HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-03-19 Transcription March 19, 2001 Work Session Page 1
March 19, 2001 Work Session 6:30 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum, Pfab, Kanner
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Davidson, Miklo, Knocke, Winkelhake,
Craig
TAPES: 01- 32 BOTH SIDES; 01-33 BOTH SIDES
Lehman/Karin you're up first, as usual.
O'Dormell/As it should be.
Planninl~ & Zoninl~
A. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR APRIL 3 ON
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE, SECTION 14-6-B2
AND 14-6L-1A, TO PERMIT ACCESSORY APARTMENTS IN AN
ACCESSORY BUILDING.
Karin Franklin/The first item is setting a public hearing for April 3 on an ordinance to
permit accessory apartments in accessory buildings, we'll get into details of that
on the 2nd.
B. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING
DESIGNATION BY ESTABLISHING A CONSERVATION OVERLAY
ZONE FOR PROPERTIES GENERALLY LOCATED SOUTH OF
BURLINGTON STREET ALONG GOVERNOR AND LUCAS STREETS.
Franklin/The next item is a public hearing that you'll have tomorrow night on the
conservation overlay zone for Governor, Lucas and Bowery Streets. What's up
on the screen is the area that is covered by this conservation district. Conservation
districts are enabled by our zoning ordinance, this is the very first one that we've
ever actually adopted for a specific site. These districts are a neighborhood
conservation tool, what happens is the district is drafted initially through the
Historic Preservation Commission, what they're looking is architectural elements
and styles within the neighborhood that identify that neighborhood and are worthy
of preservation. After it goes through Historic Preservation, it goes to the
Planning and Zoning Commission to see whether the district is consistent with the
comprehensive plan, that has happened, the district has been recommended by
both the Historic Preservation and Planning & Zoning. There was a public
hearing at each of those bodies, all of the property owners within the district and
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within 300 feet were notified. The difference between a conservation district and
the residential neighborhood conservation zone is the difference between looking
at the design of buildings and looking at zoning. That's just, these two terms are
similar and so they're often confused, but don't confuse this with the RNC zones,
this will not change the density requirements on these properties, we'll be looking
at design issues when a building has an addition or is being constructed. Steven.
Kanner/About the design when it talks about new housing or new structures being put in,
it talks about five choices of styles that are compatible with current styles, are
those suggestions or is mandated that a person must have some sort of form of
those five styles?
Franklin/They're suggestions and you can take characteristics of the styles, that is it
doesn't have to be exactly a Queen Anne, and Bob Miklo is here and I don't, yea
Mike Gunn is here also from the Historic Preservation Commission ifthere's
anything that I'm saying guys that's wrong just holler. They'll be looking at the
massing of the building, that' s one of the particulars in the guidelines, you look at
the kind of lines that you would find in those architectural styles and it doesn't
mean you pick from one and pick from another and kind of mush it all together.
But that it doesn't have to be exactly that style but it has some of the lines and
characteristics of that style. The most important thing is that it fits into the
neighborhood and that's where the Historic Preservation Commission looks at it
very carefully in terms of trying to identify the characteristics of the
neighborhood.
Lehman/Steven would you ask that question tomorrow night because I think that's
something the public ought to hear to, I mean at the public hearing, I think that' s a
good question for the public hearing.
Franklin/The guidelines that we're talking about, there's basically two sets but they are
going to be melded. This document is the Iowa City Historic Preservation
Handbook, and sometime ago, let's see it was adopted June of 2000, you adopted
guidelines for Historic Preservation Review as well as general guidelines for
conservation district review. And there's a matrix in here if you don't have
copies, we'll get you copies, there' s a matrix in here that indicates when these
different guidelines are used. Added to this for this Governor, Lucas, Bowcry
district will be specific items that are in your packet, the exhibits that are in your
packet that are the guidelines for this particular district. Because there's going to
be some characteristics, say porches that are more important in one place than
they are in another. And so that kind of thing will be called out, the setbacks will
be called out in the specific district guidelines how you calculate those. So what
will happen is that if this conservation district is adopted by you these guidelines
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will be incorporated into this handbook and they will be specifically for the
Governor, Lucas, Bowery district.
Kanner/Karin can I follow upon that?
Franklin/Yes.
Kanner/So if someone comes, there's an empty lot they're building in this district now,
the conservation district, if they don't come up with a plan that meets those
guidelines and it's accepted by the appropriate people by our commission and
staff, they have to do it again, they just can't build what they want. Is that correct,
is that what Fm hearing your saying?
Franklin/That' s correct.
Kanner/They have the power to say no, the staff or the commission has the power to say
no that's not acceptable and then the builder would have a chance to appeal that
still to (can't hear)? (someone coughing)
Franklin/To the Board of Adjustment.
Kanner/Board of Adjustment.
Franklin/Yea, when you look at the levels of review that are in the packet there are three
levels of review, the first level which is a minor review is staff, the second is staff
and members of the Historic Preservation Commission and the third is the entire
Historic Preservation Commission. If you do the first two levels and there's not
success there, if the applicant wishes to appeal it, they go to the full commission
then it goes to the Board of Adjustment.
Dilkes/I think it goes directly to Council. Appeals of Certificates, denials of certificates
of appropriateness, is that what we're talking about?
Franklin/That's not, no, this is, no, that's not what it says in here.
Kanner/It~s for new structures in the conservation district.
Champion/Or addition.
Franklin/Yea.
Dilkes/Well I just know the last appeal we had from a decision of the Historic
Preservation went to the Council.
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Champion/Yea it did.
Franklin/I know but that's not what this is.
Dilkes/Okay.
Franklin/It's 14-4-C-7G, the citation for the appeal.
Dilkes/I'll go get it.
Franklin/Well I have the code here I can look it up. Nope I don't have it, I only have the
zoning ordinance.
Dilkes/I'll check it Karin.
Franklin/Okay. Okay that's really I have, I mean you've got all the specifics of it in your
packet as to what the different guidelines are and if there's just questions, I'll take
questions.
Kanner/And this is the state' s first conservation district I noted here.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Franklin/The first one that we have that the state also, could be.
Vanderhoef/Well this letter that Bob received.
Franklin/Oh from (can't hear) yea.
Vanderhoef/From Kerry McGrath, there' s a little confusion in my mind.
Franklin/From her letter Dee.
Vanderhoef/That comes out in this letter and how it relates to the contributing and non
contributing and whether then they can be on the contributing, whether they can or
can not be on the National Historic Registry as an individual and what kinds of
protection they do or don't have if they're in a conservation district versus historic
district.
