simplistic but
primarily, if you look, you stand up and look at it, projected
income in Iowa generally has gone down. And I think in a city
like this you don't see that anywhere near as much as they do
in say this other two tier of counties, while the cost of
housing has gone up. Now that is a very simplistic way of
looking at it. But none the less, primarily we're talking
about market driven. My point is that it's not then a result
of city policy, the problem of housing policies or affordable
housing, not primarily as a result. Just to share this with
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you again I think you know this already, but one of the other
assumptions I've picked up as I worked with cities around the
state is that, no where do I know of in Iowa that the
solutions and those that are most successful have relied
solely and exclusively on city government. It has always been
in the places that I know have really moved ahead on this,
there's been some type of partnership involved. Again
multifaceted in terms of all the players, city, developers,
builders, banks, the financial community, etc.
Baker/ Tim.
Shields/ Yeah.
Baker/ Either now or some time later, could you be more specific
when you use the term most successful?
Shields/ Yeah.
Baker/ Be more specific.
Shields/ I'd be glad to at some point, yeah. But does this point
make sense to you, then I'm sure. And again my point here is
that city government rarely has all the cards or all the tools
to deal with an issue that is primarily market driven. You
have some important ones, but you don't have all of them,
based on my view. These are my assumptions and assessments. I
want again to state the obvious. Again in those places where
folks have been moving ahead on this, it's been most helpful
when the city has a clear role definition and has a clarity of
outcomes that they are trying to achieve in goals. Now that is
a lot easier said then done, but I'll share that observation
with you. And I think that they're able to come to agreement
about some specific strategies and tools that they're going to
use in addressing this issue. Again to state the obvious to
you, the other assumption is that this issue as it has emerged
around the state of Iowa, can be, has been, and most typically
is highly politically charged. It has created controversy at
times. It has certainly always created debate. And quite
frankly it is not as bad as open burning policy in terms of
the impact on city councils. But it is nearly in that category
where, I guess I'll just share this with you and the
perspective I see of other city councils, is there is no way
any council that I've worked with has moved ahead on this area
and made everybody happy. As far as I can tell it's not going
to happen anywhere, because any time you move ahead on this,
there's someone with either a vested interest or an equity
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position who sees themselves as being affected by what you do.
Therefore if indeed we decide this in an important issue in
our community, it obviously requires political leadership as
well as good technical solutions. This is the last assumption
is the interrelatedness. It has been fascinating to me because
I think it is, not for highly schooled city councils and city
council members such as yourself, but I think sometimes for at
least the general public, the tremendous interrelatedness of
the issues of housing sometimes gets lost in the general
public, but there's a relationship in Orange City between the
city having a role in helping folks, helping a developer bring
about a development that's going to have $250,000 houses on
it, that's there's a relationship between that and freeing up
houses in the $60,000-$80,000 range for example. One layer of
interrelatedness. The interrelatedness with city comprehensive
planning, this interrelatedness with the city revenue streams.
Some policies have either adverse or long term impact on this.
Horow/ Tim, have you also done this sort of thing within
communities in a region so there's a view of interrelatedness
from smaller communities to larger communities and vice versa?
Shields/ Not directly. Most of the cities that I work with, well
many of the cities that I work with, are sort of regional
leaders by the nature of being a larger city in that area.
Most places are started picking on 4-5 years ago about that
relationship that they have to the communities surrounding
them. Probably the earliest one to hit me on these issues,
said that, was Mt. Pleasant. It was about six years ago,
working down there. And in fact Mt. Pleasant was clearly aware
that their economic development plans, their policies were
going to have an impact on those very small towns around them.
And for example, to be more specific, the mobile home policies
of Crawfordsville are related to what they're trying to do in
Mt. Pleasant and that's related. The folks come regionally
together and sit down, I haven't seen that happen around this
issue. I'm not saying it hasn't happened. I think Greater Des
Moines area there's some movement in that way.
Horow/ Thank you.
Shields/ That's it. Those are some assumptions. I mean I say all
that Just to kind of give you an idea, number one, if I'm
really off target from your perceptions and your perspectives
this gives us a chance to clarify that. Also try to see if
there's any way during this discussion I might be of help,
just sharing what other folks are doing. I don't think what
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other folks are doing, like I said, there's no bandaid to take
from Fairfield to put here or from Orange City to here or from
any where or from Ames. But these are some of those
assumptions I think that drives this issue.
Kubby/ Tim, I think I have two comments about these assumptions.
One is that I guess I want to expand your assumption about the
market driven part. But it's not just supply and demand of
housing but the market of financing.
Shields/ Yes. Absolutely.
Kubby/ Is part of that. And on number six, on interrelatedness, I
think be true about Mt. Pleasant in terms of Mt. Pleasant or
Orange City with those $250,000 homes freeing up $60-80,000
homes may or may not be true. I really think, I agree with the
generalized value but the specific examples that we might come
up with may or may not work in a community that has influx of
people all the time.
Shields/ Absolutely. And all of these places, and I guess my whole
point about the complexity of this thing is some of the cities
I've worked with, the problem has been that they don't have
enough builders any more. that somewhere in the '70's three or
four builders went out of business and just pull one out of
the air fictitiously like Carroll, Iowa. And then all of a
sudden you've only got two builders in town so they've got a
lot of trouble. And that becomes an affordable housing
problem. In other places, we've got so much competition that
the price of land has been driven up so much that it has an
impact. So when we talk about affordable housing as a state
wide issue, my (can't hear) six years later, seven years
later, since I started seeing it show up, is that we have Iowa
City's problems with affordable housing. We have Ames problems
with affordable housing. This is only part of everybody's
problem, but it still plays out very specifically and very
differently in various situations. Let me do you this with you
and before we ask the staff to do this history or part of it.
Number one, is I want to find out the outcomes you want to get
out of this forum. If this is consistent with what you wanted
to do, let me know. And if there is a more specific way of
saying it, let me know.
Throg/ Agreements, the word itself implies that we would come to
firm agreements that somehow would then be imposed on the rest
of the community. I guess that's a bit bothersome to me if
that's what you mean. The idea that there are multiple
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definitions and that there should be a partnership and it's
highly politically charged implies that there's a lot more
that has to take place after this.
Shields/ I agree with that. I don't mean to imply that you'd come
to a finite agreement on specific element of a policy, but I
think that my perception of looking a little- of course I know
a little bit more about you and what has happened here then
what I might know about some cities. There's few cities that
I probably know more about then here. But my point would be
that I'm talking about agreements about how the council is
going to work on this issue. Is that-
Throg/ Sure.
Shields/ Okay.
Baker/ I want to go back to something I said earlier in other
meetings. I visualize this meeting as an expression of
subsidized housing. Now it's expanded beyond that and I
understand the interrelatedness of affordable housing and
subsidized housing but it seems to me we could reach some
agreements, maybe not necessarily today, but it would be
easier to reach agreements about subsidized housing goals and
policies then it would about affordable housing goals and
policies, because even though they're connected, I'm wondering
if in this community we had no subsidized housing program at
all and that was not debated, we would still have an
affordable housing issue that people would still be talking
about a cost of living, primarily housing, in Iowa City. And
that's the issue that I don't see us being able to do at this
level at this meeting or even among ourselves getting clearer
directions on and I sort of visualize things, other groups
working together in them, whether it's task force or something
else, taking that preliminary memo we got about barriers to
affordable housing and sort of coming through a process like
the Vision statement process with recommendations from groups
of people about affordable housing issues. I mean when I first
talked about this back in September, I was visualizing a
discussion of subsidized housing to avoid the confrontations
when specific projects get to us after going through a long
process. So I don't know what we can agree on by the end of
the day, but I mean I would hope that we can get some focus on
specifically subsidized housing.
Shields/ How do the rest of you feel about that?
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Horow/ I tend to think to it's impossible to focus on that because
it's only one element of the larger picture.
Pigott/ I agree.
Nov/ However though, it's only one element. It's the element on
which the city council has control.
Baker/ More so than anything else.
Kubby/ Well it matters what you mean by subsidized housing and if
that's true or not. If you're talking about Section 8 Housing
Certificate Program, we have limited control of that because
we have federal guidelines and it's part of the market that's
government and market controlled. If you're talking about us
giving grant monies to non-profits or other organizations, we
do have more control over that.
Nov/ We have more control period over subsidized housing.
Audience/ It's hard for some folks to hear. I don't know if your
amplifier's not on.
Horow/ We are amplified but we'll talk louder.
Shields/ I want to lay a ground rule that's very interesting to me
and very pertinent as a resident of Iowa City to see you folks
are interested enough to spend some of your Saturday morning
here. My understanding of this is of course it's an open
meeting as is any meeting of the council. But mind you this is
for the purpose of the council to speak with each other. This
is not for the purpose of public interaction. This is not a
public hearing. This is for you to be able to speak with each
other. Otherwise, we need to-
Throg/ Agreed that these points clearly concern lots of people. We
want to hear the conversation and if we don't speak loudly
enough, it's not possible to hear.
Shields/ Project when you're talking to each other.
Horow/ Tim, I wonder if the agreement issue might not be raised
again half way through.
Shields/ Sure.
Horow/ Let's get the history from the staff.
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Shields/ We can do that.
Horow/ Which might remind us all in terms of where we are, how much
we got, and what we've done.
Shields/ Can I suggest too that by way of trying to, what Larry's
suggesting by the way makes things a lot clearer, a little bit
easier in some ways, that we might take this in terms of what
do we take on first. And the interrelatedness is never going
to get away from us I'm afraid.
Throg/ I understand.
Shields/ But if we take that on first because of the recent
experiences you've had here.
Kubby/ I don't know that I want to agree to that right away. I'd
rather- Steve had said that we were going to go through a
process of brainstorming. And we might- and prioritization and
if that comes up to be in the top then maybe we focus on some
top issues or something. But I'd rather not focus on one
spectrum of the facets.
Throg/ I'd like to say also that I don't think we ought to focus
narrowly on subsidized housing at this point, partly because
several council members at the table have already submitted to
one another memos that raise particular topics that are not
necessarily directly related to subsidized housing. And that
those topics should be on the table.
Baker/ And I just want to say, I don't consider subsidized housing
issue being subsidized housing a narrow issue. If we can get
some agreement on-
Throg/ Narrower.
Baker/ Narrower.
Shields/ What I'm learning already is the definitional work is part
of what we need to do.
Throg/ Absolutely.
Shields/ So those comments being listened to, then we can agree
with this or there's some other outcomes that you're after
that I'm not aware of. We have said that part of this is doing
some brainstorming and I certainly- It's certainly what I
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would expect to do around these issues, those opportunities,
those things. In essence what I want to brainstorm on is what
do you need to talk about? What do you need to get before this
council to be able to really discuss.
Kubby/ I guess I'd like us to spend most of our time on the
implementation part of it and some of that focus will come
some things.
Horow/ I don't agree with that. I think that's what we're going to
have to.
Shields/ Okay. Well let's try to move. Let me ask you now. This is
serious. This is a serious question and I think maybe a
beginning, maybe will help hopefully. I had a question for
you, and that is, why is this an issue?
Kubby/ Because we disagree on very basic issues.
Shields/ Why is housing, however we define it, affordable housing,
housing and issue and does the city have an obligation in this
area? And I'd like to hear from all of you. I want to start
with the why.
Horow/ We do this before we get to staff's history?
Shields/ Yes.
Pigott/ You know, I think council may agree that affordable
housing, housing for people under the median income in some
way, is important. How you get to do that is really a big
question.
Shields/ We're going to talk about the how, but I want to know, I
want to start with this question why.
Pigott/ And we've faced a number of issues over the last couple of
years at least and had different votes on it and disagreements
on it in a couple of different areas, Greenview and the
northside of town as well. And part of that process I think
from my perspective was a sense of frustration over so what
projects do we do you know and where. Let's discuss, let's
back up from it and that's where it stems from in my own
opinion.
Baker/ I want to go further back than that which is why we are on
city council. I think one of the expectations of people of
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here and if the
extent that they
comfortably they
whether it is in
whatever. So that
their government of whatever level it is that the government
is acts as-There is more roles here. But one of their roles is
a buffer or a control against the market. There are forces out
there that controls people's lives and one of the things that
you do as a government is sort of step in and help mitigate
those consequences whether it is with regulation or whatever.
And so, what people expect us to do is help them live in Iowa
City within their means. I mean they want us to help them live
cost alters people's behavior to such an
can't live here or they can't live here
want some relief from their government
the form of a subsidy or regulation or
is why it is an issue. If the market had
solved all of these problems we wouldn't we talking about it.
Kubby/ I agree with Larry very strongly in that what I am seeing is
a trend where it is harder and harder for people living on
moderate and lower incomes to live here. People who work here,
many people can't afford to live here and because the market
is not doing it on its own that is the role of government. I
really like your statement a great deal, a lot.
Baker/ I am always use to hearing this figure, 30% figure. If you
spend more than 30% of your income on housing there is
something out of whack here and when Ginger and I sit down and
to the bills every month we are spending more than 30% on
housing.
Shields/ I want to get each one of you to respond to this question
and you are doing it. It is why do we, and both of you implied
there is an obligation obviously, and I am looking for the
why. Why or why is this issue?
Horow/ For me, the obligation as a council member also extends to
the rest of the city who has made an investment in the city
and in their home and the tensions that then come from a
public bodies such as council assisting citizens to live in
what is seen as an expensive city. That tension then for me
has made me step back and say wait a minute, it is more than
just helping someone living in this city. It is looking also
to assist those people who are living here to maintain their
neighborhoods. That they maintain some sort of equity in their
investment and then the other angle of this which has made,
just actually baffle me and I am happy to see the Director of
Iowa Economic Development says Iowa City is on the cutting
edge and that is that it is more than just providing shelter
to those folks who are for low income. It is a total support
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to human infrastructure of helping them learn to live in that
house, maintain it so that their investment in it continues to
grow and that helping them learn how to live in a neighborhood
which strengthens the neighborhood and the schools. In other
words, we are seeing what a transient society at least this is
becoming more and more obvious to me. That it isn't just
providing a shelter for someone. It is the accoutrements that
goes along with it and that is expensive. And if we have
scarce resources right now and we see looming scarcer
resources then for me this issue really needs to have us step
back and be a little bit more realistic in terms of how much
we can actually provide to help citizens live in Iowa City.
Shields/ Jim, how about for you, the why on this.
Throg/ Well, the main point would be that if people cannot afford
to live in the city then they won't. And taken to extreme that
would mean that no one would live here if it was truly
unaffordable housing problem that is pretty deep. So, I think
that there would likely be the affect that in effect creating
an upper income ghetto in this particular area of this
particular city. That lower income people would be driven out
of this city. This is hypothetical is that lower income people
would be driven out of the city and it would be primarily a
place for upper income people and as a result the city council
would end up representing primarily upper income people. I am
kind of pushing to its extreme.
Shields/ This is the imperfect way of capturing what you are
saying, that part of that is to be able to maintain the
diversity in this community and not get it to a narrowly
focused community.
Throg/ ¥eah.
Shields/ Ernie, the why of this issue?
Lehman/ I guess I don't agree that the city has an obligation. I
think we choose to help with housing because we think it is a
good idea. I don't think we have an obligation. I do think it
is a good idea. We have chosen that and I think that working
within that pretext we do what we can. I also think and this
is a tough thing to say but I do believe that not everybody
can afford to live in Iowa City and I think we have to accept
that. I think we need to make it as affordable as we can but
I think we have to realize that we can't make it affordable
for everybody. Can't do it. You know, and I think that is part
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of the market you were talking about before. You know, this is
a community where the cost of living is probably the highest
in the State of Iowa. We could do what we can for low and very
low income people to try to make it possible for them to live
here but we have to recognize and accept the fact that we
cannot make it affordable for everybody. I think we need to do
that up front other wise we are going to be frustrated
forever.
Shields/ Ernie, you say without an obligation in your point of
view. But you have agreed that it is a good idea to move
ahead-
Lehman/ I think we all agree this is a good-
Shields/ Why?
Lehman/ Why?
Shields/ What is the purpose?
Lehman/ I think-Jim's points, diversity. We need a good mix of
people in this community and I think we all agree to that. I
think we all agree that we need to help those who are less
fortunate. We help folks- We have seen people grow, they have
a tough time, they get better and better. Pretty soon, you
know, they can do it on their own. I think that it is very
important that we do that. But we choose to do that.
Shields/ Naomi.
Nov/
I do agree that there is some sort of obligation. If there are
people who have no place to live. If there are people truly
homeless, there is a definite government obligation. So, to
some extent, I don't agree that we are not obligated. And if
there are people who have vouchers and need some assistance in
finding a place to use those vouchers, I feel there should be
somebody in the city who has some way to help them to use
those vouchers. I have a firm belief that we are not in any
way obligated to subsidize homeownership. I think ownership is
something that people can or cannot do entirely on their own
without city government help. My analogy is I feel an
obligation to provide an efficient transit system. I do not
feel an obligation to help you pay for your automobile.
Shields/ I want to check with you. What I am hearing you say right
now is in regards to homeless, there is an obligation and
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indeed then there is a why for you because those folks need
some assistance from their local government. Beyond that issue
of homeless though and these other subsidized housing and the
affordable housing area-Do you still support that the city
move ahead in that or those areas?
Nov/
Yes, I support subsidized housing. I think there is a need to
help people find shelter and I will support Susan's theory
that we don't need to necessarily do this within Iowa City. I
agree that these vouchers and certificates should be usable
beyond Iowa City and they are.
Shields/ Larry, go ahead.
Baker/ Something already said just keeps bringing me back to my
frustration with this particular meeting which is
definitional. That when you talk about affordable housing in
this city I think you get residents in the community that they
agree that they support that. When you talk about subsidized
housing I think people would be less-I am speaking, sort of
generalizing about what I see in the community. There is less
support for subsidized housing than affordable housing and it
seems like there is more consensus on this council to do
something in the area of subsidized housing than there is in
the community. But affordable housing to me is like the
balanced budget amendment. Sounds good but when you tell
people to get it you have to do X, Y, and Z, then you get a
real disagreement about the value of the balanced budget or
the affordable housing. So, right now, this initial
frustration about definitions and where we are going with this
because I want us to accomplis1% something. I am not sure where
we are going today.
Throg/ I need to respond briefly to just get a point on the table
without elaborating on it. Larry has made a strong point about
focusing on subsidized housing and I think what we need to
also recognize is that s.f. homes are all subsidized. They are
subsidized through federal, state income tax deductions and
there are massive subsidies associated with that. So to point
out 1,000 housing units under the Section 8 Program or Iowa
City's Public Housing Program as being subsidized while not
recognizing that all of those other houses are subsidized I
think is to confuse, to obfuscate and to kind of complicate
our task significantly.
Baker/ And I think the distinction is absolutely valid but not
helpful in this discussion.
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Kubby/ I think it is incredibly helpful because for me it is how do
we take further advantage of that tax code.
Shields/ Let me just finish this first round. Bruno-
Pigott/ I would say that part of the reason is to help citizens who
do work in the community who may not be able to afford because
their income is below, you know, the median income, whether it
is 60% or 50% or 30% to live in Iowa City. We have got a work
force of people who are working at or just above minimum wages
and are finding it difficult to rent much less own a home.
Horow/ That comes to my question in terms of why would they need to
live in Iowa City, not work here. In BDI-
Pigott/ I think some of them do. Some of them find it very hard to,
once rents go up, to stay in Iowa City. And what you are
saying is that if their income doesn't increase the same rate
that their housing prices increases, it is to bad you have got
to move. I don't agree. I think that if you were working in
the city and your rents go up, you shouldn't just be forced
out because your job salary doesn't increase at the same rate.
Horow/ That gets over into the whole business of economic
development and higher wages.
Pigott/ They are the connections.
Horow/ That slides us into a whole other arena. That the percentage
of people who do work int his city and happily live somewhere
else (can't hear). Not only at the University but in the whole
area of BDI.
Pigott/ Maybe those people whose to live elsewhere. But some people
don't have that choice or are forced into not having that
choice.
Horow/ My concern then is how many people we will be subsidizing to
live here who we will then put in this cycle and they won't be
able to escape. They can't keep it up. In other words, they
will just have to constantly be subsidized in order to afford
to stay here. That concerns me as well.
Shields/ It kinds of gets us a little ahead when we talked about
that presents a solution (can't hear).
Throg/ I am just recognizing that you are pointing out the
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WS093095
September 30, 1995 Council Work Session Page 16
interrelationship among issues between definitions, between
livable wage and affordable housing. They are interrelated.
They define one another. But the other thing I am thinking
about has to do with transportation costs. If we compel people
to move out of the city because housing is not affordable in
the city then all we are doing is forcing them, we are not
forcing them, but they are being compelled to pay more in
transportation costs to compensate for having top live
somewhere else and that has real affects on housing because if
you spent $5,000 a year on a car, that means you are not able
to spend get $50,000 on a mortgage payment. I don't know if I
am saying that quite correctly but you can finance a $50,000
mortgage with $5,000 per year.
Kubby/ Also there are transportation issue within neighborhoods in
the city that those individuals are going through to get to
the work place.
Horow/ Tim, I am tempted to get into specifics here I think as all
of us are. But I really would like, if possible, do you feel
we are at the point that we need to-
Shields/ Yeah, I just want to point out something real quickly. I
think this definition thing, I anticipated this. I mean,
obviously, I introduce is as a complex subject and it is. I
think for you to be successful and I don't necessarily follow
Larry's lead on this but I think we have got to be clear about
which element of this we are talking about in spite of their
interrelatedness or else it gets very slippery because then
you will not really be talking to each other. And it is
limiting intellectually as that can be. I mean, I ask you as
we move ahead a little bit later here this morning that we
really talk about these basic elements.
Lehman/ Bruno, you made a point and I don't know if you intended it
that way but I guess it interested me and I think you did too
Sue. You mentioned people who work in Iowa City. How important
is it that folks who live in subsidized housing or Section 8
work in Iowa city. Is that an important factor?
Pigott/ You mean whether they are employed? If they are not
employed does that mean they shouldn't be under subsidized
housing?
Lehman/ You made it a point of talking about people who work in
Iowa City. Is that a factor?
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September 30, 1995 Council Work Session
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Pigott/ That is important to me that they work in Iowa City but if
they are not employed, if they have lost their job I don't
think that means that you say we shouldn't subsidize their
housing anymore.
Shields/ What I get here is not perfect agreement. But there is a
consensus in the group that there is an answer to the why. I
heard no one say I am indelibly opposed to the city having any
role in this broader issue of housing. There is agreement
there. It would appear that there is a fair amount of
agreement on some level of subsidized housing. There is
probably-And I think if you look at this as moving up and I
don't know if it is up or down or sideways but as you move on
into these other definitional areas, almost picking up on what
Larry is saying, that there appears that there is less
consensus. Certainly there is a why, there is an answer. I
mean, I am going to presume that all of these comments mean
that we are going to be in better shape if the city assumes
some obligation on this role. Right? We all agree with that.
I want to get the staff's present on the brief history. It
might help us get focused on these specifics because, again,
what I want to move back to is what are the barriers before
this council to be as most effective as you can possibly be in
dealing with this issue and we will get to that yet.
Nov/
Before we get to staff comments, this is not a unique issue in
any other college community. You will find people sitting in
Ann Arbor, Bloomington, or anywhere else talking about the
fact that it is so much more expensive to live here. They are
not necessarily solving that but we are all discussing this
issue.
Shields/ You know, it goes beyond the University. I mean I worked
in Urbandale for two weeks, It is an issue in Urbandale. It is
an issue in West Des Moines.
Kubby/ Big issue.
Shields/ It is an issue in Clive. It is an issue in Orange City.
Again, they are different but the university towns, I agree,
have some special hold on this in terms of some ways but I
don't think the fact that you are a university town is why
this issue exists in Iowa City.
Nov/ No, but we are talking about this as if this is something
unique to Iowa City and it is not.
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Shields/ No, it is not. Let me have staff give the brief history
and then we will see where we go from there.
*** Chart Three
Why
-Ameliorate market forces
-Help citizens live in Iowa City
-More difficult for low/moderate income
-Role in maintaining neighborhoods
-Maintain diversity
-Assist homeless
-Help those below medium income
Karin Franklin/ This is kind of a history. What we wanted to do is
talk about policies that you have in place right now and then
what we do as the result of those policies. First of all let
me break it down into three different areas of housing that we
deal with in terms of defining the housing problem as we view
it. First of all it is the ability of moderate income people,
and there are some definitions for that, moderate income
people to access the housing market. There we are talking
about owner occupied housing and it is those people accessing
the market and getting out of the rental market and some of
the interrelationships that Tim was talking about. The second
is the lack of rental units that are affordable to people of
low to moderate income and then third is the lack of adequate
basic shelter for the homeless. We focus most of our efforts
on the second one, the lack of affordable rental housing for
low to moderate income. Why we do that? Well, let's look at
the policies. We have essentially three policy documents-well,
two actually. The Comprehensive Plan and the Visions
Statement. The Comp Plan was adopted back in '93 and talks
about considering the diversities of renters and owners. With
a plan or policy statement it is going to be a very broad
statement that allows you then to move within that. There are
some more specific statement in these policies but I am just
going to give a broad brush approach. I don't know that you
need to get into that. If you want to get into it in more
detail we can. The Comprehensive Plan also talks about
accommodating the needs of low and moderate income people and
special populations. The Vision Statement which you know is
newer and is going to be the base of our updated Comprehensive
Plan takes a slightly different tack in that it starts talking
about diversity in the community, as Jim was talking
about,that we have appropriate supply of adequate, accessible,
financially and physically, and affordable housing for all
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September 30, 1995 Council Work Session
Page 19
residents. Again, we are talking about a very broad spectrum
here, renter and owner occupied. That there will be a
diversity of housing types and households in all neighborhoods
that we create and that is again, very broad goals. City Steps
then is the other document that comes into play here in terms
of policy. City Steps because it is the guideline for how you
make decisions on location of CDBG, HOME and Emergency Shelter
grants. It is focused on low to moderate income, that 0% to
80% of median income and the high priority within City Steps
is provision of affordable rental housing for low income
households. Low income is 50% of the median or less. So that
is the framework within which the Department of Planning and
Community Development and Department of Housing and Inspection
Services. the Public Housing Authority-what we work within.
The tools that we have as a government to deal with these
broad issues are the regulatory tools, zoning and any kinds of
laws which you choose to pass, namely zoning. And then funding
programs. The funding programs are largely federal dollars. We
spend some local money but it is largely federal dollars. So
that, too, Karen you pointed out, is going to direct somewhat
what we focus on. Most of our efforts in the housing area have
been focused in the funding part of it. What kind of projects
we are going to fund, what we are going to do in terms of
Public Housing and Section 8. This is then looking at rental
housing for low incomes persons consistent with City Steps. It
views the expenditure of public funds as appropriate in
meeting the needs of the neediest. I think that is where all
of that comes from, not just at the local level but also at
the federal level. I want to kind of describe the sort-not the
sort, bad word, the income levels of people that we are
dealing with when we are talking about low to moderate income.
This table of income guidelines shows you what the different
income levels are. Median income, 80% of median down to 30% of
median. We are going to focus on a family of four. The median
income in Iowa City is $47,000, that is for a family of four.
Now that changes, HUD reviews these annually and revises the
median income and the percentages obviously follow. 80% of
median is $37,600. Then I am going to go to 50 because that is
the category we deal with most. A family four, 50% of median,
$23,500. 30% of median which we would consider very low income
is $14,100 or less.
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-116 SIDE 2
Franklin/ Now what I want to look at just to point out what we
dealing with. I know this is very hard for people to see. Do
you have copies? Marian has some copies that she will pass
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around. Okay, a family of four you have 30% of median, 50% of
median, and 80% of median as I just outlined for you. The 30%
of their income which is the figure that Larry was talking
about uses a bench mark for looking at where they fit in and
how much is being spent for housing, whether it is an interim
amount. For monthly housing costs and this can cover rent or
it can cover mortgage and all the things that go with buying
a home. For someone who is at 30% of median and a family of
four, they can spend $353 a month. 50% of median where they
are making $23,500 they can spend $588 a month. 80% of median
they can spend $940 a month. Now that is just saying that you
spend 30% of your income and does not take into consideration
what some of the other costs of living may be in a particular
community. Average Iowa City market rent for a two bedroom and
three bedroom apartment, $599 and $781. Now that is average
rent which of course means there are apartments available that
are lower than that. But look at those figures. We have just
eliminated the 30% and 50% of median.
Kubby/ Do these figures include utilities?
Franklin/ These figures do not include utilities, no.
Kubby/ Does the 30% of income figure income utilities?
Franklin/ It could. That is what you have to work with to pay your
rent which may or may not include your utilities. To pay your
mortgage payment your utilities, your insurance, your taxes.
Nov/ Some rents do include utilities.
Franklin/ Yes.
Pigott/ Some do, yeah.
Milkman/ These figures, the 30% for rent does include utilities.
You are not suppose to pay more than 30% of your rent for
shelter costs plus utilities.
Franklin/ These are all for shelter costs.
Baker/ Karin, again for clarification, annual gross income is not
take home pay. Is that right?
Franklin/ That is right.
Baker/ The housing costs is gross housing costs. The figure there
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is a little bit misleading.
Franklin/ That is what I say that when you look at these numbers
which $940 sounds high. When you think of what it includes but
then also what other expenses you have and what your take home
is.
Baker/ The 30% figure is a little bit misleading because it is not
30% of your gross, it is 30% of your net. Okay.
Nov/ Oh, no-
Milkman/ The way HUD calculates it is to say that you should not
spend more than 30% of your gross annual income.
Baker/ I understand that but I am just saying that that is a
misleading-
Throg/ I don't understand what you are-
Baker/ You are not taking home $37,600. But you are really spending
a lot more than 30%-
Throg/ Of your net, yeah, sure.
Franklin/ It is a guideline that we use to make an evaluation so it
doesn't have to be precise. But the idea is that we have some
comparison here to see what it is that we are working with.
Kubby/ It makes the situation seem worse.
Pigott/ It actually does. It doesn't help it.
Kubby/ This is being conservative.
Franklin/ In terms of homeownership opportunities, this is a very
important part of this. We figure that given what one can
spend on monthly housing costs as conservatively as this is,
that in 30% of median income, forget homeownership, it is just
not a reality unless it is highly subsidized. Now we are
talking now here without subsidized market. 30% of median
income, no home ownership. 50% of median income you can afford
$47,000 house. 80%-$87,000. Again, with all the qualifiers we
have put on this. Last year from January to June 1995 there
were four houses that were under $47,000 sold in Iowa City.
There were 56 houses in the $47,000 to $87,000 range. So we
had 60 houses that might be accessible to these folks here. My
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point being that to talk about home ownership and the 0% to
80% median income is probably very unrealistic unless you are
talking about an extremely large subsidy.
Throg/ Karin, what percent of households in Iowa City are at or
below 80% of median income? I assume it is greater than 18% or
greater than about 20% because you got 20% of the houses that
are being sold are at or below 80% of median income.
Franklin/ Yes.
Kubby/ Look at our census figures-more than 20% of our population
at or below 80%.
Nov/ If you are using the census figures, you are also counting all
of the people who have no intention of staying in Iowa City.
You are counting all of the students who will be here for a
couple of years and will then have a better job and buy a
house somewhere else. So it is very difficult to compare
census figures on income.
Kubby/ We still have to provide housing of some sort for the people
who are here as well-And many students, for example, I went to
school here and I have been here 20 years. I stayed here.
Nov/ But not everyone who is a student is necessarily interested in
ownership or is necessarily interested in being part of this
particular statistic. So it is difficult to say we are going
to compare the total of residents under this income level to
the total availability of housing ownership.
Kubby/ I am saying housing available to people at or below 80% no
matter what form it takes or whether it is ownership by the
bank or by-
Nov/ Karen, the better comparison is people who are in the housing
market, what interest in buying houses, and then the
availability of houses that they can afford rather than the
total population of that income level.
Kubby/ If we are talking about homeownership, looking at those
figures-
Shields/ Let's move on, could we?
Franklin/ Point being that what we have done in terms of the staff
is focused very much on the rental aspect. Not that we haven't
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September 30, 1995 Council Work Session
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looked at the owner occupied at all, we will get into that.
The first program to really take a look at risk rentals is the
federally funded programs of Public Housing and Section 8 and
I want Doug to just quickly run through those two programs and
how they work. One of our efforts is to try to get us all on
a kind of level field as to what we know.
Doug
Boothroy/ One thing I want to mention is that one of the
reasons that you are here is to talk about affordable housing.
The why that was brought up before is that the Iowa City
Housing Authority it is your charge to be involved with
providing subsidized housing in a major way within a
community, not just within Iowa City but also in our service
area which has got the same problem you have in Johnson
County, Iowa County, and Washington County. I want to talk
about three things, actually five things today with regard to
the Iowa City Housing Authority. I want to talk a little bit
about funding. I want to compare Public Housing to Section 8.
I want to talk a little bit about the difference between
vouchers and certificates and I also want to talk a little bit
about the future. The point I want to make about funding is
that the Iowa city Housing Authority not only provides
subsidizes housing to a large number of people. We have 977
certificates and vouchers that are out in the market plus we
will have, as a result of the construction. At the end of
construction of Whispering Meadow, approximate 125 Public
Housing units. So when we talk about money coming into the
community, we are talking about only Section 8 and the fact
sheet that I handed out to you earlier. That is this year
going to be $3.8 million, over $3.8 million. Two things are
happening with that money that you need to understand. First
of all none of the money is paid to the tenants. It goes
directly into the economy. It goes directly to the landlords
an that money then is circulated as a result of goods and
services that are expended that way. I think there is often
times a misunderstanding that the money that we receive
somehow is welfare, somehow goes directly to the tenant for
them to choose how they are going to spend that money. They
don't have a choice on that. They have a choice of where they
want to live in the Section 8 Program. They can live wherever
they want and you get to that other point that was raised
earlier in terms of what people are interested in. One thing
the Section 8 Program does is it levels the playing field with
regard to housing location. Somebody that is able to find
housing with the certificate or voucher can choose to live
anywhere they want in Johnson County. They can live in North
Liberty, they can live in Iowa City. Actually they don't even
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WS093095
September 30, 1995 Council Work Session Page 24
have to live in Johnson County. We have people living in
Williamsburg. So if you happen to get a complaint or anything
see a city car out in Williamsburg it is not that they are at
the discount mall, they are out there doing an inspection. I
just want you to understand the breadth of what is happening.