Franklin/If they are on the register they have the same protections as any other building
that is on the national register, I think what Kerry is saying is that she's
encouraging us to look at these contributing structures and when appropriate
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nominate them with the consent and cooperation of the property owners, nominate
them for the national register.
Vanderhoef/Is that because she doesn't feel there is the same protection for the under the
conservation district they don't have the same protection from demolition as they
do in historic district?
Champion/They wouldn't have the same protection.
Franklin/I don't know.
Champion/It wouldn't, they couldn't have the same protection.
Vanderhoef/(couldn't hear).
Franklin/They wouldn't have the same rights certainly in terms of taxes and Mike do you
want to address this?
Lehman/You need to speak in the microphone.
Vanderhoef/Come on up.
Lehman/Or this is fine too.
Michael Gunn/I think the State Historical Society has concerns that our guidelines are at
times less stringent than the Secretary of Interior's standards that the, I think the
concern is not so much for demolition because we don't make contributing
structures in historic districts and conservation districts are protected from
demolition pretty carefully. But as far as what modifications can be done, the
state is concerned that we are not stringent enough in places in both historic
districts and conservation districts. So they're concern is to get properties that are
eligible for the register that are in conservation district to get those named as
landmarks so they're better protected than conservation district property.
Vanderhoef/What' s the better protection then?
Gunn/Well contributing properties in historic district get higher guidelines as we (can't
hear) there are tighter restrictions on construction in this book for contributing
structures in historic districts than in conservation district. So they are after, in
their eyes significant properties thereafter our most stringent guidelines to those
properties and that would come with landmarks.
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Vanderhoef/And might they also be concerned that if someone has a home in a
conservation district they think they will be, have the same guidelines as in a
historic district an they don't and that the alterations could happen?
Gtmn/Who' s concern is that now the state' s historical society is concerned?
Vanderhoef/Yes that the property owner really doesn't understand the difference
between the two and think they have the same coverage.
Gunn/It could be I don't remember that in particular but they could very well be (can't
hear).
Vanderhoef/Okay thank you.
Dilkes/Just to clarify on the appeal Karin is right it is to the Board of Adjustment, which
differs from the appeal when it's a certificate of appropriateness when it's a
certificate of appropriateness issued in a historic district, that' s to the Council but
by ordinance in a conservation district it's to the Board of Adjustment.
Lehman/Okay.
Franklin/Anything else on that?
C. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING
DESIGNATION FROM HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL, RM-44 TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY, OSA-44,
FOR APPROXIMATELY 4.01 ACRES OF PROPERTY TO ALLOW 30
DWELLINGS IN THREE BUILDINGS LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE
OF HARLOCKE STREET.
Franklin/Okay the next item then is also a public hearing on the zoning designation
change from RM-44 to OSA which is overlay sensitive areas 44 for approximately
4.01 acres off of Harlocke Street and the overhead shows you the location of this
property which I think most of you are familiar with. Basically what this is that
it's an infill project development of 39 units on this 4 acres which is zoned RM-
44, the 39 units would come out to approximately 9.7 units per acre as opposed to
the almost 44 units per acre that would be allowed under the zoning. This 9.7
units per acre is roughly equivalent to a little bit less than RM-12 and could be
done under an RS-8 with a PDH at the Council' s discretion.
Kauner/Karin.
Franklin/Yes.
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Kanner/For that density of 9.5 or 9.7 does that include the sensitive areas that are?
Franklin/Yea that was calculated on the whole thing.
Kanner/The whole property.
Franklin/The 4 acres, yea.
Kanner/That includes the sensitive areas.
Franklin/What the question is before you is not about the density although you will hear
arguments otherwise, it is about the sensitive areas ordinance compliance, that is
why it has come before the Planning & Zoning Commission and the City Council
is because the sensitive areas on this property were being affected in such a way
that it required to go through the overlay zone process as opposed to being done
by a staff review. And it is the storm water detention basin in the noaheast part of
the property in this area in which the detention basin will affect those slopes and
that was the area of review for the Planning & Zoning Commission and for
yourselves. So basically what your looking at with this is whether the project
complies with the sensitive areas ordinance and that ordinance addresses steep
slopes, woodlands, wetlands, archaeological sites and stream corridors.
Lehman/Well whether or not it meets the qualifications of the sensitive overlay is
basically a technical question is it not?
Franklin/Yes it is pretty much a technical question, and in fact one of the things that we
have talked about with the development code review is whether we do the
sensitive area overlays through this process or not in the future. When the
ordinance was being drafted I think it's safe to say that this was a way that it gave
assurance to a number of people who were concerned about when there was a
certain threshold of impact on the sensitive areas that there would be this public
process for review.
Lehman/And someone will be here tomorrow night to, at the start of the public hearing to
say basically what you've just said?
Franklin/Yes, Bob will be here unless I get back in time.
Lehman/Okay.
Vanderhoef/Just in the discussion of this property and this area and the zoning and so
forth I see that this is one of the cases where the southwest district comprehensive
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plan might be very useful since we have considerable acreage there ofinfill. And
this would be a high priority for me to get working on this particular district as the
next district that comes up for plarming to look at, I think this is a prime example
of where we need to have the plan, at some point in time yes we will have to
address secondary access, yes we do have to look at the critical slopes and the
whole storm water run off issue and I would like to do it comprehensively as the
whole area and not be taking it piece meal.
Franklin/Yea, what I would like to do and I didn't mention it to you this aftemoon when
we were talking, if ~ve could when we're, well it doesn't have to wait until we're
done with the north district, but basically if we could put out for you the districts
that we have left and some of the issues that we see with each district, I think it
would be helpful for us if we can get a priority from the Council on how you want
us to go through those planning districts. Because we had intended to do the
central which is just outside the downtown, it's the old part of the city, next but
it's whatever your priorities are, but I think I'd like to look at all the districts we
have left and you can tell us what you'd like to do and you know this may be the
next one.
Vanderhoef/Okay, because I know we have some other dilapidated areas that may be
sooner other than later.
Franklin/Yea we do, we do.
Vanderhoef/Maybe sooner than later, this is one I would wish to be done sooner than
later.
Franklin/Well and I think when there was discussion about Benton Street too there was
talk about doing this one.
Karmer/Karin where are we at in the property owners that have protested the rezoning?
The last we looked in our packet was 18 percent.
Franklin/I think we're at 18.9, 5, 18.5 percent.
Karmer/And when do they have to reach 20 to kick in the super majority vote?