The statistics I showed you, of course, indicate that most
people when they have the right to choose where they want to
live and also given the fact that Iowa City has high rents,
choose to live in Iowa City. Over 70%, close to 80% as I
recall, I don't have those numbers in front of me are choosing
to live where the services are, are choosing to live within
this community. So $3.8 million this year. It was $3.5 last
you. It was over $3 million the year before. It is all coming
back into the (can't hear). It is circulating, it is buying
goods and services, it is providing jobs in some fashion. This
year we have even more. As the Iowa City Housing Authority, we
are spending even more. We are spending $3.2 million in
building houses down in Whispering Meadows. That is hiring
contractors, that bought land, it did a number of things. It
is the major s.f. detached
going on in this community.
have built in a vicinity of
Authority has contributed
close to being out and we
and attached development that is
I think of today, I think Ron, we
120 houses. The Iowa City Housing
33 of those. The year is getting
have provided a lot of jobs as a
result of that particular construction project. In a year, as
it turns out it is very appropriate, in a year where s.f.
construction is at its low. So it is a very positive spin on
that. We are getting funds this year as a Housing
Authority. All those moneys, all of those moneys are buying
goods and services. We are buying refrigerators, we are buying
roofs, we are buying windows and we are buying all of that
locally and that supports the local economy. We have also
spent another $1 million in the last year to buy ten houses
which we paid 6% in Realtor fees and we also gave people
opportunities to move and all those ten houses almost
everybody chose to relocate within this area in Johnson County
and bought other houses. So we are looking at, in this year
alone since the 1st of January and by the time we get through
January of next year we will spent as the Iowa City Housing
Authority directly into this economic market over $8 million
and that is a lot of positives that are happening as a result
of providing housing opportunities for low income people. So
you got to look at it as there is a flip side. A lot of times
people are talking about the negative and where are these
people coming from. Well, as it turns out, they are actually
coming from Iowa. They are mostly coming from Johnson County
or they are coming from our service area. They are not coming
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September 30, 1995 Council Work Session
Page 25
from Chicago or Minneapolis and so we are providing not only
housing but we are also providing an economic engine for goods
and services within the community.
Kubby/ And the landlords get the full rent. They are not asked to
have below market rents. They ask what they want and the
tenant pays 30% of their income and the feds pay the rest up
to the fair market rent and then the tenants pay anything
extra if they choose to live there.
Boothroy/ I am going to hand out a chart to show the difference
between vouchers and certificates that you can take with you
that will help explain that in more detail. I want to
distinguish next a little bit between the two programs because
there is a difference between the Section 8 Program and Public
Housing Programs and maybe some misunderstanding. The Public
Housing Program is owned by the City of Iowa City. It is owned
debt free. Section 8 is, we have no ownership. It is a subsidy
that comes from the federal government that we process each
month. We issue 100's of checks that go directly into private
sector for the apartments that are privately owned. Public
Housing by HUD's definition and my definition, too, is really
an Iowa City scattered site. Largest project, 20 units,
Shamrock. You can visualize Shamrock. Obviously with the
Section 8 Program it is scattered site. You can live anywhere
you want. You can live, as I said, up to three counties which
is our service are presently. Public Housing, it is expected
to stand on its own. The rents we receive are suppose to pay
the overhead with little or no subsidy. That is a difficult
thing to achieve but that is the goal of Public Housing.
Section 8 we are not involved in that° The subsidy goes to the
landlord to pay for their rent structure. Public Housing Iowa
City only. We don't have Public Housing anywhere else except
Iowa City. Section 8 regional or three county I should say.
Public Housing has doubled since 1990. As I indicated earlier,
Section 8 has grown 22%. But even if we went back 10 years,
the Iowa City Housing Authority kind of ShUCk up on you. Over
those last few years it is 2 1/2 to 3 times the growth
compared to the Section 8 Program since 1980 and so we have
been growing rather rapidly in that area. One last thing about
Section 8 and Public Housing. Public Housing we select the
tenants. Okay. We try to find people we feel will be able to
pay the rent and maintain the property. In Section 8 we don't
select the tenants. The private sector selects the tenants.
Sometimes I hear people criticize about what those people are
doing and why we don't do a better job selecting. We don't
select people. We qualify people for Section 8 but we don't
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Page 26
select where they live and who they rent with. Utilization,
another point I want to talk about a little bit. 100%
utilization last year. Sometimes there is a lot of discussion
at least in my experiences that people can't use the Section
8 Certificates and Vouchers. They can't find housing. Well, we
issue a lot of Section 8 Certificates and Vouchers every year
and everybody-We serve 100% of the allocation that is given to
us. There are some people that we issue certificates and
vouchers to that can't find housing and sometimes the
circumstances why they can't find housing are that they have
some characteristics in terms of rental patterns and other
things that make them unattractive for the landlords to rent
to. They may have to find other support systems like
Transitional Housing or something of that nature in order to
get them back into the mainstream of being able to rent. But
as far as your program is concerned, the Section 8 Program, we
are using it and there are 100% of the families or 100% of the
vouchers and certificates being used.
Horow/ Doug, question, what happens to the vouchers of the person
who cannot find? They have to turn them back in?
Boothroy/ Yes, right. They initially get 60 days in which to seek
housing. If they are having difficulty then they can get
another 60 days. So they could have up to four months. One of
the things about this Housing Authority that is unique and
doesn't occur any place else in the state is that we have 25%
turnover rate. We are able to have a lot of people look for
housing at any one time. We have a margin to adjust so that we
may have, for example, 100 families out looking for housing at
any one point or in any one month and we only really have in
terms of our actual allocation, we may only have 30. This is
a hypothetical. We may only really have 30 vouchers. We are
not worried because we know that turnover rate is so high that
even if we over issue in any one month, the next month we can
make that up if in fact that 100 becomes true. I have never
had that happen where if we were out 100, actually 100 people
came through.
Horow/ By turnover rate you mean the people get in the home, get
established and move onto to something else?
Boothroy/ They leave the program for some reason.
Horow/ Right, okay.
Boothroy/ In comparison to places-That is why our waiting list is
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so short. I think you will notice that it may seem long but in
the State of Iowa, we have the shortest waiting list for
assistance. You go to Waterloo it is two years, Cedar Rapids
it is more than a year. I don't know what it is. But other
communities, because they don't have a turnover rate because
they don't move through, their waiting list is- I think Des
Moines talked about recently disposing their waiting list
because they couldn't get to the people that had applied. We
don't have that problem here because we have such a dynamic
flow of individuals through the market that we are able to
continue to move people in and people move out for whatever
reason. Maybe they just leave the community and go some place
else.
Baker/ The turnover rate, when you say it is
state, I am assuming you are saying that
you don't have-
the highest in the
is a good thing but
Boothroy/ Well, it is a lot of work. It is a plus and a minus.
Baker/ You can't relate it back to anything we do as a city or as
a?
Boothroy/ No. I think it ha's something to do with ~the University.
I think it has something to do with just the dynamics of this
community.
Kubby/ It may be that because people have such horrible rental
history, problems with landlords or just because of mental
illness they become homeless. It could be they become self
sufficient but it could go the other way, too, what they are
not-
Baker/ I can see that in every community. Those are the factors.
Why this one in this community because of the nature of the
population.
Boothroy/ The high numbers reflect-Last month in the month of
August we had 51 families simply leave the program and I don't
have an explanation for it.
Baker/ Is there follow up?
Boothroy/ The landlords of course are obligated to let us know so
they don't continue to get the check. No, we don't have any
follow up on that and I don't know the answer to that. Maybe
they found a job some place else. Maybe-You certainly can take
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September 30, 1995 Council Work Session
Page 28
your vouchers and certificate and transfer it to another
community. So obviously they just went off the program for
some reason. Let's talk a little bit about the Section 8-the
difference between Section 8 Certificates and Vouchers. I will
pass both directions here. I have a few extras. I don't want
to spend a lot of time going through this. This is more
informational like the other stuff I sent out to you. We
talked a little bit about it. There is a difference between
the Certificate Program and the Voucher Program. The
Certificate Program guarantees the tenant pays no more than
30% of their monthly adjusted income for rent. Whereas the
Voucher Program that guarantee isn't there. They may, in fact,
pay more depending on what the actual rent is. Go ahead.
Lehman/ What is the adjusted income?
Boothroy/ There are
provide us with
that HUD allows
that number.
some-When we look at when they come in and
what their income is there are some things
to subtract out of that in order to sum up
Lehman/ So it is not gross, it is adjusted?
Boothroy/ It is adjusted, right. I'll go quickly through here.
Under the Certificate Program the unit rent cannot be more
than the FMR. Whereas under the Voucher Program it is not tied
to the FMR. That leads to the Voucher Program where you have
high rents being more attractive to apartment complexes that
have a little higher rents because the FMR's are tied to an
average rent within a community and they are set at 40% now,
I believe. So that means that 40% or it is the 40% level,
percentlie of rents in the community. So 40% of the stock may
be eligible for the Certificate Program. Rent increases under
the Certificate Program there is some limitations. There is
allowable amounts. There are adjustment factors, usually 1-2%.
Not quite the case with the vouchers. Shopping incentive,
basically what I am trying to say there is from the tenants
point of view they are locked in to looking for units that are
at the FMR or less. Whereas with the vouchers if they want to
pay more than the 30% they can. Ownership, stays with the
family in both cases. Once you are in the program, unless you
become self sufficient, you are eligible for that certificate
until you do go off the program.
Horow/ What is the longest that people keep these for? Do we have-
how many years do they keep these if it stays with the family?
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Boothroy/ I don't have an answer for that. I know that we have some
families that have been in the program as long as I have been
director and that has been since '82.
Horow/ Because that means from a budget point of view then we have
a certain amount of carry over each year of families that we
need to project will we or will we not receive those federal
funds. I guess the question then becomes if the federal funds
leave than what do we do? Do we have to be ready then to have
this kitty sitting around to-
Boothroy/ I can't envision- First of all if we are going to talk
about the future, I don't see those federal funds drying up at
all with regard to Section 8 Program. I do see a difference
with Public Housing. I don't see it with Section 8. Even if
the worse case scenario came true, I can't imagine that you as
a City Council or the Iowa City Housing Authority would budget
$4 million annually for- I can't envision that. I don't even
know what percent of the city budget that is but it would be
a rather significant amount.
Lehman/ With a 25% turnover that would certainly make it easier for
us if things started to dry up.
Boothroy/ You mean through-
Kubby/ Attrition.
Boothroy/ Yeah, you could do it that way. It wouldn't take long.
Affordability, generally speaking certificates can be used
anywhere within the State of Iowa and Iowa City Housing
Authority cannot stop people from moving. And the same thing
with vouchers. They can go anywhere within the continental-
anywhere within the United States I guess. And there is some
limitations on the total number of vouchers that we have to
allow to go out in that area. Finally I will talk briefly
about future direction and I am just going to make three
points with this. #1 Public Housing in the future-And these
are just projections. These are things I hear HUD saying and
I want you to understand that you have to put it in the
framework that with all of this stuff you have to tune in
tomorrow because it could all change. So what I say right now
about the future may not really have any bearing on the future
at all. But the best reading I have at this point in time and
I believe that this is probably going to happen. I believe
Public Housing in the future will become publicly owned
housing that may not be public housing. What I mean by that is
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WS093095
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that what I hear that is been happening in Congress and I
think with HUD as well that they are supporting is that
certainly in rural areas like Iowa and in other places like
this they say any support for Public Housing in the future is
going to fry up and basically if we have 125 Public Housing
units they will issue us 125 vouchers and tell these people
they can go wherever they want and then as far as the Housing
Authority is concerned then we have a choice do we continue to
rent to low income people or do we try to make our overhead?
Do we rent at FMR, etc.? So, I see the future for our Public
Housing to be just city owned property that we are renting out
and we may have some policies and things to talk about with
regard to that. But we will try to always put vouchers and
certificates in them. If they are not desirable like in some
of the parts of the country there is some real concern if your
Public Housing isn't desirable that they end it.
Kubby/ Although we are pretty much in a different situation.
Boothroy/ We are in a very much different situation. In fact, I
think we may be in a-Because most of our housing stock is s.f.
and duplex, we have a very good market advantage. #2-The
Section 8 Program is going to become one. I don't think we
will see vouchers and certificates. I think everybody seems to
want to be heading towards the idea of maybe just a Voucher
Program. That may have some negative impacts on the tenants
but that is another whole thing to talk about. And finally I
think we will continue to see tightening up with the
administrative fees in the Section 8 Program and what that is
going to do is it is going to require the Housing Authority to
become even more efficient. What I think it means for us or
for the State of Iowa is that small housing authority where
they only have 10-20 units. They are going to go out of
existence and larger housing authorities like this housing
authority or Des Moines or some place is going to be asked
whether they are willing to absorb and become even more
regional than we are at this point.
Kubby/ Thanks.
Baker/ Karin, before Doug sits down, can I ask you specific
questions about this sheet here, this informational sheet. I
mean just factual questions. I just want to get some things
cleared up. Going down the list starting on the left hand
column. We are the third largest in the state. Is that per
capita, gross units or money? What determines that?
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Boothroy/ Number of units.
Baker/ Number of units. That has nothing to do with per capita?
Okay. So per capita does that make us even higher?
Boothroy/ I don't know. I would have to-
Baker/ Public Housing, paid for by the federal government. We own
it though, right?
Boothroy/ Right. They gave it to us about 1985-86. They said they
got rid of some of their debt by g~ving it to us.
Baker/ And we determine all the policies?
Boothroy/ They are some ties. For example, when they gave all the
public housing to us back at that point we had to sign an
agreement that before we sold it off or did something with it
we had to consult with them. Essentially that is it. There are
some performance funding type of things that we have to report
back. So reporting requirements.
Baker/ And the total Iowa City Housing Authority is almost all
federal money?
Boothroy/ I would say 99% federal monies.
Baker/ And is there a pattern?
Boothroy/ I don't get any money from the Housing Authority for my
salary. So there is some local infusion.
Baker/ On the Section 8 Program, Vouchers and/or Certificates. Is
there a pattern to the complaints or concerns you get back
from landlords participating in the program about what makes
it counter productive for them to participate?
Boothroy/ Paperwork is one of the issues that comes up. There is
also a concern about criticisms about the client, about the
quality of the clients behavior.
Baker/ What about a damage deposit policy?
Boothroy/ The damage deposit sometimes becomes a and not always but
it has been an issue.
Baker/ Is that federal regulation (can't hear).
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Boothroy/ That is correct. Almost everything in the Section 8
Program is federally regulated.
Baker/ Administrative costs,
administrative costs?
is there
a percentage-17%
Boothroy/ It is over 7%. I think it works out to, I will try to get
that number for you, it is over $40 per unit on an average. So
when you are looking at-I try to think of it in terms of that
number and I can get that exact number for you if you want but
I don't have it on the top of my head. But it- Every unit we
have on, like being in the school system, every unit in use or
every student you got enrolled you get so much back from the
federal government.
Baker/ And on your wait list, you say it is a short wait list
because of the turnover time. Have the numbers changed in the
last few years?
Boothroy/ Our waiting list of probably a little shorter than it was
than five years ago because we have more units. But we have
been averaging for the last couple of years anyway about six
months.
Baker/ Is there any sense of pattern about people trying to get
into the program, where they have come from, or how long have
they been here or long term residents or do you have any sort
of demographic history beyond just they applied?
Boothroy/ Well, all we know is when they come in an apply they give
us their address and as I indicated on that 71% live in our
jurisdiction, our service area.
Baker/ There is no waiting period before they can apply or anything
like that?
Boothroy/ No. There is a waiting period if you want to- For
example, Cedar Rapids waiting list is much longer. So it is
one or two years. I thinking it was two years to get
assistance in Cedar Rapids. But you have to have-in order to
do that, let's say if you wanted to live in Cedar Rapids and
you are low income, somebody said well, gee, I will come down
to Iowa City because they told me six months. The problem with
that is they would be six months on our waiting list but then
they also have to establish a one year residency within the
community before they can move to another jurisdiction. So
there is that limitation.
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Baker/ And on Public Housing you said the city has control over
selecting the tenants?
Boothroy/ Right.
Baker/ Is that just, you know, economic criteria?
Boothroy/ No, we would look at family characteristics because we
have two bedrooms and three bedrooms and four bedrooms. So we
make those kinds of matches. We also look at if there have
been-if they have been some place where they have caused a lot
of damages in the past. If they have a poor record like that
we may not want to move them one of the units that we have
because it could create problems for our other tenants that
live in that area.
Baker/ Are those guidelines somewhere specifies or clear up front?
Boothroy/ They're just basically the same guidelines that the
private sector use to make sure they have good renters.
Baker/ But you're looking at a behavioral record in some sense.
Boothroy/ We do references.
Baker/ Okay.
Franklin/ That's correct. We do references.
Kubby/ Do people, if someone gets to the top of a list for the
Section 8 program, that they qualify and there's a unit that's
appropriate in public housing that they get switched over, or
have the opportunity to choose to switch over?
Boothroy/ People have the opportunity to choose. They don't
automatically get assigned public housing. So we have when we
take applications, we offer that opportunity to see if people
are interested in (can't hear) public housing. If they're
interested in public housing, then they have to provide us
with some references as far as their application. If we don't
have a pool of people interested in living in public housing,
then what the next step is that we go into our applicants for
Section 8 and we begin getting a hold of people saying, okay,
you're at the top of the waiting list. We're now ready to
issue. Would you be interested in (can't hear). But some, as
you look at our demographics, 40% or more are elderly,
handicapped, disabled, three bedroom homes where you've got
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September 30, 1995 Council Work Session
Page 34
maybe a single person. It just isn't appropriate for those
people or (can't hear) HUD regulations over house people. So
there are some limitations in that area.
Baker/ So if someone's on the list, they could be jumped over by
somebody more appropriate for the unit available?
Boothroy/ Even though they wouldn't be jumped over, if you're a
single person you would probably get a certificate or voucher,
and if you're a family of four and you were interested in
public housing, you would be able to move into the public
housing unit. Both would get assistance.
Franklin/ Public housing and Section 8 are one approach that we
take and I'm passing out a sheet that shows the rental housing
assistance that we provide to low income households and under
item B, it's housing provided by other organizations. That's
where we work with private non-profit for the most part
projects in allocating funds, potentially CDBG and Home Funds,
however some if these projects also are the old section 202,
which is just a federal block section, projects. Pheasant
Ridge, Cedarwood, Ecumenical Housing, Capitol house are all
one projects that were done under the 202 program. This is
where there are other entities besides the city alone getting
into this. That is providing rental housing for low to
moderate income individuals. Usually what we're serving in
here and Doug's programs serve basically the 50% of median and
less.
Boothroy/ Only.
Franklin/ Only.
Boothroy/ I don't want anybody to misunderstand.
Franklin/ 50% of median or less. Under item B, primarily what is
being served, the people that are being served there are 60-
65% of median or less. However most of the clients here are
also 50% of the median or less. And the important point of
that is we've got a gap in just this income level we're
talking about become 50 and 80% of the median where there are
not focused programs for housing for these individuals and
remember who they are on terms of their income.
Kubby/ There's some discrepancies between numbers, between what
Doug told us about vouchers and certificates and what's on
here as part of his number. He told us 877 and it's 663 on the
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chart.
Milkman/ Only in Iowa City.
Kubby/ Okay.
Throg/ So there's about 250 units, Section 8 or public housing and
they're located outside of Iowa City?
Boothroy/ No Public Housing.
Throg/ Just Section 8. About 250 that are located outside of Iowa
City°
Boothroy/ I would have to look at numbers (can't hear).
Franklin/ W~en you get into these kind of projects, that's when you
get into of the other issues that we deal with. It's not just
a matter of allocating funds. It's also a matter of finding a
place where these projects can appear. The Greenview Project
was one. The Greater Iowa City Project is another one there.
The Burns project is one. The Garden Apartments, when we did
that project there was some discussion even though the zoning
was in place, about the appropriateness in terms of
concentration. The concentration issue geographically in
projects obviously has been an issue for the council and for
the community. With some of these projects, they will inspire
in time. One of the questions that comes up is, why don't a
lot of private developers get into this kind of thing when
there is, what is perceived to be, an enormous subsidy. First
of all it is not an enormous subsidy, but that certainly is
the perception I think on the street. One of the reasons that
a lot of people don't get involved in these kind of projects
is that you have to commit yourself to these projects over a
period of years. It is the management and maintenance of the
project and monitoring the tenants in terms of income levels
and making sure that they're still qualified over a period of
up to 15-20 years. So that is significant in terms of
someone's information to get involved in this type of project,
They also have put together with a whole package of funding
sources which it takes a certain amount of skill and enormous
patience to do. The CDBG and HOME money that we talk about
putting into one of these projects is usually seed money. It
in terms of the entire project a minuscule amount but it gets
things rolling and it's up to the developer to go for low
income housing tax credits, state HOME money, private
investment, where ever those funds can be derived. Other
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WS093095
September 30, 1995 Council Work Session Page 36
things that you have been involved with in terms of owner
occupancy and not rentals are the projects that we have done
in terms of house moves. Sycamore View, the subdivision that
the city was involved in. Owner occupied rehab, as federal
money, we put a lot of money into it but it often- it is all
owner occupied now. A lot of the households in the owner
occupied rehab are at 50% of median or less. But that's not
because those households have entered the housing market, for
the most part. It's because they are elderly people who own a
house and fall within that income pattern.
Horow/ Karen, have we utilized the survey that was taken among the
elderly a number of years ago in terms of their desire to be
able to move into a congregate location, thereby freeing up
some of these houses that we've rehabilitated.
Franklin/ My recollection of that survey was that there was not a
significant number that did want to make that move~ Doug, you
were involved that survey.
Boothroy/ About ten years ago.
Franklin/ No we haven't.
Boothroy/ That was ten years ago.
Nov/ Oh no, it wasn't that long ago. It was something done after
the Senior Center or the Ecumenical Housing Board-No, it
wasn't that long ago.
Kubby/ It just kind of fell flat. There wasn't support in the
community for that kind of housing at that time.
Franklin/ The modular house on Fifth Avenue was another example of
a way that we have tried to get people into our occupied
housing° The subsidies on these projects are great. now, when
I say great I am talking about $30,000 or more for one
household and I think that is an issue that has to be part of
this conversation. We still are targeting in those projects
the 0% to 80% median income but it is not a particularly
efficient way to use public funds.
Throg/ Karin, help me understand. When you say these types of
projects, tell me again what those projects are.
Franklin/ Owner occupied where we are trying to place people in
s.f. detached housing that they will own and the subsidy is
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WS093095
September 30, 1995 Council Work Session Page 37
usually a silent second mortgage and now all the work that
goes into actually getting that home and we have tried a
number of different ways to do that from house moves to the
modular houses.
Nov/ And that requires an obligation to keep it for low moderate
income for 15 years?
Franklin/ Right. Now one of the main points about this other
project is the challenge of finding a location for them. Keep
that one in mind as we get into the other way in which we can
get involved in this stuff and that is the regulatory aspect.
We have been talking exclusively about funding all the
projects for low to moderate income folks. The regulatory
aspect both of creating projects that have this particular
income but then also the issue of changing the density on
land. This map that tacked up here shows you all of the
existing undeveloped land that is zoned multi-family
residential. One way that you can increase the affordability
of housing obviously is to increase the density of housing.
That is something that is directed both in the Comp Plan and
in the Vision Statement but we have had difficulty doing that.
What we do now is we encourage private developers when they
are seeking a higher density, it is usually an RS-8 as opposed
to an RS-5 and wanting to do a planned development that where
appropriate we will encourage them in their efforts. We
encourage a mix of housing in neighborhoods. Again, where it
is appropriate. One of the examples of where that has been
successful is Windsor Ridge. One of the reasons it was
successful was because nobody is out there. We are involved in
a barrier study which is looking at for both rental housing
and for owner occupied housing what are the barriers to this
issue of affordability. The regulatory aspect in terms of what
we are doing is much less focused and not programmatic. It is
not as programmatic as these funding programs that Doug and
Marianne talked about.
Kubby/ Karin, can we have a list of things that are in the Comp
Plan as policy that were in the Vision Statement that we voted
unanimously on that aren't implemented yet so we can kind of
see what have we kind of set our course on so we can either
reconfirm it. I mean like increasing the land zoned for multi-
family. Is there kind of a list of those kinds of things that
we have agreed to but haven't acted on yet?
Franklin/ I have a list of all the things that are in the Policy
Statement and Vision Statement of which I can give you right
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WS093095
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now. However, to do what you are talking about that is to look
at what it says and what we have done or haven't done, we can
evaluate that.
Kubby/ It seems like that is kind of the beginning of a list to
reconfirm that that is still the direction. It is still-
Franklin/ Remember the Policy Statements are usually pretty broad,
not down to specifics. As we re-do the Comp Plan in light of
having adopted the Vision Statement we are going to be getting
much more specific. One of the things that I want to have come
out of the Comp Plan process is that we have a broad action
plan like the Historic Preservation Plan has and annually we
put together an Action Plan so we can evaluate where we are.
Kubby/ I think that direction is really positive for us to keep on
track and to evaluate how we are doing it.
Shields/ How do you feel? Do you need to take a real quick stretch?
Horow/ Yes.
Shields/ Keep it short though please.
*** BREAK 9~45-9~50 PM ***
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-117 SIDE 1
Shields/ Some of the time has slipped away from us to be able to
capitalize our brief time here together.
Kubby/ Let's get going.
Shield/ But on the other side of it what I thought-what I think I
heard was that you are still hungary for information that the
staff has or can provide. Not now but I mean during that
interaction. They is still stuff to learn. So, I guess we will
clean this up. (Can't hear). I am going to ask you to be very
thoughtful and very focused about this. Let's try to develop
in essence an inventory. I don't care how you describe it
particularly. I am going to call it issues, questions,
barriers and what I am trying to get to here is what does this
group need to work on, discuss, come to agreement on, resolve,
get more information on or whatever. We used the perspective
here to deal with what we are going to clearly read on this
very complex issue housing in this community. I want to get a
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WS093095
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Page 39
list of all of your thinking about this and we may end up
having to prioritize in order to have any time today to
discuss them. But I am not willing to concede. I think it was
Jim's point that we are initiating a process, we are not going
to close it. Now, what I want you to do is a brainstorming
exercise. (Can't hear). I am going to ask you not to soapbox
a lot on your- But where you need to define it, do so.
Throg/ One of the issues that we have experienced and that Karin
pointed to has to do with location. So what I would like to
bring up the notion of neighborhood fair share allocation of
low to moderate income housing.
Lehman/ One of the issues I guess that is important to me is mixed
income. In other words not all one type of income because I
think we have seen all over the country and even in Iowa City
that concentrations don't work.
Throg/ I agree completely, Ernie.
Shields/ Okay, Naomi.
Nov/ I don't think there is accumulation. I think all of the issues
have been mentioned.
Baker/ I don't know whether density if separate from location.
Shield/ I don't think so. I mean I think it is rather.
Baker/ (Can't hear).
Council/ (All talking).
Pigott/ Zoning minimum affordable units in a development as an
issue. Inclusionary zoning.
Horow/ Human infrastructure. A support system. I don't know what
the word is but-
Throg/ Child care as an example.
Horow/ No, no, no. Life skills.
Kubby/ Like what HACAP.
Shields/ Karen-
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Kubby/ Public private partnerships to be able to tap into the tax
credit advantage, one of the largest subsidies. We are
probably missing some opportunities.
Throg/ What about trust (can't hear).
Shields/ Jim, another one?
Throg/ I had three items on my list. They are all included.
*** Chart Four ***
Issues - Effectively
1. Location 7
-Neighborhood Fair Share
2. Mixed income housing
3. Density
4. Inclusionary zoning
5. Human infrastructure 1
6. Public private partnerships 5
Lehman/ One that Karen brought up. I don't know what the barriers
are to more private participation. But there are barriers. I
really think we need to address the things that prevent the
private sector from becoming involved in subsidized housing.
Horow/ Subsidized or mixed.
Lehman/ No, well, both. The private sector does not seem to be
interested and I would like to know why and if there is
something we can do to encourage them to be involved.
Shields/ Can I define to make sure- Part of what we are saying here
and I think it is not just out of curiosity-Why isn't the
market place working on this? On one hand we have proved
fairly sound, I mean more than fairly sound. I mean
demonstrative proof that there is demand, right? On the other
hand the market is not responding to that demand. What are the
barriers?
Nov/
There is one barrier. There is an expectation of s.f. detached
stick built housing and the expectation of the purchaser is
partly what makes this less affordable.
Throg/ Expectation by whom, Naomi?
Nov/ The purchaser. The buyer.
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Shields/ Jim another one for discussion here.
Nov/ Encourage modular housing or factory built housing or
something like that.
Shields/ Alternative housing?
Kubby/ That means something very different to me the term
alternative housing because it may be housing types or it
could include coops, housing coops as well as modular homes.
A whole bunch of lists under alternative housing.
Nov/
We still should do something in the way of alternative
housing. We could encourage more condominiums or row houses
are-
Shields/ Any others we should have on this list?
Baker/ I think the one I had in mind is cost factors and all of
these things have had cost factors.
Shields/ Cost of the city's role?
Baker/ And the consumer. Funding as far as the city role.
Shields/ Bruno, another one.
Pigott/ Trust fund ideas that are out
communities like Bloomington, Indiana.
public private partnerships.
there in different
Maybe that fits under
Shields/ I don't think it does.
Horow/ Or regional-cooperation is such a trite word but regional
aspect. They don't all have to be built in Iowa City.
Kubby/ Cost of land.
Shields/ Any other major issues here, Jim-
Throg/ Boy, I feel like a real dullard. It seems to me that we have
raised particular proposals, ideas, suggestions that covered
most of this ground, most of the territory.
Shields/ Strikes me I think we probably have every Saturday morning
between now and Christmas to cover right here.
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Kubby/ I don't think the list is done.
Page 42
Shields/ Any others anybody has?
Horow/ Economic development. If you have the houses we are in
better position to encourage economic development and vice
versus.
Kubby/ Or even view how the housing issues alter the economic
develop issues because it is part of economic development.
Horow/ But I am talking about the longer term than just
construction. Point is well taken.
Kubby/ Businesses won't want to be here if there is not housing
but-
Horow/ Right.
*** Chart Five ***
7. Private sector response
Barriers
8. Alternative housing 2
Coops
Modular
Manufactured
SROs
9. Cost 1
City
Consumer
10. Trust funds
11. Regional 0
12. Cost of land
13. Econ Dev 1
Kubby/ Community attitude is an issue.
Shields/ It has been real clear in the last year that you guys have
not had an opportunity to learn about that, haven't you?
Horow/ We have.
Shields/ Any others?
Lehman/ I think we also need to take a look at the economics of
public ownership. We are looking at approximately 125 units of
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city owned housing and what the costs are.
Horow/ And what property taxes are not being gained
are.
Page 43
from that or
Shields/ Economics include the cost imposed directly and
indirectly. Any others?
Kubby/ I think infrastructure standards.
Horow/ What do you mean, Karen?
Kubby/ Street widths changes, public private partnership in terms
of paying for it and we have talked about some of the street
width issues. There might be other ones.
Shields/ I might be broadening this too far. I would typically
respond to that as subdivision requirements. Is that-
Horow/ We include the financial community is this discussion?
Kubby/ That would be under public private partnerships.
Shields/ I think so.
Horow/ Mortgages, low interest. CRA.
Kubby/ Just so it is on the table under #8, I would like to add
another for single room occupancy, SROs.
Shields/ These are the key issues, questions, this group is going
to need to talk about to be able-
Horow/ Emergency housing.
Lehman/ This one I think may be more of a question than suggestion
but along with the certificates and vouchers and whatever, are
there any regulations or requirements that we have of folks
that we give (can't hear).
Horow/ That is criteria. I was wondering about that too whether
criteria selection would be an issue.
Shields/ Criteria for selection of what?
Horow/ Of people to whom we give vouchers, certificates or public
housing.
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Nov/ You may not select them.
Horow/ In other words, we cannot be more selective than the federal
guidelines?
Pigott/ A landlord doesn't have to choose.
Boothroy/ In terms of who qualifies for Section 8 projects, there
are some local preferences that can be applied but they are
only adult local preferences that are allowed by HUD. So they
define some flexibility for local authorities in terms of what
you can use for criteria. Keep in mind because our high
turnover rate it all kind of falls out anyway. But even if you
established, for example, occupancy preference or residency
preference. By the time you go through the waiting list as
quickly as we do we would end up serving everybody anyway.
What I am saying is you can put those preferences on there but
we are going to do it anyway. It is almost an exercise in
making me feel good.
Lehman/ Performance standards (can't hear). As far as maintenance
of property of whatever.
Boothroy/ That is the landlord's responsibility to select their
client.
Lehman/ How about with Public Housing?
Boothroy/ We have a very specific list.
Kubby/ But what it brings up is another issue of who is it that we
want to serve when the city is involved, when local funds or
local energy. We asked that question when we talked about
Greenview and we didn't have a really-We talked about it for
a long time before we came to a conclusion. Maybe we need to
talk more about it. Who is it that we want to serve?
Horow/ This to me, this performance standard also addresses the
community attitudes in terms of how this community walk with
these people these choices. How does the community walk with
lower income or the recipients of public housing to bring them
into the standards of the neighborhood in which they are
located? I don't know how you say that.
Throg/ I am not sure what you mean by-
Horow/ It means that rather than paying forever and ever Life
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Skills type organizations, how does this community walk with
the people who are the recipients of public housing,
especially in s.f. units in neighborhoods?
Kubby/ And it is not that every individual household needs those
skills. I think that is very important for us to acknowledge.