Franklin/They would have to reach 20 by the end of your public hearing and I do need to
tell you that we are waiting for the erosion control plan, the grading erosion
control plan from the developer that we're assured it's going to get in here, if it
didn't get in this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon, try to have it reviewed by 5:00.
It is not a particularly complex grading and erosion control plan but it was a
subject to of Planning & Zoning Commission' s recommendation and I think an
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important thing to have all tied up before you folks vote on it. That would mean
potentially continuing the public hearing.
Lehman/But I don't see, nor do I expect that we will vote on this tomorrow night.
Franklin/No, no.
Lehman/This is just a public hearing.
Franklin/The subject to is prior to Council' s consideration so it will be before you vote.
Lehman/Okay.
Champion/Karin there is a tremendous amount of (can't hear) on this, this large of a
development at the end of that street. What, can you give a little breakdown of
the history of that area, (can't hear) gives me a (can't hear), under a lot of
consideration a lot of different ways.
Franklin/Yea, well I'll try to, this is, I'm not going to give you dates and stuff because I
just don't remember. We've looked at this area at least two if not three times, this
may be the 4th I don't know, the 4th Bill is that right? Because I think Bill has
been in it from the beginning. It has been looked at for, well initially there was a
development project that was brought in that was much closer to the RM-44
zoning designation on this property a number of years ago, I mean it's probably
10-15 years ago now. When that happened there was concern on the, by the
neighborhood of the traffic on Harlocke and Weeber. We went through extensive
discussions of the area potentially down zoning it, it's gotten to the Council at
least a couple of times to look at the potential of down zoning of the area. At one
point the last time this went through with some other project that was being
proposed here, we looked at the entire area of this whole RM-44, not Benton
Manor but what was then the Viggo Jensen property, this RM-44, all of this
property along the highway and the Ruppert property that's upon Miller and
Benton. And had a development plan which when we got to the Council seemed
to be agreeable to the property owners here as well as a potential buyer and to the
neighborhood. It was not agreeable to the owners of this property at the time and
that they did not want to have this property down zoned to RS-5 which was part of
the proposal. When we got to the Council the property owners of this property
change their minds and indicated that it was not acceptable to them. So the whole
thing kind of fell apart.
Pfab/I'm sorry I interrupted, who changed their mind?
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Franklin/The property owners of this property here, the Miller, the Ruppert's that own
Miller Orchard and the property along the highway and down here. All of this
except for some right here is owned by the Ruppert's so they own the RM-44, CI-
1 and this is RS-8 in here. Over the course of these multiple considerations of
this, the comprehensive plan and this was at this last iteration, the comprehensive
plan was changed to indicate 2 to 8 dwelling units per acre were appropriate in
here. The property owners at the time did not agree with that, the zoning never
went through, it was, I mean obviously it's still RM-44 even though it's been
considered for various zoning categories from RS-5 to RM-20, no Council has
finally chosen to rezone the property.
Champion/(Can't hear).
Franklin/I think the competing pressures of the people who own the property in the
neighborhood and when this compromise of development of this whole area
seemed to be coming together that might have done it but then it all fell apart at
the last minute.
Lehman/Connie this hasn't come up except for the project that Karin referred to where
we really did think we had a project that was going to take the entire area and that
one fell apart kind of at the eleventh hour but aside from that it hasn't been before
Council since 94. It has not been before Council since I've been on Council.
Franklin/It just seems like yesterday.
Lehman/Except for that one project that was and that was a good p.roject.
Vanderhoef/Yea and one of the, part of that project you hear or read a little bit about and
when they're talking about making this trail over to the new Benton park and that
was trying to connect through the back of the property there and then a gifting of
some properties. But Parks and Recreation was working on it at the same time as
all this but now there' s been more development and there's a whether that trail
possibility is left who knows.
Kanner/Can I see top of lot, they were saying there's difficulty in doing the trail through
the ravines.
Franklin/Yea, this is all as you can see ~n this area, this yellow outlined area is basically
what would be dedicated as open space. The trail if I can just go back for a
second, was to connect at that time, one thing that was being talked about was this
whole thing being a park, there being some ground dedicated by the Busses on the
southern part of their property. And then I think the vision was that when the
Ruppert property was developed there would be some flat land down here that
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would be dedicated as part of that project and these would be connected by some
sort of trail system that would get you over to Harlocke. Well we have never
purchased this property.
Vanderhoet7 Tried to.
Franklin/Yes but the price was just very high, very high and I think maybe, Dee I don't
know if you were on Parks and Rec. then or.
Vanderhoef/(Can't hear).
Wilburn/(Can't hear) when I was.
Franklin/Yea, and it was just very very expensive so we didn't get it. We did get some
property over here on Benton Street from Southgate Development but that's also
in a different location than what was originally envisioned for this connection so
the likelihood of a trail here, it' s, it's just, it's steep, it's not going to, we're going
to have problems meeting you know ADA kinds of requirements but also just
getting something that' s workable with that (can't hear) terraine.
Kanner/And there was an initial report or letter from the archaeologist, we didn't get a
final result ofthat. What's the reason?
Franklin/They have not ruled on that yet because of the snow, they want to, all the snow
has to be gone, they don't want to determine that a snow bank is a burial mound,
that wouldn't be too cool.
Lehman/It would be cold.
Vanderhoef/It would be cold.
Franklin/Anyway they'll be looking at that we hope shortly and giving us a
determination, if they determine there's a burial mound, it doesn't make any
difference what we do.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/Then the property owners, the developers are going to have be dealing with the
state archaeologists, there' s state law about burial mounds and what you can do or
not do. If that changes this whole project but still allows something to happen
then we'll have to revisit this.
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Kanner/And the report on the water and soil corrosion possibilities did they take into
account this letter from Johnson County Soil and Water Conservation District?
Franklin/Bob can you answer that? You'll have to come up.
Kanner/It's on page 144 in our packet.
Franklin/You know the one he's talking about?
Bob Miklo/Yea when the concept plan was first submitted we sent this to the soil
conservation service and they sent back similar comments which we did pass onto
the applicant to consider when doing their grading and erosion control plan.
Pfab/And basically, what were the comments? I believe I've seen them but just to, if you
could give a quick summary.
Miklo/They're in your packet in a letter dated.
Lehman/You say it's page 144.
Kanner/144 1 think.
Pfab/I remember seeing it but I just.
Miklo/Would you like me to read them or?
(All talking)
Pfab/Summarize a little bit.
Miklo/There was questions about erosion control and suggestions.
Pfab/What was your understanding of what was in that letter?
Miklo/There was suggestions about how to control the erosion on the property to assure
it didn't cause problems for the neighboring properties. Our Public Works office
did review the erosion and control and the storm water management plan and
found it acceptable and that it meets our code, it would actually improve the
situation from what's there now, from the natural run off.
Pfab/So in other words it did get the go ahead then?
Franklin/For the storm water management yea.
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Miklo/Right it satisfies our storm water management ordinance.
Kanner/Well two things that they asked in the letter was that I'm curious about. They
asked about permeable parking lots, is that possible to do that? Lessen the impact
of the run ofF?.
Miklo/It's a, it wouldn't be in this case because our code requires a concrete pavement or
an asphalt pavement. They have however directed the run off to a storm water
detention facility and they are not proposing any grading in the critical or
protected slopes except that which is necessary to create the storm water facility.
Kanner/And what about their question about native plants with long roots and plants?
Miklo/That wasn't addressed.
Lehman/Okay.
Franklin/Okay, done with that for now?
D. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE, SECTION
14-61-1Q, TO ALLOW ADULT DAY CARE IN COMMERCIAL ZONES
ON STREETS LESS THAN 28 FEET IN WIDTH. (FIRST
CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/The next item is first consideration on the ordinance amending the zoning
ordinance regarding adult day care and being on streets that are less than 28 feet in
width.
E. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE EXTRA-TERRITORIAL
FINAL PLAT OF PRAIRIE VIEW ESTATES PART 4, A 30.86 ACRE, 21-
LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION WITH TWO OUTLOTS LOCATED
EAST OF PRAIRIE DU CHIEN ROAD IN JOHNSON COUNTY.
Franklin/The last item is a resolution approving the final plat of Prairie View Estates Part
4, 30 acre, 21-lot subdivision that you've seen the preliminary plat on already, this
is in order and ready to go. Done.
Lehman/Thank you.
Dodl~e Street Capital Proiect Lane Con~l~uration (IP1 of 3/15 info. packet)
Jeff Davidson/We've talked about this project a couple of times and we're just at another
decision point now for you. I think most of you are aware that we have been
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conducting an environmental assessment as kind of a first step in a project that we
are teaming with the Iowa Department of Transportation on, it is to reconstruct
Highway 1, Dodge Street and between Governor Street and Interstate 80. This is
a project that's sort of looking at your capital improvement program, as most of
you are aware we have the extension of First Avenue and a portion of Captain
Irish Parkway scheduled for this upcoming construction season, we have the
remainder of Captain Irish Parkway down to Rochester Avenue scheduled for the
2002 following construction season and then this project is 2003, the year after
that and that' s kind of how the things are fitting together in the northeast area with
respect to arterial streets. This is something that we are teaming with Iowa DOT
on, the funding for this project is approximately 6.6 million, it is a very expensive
project, if you've been out there, you know the topography of what we're dealing
with in much of the area. The funding breaks down approximately $5 million
dollars from the Iowa DOT, state funding, there's approximately $900,000 dollars
that through the JCCOG, those of you who participate in JCCOG have been
allocated for this project, and then there' s approximately $700,000 that has been,
that is local city funds. I know there has been some discussion by at least some of
you about possibly using these funds for other projects, not doing this project, that
$700,000 is the only portion of the $6.6 million that you all have a hundred
percent control of, the $5 million from the state is exclusively for this project, the
funds through JCCOG could be reallocated to other projects but you'd simply
have to go back through JCCOG. Excuse me, as I mentioned we are 98 percent
done with the environmental assessment and can certainly answer any questions
you have about that, it is a process that has been conducted by Earth Tech, a
consulting firm out of Waterloo, Bob Lentz is here if you have any tough
questions about the details of the environmental assessment I'll turn those over to
Bob since he's much more familiar with the analysis that has taken place there.
We did have the public hearing a few weeks ago and I think some of you at least
took advantage of getting a copy of the transcripts and you've had the benefit of
seeing what some of the public comments were. And there has been extensive
public comment on this. We're at the point that basically a decision needs to be
made about the design configuration we're going to use so that we can then start
the process of property acquisition and final design of it. As you know with the
projects that are funded with state and federal funds do take a little bit longer, we
need a little bit, longer lead time on this, so we're pretty much staying on schedule
by asking you to make a decision on this matter at this time. The decision is with
respect to a three lane or four lane alternative, there have been some other
altematives considered and we can elaborate on those if you'd like but the process
has pretty much come down to three lane or four lane cross section. The portion
of the corridor between Governor Street and Captain Irish Parkway is what is
really under consideration, we are proposing a four lane corridor from Irish
Parkway out to Interstate 80 for either of the alternatives. Now I have a brief
presentation I can run through, you have a long agenda tonight and you have a lot
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of people in the audience here for other items. Mr. Mayor would you just like to
answer questions or how would you like to do this?
Lehman/What's your pleasure guys?
Pfab/I would like the gentleman on the environmental impact work, if we could talk to
him.
Davidson/What would you like? Sure Bob would you like to come forward. Is there a
particular question you have Irvin?
Pfab/No, I'm interested in what the overall, what was his, what did he see as possible
problems. Where did he see strong points?
Davidson/There's a slide that I have here and let me put this up. As you can see this is
the summary of the environmental impact, put it in focus here, for either of the
alternatives, the three lane or the four lane cross section, the conclusion which has
been reached is what' s called "A finding of no significant impact" for either one
of the alternatives. Now there are certainly impacts, there are impacts to doing
anything and you can see some of them summarized here. The three lane
alternative affects 23 properties, the four lane 28 properties, remember when we
say affect, that means we would have to acquire property to complete the project.
The nature Bob correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the nature of the property
acquisitions are in terms of slivers of property offof the front yards. There is one
dwelling unit as a rental unit, we've talked to the owners of it that would need to
be acquired, in the Conklin Road area in order to get that realigned, that occurs
under one of the alternatives. But otherwise we're talking basically about strips of
a few feet of somebody' s front yard but as you can see there are five more affected
properties with the four lane alternative.
Lehman/Jeff is this the assessment the project from Captain Irish to Dodge or is this the
entire?
Davidson/This is the whole thing, this is the entire.
Lehman/But you don't have it broken down as to what the impact would be if you took
out that section from?
Davidson/No it assesses the whole corridor. As you can see there are woodland impacts,
wetland impacts, and I would ask Bob to summarize those more specifically but
basically there are things that the process has determined are manageable and in
case of the wetlands can be mitigated through some type of mitigation plan. So
that' s kind of a summary Irvin, I think the important thing is that there was, the
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conclusion reached by the consultant is that the finding of no significant impact is
the appropriate conclusion for either one of the design altematives.