We start perpetuating-
Horow/ How do you say this?
Shields/ We are not talking about- I was just telling Jim on break
I am going to be working with the Des Moines Public Housing
Authority. One of the big issues there is this huge pressure
from the neighborhood associations which are gaining a great
deal of power or strength in the last 6-7 years in Des Moines.
A great deal of pressure coming from them to deal with the
problem of tenant behavior.
Pigott/ That is what I hear people say.
Shields/ That is part of what I am hearing you talk about.
Horow/ That is exactly what I am talking about.
Kubby/ We hear about that no matter what the income of tenants. We
do, we hear it from all sections of town. So I think-
Pigott/ Sure, whether they are participating in this or not.
Shields/ Well, how many- We have a whole bunch of folks between 18
and 22 in age.
Pigott/ Who are not in the Section 8 Vouchers and Certificates
Program.
Kubby/ There are responsible people who own, who rent in every
generation.
Horow/ I am just concerned about the Public Housing right now. I
don't disagree with you on your point. But we are talking
about tenants of Public Housing.
*** Ohart Six
14. Community attitude 7
15. Economics of public ownership 2
16. Subdivision regs 3
17. Financial institutions
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18. Emergency housing 0
19. Targeted population 1
20. Tenant behavior
Page 46
Throg/ I would like to bring up another point that I felt was kind
of imbedded in all of the others and that is if we do some of
these other activities that implies a need for a good open
space and parks shared and accessible through good design.
Kubby/ Especially if you are talking about increased density. One
of the tradeoffs for neighborhoods is places for people to
gather and spread out.
Throg/ And it has to do with the cost of housing as well because we
have been repeatedly told that, you know, if we do
neighborhood open space and if we do sensitive natural areas
stuff, then that will drive the cost of housing up. That i
snot necessarily true if you have good design.
Shield/ What we are talking about here is a relationship in the
Comp Plan in essence of the Comp Plan's relationship in
support of this. But open space-
Lehman/ Does that basically (can't hear) human infrastructure?
Shields/ I think that was implying something else.
Throg/ It points to something else.
Shields/ Am I incorrect in assuming that is connected to Comp Plan?
Horow/ ¥eah.
Baker/ And time, I am trying to find a phrase what I am going to
say here. One of these issues that keeps coming back in the
last year on discussions of various projects sort of
neighborhoods and community expectations that they live with
and then a project comes to them and their expectations of
what their neighborhood is are changed by what they perceive
as the city changing the rules and allowing something in there
or trying to get something in there. Again, I don't know if
that is the right phrase for it but that is a problem.
Throg/ And that is related to the community attitude also.
Shields/ It is. Another way to talk about it and many of these
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would could pull together. Part of what I hearing is
neighborhood expectations and their perceptions in the city
policy one would argue. And I think this is a bit of an
abstract argument based on other cities' experience. That if
you were really able to articulate clearly what your policy
is, neighborhood fair share and we are going to pursue this,
I want to argue then that at least when you come to my
neighborhood I say well, yeah, I knew they were going to come.
Right? Is that part of where you are at?
Baker/ This has been our policy and very often people buy and get
into a neighborhood and you don't know of everything that is
going to go around you. But at least having the perception
that we are changing the rules to fit the project.
Kubby/ I have one last comment on this concept of linkages that
either non-residential or very high end residential be asked
to link their projects to affordability.
Nov/ What do you mean by link?
Kubby/ Well, it is done in many different ways. Sometimes there is
an impact fee. Sometimes there is land that is set aside.
There are several ways-
Throg/ Impact fee or inclusionary zoning are the two main ways that
that is accomplished.
Kubby/ That might be a combination of a couple of things that are
out there.
Horow/ Companion with that for me thought then is the realistic
aspect that people will just not develop higher income places
in Iowa City. That we will continue to see leakage of
residential development to other cities that do not have so
many regulations.
Kubby/ That may be a pro or con of that.
Council/ (All talking).
Kubby/ We are not buying into everything.
Pigott/ This is a brainstorming list.
Shields/ What I am asking for and I think I am hearing it is this
is the kinds of things you need to be able to think through,
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talk through, understand together as a group whether you
totally agree on anyone of them in order to be the most
effective council possible in terms of implementing your
housing policy. We are on the implementation level. My
assumption folks and I guess it is something I should have
raised in the beginning is you got a policy, right? Everybody
buys that?
Horow/ No.
Shields/ You don't?
Horow/ No, I don't. Personally I feel that the majority of people
in this community have not actually had input no matter how
many times we publicize it, no matter how much we encourage
them to come and get involved in this. I don't think we had a
representative sample of the community in those hearings.
Kubby/ I think it is true. People in greatest needs about issues
like housing, jobs, and services for low income residents who
came here and I think that is a legitimate process. We could
say that about every p.h. we have and I buy into the document.
I think our process was great and-I mean, it was a 7-0 vote.
Horow/ Of course it was.
Shields/ Folks, these folks are behaving-
Pigott/ You said you don't support it.
Horow/ I am saying it is my own opinion.
Shields/ This is important. These folks are behaving as if you do
have a policy, are they not?
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ Of course they have to. It was a majority vote. I am saying
I didn't buy into it.
Nov/ All right, I have one more thing that is rather unique to Iowa
City and affects affordability. We do not have run down
houses. There are very few opportunities to buy fixer uppers
or houses that have been abandoned that you could buy just by
paying the back taxes. And many communities have this kind of
thing.
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Throg/ We are lucky.
Nov/
Well, we are lucky. We have good quality upkeep. But it does
therefore make housing less, how shall I say it, less
affordable to some people who may have been able to afford
this kind of thing in some other community.
Shields/ It is true that in a number of places as part of the
overall housing issue is to rehab substandard housing, you
know, considerable number so fit in order to open that housing
up. That is true.
Kubby/ It just shows the success of our H.I.S. Program and our
Housing Rehab. We have been so successful.
Shields/ And folks, I think it goes beyond that, city policy and
your regulatory function.
Nov/
We really regulate a great deal. We don't allow housing to
become that run down. In Baltimore years ago they had some
older houses that were run down and the city purchased them
and then sold them to the general public for $1.00 and a
commitment to rehab and you have to have $20,000-$30,000 worth
of mortgagability in order to rehab that house. It was that
run down.
*** Chart Seven ***
21. Open space amenities (Comp Plan) 0
22. Neighborhood expectations
Perceptions of city policy
23. Project linkages 1
Set aside
impact fees
24. Limited housing market 0
high upkeep of housing stock
Shields/ Now, in this listing of these various issues obviously we
have less than two hours time to talk about all of these.
Hopefully we have given some input in some instances to staff.
Some of this could be information driven but I don't think
very many of them can be. I think most of this has to do with
this council sitting around this table and talking about it.
Have we got to some of the things you have been sharing with
each other, criteria questions, issues of-because of your
recent experiences you had on implementation?
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Horow/ I think so.
council/ (All talking).
Shields/ There is no other way that I can proceed on this in terms
of limited amount of time we have today without doing some
prioritizing and I don't know that that is a tool. Does it
make sense to prioritize this list? There are some layering
here. There is some interrelatedness. Let's try that first and
see what happens. When we talk about public private
partnerships is this totally different than public sector
response barriers to the public sectors response?
Kubby/ I think they are related.
Shields/ Interrelated?
Pigott/ Sure.
Nov/
Barriers however as perceived by a developer could be
neighborhood open space and sewer and water impact fees and
you know, barriers to them are monetary.
Shields/ I am just saying can we fold that into (can't hear).
Kubby/ Because in maintaining those barriers or removing them we
should talk about it in partnership terms. We may have clear
lines about we set the rules and you obey them but that
discussion can be seen as a partnership.
Pigott/ Trust funds could go int there, that is #10.
Nov/ We could also put land trusts in there.
Kubby/ That is #25 actually-
Nov/ I don't know. It could be a public private partnership.
Pigott/ I think that is similar to trust funds.
Shields/ Probably there are some other interrelationships here,
community attitude and a number of these other-
Pigott/ Tenant behavior, there is some relationship.
Kubby/ Seems like there is a whole category of issues under
regulation. Could be incentives, regulations like density
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issues including in the zoning, open space, linkages.
Throg/ Karen, I see those as more location issues than the way you
just said it.
Kubby/ I guess maybe the incentive regulation is how we would
implement. So, I would agree.
Horow/ Where are you seeing these things?
Shields/ I am looking for- Larry, where was the one you were
talking about, neighborhood expectation-
Lehman/ Attitudes.
Pigott/ I think it does.
Shields/ So is neighborhood expectation going on- Okay. Any others?
You are saying regulatory.
Kubby/ I agree with Jim's shift on label of location.
Baker/ What about financial institution with public and private?
Shields/ Yeah. Good.
Pigott/ What about project linkages with public private as well or
part of that set aside.
Shields/ It is in the regulatory realm (can't hear) carrot and a
stick. Tell me what you agreed to about how you deal-package
the regulatory realm. To me there are a number of these that
are subdivisions regs in one way or another. The open space
isn't and the requirements would be an amendment in essence to
those kind of regs. Correct?
Kubby/ We have that. That is done.
Nov/ There are a lot of things that could go under location: mixed
income housing and density, inclusionary zoning are all
locatiohal kinds of things.
Kubby/ I think for now I like the idea of doing location and one
way to do that is through regulations.
Shields/ With the time we have left right now we have eliminated
some (can't hear) by pulling them together. We still have a
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number of them. I really want to a fair shot in terms again
not necessarily their relative importance to each other but
their relative importance to this council being effective. In
other words, what do you need to talk about most for this
council to move ahead. Make a quick note of this, take a look
at this, right down for yourself four you consider to be the
ones that really need the most attention by this council. By
the number, what I need from you is the number. We are
choosing 4 out of 19, very tight. What I need to be able to
respond to are numbers. Given me numbers. When you finish you
can go ahead and put your head on the table.
Horow/ Where did the human infrastructure one go. #5, oh, I see.
Kubb¥/ We didn't meld a bunch of the locational issues.
Throg/ I find myself doing that trying to respond.
Shields/ Real quick, we need a consensus, which ones fall together.
Baker/ #1 & 3.
Kubby/ #1 & 2.
Throg/ #3,4- and 14.
council/ (All talking).
Shields/ #14 is separate.
Horow/ #12 cost of land.
Pigott/ Cost of land goes under what?
Horow/ Location.
Pigott/ Okay, yes it does.
Shields/ Any others that go back under location?
Horow/ Mixed income. What else?
Shields/ Mixed income, density, inclusionary zoning.
Lehman/ I don't know that mixed income really requires location. I
mean that is a philosophy. Why would you-
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Throg/ Wouldn't you think it is mixing the size and types of
housing in neighborhoods that is a locational question? And it
is also a community attitudes kind of question.
Shields/ All Of this can go under community attitudes, folks. This
is important. Make this connection here because I thin when
you are talking about mixed income you are talking about in
any location.
Lehman/ In any location.
Shields/ Yeah.
Kubby/ But issues of spreading them out is locational in and of
itself. I mean I think we have already behaved in a way that
says we agree with that concept when we rezoned Windsor Ridge
and-
Shields/ If we miss something that is important to you we will come
back to it. All right now, re-do your lists real quickly. Now
we have put these three under #1. Please give me those four
again, quickly. Some of you may have to make changes. Karen,
thank you for that point on location issues. Is everybody
ready?
[Council writes down their four priorities]
Shields/ Everybody ready? We are going to go pretty quickly. You
got to stay with me. Dale, will you help me on this to make
sure we get a good hand count on this so I can go real quick.
[Hand count by Shields to prioritize list-see numbers added to
Charts]
Shields/ I will state the obvious to you. There are differences
within this group around this issue of housing policy. This of
course comes as an absolutely remarkable surprise. Look at the
consensus on key issues (#1 & 14). Now some of you had a few-
there are a few 1 responses there. Look at the consensus
around a couple of these areas. The rest of the time we have
together, if there is more time fine, but let's focus on these
two areas and again, what we are looking for is not to
necessarily resolve all of the possible ways and issues, the
actual finite policies. But it is to get to how can this
council be more effective. What are the ways we need to move-
Kubby/ I want to add #6.
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Shields/ Well it is, it would be the next level. I am going to be
on the consensus issue right now. But that certainly the next
one. There is no question about it.
Kubby/ I think when we talk about effectiveness we have to get to
#6 at some point.
Shields/ I don't disagree with you, Karen. We have two consensus.
We have got that as a major response. And most of the rest of
this spread across and I think the reason is some of these
would fit into these others. Let's start with location, all
that we put into that package. The question before you what
does this group need to do on this issue? What are the
questions that before you that are going to allow you to move
head in the implementation of your policies?
Kubby/ I think the easiest route is in newly developed
neighborhoods to have the zoning there ahead of when people
build and move in. That is the first.
Throg/ What do you mean the zoning there? How do you mean it?
Kubby/ To have zoning in place ahead of when surrounding areas
develop.
Throg/ I guess what I am trying to get at is I can interpret that
as meaning that all the surrounding part of the city should be
zoned. All the newly developed part of the city should be
zoned RS-5 and then there is no locational-there is no
problem. There is no conflict there.
Horow/ RS-5?
Throg/ Sure, then there wouldn't be any conflict because a conflict
comes up when you mix income, sizes and-
Kubby/ Having varied kinds of densities zoned within newly
developed areas. To set the template before they are
developed.
Baker/ Does newly developed the same thing as undeveloped?
Kubby/ Like we did with Windsor Ridge but maybe more extensively.
Even more diversely zoned or maybe even a new kind of zoning
category that allows even more flexibility so there aren't
these demarcations. I don't know. But the point I am trying to
make is in areas that aren't already developed that that is-
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Baker/ I agree absolutely. But my question is we have got pockets
of undeveloped land within the city as well but they are
surrounded by established neighborhoods.
Pigott/ So what do we do in those cases?
Baker/ More undeveloped land on the fringes and the same sort of
process of-
Kubby/ At least levels 1 in the land that is not developed that is
not surrounded by development. It is either in or not in the
city. 2 is infill development and 3 is redevelopment areas.
Baker/ Is it possible to visualize the same zoning or criteria for
each one of those or do we take them separately? I kind of
think we have to take them separately.
Kubby/ There might be different strategies in this.
Pigott/ That's what I'd say, yeah.
Kubby/ I think the value, for me the value is still there in all of
those categories. And it may be different in different in
different neighborhoods, too actually. It's hard to make
generalizations. Especially about the infill development.
Baker/ What's the goal here?
Throg/ I guess I'd like to try to try to respond to that. It seems
to me the goal is to allocate fairly new lower to moderate
income housing within the city. I take that to be 50-80% of
median income. So then how to do that. One would be to
allocate it fairly among the neighborhoods and the other would
be to through inclusionary zone and there are probably other
ways.
Baker/ I understand it and I tend agree with it. But that's why I
get back to my original premise which I'd like to throw out
the word affordable and talk about low to moderate income as
a goal.
Throg/ That's why I'd say 50 to 80, yeah.
Baker/ Because if we do that in this sort of inevitable consequence
which is if you had that goal when set up the regulations then
you put the city in a position of monitoring the development
even after it's put into place, to maintain that mix. I just
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want to make sure that is an acceptable consequence of where
we're going.
Horow/ See, I feel that's unfair, that if a neighbor- if a person
buys in neighborhood in a low income or moderate home, that
they should have the ability to sustain their increasing
equity that they have and then that home becomes not low
income forever. And so for us to say that the city would have
to monitor this to maintain it at that level, is that somebody
would continually be moved out.
Kubby/ Let's not how those programs work, but most programs are
that when you enter that market for that house that you have
to meet eligibility but you're not kicked out when you go
beyond that. When you choose to move on, the new person also
has to meet the criteria.
Horow/ But you're talking about moving on and what I'm saying is-
Kubby/ They don't have to move on. I said if they choose to move on
the replacement household has to make those payments. Those
programs do not keep poor people out.
Baker/ Okay, but back on the distinction between rental and owner
occupied, because once you move away (can't hear) low to
moderate income housing, then do you have the right to control
what they do with that property when they advance. Rental
property is different when they move out of a rental situation
and if you're controlling the rental property, I mean you have
a control there.
Kubby/ Communities have inclusionary zoning that are either
mandatory or provided for incentives, but there are ways to
control that they maintain their affordability whether it's
rental or whether it's owner occupied so, I mean it's not up
to us today to figure out how to make that happen but if we
are interested in that concept of that.
Baker/ I'm certainly interested in the concept but it's the clarity
right now that I just-
Kubby/ There's a way to do that to maintain affordability because
for me I wouldn't want to do it if there's no sense in doing
it if we're not.
Baker/ One of my sort of parallel universes here is that, I knew
Jim would like that-
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Throg/ Well you're in your own virtual world.
Baker/ It's the X-Files, see. Is that we're trying to do things to
put into place programs or goals or whatever and then, I'm
trying to figure out the balance between the city directly
shaping things or just setting up programs and goals that can
then individuals will take over. That's what I haven't got
clear about all the consequences here. I know what the goals
are, but I haven't figured.
Throg/ And we may not know enough sitting around the table to sort
it out.