Pfab/Okay now does this, this does not take into affect, this si environmental, and it does
not affect opinions or the input from the people that are affected?
Davidson/The environmental assessment certainly takes into consideration the impact on
people who live in residential dwelling units in the corridor. For example, noise
impacts are evaluated and that's summarized in the environmental assessment.
Pfab/So what I understand your saying the noise impact will not, it will be insignificant.
Davidson/The noise impact, Bob can you maybe summarize that better than I can, was
determined to be not significant, I believe that is correct. Okay while Bob is
looking for that answer, yes so, there' s a separation here between the public
comments that we received, that's a separate portion of the process and the
assessment that was made of impacts to people who live along the corridor. In
fact the impacts were assessed were not only people who live along the corridor
but the commercial businesses along the corridor, basically anything that is along
the corridor. The natural features, whatever it might happen to be.
Pfab/Was there much discrepancy between the Bob's group and what the people living in
that area have to say? Or what the people, the citizens that are impacted is their
comment, insig. of no part of the decision making?
Davidson/No, no, no, the comments of, that were received are part of the permanent
report that is signed off by the Federal Highway Administration, basically the
people who authorize the project to proceed have the benefit of all that input now
whether or not a particular individual takes that into consideration more or less is
up to that individual reviewing the report. But the process certainly is very
inclusive with respect to people who live in the corridor.
Pfab/So you say so, I'm having trouble sorting something out here, your saying that when
all of this is taken into consideration there's really no impact or of no
consequence.
Davidson/I think it would, to any individual living in the corridor Irvin they are going to
perceive more or less how they are affected.
Pfab/Right.
Davidson/Someone who lives in an area where there would be more or less property
acquired because they happen to be adjacent to an intersection is going to feel, and
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any individual is going to have an individual perception on how much that and I
think if you read the public comments that's reflected there. Some people who
live in the corridor believe the improvement project should go forward, others are
very concerned like noise, how much of my front yard, are you going to take the
tree that's here and that kind of thing, that's an individual perception that you
have to gauge on each individual.
Pfab/So when you balance it out your saying it's a wash.
Davidson/Well I think that' s maybe a little bit of an over simplification but the
conclusion of the consultant based on the assessment and it's a very kind of a
cookbook type of assessment that is a requirement of the NEPA process federal
process, the determination has been that the impact is not significant.
Pfab/Okay will they be here tomorrow?
Davidson/The consultant, that we weren't planning on having them here no.
Lehman/I don't know that they need to be here.
Pfab/I was hoping to get a chance to talk to him but if that's not going to work.
Davidson/Are they, Bob did you have any? Sure you need to come up to the microphone
yes.
Bob Lentz/You did have one question about the noise levels and I think this maybe puts
it a little bit into perspective about how the impacts really are on this project. In
the environmental assessment it records here the summary of our findings, the
noise evaluations were done at about 30 locations on the project, these are
typically going to be the fronts of homes and various receptors along that project
and compared to the existing conditions the noise levels that will be there after the
project is completed generally are going to be about 1 decibel higher than what
they are now that's just because we have a marginally closer traffic stream than
what you have today when you widen that road out a little bit and that's well
within the limits that are considered non significant.
Pfab/Okay your impact statement went from highway or the interstate down to how far?
Lentz/Down to Governor Street.
Pfab/To Govemor, all right, all right.
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Davidson/Thanks Bob. And Bob did mention you know the impact of traffic volumes
and obviously that's the impact that everybody who lives in the corridor is well
aware of. You'll recall from our First Avenue extension discussions that the, we
do forecast, for the short range say the next 10 year period that from Captain kish
Parkway to Interstate 80 there is an increase of 10-15 percent forecast in traffic
but initially after First Avenue is constructed for the portion of Governor and
Captain Irish there' s actually a slight reduction if you recall we think it's in the
vicinity of 3,000 vehicles a day. But that is also the more heavily traveled portion
of the corridor so if you look at the entire thing the increase down in this are and
the slight decrease in the other half sort of evens it out through the entire corridor.
Wilburn/Jeff I'm sorry I should know this but in either the 3 or the 4 main options, do the
sidewalks go all the way to the Interstate both of the (can't hear)?
Davidson/Yes in both of the sidewalk, the provisions of sidewalks is the same in either
one of the alternatives and the will be on both sides of the street. The one on the
noah side of the street which will be the wider sidewalk will actually extend out
over the Interstate and tie into the NCS Northgate Corporate Park area out that,
we are working with the state on that. The state has specific pedestrian and
bicycle accommodation guidance that they have developed just in the last few
years that we hope to take advantage of to be able to get a safe corridor out to that
area. Now the sidewalk on the south side we are showing terminating it at ACT
property but we think that as long we allow the other one it's appropriate.
Lehman/You have not as staff made a recommendation as far as? Well okay let me back.
From Captain Irish to the Interstate you are, at least I'm hearing, maybe I'm
hearing wrong, but that's a four lane recommendation.
Davidson/Yes it is.
Lehman/From Captain Irish towards city can be three or four. Do you have a
recommendation?
Davidson/We have discussed it as staff and also with the DOT Ernie and I think all of us
concur that the three lane alternative in that area is an appropriate compromise. If
you were to assess this based solely on the movement of traffic, I think it would
be reasonable to say you would want a four lane street in that portion as well. But
as we all know we don't plan in a vacuum like that and if the neighborhood
considerations are taken into consideration we do believe the three lane concept
because of all the turning lane movements in that area is appropriate and I guess if
you want to call that a recommendation we would make that a recommendation.
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Lehman/Well then of course First Avenue/Captain Irish is going to be completed which
means that a lot of that traffic is not going to make the completion.
Davidson/That's right.
Vanderhoef/The through traffic is going to First Avenue, the local traffic to the
commercial areas in that corridor will probably stay similar.
Davidson/Yea the thing we all to remember Dee is that we have a strong commuting
pattern into downtown I mean we have 10,000 jobs in downtown and University
Hospital area, and so there is still going to be a lot of traffic on the Govemor
Dodge conidor because of that employment center.
Vanderhoef/So my question to you when I look at the cost estimates and we're $325,000
difference between the three lane and the four lane.
Davidson/And those are very preliminary estimates by the way.
Vanderhoef/Certainly I understand that. First question is this is concrete so I am
presuming they are looking at the 40-50 year life on the concrete.