Shields/ Is the (can't hear) or the key word the inclusionary
zoning?
Shields/ So what we would agree to is that we need to further
explore inclusionary zoning?
Nov/ We need to define inclusionary zoning.
Pigott/ Maybe we need to explore what the consequences are.
Shields/ I'm not suggesting you all are agreeing to inclusionary
zoning. You have all the information or you have heard degrees
of it. I'm trying to get a sense if there's enough interest
here to this be one of the things that you look at that we
pursue that (can't hear).
Kubby/ We talked about it about three different times.
Pigott/ And it's.
Horow/ Excuse me. What did you say, Karin.
Franklin/ (can't hear)
Horow/ Yeah.
Throg/ That's for new housing, right? Inclusionary zoning.
Franklin/ It can be for new housing. It can be for rental units
(can't hear).
Throg/ And the way I understand it, Naomi, is that some percentage
of the number of units built in an area on a development would
be required to be low to moderate income housing. That's part
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of general conclusion.
Nov/
So let's say we accept the fact that these units are
affordable and you've may purchase it and now you've been
there for 20 years and you're going to sell it. And you're
going to sell it with this policy. How are we going to say the
next person who buys this is going to be of moderate income
also? This is the point-
Kubby/ There are mechanisms to do that and sometimes there's a time
frame after which those mechanisms that that house is no
longer in the programs so to speak.
council/ (All speaking.)
Kubby/ The thing is not how do we do it, but if we think that's an
important value, is there a fair way to make it happen?
Nov/ I'm not sure that there is a fair way to make it happen.
Pigott/ The question is, are we willing to investigate whether or
not it's a good way to do it. And is it worth one those of
those brainstorming ways to think about going ahead and maybe
it's not the real mind work you've been thinking about.
Lehman/ It seems to me we require a certain percentage in that
inclusionary zoning. As long as we're not providing incentives
and the city is not financially contributing to the
subdivision or we got to say about the affordibility. I mean
we require a certain number of units be affordable. Beyond
that, it falls to the owner who bought it when he sells it for
what ever he sells it for. I understand up front that we
require a certain percentage. Beyond that I think the city has
no business.
Throg/ Well, Ernie, there's a consequence associated with not doing
something like inclusionary zoning, I think. And the
consequence would be to spatially segregate the community by
income.
Lehman/ No. I'm saying I don't disagree with that zoning concept
initially. But beyond the first owner, I don't think the city
has any business-
Shields/ Let's leave that issue as part of your investigation. I
know something about cities experiments. Ames has used this
with some success.
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Nov/ How many people have used it for 20 years with some success?
That's specificity of question.
Shields/ Well, I could tell you that this phase did not occur
until, frankly, in Ames. That's only one place. I'm sure there
are other places where there are other things have had.
Kubby/ There have been tons of them.
Shields/ But after a three year requirement-
Lehman/ It's a market value.
Pigott/ So that may be an acceptable path to follow.
Shields/ And I'm not suggesting that's what you do.
Pigott/ Right.
Shields/ I'm just saying there is that way of dealing with it as
well besides other mechanisms, but you're way up at the end
line of the process. We're right now trying to be at the
beginning and if we do have an agreement to look at this as a
technique to get, in that sense the mixed income neighborhood.
One question, I don't want to muddy the waters more. I didn't
want to muddy the waters ever. We're back to this issue or we
talked about. We're talking about owner occupied when we talk
about home owner and subsidized and rental under this concept
of inclusionary zoning, potentially. Does that make sense?
Throg/ Yeah.
Shields/ Okay.
Horow/ As far as we recognize that this inclusionary zoning is as
a tool that we're looking at. It's something that has not been
determined.
Shields/ Yeah. Word will not go forward that the city council of
Iowa City has decided to use inclusionary (can't hear).
Horow/ I wouldn't say it that way.
Throg/ So Tim, inclusionary zoning is one approach to this
locatiohal thing, right? Another has to do with allocating low
to moderate income housing developments fairly among
neighborhoods. This inclusionary zoning has to do with
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developments, individuals developments.
Shields/ Right. It doesn't necessarily geographically bifurcate the
community.
Throg/ Right. So what I'm trying to suggest is that you could have
inclusionary zoning policy that still results in kind of an
unfair allocation of low to moderate income housing. So maybe
if we could ask staff to eventually to divide the community up
into neighborhoods and then find a way to allocate the low to
moderate income housing clearly among those neighborhoods and
do that in advance so that each neighborhood can be brought
into the idea of sharing.
Shields/ This comes out I think as neighborhood fair share and
let's throw this one on the table to see where you folks are
at with it.
Horow/ I got on council simply because of the fear of the
multifamily units being placed down at Donohue Lensing Funeral
Home. And knowing what the moderate to lower income families
that were going to be living close to that. The fear, the
distress, the disturbance, the concept of not wanting to have
a multifamily unit near, single family units was so strong.
And that was not even in the upper income end of the
neighborhood. That I think this whole inclusionary zoning is
so tied in with the community attitude that, boy, I, this is
like (can't hear).
Lehman/ To restate, there's nothing on this list that isn't
ultimately community activated.
Throg/ That's right.
Shields/ If the community didn't care about all this, it's be
pretty easy to figure out.
Pigott/ Maybe that's part of the
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-117 SIDE 2
Pigott/ We expected things to be one way. We came here and we
expected our neighborhood wouldn't have this. The Fair Share
program, maybe we talk about it and investigate it because
maybe it builds, it alerts people that maybe that sort of,
that low and moderate income housing will come into and
they'll know a certain area.
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Kubby/ And it doesn't dictate a style of housing. The Fair share
and the style of housing may be connected, but they can also
be separate. It may be that certain neighborhoods already
have a lot of shared rental housing of various types and so
their fair share may be done in a different way.
Pigott/ Single family or-
Shields/ I don't know how the rest of you feel about the concept of
the fair share concept.
Nov/ That's a difficult concept.
Baker/ I think we ought to study it closely and then we ought to
take it into the neighborhood associations and be prepared to
be flexible.
Horow/ I'd agree with that.
Nov/ We would have to sell that to the community. We would have to
really force it.
Shields/ You guys study it and staff goes out and sells it.
Pigott/ Well, not even sell it. Maybe discuss it. It's not just an
issue of selling.
Nov/
If this council agreed that every neighborhood should some
apartment buildings or the shared zoning, the concept, we
would have a difficult time selling it. And we would have to
truly believe it and go out and market it.
Pigott/ What I'm suggesting isn't that we're marketing, that we're
just discussing the whole concept. It's more than just setting
forth a plan, but going out to neighborhoods with the is idea
and saying, what do you think of the idea? What are the
problems from your perspective? Before selling it. Then we
come back and adjust it.
Horow/ If I were to buy a house in a neighborhood like, I want to
know more than whether the council's just looking at a maybe.
I really do.
Kubby/ It may be you had interactions more than once. One where-
Pigott/ Right. Exactly. That's what I'm saying here.
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Kubby/ We come back. We digest everything that we've gotten and we
make some decisions. And then we go out and explain what we've
concluded.
Pigott/ We don't start with us with separate communities.
Throg/ Interesting. There've been two instances over the last two
years where neighborhoods, people in neighborhoods have
demanded that we allocate low to moderate income housing more
fairly. That was what Greenview in part was all about. And
it's what the Mormon Trek Village debate was all about. They
have had asked us to allocate housing more fairly.
Council/ (All talk)
Throg/ But the point is allocate fairly. Either do it on the spur
of the moment with regard to the particular issue or try to do
it in advance.
Kubby/ It's one that pits people against people or you look at the
whole community and have a (can't hear). It matters what
attitude you bring to the discussion when you present the
discussion.
Horow/ When I am buying a house I am not looking at the attitudes
of fair share. I want to know that my investment in that land
and house are going to increase in value.
Kubby/ There is no data that says low to moderate income of
different styles and types decrease property values.
Baker/ Absolutely.
Kubby/ (Can't hear).
Council/ (All talking).
Baker/ Getting back to the goal here of exclusionary zoning to
accomplish diversity of income levels throughout the city so
it is not concentrated in one area and then you get into the
question of well, specific types we can talk about later and
then it is the density. Do we-are we clearly headed towards
the goal that we do not want to have X number of units as a
concentration even within a neighborhood. The percentage for
the whole neighborhood is legitimate but is that density at
that location too much. 42 units at Saratoga Springs, for
example versus four units here and four units there. The goal
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is to break down the density as well as the location. Is that
clearly a goal here?
Nov/ Mixed density is at least part of this discussion.
Shields/ Larry asked really a leading question and I think we are
on the-We are saying we want to study this fair share concept.
I mean, obviously there is some apprehensions, not
apprehensions, some questions.
Lehman/ We ought to look at it.
Shields/ When you really said fnclusionary zoning
assuming this side thing. I think I hear you
are assuming some fair share distribution
community.
you are really
are saying you
throughout the
Kubby/ I think to make that successful that both things have to be
discussed.
Shields/ That would be one of the outcomes of inclusionary zoning
policy. Question on density seems to me real important. What
you are assuming too Larry or what you are asking the group is
is our goal to reduce density?
Baker/ Types and community attitude. The attitude resistance
increases with visibility of the result.
Kubby/ It is so related to affordability because one of the ways
you increase affordability per unit is slightly increase
density and attached construction that shares walls. That is
one way to do it and we can be getting in conflict here and
become a catch-22 pretty quickly and I don't know that I could
say this number is right all over town, the max that we would
allow. I don't feel capable of having that kind of rule.
Baker/ Not now but eventually it has got to be something we
discussed because if we are talking about breaking it down by
neighborhood or section. I mean neighborhood is much more hard
to hold up than sections. If you could (can't hear) to say all
right we need 100 units in this section, we put 50 here and 50
there and that doesn't help the community or the people I
think in the units themselves.
Kubby/ I guess I would add a possible way of discussing this. What
are the things that we would like at in order to determine
clustered the density should. I mean looking at the current
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neighborhood, looking at the needs, looking at the what else
is in the surrounding area, looking at the housing needs, the
land available, the open space that's there or how do we get
it. It may be a different way of getting at the questions,
instead of having a number, saying what is it we could look at
to determine that number for that area.
Baker/ I agree.
Pigott/ That's right. That's right.
Baker/ I'm just projecting that the conflict is not going to be on
the council or the staff or the Iowa City housing authority
and like that. I project that what starts over spring was a
good project. Aesthetically open space, the way it was set up,
the design buildings. But it wasn't that those were the real
articulated issues. The implicit issue was the density, that
number of units in one spot, regardless of open space and how
they will look, the driveways. I don't know how we get around
it now, but certainly we need to confront it eventually.
Horow/ Well, I think what you're talking about are the variables we
placed under this location: the cost of land, density and
inclusionary zoning, mixed income. All of those are the
variables that go toward inclusionary zoning.
Shields/ It just would seem to me is that could you say, you're
going to sat through the next three days. Can we with here and
develop a policy and density that will allow and anticipate
all of the particular situations of any?
Pigott/ No. There's no way we're going to do that.
Baker/ But we also, I mean, I think that the council will have to
take a leadership role in this one or any other one. But they
have to believe that this a positive goal and value for the
community. Be prepared because I don't think if you put this
on the ballot, I'm not sure this community would get 51% to
agree with the on this. I think you're right, as far as we'll
eventually have to figure out some balance of how far can we
go to make the attitude more conducive to this, but at some
point we just simply have to say, this is right and we're
right. We think we're right and we just have to assume that we
disagree. I won't say you're wrong, but we disagree.
Kubby/ When we talk about community, I think we just can do to
bring the council and the community all working together.
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Lehman/ I really think that that concept, that there's some fashion
that we can make it attractive by incentives or whatever where
a developer chooses this one because we are doing things for
them. That it would be fairly palatable to the public. If we
force that sort of thing on them, we're going to have everyone
screaming their heads off. I think it could be packaged in
such a way that it would work.
Kubby/ In other communities that have incentives for developers to
choose inclusionary zoning, I prefer mandatory one. Some
benefits to the developer as well. We can, if you want the
fair share program to work, it can't be, it makes it more
difficult.
Lehman/ Yeah but it makes it far more palatable. It might work for
you.
Nov/
I think you can do this kind of thing, you know, zoning by
density, incentives. You can do this only if you do it in
fringe areas. I think when you're dealing with an established
neighborhood, you will be asked, we will be asked, to keep the
zoning as possible to what is already there. And we asked to
do more conservation zones, for instance the near northside.
I don't think we're going to avoid these kinds of discussions
or these kinds of issues simply by saying, we're going to
institute fair share zoning.
Kubby/ But we have been asked to change zoning from RS-5 to RS-8,
from the lowest possible density to the second lowest is still
met with opposition.
Nov/ This is what I said. I know it's going to be there. No matter
how you are doing this, there will always be people who don't
want the zoning changed in their neighborhood, or if they want
it changed, they want it changed such as the conservation zone
to prevent further apartments.
Kubby/ That's why there is Larr¥'s part about having us, if we do
this, that at least six of us truly buy into these things so
that when there are objections, things could happen.
Shields/ It's bottom line folks, isn't it.
Council/ (All talk)
Shields/ (Can't hear) up there is that you have six votes.
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Pigott/ Consensus.
Throg/ I think it also points to the merit of another suggestion
that Larry made and that having to do with working with and
through neighborhood associations. I think that's important.
Shields/ Okay, then I want to see one of the of the words here,
we're talking about developing criteria, guidelines, and
density if it's possible. Your zoning now has to have some
ideas around that whole issue of density now, do they not?
Pigott/ Sure.
Nov/ I don't know if.
Baker/ But we have a clear guidelines on density, there's a,
whether it's zoning density or comp plaD density, and we cover
with that. But when you do an OPDH, the flexibility of how you
put that density together is the real issue.
Kubby/ And it's only the formula that's disputed.
Pigott/ That's right.
Shields/ Ask the question, Karin. That way you make sure that this
makes sense to you.
Franklin/ Well, density is determined by the zone and what I am
hearing you saying is that what you will will find acceptable
in terms of density low to moderate income housing.
Shields/ Yeah.
Franklin/ Which is a different question then some of these
guidelines on density.
Throg/ No. I hear you making a different point. I hear you asking
what kind of guidelines can we provide in advance so we know
when to rezone land from RS-5 to RS-8 or whatever in spite of
potential objections from surrounding residents.
Baker/ So when the development process starts occurring, they're
working under a set of expectations that with inn these
density limitations, here's what we can or cannot do. Here's
what.we want to do and want to change the density limitations
on this project because it makes the project go better. If
they either have these up front density limitations that are
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clear and we adhere to as a council and if they can work it
out, fine. If they can't they have to go somewhere else, some
other problem.
Franklin/ (Can't hear).
Baker/ Right but we came up with an example where we had a project
coming to us that exceeded the established guideline.
Franklin/ I think that that is all (can't hear).
Baker/ Now it is resolved.
Franklin/ Yes. I think you have to have (can't hear). But even with
those guidelines there is opposition.
Pigott/ There is opposition.
Kubby/ So with the point that was unclear about RS-8, when we do
the update it will be clear? It will be in black and white.
Shields/ So we are going to review criteria guidelines on density
rather than develop. What else do we need to do in this area.
Let's go ahead and stretch for about 3-4 minutes. Go ahead.
This is our last stretch. We have got an hour-
[Break]
Shields/ I will state the obvious case. It was stated earlier. The
issue on density was (can't hear) cost doesn't m~tter and I
think that is good news. I think the current traditional and
historical ways to deal with density of to deal with costs of
density, on the other side of that is I suppose (can't hear)
is subsidization. But again, we talk about owner occupied. The
earlier discussion we talked about huge percentage amounts of
(can't hear). So that is a real tough one to wrestle with and
it is going to continue to be there. On this issue, right now
(can't hear) this location issue area. Are there any other key
things that we need to talk about.
Lehman/ High priority programs.
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ -land you can get into the mixed income aspect of this.
Nov/ But isn't that this (can't hear) concept. Isn't that what it
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is suppose to do? Create a mixed income?
Horow/ I don't think automatically, Naomi. I think it would have to
be a set aspect of it, fair share because to me if I were the
first here to speak to fair share, coming from council,
wrongly or rightly I would assume that it was low income who
I was going to be seeing in the neighborhood.
Nov/ Yeah and it is mixed income because you are already there and
you are not low income.
Horow/ I just keeping thinking of behind me, it is mixed income-
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ I mean mixed income in terms of low to moderate and not way
at the end of the staff.
Lehman/ I am thinking of mixed income more as a matter of
concentration more than anything else. That is be spread out.
Kubby/ Although some of it-There have been plans that have come
before us (can't hear). You have got more mixed income. Some
tenants would be on Section 8, some would be open market. But
we didn't really recognize that and so I like the idea. We
have been given proposals that have mixed income. So I think
(can't hear).
Horow/ It is mostly density because in that particular example that
you used, to me the density was also a difficult one for me.
Lehman/ Rohret Road is definitely mixed income.
Pigott/ Yes it was.
Lehman/ (Can't hear).
Shields/ Are these things that we have up here fair share
inclusionary imply mixed income?
Pigott/ I think they do.
Council/ (All talking).
Shields/ Anything else on location here that we need to talk about?