Davidson/I think we generally consider more like 25-30 Dee.
Vanderhoeff Are you going that low?
Davidson/25-30 before you start considering some major type maintenance at that point.
Isn't that right Ron typically? Yea.
Vanderhoef/Okay then my question is when do you feel that the section between
Governor and Captain Irish will reach it's capacity?
Davidson/We show in the, our model Dee shows it in the short range, we're in pretty
good shape because we think it's going to be relatively stable because of the First
Avenue extension. In the longer range we are going to see increases in traffic that
will get above what we consider the capacity of a two lanes, excuse me, a three
lane street. But you know what you have to consider then is that in spite of that
you still have the neighborhood considerations that are going to be there and I
think some thought has to be given to are we going to basically constrain the
amount of traffic, or who's going to travel in that corridor in those longer far out
periods of time. That's something very similar with decisions that have been
made on First Avenue, Kirkwood Avenue and some of the other, Melrose Avenue
for example, and we feel it's consistent in this case.
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Vanderhoef/Well just in, you didn't put a year, your saying short range and long range.
Davidson/Generally Dee we consider short range to be about 8-10 year period, long
range to be the 20-25 year period.
Vanderhoef/So 8-10 years which is exactly what we were told on the First Avenue back
in 96.
Davidson/That's right.
Vanderhoef/And then we have seen additional commercial development in there and it's
getting close to the constraint right now and we're at the five year so are we pound
foolish to go with three lane when we know within 10 years or less we will be at
constraint again?
Davidson/And I would answer that Dee that it depends on how you make that wait
between traffic service and neighborhood concems.
Vanderhoef/Well I understand that. Well I've been looking at my capital improvement
plan and the dollars available to do these things and at this point in time it just, I
think I can make a real argument that if that is proportional whether it's $325,000
or whatever, the small difference between at this point in time and let it go to a
full use of (can't hear).
Davidson/And I would emphasize Dee we do not feel the four lane will.
(END OF 01-32 SIDE ONE)
Davidson/Feel that it will have inordinately negative impacts on the neighborhood but it
clearly will impact the neighborhood more than the three lane.
Vanderhoef/It will be a different pattern.
Lehman/Now the four lane would not have a turn lane?
Davidson/Now that would be a design issue for us Emie.
Lehman/A turn lane in there would be a significant impact.
Davidson/Yea at intersections we would try and get turn lanes in because to make those
intersections work we would really need to try and do that.
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Lehman/What is the difference in capacity between a three and four lane if you had a
percentage number?
Davidson/That happens to be something we're evaluating right now, we have a technical
advisory conunittee next week to talk about roadway capacities. Generally two
lane road around 12,500, and that's a little bit higher than you've heard me say in
the past because we're reassessing some of these capacity notions that we've had.
But generally in the 12,000 to 12,5000 range, you start adding turn lanes and that
boosts you up to about 15,000, you start getting into 4 and 5 lane facilities and
that' s when your up around the 18,000 to 20,000, you know significantly higher
than we are now in that corridor.
Lehman/Well now, yea but you said, 15,000 for a three lane.
Davidson/I think that's approximately right.
Lehman/Okay then you said 18 for a four lane, I don't know that that, I find that terribly
significant, but the other thing, what are the, what is it, way out there, you really
have to stretch to reach this one. Do you think there's any possibility that in some
time in the future Highway 1 may proceed west on Interstate 80 and use old 965
following 965 extended and catch Highway 1 south of town and not go through
the city at all?
Davidson/That has been discussed.
Lehman/I mean that to me is.
Davidson/In fact that came up at the environmental assessment a few weeks ago at
Shimek school. The state does feel that it is appropriate a noah south highway
through, to provide traffic service Iowa City. The majority of traffic coming in
from either end of Iowa City does not go all the way through it but it does have an
origir~ or designation within the city. And Highway 1 is on the national highway
system which is a significant distinction that occurred when the national highway
system was designated in something like 89 1 can't remember just exactly when.
And there are significant improvements, millions and millions of dollars of
improvements currently being planned right now by Iowa DOT between Mount
Vernon and Kalona, actually Washington that acknowledge that importance. And
so that is something we would want to consider very carefully Ernie because we
have some significant maintenance benefits from having that being a designated
state highway.
Lehman/Well it was just a thought.
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Champion/Well back to the question, I see absolutely no reason to make that four lane, I
don't think it handles enough extra cars, and I don't think the need is there and I
would support this feeling because turn lanes of some kind is necessary there but I
have no desire to put four lanes in.
Davidson/Irvin.
Pfab/Your talking with three lanes there would be turn signals?
Davidson/Yes.
Pfab/But it's a four lane then you start really pushing.
Davidson/Yea like I said we would still at the major intersections still and try and work
turn lanes into the design.
Lehman/So there would be 5 lanes at the intersections.
Davidson/Right, right.
Pfab/Or maybe 6.
Davidson/It would not be a continuous turn lane like the 3 lane will throughout the entire
corridor.
Pfab/I guess the point I was going to ask, I was going to ask a question as soon as Ernie
finished but he asked it about why don't we take Highway 1 and go down the
Interstate. Well I believe, I guess this is kind of delicate and maybe we shouldn't
be talking this with the lights on is that we, if we keep it Highway l the state
brings in a lot more money, so we are at a, we are kind of torn between whether
we really want them to go down Interstate 80 because we lose a lot of dollars.
Davidson/I mean there' s both a functional reason and a practical reason with respect to
the maintenance of it.
Pfab/Because you know after, if Highway 1 did go down Interstate 80 we would just
have city limits and any city traffic would come in the city but we'd also lose 5-6
million bucks.
Lehman/But that's not even an issue right now, that's something that might be 25-30
years down the road.
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Pfab/Well but maybe we aren't pushing very hard to have them take the Highway 1 down
on 380. They're going to make that what 4-6 lanes?
Lehman/I don't know but when you look at the building 965 extended, that's 8 or 10 or
15 years away so certainly something that's not going to affect this project
immediately.
Pfab/But what it does it also shows why we don't want to invest in a four lane here if we
don't have to.
Davidson/Yea probably if you want to seriously consider that state would like to know
since they're getting ready to spend $5 million dollars.
Lehman/No we're not interested in doing that.
Pfab/Until we cash the check it looks like.
Lehman/Well I guess what your really looking for from is from Captain Irish, the present
Captain Irish on into the city are we interested in seeing that 3 or 4 lanes.
Davidson/That is the question.
Lehman/And you need that to work from here and I think.
Pfab/Three from me.
O'Donnell/I think considering the neighborhood, three is fine.
Kanner/I had, actually I wanted to make a case, I think that spot improvements is
something that was not considered.
Lehman/I think he said they just considered them and felt they weren't, they weren't,
because it was a major reconstruction, I read it.
Kanner/Well it's estimating at 70 percent of being three lanes if you go with spot
improvement but even that would be okay, but I think actually we could do less.
I've looked through some of the testimony and letters and I think there's a fair
amount ofpe0ple for three lanes and also for spot improvements. I have some
concerns that one myself and a couple other people brought up the lack of how
public transportation would have an impact on this and you stated that Jeff that
you see it as flat public transportation, but perhaps it's flat because it's been
discouraged. So the question is if it were encouraged what would happen and so I
would still like to see what would happen, we do have those 10,000 people like
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you said coming in from outside the area and what would be the impact on North
Dodge and that stretch if we had a commuter especially like some people have
asked from outlying areas, and so we don't have the answers to that
Davidson/Yea we have actually just this year I think you recall when we went through
all the transit changes last years increased service to the NCS/ACT area. I haven't
heard how that' s doing but we did just do that last year.
Kanner/But that wasn't part of the impact site to look at that, and another thing is we
didn't look at, there wasn't environmental impact on the deer environment. There
was talk about that how the policy is to kill the deer and reduce their numbers that
way but I think it would be important to have that impact of when we have three
or tBur lanes for most of that I think non rush hour we're going to go faster, we're
going to have cars going faster and that leads to a possibility of more accidents
with deer.
Davidson/After the public hearing Steven we did point out to Earth Tech that we wanted
the deer thing addressed specifically and they are preparing a report, isn't Terry
working on that Bob? He called me last week with some questions and they are
preparing kind of a side report specifically dealing with the corridor and deer, we
don't have that yet but we will have that eventually.
Kanner/Yea I think we need to look at that and then a number of neighbors looked at the
trees that were going to be lost and I think that' s important consideration too and
the quality of life in the neighborhood even with the three lanes going most of the
way. And so I think most people agree that a stop light perhaps at Prairie Du
Chien and something done at Conklin and Dubuque Street. I think we're pretty
much on agreement with that, so I don't see that there's really a need to go to
three or four lanes at this time especially when it's projected that the traffic
between Governor and Captain Irish is going to go down up to 20-25, so that's not
short term, that's long term projection, it's projected to go down from there and so
I question the need for that.
Pfab/Well I support what your saying and I think there' s also something else we need to
take into consideration here and that is how much has the technology in operating
signals at intersections improved to increase traffic flow say over the last five
years and what can we anticipate in the?
Davidson/Well we do anticipate that signal at Prairie Du Chien will definitely facilitate
traffic flow through that intersection Irvin.
Pfab/And I mean even as we start putting TV cameras on it and things like that to
anticipate where the traffic is coming from so I mean that I'm like Steven on this
one, I'm saying you know do we even need the three because when you go out and
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talk to the people out in that area and you look at the possible designs there and
especially it's a one way street as you get, after you go on, after you (can't hear)
there, anyway.
Kanner/This is, I was just going to say from Robert White from Hilltop Sinclair he seems
to feel there's no need for turn lanes the whole length of the street. As traffic
turning into private drive does not seem to be a great problem. Turn lanes as you
approach the intersection would be sufficient and would not have the adverse
affect on the homeowners along Dodge that widening the whole street would.
There also should be tum lanes and a stop light along with the realignment of the
Dodge Street and North Dubuque Road Conklin lane intersection.
Lehman/How wide is that street now from?
Davidson/Do you recall is that a 31 foot wide street? I believe it's a 31 foot wide street.
Lehman/And width do you need for a three lane?
Davidson/Let's see, 12, 12, and 16 so 24 it would be 40.
Lehman/Yea but the paved portion is how wide?
Davidson/Is it 45? Excuse me Ron is correcting its 45 with the.
Lehman/So we'd go from 31 feet to 45 foot of paving.
Pfab/Half again.
Davidson/Yea that' s were recalling yes.
Lehman/Russ what's your opinion.
Wilburn/I'm willing to go with three.
Davidson/Sounds like a majority.
Lehman/You have a majority for three lane.
Davidson/All right we will go ahead then and prepare the finding of no significant
impact, finish the environmental assessment the rest of the way out and then get
going on the property acquisition and the final design in the next year or so, great,
thank you.
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Lehman/Thank you. Who's going to? Karin's going to do Development Code Review.
Develol~ment Code (1P6 of 3/8 info. packet)
Karin Franklin/This is a project that we started some time ago and have been working
through if you recall in the memo from Bob it outlines why we were doing this,
looking at inconsistency between our code and the comprehensive plan,
compliance with state and federal regulations, looking at the issue of how
affordability might be affected by our local regulations and then looking at some
of the state of the art development practices. This is a, it's a two phase project,
the first part is where we're toward the end of right now and that is to have an
outside consultant, it was Duncan Associates and Kirk Bishop from Duncan
Associates is here tonight. It was to get their view after they did interviews with a
number of people in the community, looked at our codes from their experiences
with codes elsewhere, what are some of the things that we should look at for
potential change and that's what this report is about. It has been reviewed by the
Planning & Zoning Commission, we've sent it to the Homebuilder's Association,
neighborhood associations and others who was interested and anybody who was
interviewed for comments. What we'd like to do tonight is Kirk will give you a
presentation on the report so that it's clear what is being suggested, then what
we'd like to accomplish and I'm not sure we can accomplish it all tonight but the
idea is we that we get an idea from you whether you find this report acceptable,
that is, is it okay to proceed with looking at the particulars because phase II is
actually doing the specific research, ordinance amendments, taking it through
Planning & Zoning and the City Council to make those changes and that' s where
we will get into the substantive parts on this of exactly what we want to do.
That' s not what we need to discuss tonight, those substantive parts because that' s
going to be a long process but is there anything in this report that hits you that you
just say no way do I even want to consider that because then there's no sense of
our proceeding if you feel that way. Also is there anything that is not in here that
you want us to look at that has come to mind? And if you don't have all that
tonight it's not critical but as you think about this and something comes to mind
let us know. And then the third thing is if we can get to that point is if you have
any priorities with this where you want us to focus on particular thing right away.