(Can't hear).
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Kubby/ All long as the intent of (can't hear) is providing
incentives as a way to get to that point is not the only way
to look at it. Because that word is up there doesn't mean it
is exclusively how we would-
Shields/ The other side of that is requirement.
Throg/ As a matter of process, involving neighborhood associations.
Baker/ One of the discussions we are going to have to have
eventually is whether we want to set up policies that achieve
something but this achievement mandates maintenance of the
goals.
Pigott/ That is a question.
Shields/ You all can respond to that. I think that is a really key
issue.
Kubb¥/ So we do this thing that is really hard for the community so
that it lasts three years?
Baker/ That is a question we have to really talk about. What sort
of continuing presence, what sort of continuing role do you
want for local government to maintain something that you
sought?
Pigott/ What do you do?
Kubby/ (Can't hear).
Horow/ But we keep saying we cannot burden future successive
councils with decisions.
Kubby/ You cannot say that. We really can't make any decisions that
were long term. That we wouldn't do a water plant with 20 year
bonding. We always make decisions that way.
Horow/ But that is bigger-
Shields/ Your point is interesting but how do you deal with it?
Baker/ I don't know. Almost a philosophical consensus on the
council,this council. But how does that bind future councils?
I don't know but I think it is a legitimate question that once
you set up a goal and tentatively pursue that you almost set
up a continuing administrative obligation.
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Kubby/ Isn't that implicit about the discussion about the #1 & 2.
I mean for example if inclusionary zoning did not include that
some people might vote for it and some people might not.
Baker/ Maybe it is one of those irresolvable questions. I don't
know.
Throg/ Larry, you are identifying certain-identify certain
agreements that we would like to have staff investigate and I
see that as clearly an important topic for staff to
investigate. How to maintain the kind of long term durability.
Baker/ What is the obligation that we are setting up for staff?
Where are we going?
Kubby/ What are the consequences of the major issues of
affordability.
Nov/
The affordability kind of questions (can't hear). You can't
say if we are giving you this kind of incentives or
regulations or whatever, you will have 10% of your rental
units set aside for certificates and vouchers. Your rental
permit will continue to increase, your income will in crease
because the federal government will pay their market rent each
year which in Iowa City anyway has continued to increase. But
how do you do this if somebody has purchased a house where you
have allocated a neighbor development whatever 10% low
moderate income purchase affordability.
Kubby/ Isn't the process really kind of the same that for the
rental unit you have created an incentive. You have created
some availability of capital or infrastructure. For the
homeownership issue so have created the availability. The fact
that that has to stay (can't hear).
Nov/
How can you govern that house to remain affordable. If you are
going to talk about the incentives and say okay, we are giving
them incentives this year and return for that incentive you
must sell this to the next person who is low to moderate
income. I don't see how you can do that without-
Council/ (All talking).
Shields/ Again, where we were on that same discussion is that
factor that you couldn't do that doesn't rule out your
interest in still looking at inclusionary zoning.
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Pigott/ Let's look at it.
Nov/ No, she is saying if it doesn't go beyond three years she
doesn't want to look at it and I am saying-
Kubby/ (Can't hear). So what we need to agree to is that this issue
of is it possible to maintain the affordability of that (can't
hear). That is the issue we are agreeing to.
Shields/ I got an. owner occupied-Clearly you can see this would be
real difficult if not impossible and we don't know on owner
occupied. On rental-
Throg/ Why don't we ask Karin what she understands we are asking
and talking about.
Baker/ What are we talking about
Franklin/ Your concerned about is the longevity of (can't hear) in
the realm of possibilities (can't hear) resale agreements
(can't hear).
Nov/ But that is a city owned house, you are sell'ing it.
Franklin/ (can't hear) regulatory mechanisms or incentives or
inclusionary zoning and what I am hearing is that at least for
some of you this should go beyond just the short period of
time or it doesn't make much sense (can't hear).
Shields/ You are going to look at those options-
Nov/ Let's add land trusts under that because I think that is
probably the way in which it can be locked in.
Kubby/ I am glad you continue to bring that issue up, Naomi.
Shields/ Anything else under locations issues that would be helpful
to talk about today? This is a lot here.
Kubby/ It is an incredibly (can't hear).
*** Chart Eight ***
Location
Zoning for future development -Fringe
-Internal
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*** Chart Nine ***
Agreements
1. Explore inclusionary zoning -land trusts
-incentives
-mixed income
-requirements
2. Study for share concept
3. Review criteria guidelines on density
4. Analyze long term maintenance of programs/goals.
14. Community attitudes
Shields/ I am glad your work is (can't hear). Sometime but not
necessarily next time talk about this second issue (can't
hear). Community attitudes and I have been pulling you back
again because it is just such an inherent part of all of the
rest of this. So let's throw that one out. What do you need to
talk about to allow you to be more effective in regard to the
broad issue of community attitudes and people's perceptions,
attitudes towards your programs and ideas, your goals,
attitudes, political attitudes. Let me play one real quick
role for you as an outside- I mean I know that obviously I
live here but you can forget about that for a moment. As an
outside person looking into your program. None of the rest
means anything to you if you don't have the political will to
act on it. That is part community attitudes as well. Do you
agree with me on that?
Kubby/ Absolutely.
Pigott/ That is the key.
Shields/ Part of this sensitivity when you talk about community
attitude has to be about that relationship you have as leaders
in the community plus some of the other things that you have
listed up here under community attitude. I cut Larry off, I am
sorry. I interrupted him a few minutes ago with my comment.
Baker/ No, I was going to pick up on what you just said. I forgot
what I was going to say. Thinking back to something that Sue
said about her personal concerns about the City Steps Program
and my earlier statement about the whole concept about city
hall and subsidized-helping certain kinds of housing
development and I don't see a clear community attitude yet. I
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see vocal attitude in opposition and support. I don't ha~e a
sense of the community attitude yet and this gets back to the
question of leadership. Are we going to impose on this
community what we feel is right for the community when even
though we might eventually get a sense of the community that
is not in agreement with us? We have to bring them along is we
believe in it. I am just raising this question about community
attitude and how we measure it and whether we are speaking
from our perspective in looking at it and what we think it is
right. A community may indeed disagree with us.
Nov/ I think we need to put an s on community attitude. There is
more than one.
Pigott/ Yeah, communities.
Nov/
There are ways to go about assessing that kind of thing. We
can impose something on the community. We can engage the
community in discussion and visioning about it because I think
most of the different communities in Iowa City agree in
philosophy about this and what we need to talk about is how do
we make it happen and how are all of us going to take some
responsibility about these issues and we can I guess I am
thinking more about an up type of engagement to build
constituency for these issues knowing ultimately we make the
decisions. But I think by starting that way somehow it saves
us bunches of time. I think we learned from the water plant
issues and from Melrose Avenue that engaging people in the
front end saves a lot of time and grief and end up with a
better product.
Horow/ Karen, I guess I would challenge us, maybe challenge is too
strong of word. I tend to think that what I have seen when we
engage from the grassroots up is that those people who are
buying into this show up in force on television. Those who do
not agree with it are either in-they are almost afraid to show
up or they spend the time at home watching on television and
grouse about what is going on. In other words there is a lack
of input. That is why I thought that City Steps was not
representative of the city because of the vast majority of
people who weren't there. I noticed that the majority of
people who there were the service providers and/or the people
for whom this would be most profitable.
Pigott/ So, another way of saying is maybe the people who have a
stake in these issues come down to council often times. I am
thinking, for instance, let's talk about specifics like Mormon
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Trek Village. People who live in that area felt they had a
stake in the issue. They were against it, they came down. It
is not just those potential people who would support a program
but also those who may feel in someway they have a stake in an
issue. They may be against the issue. They may be against it.
They would say look and I can see if we were exploring these
zoning issues, inclusionary zoning, that perhaps some of the
development community who probably have a stake in this issue
would come down and say we don't like the idea. If we included
them as well as neighborhoods they might say yes, they think
it is a great idea and they might say no. So I think it is not
necessarily those who are against it or for it but those who
have a stake in the issue.
Horow/ To see the stake as I see it is not so much the developer.
It is the owner of the land who asks the developer to make as
much profit from that parcel of land as possible and you do
not see the owners of the land. Heck, I could even say you are
not going to see me if we decide to divide our three parcels
and develop our one parcel. I will probably certainly never
show up to say that no, I don't want a modular home on my
parcels. That is not nice to say.
Kubby/ The model that you are familiar with (can't hear). Where-
Kubby/ Same thing happens.
Kubby/ I have seen examples for helping people that was very
inclusive of all kinds of people especially when you are not
talking about a specific development. That we engage the
community in a different way to get all kinds of people and
maybe we even target diverse people to offer them to be
involved in some process to talk about this.
Shields/ I think there is a difference of opinion here and
ultimately you have to work that out but I don't want to spend
all of the time only talking about this part of it. Okay, I am
sorry. It flows from where Larry is at. One way to talk about
what Larry is asking is is there a constituency out there for
the city to have a major role in housing. I mean that is part
of your earlier statement.
Baker/ Again, I am going to use what is considered more honest
language, low income moderate income housing.
Shields/ That is what we have been talking about.
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Baker/ That is a consensus on affordable housing. Everybody says I
love it. But is there a consensus on low to moderate income
housing and an active role for the city, regulatory role,
which I think will be easier to do politically and then a
financial role which if we ever do have to start spending
money on this then the debate (can't hear).
Shields/ All right, on this whole issue of community attitudes.
Maybe this is the core issue. Go ahead.
Throg/ I think part of the difficulty is that many people think
that the city council and staff do in fact try to impose
policy or decisions on neighborhoods, on people, and those
people feel like they- You know, it is like throwing grenades
out into the neighborhoods. They don't know where the grenades
are going to land and all of a sudden one lands. They are
upset. They don't know why is landed there. So, I think a way
to kind of deal with it is to work through neighborhood
associations and to draw them into the process as looking at
the affordability of housing in their neighborhoods, in
between neighborhoods. And then talking about the fairness of
dispersal of low to moderate income housing within their
neighborhoods and between neighborhoods.
Kubby/ I think the other thing that is missing from this
conversation so far is that I think one of the big barriers in
terms of community attitudes is the attitudes people have
about different housing styles and about low to moderate
income people. That when you talk about individual households
that the Great Iowa City Housing Fellowship helps out you
cannot say they disrespect property, they need substance abuse
help, they need financial help. Some people in this area think
this but people of all income levels need those things and I
think we kind of buy into some of that ourselves and as a
council, we need to talk about that. That what are the facts
about low income families. I believe a stereotype is dangerous
and unfair and (can't hear).
Throg/ Hey, I bet you there is some low to moderate income
families, households, right here in this room.
Kubby/ This table, right around this table, yeah.
Horow/ I am feeling like it is not polite and nice and courteous
and judeo-christian to even respond, Karen, that my
experiences, 57 years, have brought me to this point where I
do have very definite reactions and witnessed them in this
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city about behavior aspects of low to moderate income. I mean,
we have these expectations or these profiles based on
experiences. It is your choice to make a decision that you
don't want to-no, don't want to see them. But you choose to
look for the better aspects of it.
Kubby/ I am saying that there is a spectrum of behaviors at every
income level.
Horow/ That is very true but it is hurt more if it is low to
moderate income because of the lack of everyday-you are
working hard just to keep ahead every single day and so the
accoutrements that go along with someone who is at an upper
income level you don't have.
Kubby/ I guess I was just talking about that these undesirable
behaviors are not just seen in certain income levels.
Council/ (All talking).
Baker/ Clearly the majority of this council doesn't share the
stereotype. I think that is-I hope that is true. But we talk
about it in terms of because the public talks about it. I mean
there is some confusion. We are trying to deal with community
attitudes and that is an attitude and to talk about it we have
to acknowledge the attitude whether we think it is justified
or not.
Shields/ (Can't hear).
Horow/ Yes it is.
Nov/ And it is certainly due to the fact the majority of the rental
units are rented by students and it is not just low moderate
income. It is an age level stereotype that we are doing.
Lehman/ Sue, I think it is also a matter of concentration here.
Without it-I think we have high concentration we tend to have
more problems than when you have dispersal. We have already
said diversity of types is very important-
Kubby/ Maybe it gets into definition, 40 units or 80 units.
Horow/ I have experiences that would refute that in my own
neighborhood, right across the street and there they are
definitely dispersed. So, I really agree that it is probably
primarily density but I don't, again, you know if Karen is
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right in terms of all income levels, some of these behaviors
are exhibited but we all come to this table with our own
educationally experiential background and I don't disagree
with the problems that the public perceives and talks about in
terms of getting your own problem (can't hear).
Baker/ I think the low income is the can't hear) for what creates
low income which is education and family background. Those are
the factors that create the behavior, income is a consequence
not the cause.
Pigott/ People may mistake that as a cause.
Kubby/ I don't know if I agree with all that or not. But the other
part of this attitude is about housing types and I mean there
are some neighborhoods who have mixed housing types that do it
successfully and people are good neighbors and involved and
could we go to those neighborhoods and say to them why does
this work? What is it about the density, the layout, the open
space in a neighborhood, the level of organization of the
neighborhood association that makes this work in this
neighborhood and see if we can gleam anything from that. That
there is a positive example and how can we take the goodness
and replicate it if possible.
Horow/ It might be one way of getting it but I think you would also
then have to look at individual situations where the people
who are living there and their income level as to how they
maintain their house. It gets back to the long terms
maintenance of our programs and goals. How do we maintain the
houses, certainly in public housing, so that they do not bring
down the value of the surrounding neighborhoods, surrounding
houses.
Kubby/ That is not a true statement. I get frustrated about that
that scattered site public housing. That let's say it is not
in the best of shape and the lawn is not mowed. That does not
decrease the value. That is not- Or maybe if I determine the
assessment of the house and one of the biggest one is what do
houses around there sell for. Not one individual house or a
couple of them need to be maintained so I think we need to be
careful about how we say this because we perpetuate things
that-
Horow/ For me, it is not just housing. It is families, the
influence of families on other families. That all is a
neighborhood. The threads that go into making a neighborhood
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are more than just assessed value of a house, Karen.
Pigott/ Can you explain that a little more?
Horow/ Yes. If I have an adolescent son and the next door neighbor
is a family whose values are not the same as mine, whose
attitudes towards disciplining are not the same, whose
watchfulness, never mind the word discipline. Watchfulness on
the behavior of that attitude or that (can't hear). I am going
to look to move from that neighborhood because I am concerned
about how my son is going to be influenced. Now, grant it, in
the school that h is going to there will be other influences.
But right now I am concerned about the multiple number of cars
parked next door, the behavior of the adolescent child. In
other words it is a host of issues that are either real or
imaginative. But at some point it gets to me that I want to
get out of here.
Pigott/ You are saying this is the public perception, not yours?
Horow/ Yes it is.
Kubby/ It could be very high income or very low income or anything
in between who illicit those behaviors or that degree of
(can't hear).
Horow/ This is possible. However it is in my experience more
probably in a lower to moderate income situation. Going out in
front of my own front yard and seeing the fellow across the
street twirling the shotgun while twirling the pistol or using
the front yard as a dirt road race. It can be very very
difficult to watch this and still-
Council/ (All talking).
Shields/ Jim, you had a comment here.
Throg/ Well, I guess I want to say I don't agree with what Sue has
said but I think it is real- I do think that her view does
represent the views of a large number of people in the city
and I am really glad that Sue expressed them so we have them
kind of clearly stated on the table. And I am trying to
connect them with the kind of issues that we have encountered
with regard to Greenview, Saratoga Springs, Mormon Trek
Village and other issues issues that have come to us. And the
three words or four words that come to, maybe it is five-I
don't know, are crime, fears about crime and I think it would
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be helpful for us to have some information from the Police
Department about spacial distribution of criminal activity
just so we have some sense of what that is all about. And
secondly you always hear stories about traffic and safety for
children. I don't know what to do about that. And thirdly just
kind of general point about behavior, you know, disreputable
behavior.
Council/ (All talking).
Shields/ Property maintenance is part of this as well.
Horow/ Why do we feel we need neighborhood centers to help families
learn how to maintain?
Shields/ I was just curious on that list that you used the word
property maintenance-one of the things that is added to that.
Kubby/ I think we have heard that about a couple of houses (can't
hear).
Shields/ Let's move this ahead, not necessarily away from where you
are at but ahead to- I like to see (can't hear) some
strategies, some ideas similar to what we did on location. We
need to get on the table. We have talked about how what will
help this council move and be an effective council (can't
hear). We got some suggestions and strategies. We almost had
one out on the table a few minutes ago but-
Lehman/ I think Karen started it and you are right. If we try and
sell a philosophy on public housing to the public. We believe
that we would like to have a certain percentage of each
neighborhood (can't hear) and not identify any particular
project anywhere. Just generically this is what we fell ~s in
the best interest of Iowa City and talk to the neighborhoods.
I think a lot of them might very well buy into it. Then it
becomes situational. You folks said this is what you wanted.
This is where it needs to go in this neighborhood. But I think
it is critical to get the consensus for the neighborhood not
based on individual projects but conceptually, is this a good
idea? Is this something the City of Iowa City should be
involved in. Then you would get a positive reaction. From that
point on, I think, the council may have to do some battles but
it is going to be a lot easier.
Pigott/ I can just refine in general terms what you said. Instead
of saying sell, build, let's build with neighborhoods a policy
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because what I hear you saying is exactly what I intend which
let's all get together. Let's get the neighborhood together
and say what is it that we-here is the goal that we all share
and here is an idea that is on the table. What is your
reaction to it and I think that is the same intent you have,
Ernie, and my only feeling is instead of trying to sell it, it
sounds like you are jamming it down someone's throat and I
don't want to do that. What we want to do is build together
with that. And it may sound rhetorical but it may mean that we
involve ourselves in a longer process of dealing with this
issue in terms of-
Throg/ More important, partnerships.
Nov/ But the ability to convince a neighborhood that the object of
the city is diversity and mixed income all over is not
difficult. What is difficult is to say it is going to be right
here. It is the exact location that becomes difficult because
people will say yes the concept is a great idea. However, my
neighborhood has enough of this already.
Pigott/ I agree, that is going to be tough.
Baker/ We have a goal, a value, that we believe in and certain
steps that we think we need to do to implement the goal of
that. Take it to the neighborhoods. What do you think, come
along with us on this. It is when you get to the most
established neighborhood and they say I like the goal but you
know, does this mean that we are going to have to bring in
more apartments into our vicinity. That is when you get into
a real political question and I think we are right but there
is a point where you say this is not what the public will come
along with this on.
Horow/ One thing that we didn't ask before when we were doing this
list is what does the market place-Right now we seem to have
a glutton of rentals or houses are not moving. How does this
goal we are looking at, how is it affected by any variations
in the market?
Kubby/ I don't think that the market is not moving. It may not be
moving as a rush like it usually is. I think it is a step
below that and different types of housing may be rushing more
slowly than others than they were three years ago. (Can't
hear).
Shields/ For all that you all have been talking about whether it be
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subsidized or up to affordable. That is not going to create a
change in the housing market, $60,000-80,000 or $50,000-80,000
range. (Can't hear).
Council/ (All talking).
Baker/ I want to ask Doug a question. We as a council certainly get
a community reaction when we talk about projects to be built.
That is only part of the low income housing program. From
Doug's experience from Section 8, you get a sort of feedback
from the public, the surrounding people that are in Section 8
apartments. You get complaints from the neighbors in buildings
where the neighborhoods- Is Section 8 a public perception
problem?
Boothroy/ It is difficult to know where Section 8 people live
(can't hear). So you don't have the (can't hear). The
complaints that we would get would be primarily from landlords
where you have an apartment what may be damaged and they are
concerned about an individual (can't hear). I just don't
recall ever receiving a complaint for the neighborhood based
on Section 8. People are constantly moving (can't hear). They
are numbered at Lakeside, for example-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 95-118 SIDE
Kubby/ The city owned units.
Shields/ Has to do with disability.
Baker/ Disability, yeah. Because I was looking at this map we have
in front of us about Public Housing units broken down by
section of town. It is extremely interesting map because it is
obviously what we always thought. Southeast Iowa City has got
the overwhelming amount. But I am wondering if you ever been
able to, it changes every year, if you had a sectional map
like that just where is the concentration of Section 8
housing? How does it move around?
Boothroy/ Well, you know, we don't have that data so we can
actually computerize in such a way that we can actually
provide that. But I can tell you that they move around within
the apartment complexes. So, where you have multi-family you
are going to have Section 8 people. We tend not to have any
families, in a traditional sense of a family, living in the
d.t. You may have more individuals that are either elderly,
handicapped, or disabled living closer to the d.t. But those
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who are seeking with children that are seeking that other kind
of arrangement look more to the outside of the d.t. area.
Baker/ I guess my point is public perception and public acceptance
of an idea, the key factor is concentration of density and
people are much more willing to accept particulars of a goal
if we some how fairly disperse the individual units, not the
blocks of units, individually and that has got to be a key
discussion.
Kubby/ But it then flies in the face of affordability and doability
because we are talking about a $30,000 subsidy for the house
on Fifth and I and we can do a few here and a few there.
Habitat for Humanity, third largest homebuilder in the country
right now but we have got-
Council/ (All talking).
Kubby/ But that is why we need multiple solutions and not just one
or two where we have got all these different strategies
working together.
Throg/ I would like to suggest a strategy up here and the strategy
is to establish a city-neighborhood partnership, neighborhood
association partnership.
Baker/ I thought we already had one.
Throg/ Well, it wasn't written down.
to wrote it down.
So I am just trying to get him
Shields/ I want to see- I mean this is what I think you were
getting to here. Establish a process-
Kubby/ A community process.
Baker/ Using the established neighborhood associations or are you
guys thinking of something different?
Throg/ Not just-
Kubby/ Right because that would be exclusionary if it was just the
neighborhood associations. We have many neighborhoods that
don't have organized associations. Neighborhood associations
plus. So maybe we should say neighborhoods instead of
neighborhood associations.
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Throg/ Yeah, I only said that because we have 20 some odd that have
already been established. Many of them are too small I think.
But they could be clustered together.
Shields/ Establish community process to develop housing policy-to
further develop housing policy and by that we are implying
that we are going to involve neighborhood associations and
others. Does that at least capture-
Throg/ Yeah, I guess I think is really important to a enable those
associations to themselves, not to say associations, maybe
groups of associations to study the housing situation within
their neighborhoods and in between neighborhoods so they learn
for the process and then have ideas that come up that affect
policy.
Horow/ You know this is an interesting strategy because I can
envision the media and/or others who are interested in
councils meandering, saying that here we are. We are
deflecting making a decision process right now and yet, I
think this is one of those long range, to achieve something
long range you really do have to get the process of
neighborhoods talking with each other, understanding what the
problems are throughout the whole city in order to come up
with some sort of suggestions. So I guess, you know, this is
one of those cases where-We are being charged with not making
decisions because we are going to establish a community
process to develop housing policy. I don't think that is fair
because I think it really is going to affect and needs to be
affected by the neighborhoods and the people who live there.
I think it is important for us to anticipate this.
Nov/
And if we are going to start this kind of community process we
should probably include realtors, landowners, developers, not
just neighborhoods.
Pigott/ Housing fellowships.
Nov/ Yes.
Baker/ I see this process is working with infill and
redevelopment very clearly but maybe a parallel track for
fringe and new development having sort of neighborhood
input that is pronounced. Clearly landowners and staff
and council have to come together on something on new
development.
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Shields/ Other key players (can't hear).
Kubby/ Include people who own property on the edges that are in the
county as well as county policy members, because it's all
connected in with fringe area issues and density and urban
sprawl and transportation.
Shields/ I think, Jim, this is (can't hear) most of your
conversation really was heading focus on this when we talk
about community attitudes, there's a lot of other stuff inside
of that that's interesting. Is there anything else in here
though that we need- Is there anything further that this
council could agrees on or needs to agree on?
Kubby/ I think Larry's point just about leadership, that one of the
ways that we can put messages out there is to be thoughtful
about our language and how we present issues when we're
talking about things that we can control. And that just
bringing attention to things is one way of providing
leadership. So I think that word leadership is really
important. That we as a group need to provide leadership about
these issues. Whether or not we're engaged directly on funding
or regulation, there's lots of things we can do to provide
leadership.
Horow/ Under this particular item, we also had tenant behavior and
neighborhood expectations. Do we see that those two sub-issues
fall under this generic community process to develop housing
policy?
Pigott/ Yeah.
Shields/ Is there- I don't want to load your guns, so just you tell
me. What else is there here potentially?
Horow/ What, what?
Shields/ What else is there potentially? This is due to policy
development process, building that partnership, working with
those neighborhood groups, getting them to understand the
bigger picture as well as their own neighborhood and the
housing, the various dimensions of the housing issue and
problem that the council has identified in working with them
they will- and I think Jim's saying it's an open book. You may
learn from them as well. Is there another side to this in
terms of the behaviors.
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Pigott/ Well, you know one of the things Jim mentioned was the fear
of crime, of traffic behavior. Maybe there's some benefit to
having, as Jim mentioned our staff come forward with some
facts about these things so that there's an education process
as well about what does this perception out there mean as
well. So that at the same time that we're building policy,
we're working on maybe destroying myths or figuring out what
really is the existence in terms of perception.
Shield/ Does the barrier study that's currently under way going to
deal with some of that, what you're talking about?
Horow/ How could you possible get staff to work on perceptions?.
Baker/ Part of the barrier study, 3c.1 & 2. (can't hear).
Franklin/ (Can't hear).
Shields/ I don't think you are going to tell your staff to go do a
study to prove that higher density results in less traffic.
Nov/ Yes, let's do that one.
Franklin/ (Can't hear) community attitudes are a barrier. (can't
hear).
Baker/ I guess all that we can do is we can know as many facts as
possible about consequences (can't hear). And basically I have
come down to is just simply saying our best judgement based on
the facts that we know these are not the real problems here.
I mean this is not-we are not doing any of this because we are
trying to shake out heads and saying to ignore problems. We
just don't believe that those problems exist to the degree
that you are concerned i.e. the public is concerned about. I
don't know if you are ever going to change the public
perception along the way so much as having to confront it and
deal with it. I mean that is-
Horow/ I would say within that established community process if we
don't look at the different elementary schools in terms of the
amount of money or programs that they have needed to
counteract the negative aspects of behavior problems whether
they come out of different levels of income or whatever. But
it seems to me that you can't just look at the neighborhood
associations. You re honestly going to have to look at what
programs have been established, that had to be established in
various elementary schools and you can then look at the
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density and/or the income level of those areas and see whether
there is any correlation.
Baker/ That is a good point because I would like to know, for
example, what is the difference between Southeast Junior High
and Northwest? What are their perceived locational-What are
they doing with in their locations?
Horow/ Look at the difference between Twain and Lincoln. I mean
that is quite obvious.
Shields/ Part of this process-Let's meld this into this process
and part of the larger leadership process. The city has a role
and you, as a council, have a role in collecting pertinent
information so that you can make it available and indeed the
property value argument is in that.
Pigott/ Let's destroy it.
Shields/ And you have the ability to disprove that.
Nov/ That is a difficult one to disprove.
Shield/ I am not suggesting you can. I am using that as an example.
Nov/ We can say in the past the property values have increased 10%
a year or any other number. Now that we have a mixed income
neighborhood property values went up only 5% this year. But
you never know what caused that. I mean it could have been
some other market.
Shields/ I was just pulling that one. That should be part, if
indeed-I think what you are talking about is also some of the
other perceptions where it is possible. Can we gather some
information? We need to try to get that available.
Kubby/ I have a couple of other community attitude things but it is
in a slightly different vein than that. It is looking at
certain kinds of communities like the development community,
the financial community, and some of the attitudes, finding
out why aren't they using the advantage of tax credits more.
We know some of that. But what would it take for them to get
involved which is kind of segueing into this other issue? How
can we get local financial institutions which tend to do a lot
of community things but they tend to like take one project on
and then one financial institution do this one project. They
don't tend to work together in a consortium. What are the
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barriers for that? What are the attitudes within that
community that we could deal with or not deal with to make
them work together?
Shields/ Is that again part of the study? When we look at barriers
are we willing to look at other key players?
Milkman/ The financial communities have been working-I mean, the
lenders basically have been working together somewhat on
affordable housing projects. They have not-Well, it varies
with location. But that have shown willingness to work
together.
Kubby/ That is kind of a shift from- I guess I need to know that.
Milkman/ I think CRA is being effective.
Kubby/ I mean one of the things that I haven't taken the time to do
and I know everyone has portfolios that are acceptable. We
have got them. Steve has them in his office. We haven't really
looked at them. I don't know if any of us have taken the time
to go in and look where the weak points are and to ask those
weak points to strengthen.
Horow/ I have and it is (can't hear)°
Shields/ That in part answers some of your question. What we are
really saying is there is another issue here and looking at
the time being where it is now, can I suggest that another
agreement you have to potentially consider is that you talked
about public private partnerships and in an in depth manner
together as a group and what that means for this overall
housing policy and the implementation of housing policy. I
would certainly would suggest that I think you would benefit
by a follow up session or some type like this and I know that
is a commitment of time but at least whether you do that or
not, at least agree here that you will have this kind of full
in depth discussion of the public private partnership issue
that the group has focused on here as one of the top three.
Does that make sense to you folks for you to do that?
*** Chart Ten ***
5. Establish a community process to further develop housing
policy
-neighborhood assoc -study/share information
-collect pertinent info
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6. Discuss public private partnerships in depth.
Kubby
Kubby/ Yeah, I guess I want us to be a little more specific because
all of us have time crunches and that we have been a little
more directed with ourselves having a goal that within the
next certain time frame we will meet again to focus on that
issue and then it is the challenge of Sue to get calendars
together. But I would like us to have some kind of time frame
under which we are working. I think it worked well to make
this happen and it is important-
Horow/ Simply because we all know that there are issues that are
hanging there only waiting for us to come out with some clear
directives. The only trouble is if you look at what we agreed
to, most of what we agreed to are studies and those don't lend
themselves to immediate decisions. How can P/Z Commission, for
instance, take what we have come up with today and how can P/Z
Commission deal with specific projects based on what we did?
Lehman/ I am not sure they can but I think it is really important
that we discuss this other one soon because I think there may
be more studies or whatever that will result from that meeting
and we need to get that moving along.
Kubby/ We have been waiting on this barriers to affordable housing.
It has been on the work program for years of the Planning
Dept. and that we have allowed immediate issues or longer term
issue to bump it further down on the list and it has come to
the top pretty soon. I think it is a natural evolution of this
kind of agreement. I don't think it was a realistic
expectation to think that we were going to have a clear
message for the development community to say we will accept
these kind of developments and we won't accept these kinds.
Throg/ And things don't happen over night. What I think we have
done here today is lay the groundwork for some pretty
interesting and important shifts in our housing policy and the
idea of drawing neighborhoods directly and explicitly into the
process in terms of how to allocate low to moderate income
housing fairly is an important move and we couldn't decide
that today. That is just too much.
Horow/ Okay, do you want to set this. We have a council week the
week of the 16th, 17th of October. I am assuming that you want
to move on this quickly.
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Nov/ We are doing this with a calendar, okay.
Pigott/ I don't know. I am a little uncomfortable going so soon for
a number of reasons.
Baker/ I think we should do it after that election.
Pigott/ We have a new council coming in. You know, it could be-
Karr/ Quorum night for council.
Horow/ Okay, that takes care of that.
Pigott/ I know this is an urgent issue.
Kubby/ 16th? What is the 16th?
Karr/ League of Women Voters just called me to reserve the Chambers
(can't hear).
Kubby/ I thought it was the 18th. Okay.
Throg/ Sometime after the election and inviting the elected
council.
Horow/ All right, is it your focus on this particular issue of
public private partnerships in which you would like to invite
them or do you anticipate getting back into another discussion
of all the issues that we have looked at here.
Baker/ If a new council member has another perspective or something
they want to add to it, certainly we can incorporate that but
let's focus on public private.
Horow/ Okay.
Shields/ The agenda that you have before you right now.
Kubby/ The 27th and 28th is open of November.
Throg/ I think it would be a shorter meeting as well, wouldn't it?
Shields/ One subject left in terms of moving this ahead. Might I
also suggest that if you are going to be able to do that kind
of time frame there might be some time within that period of
time staff can respond to some of the things you have up here
and not the full blown-
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Horow/ We have a
Council Work Session
Nov/
Page 90
JCCOG meeting on the 15th of November. Is it
possible to get something to eat and stay that evening? That
is a Wednesday evening. Larry, what is your-
Let me give you another idea. If we are talking about a
shorter time frame, we are talking about maybe 40-45 minutes,
can we put this in on a work session? Another Monday?
Horow/ Start earlier?
Pigott/ We have a very light Monday?
Baker/ I was thinking about a couple of hours.
Pigott/ I do too.
Nov/ On public private partnerships?
Council/ (All talking).
Shields/ Are we talking about November, folks?
Pigott/ Yeah, that is okay. Does that make sense?
Horow/ I think you are going to have to move it to- Yes,
is going to have to be longer than 45 minutes.
can't-
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ 27th - 28th folks is about-
Shields/ Some of your speeches about moving been longer than 45 minutes.
Nov/ Right, only when you are here.
Horow/ 27 or 28, what does your calendars look like?
Throg/ My birthday is on the 28th.
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ It is after Thanksgiving.
Nov/ It is Monday after Thanksgiving.
I think it
This crew
to adjournment have
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Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ It is the Monday the 27th.
Karr/ 7:00 or 6:30?
Horow/ 6:30.
Karr/ 6:30, Monday the 27th.
Baker/ The 28th might be better.
Pigott/ It is not for Jim.
Throg/ Maybe I just won't be here.
Council/ (All talking).
Arkins/ Members elect are invited to be here?
Nov/ Yes.
Pigott/ Yes, I would hope so.
Nov/ When is the National League of Cities?
Horow/ That is the 29th you have to leave for Phoenix.
Council/ (All talking).
Horow/ 27th at 6:30 PM.
Shields/ Thank you (can't hear).
Adjourned: 11:50 PM
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