So let' s start with Kirk giving his presentation and then questions and then if we
can get into these other things fine if not we'll schedule it again. Okay.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kirk Bishop/Thank you Karin, good evening Mayor, members of the Council. As Karin
said my name is Kirk Bishop and I am here representing Duncan Associates from
our Chicago offices. Duncan Associates is a plan implementation related
consulting firm that was fortunate enough to be retained last year about this time
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by the City of Iowa City to do this first phase analysis of the existing Iowa City
development code. We were given four marching orders as we set out on this
assignment and Karin briefly went over them. The identification of conflicts that
exist between the existing development regulations in Iowa City and the
comprehensive plan that was recently prepared by the city to identify possible
barriers to the provision of affordable housing. Identify revisions that in general
might help reduce development cost and to identify any other actions that might
be necessary to improve sort of efficiency the way development process works in
the community. The process went on in Ernest for about 6 months, we began by
coming to the community and holding a number of what we call stake holder
interview sessions where we sat down and talked to dozens of people both on the
development side and the neighborhood side and the environmental fronts to sort
of get their feel for perceived shortcomings with the existing regulations and
highlights that they wouldn't want to see go away. Having digested all that,
gotten kind of the lay of the land spiritually from talking to people we then went
back to our office and performed a fairly in-depth independent analysis of the
regulations using those four bench marks that I mentioned before. In doing that
we also looked to see what was going on nationally in terms of other communities
that were addressing some of the same development and growth related issues that
you as a community face. In February, last month, we presented our final
recommendations and observations to the Planning & Zoning Commission and
the final stop of this journey is tonight when we formally present again those
observations and recommendations to the City Council to you all. As I mentioned
consistency with the comprehensive plan, how well the existing regulations
implement and ensure consistency with adopted policies in the contmnnities was
one of the real hallmarks of this study, they're identified by reviewing the plan.
Four sort of central themes stabilization and improvement of older neighborhoods,
commercial areas, the notion of encouraging mixed use pedestrian oriented
development in new areas as well as in the older areas of the community that fit
plan goals for the community. Promotion of affordable housing and the projection
of environmental resources, strong themes that run throughout the plan. As we
look to the neighborhood commercial front comprehensive plan sits out a number
of goals again the number of mixed use, pedestrianism, the building and site
design should respect neighborhood character, and the notion of live work space,
the notion of being able to offer opportunities through the development code for
people to not only shop near they live but to go to the work place without
necessarily always getting in the automobile. We identified in the regulations as
we looked at your neighborhood commemial district, CN-1 district, a number of
things you might want to consider as you bark on the revision of the development
code. We suggest based on our experience in other communities that
neighborhood commercial districts that are defined by use types have been less
than successful, as we try and identify this very narrow range of business types
and use types that are appropriate in neighborhood settings we find that you may
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not offer flexibility in the marketplace to accommodate what can be neighborhood
serving retail and even employment opportunities and that what you should indeed
focus on instead is the site design standards and building design standards within
the neighborhood district as an alternative to trying to identify those particular
business and use types again that fit that scale. We also suggested in the report
that the CN-1 district it now requires a special exception if you want to put
residential above the ground floor of retail uses within that district. We see the
requirement for the special exception and additional process as a sort of
disincentive for encouraging the very thing your plan talks about and that is the
ability to live and work on the same site perhaps. And that by allowing residential
uses above the ground floor as a matter of right might be a better way to
encourage the type of thing the plan talks about. As we look to the residential and
housing front again taking our cues from the plan, plan talks about housing
diversity a notion of smaller lot sizes to accommodate a variety of lifestyles and
housing choices. The notion of when we get to multiple family and multi unit
designs to encourage smaller scale type developments that might better fit within
existing neighborhoods with respect to character with those neighborhoods with
regard to scale and impacts. And the notion of allowing a fairly flexible approach
in terms of alternative layouts. A number of suggestions in the report, the first of
which is a kind of trend we see in other communities and that is to allow or
consider at least allowing duplexes and single family attached style units on
comer lots. The idea is on a comer lot you have two block faces and that if each
unit faces a, it's respective street the character of that street face isn't by all
appearances single family detached in nature. We in fact learned in the stake
holder interview process, or we think we learned that Iowa City at one time
permitted that sort of housing arrangement and several years ago through an
amendment did away with that approach but we see that a number of communities
are experiencing with and we lay it out on the table as an option for you all to
consider. We also suggested in the report that there may be a need within the
code for a zoning category that allows smaller lot, single family detached
development in a district that doesn't bring with it the some times perceived
negative baggage of allowing duplexes in the same district and in talking through
it with staff our recommendation is that the RS-8 which now allows single family
detached, attached single family townhouse lifestyle and duplex district be
recrafted into a small lot single family detached district that might be easier to
establish to the rezoning process because it doesn't raise the specter of duplexes
which in some situations are perceived as a threat to single family detached areas,
residential areas.
Pfab/Can I interrupt you a second?
Bishop/Yes sir.
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Pfab/On when you get to the smaller units are you talking about also facing the two of
them or would that take away your facing one house on the comer of the street, at
the comer facing two houses at opposite or kitty comer across? Do you
understand my question?
Bishop/I don't think so.
Pfab/Okay, we talked, all right, I was again thinking it wasn't working very good. Okay
your talking about facing houses or duplexes on one street and then on the other
so driving by it looks like a single family.
Bishop/I'm with you so far.
Pfab/Now when you get to a smaller size and a higher utilization of ground on square
footage of ground that you can, will that also allow you to do that same thing or
would that exclude that?
Bishop/No I think it would, I think we recommended that you combine those approaches
in that district.
Pfab/So it looks like no matter which way we go here we've got to find a higher
utilization of ground space. And it's something that over as you look across the
nation that is acceptable way of improving a development.
Bishop/It's something many communities are considering, the idea of it being accepted,
I'm not saying this is an easy sale, some people perceive smaller lot, more
compacted development as a threat to the character of those areas, this is not a
slam dunk in terms of community perception but it is certainly consistent with the
broad things of smart growth back to the city compact development and those
themes and I know your all familiar with.
Pfab/And it also allows a less costly development, cost of home.
Bishop/I think it's going to have some impact and is much as land is consumed so much
of the price of housing will have some impact I'm sure. The RS-12 district then
jumping up from the RS-8 would continue to be a district that accommodates a
broader range of use types including duplex and single family attached. Maybe an
opportunity through the amendment process to consider if the small scale multi-
family might be appropriate in that district which allows the density of 12 units
per acre but in any case there is a need for both a district that both insures single
family detached product and one that allows a broader range of use types. The
plan also suggests that the code could go farther in terms of encouraging and even
in some communities even requiring that a new subdivision above some minimum
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size that there is a choice and a mix ofhousing types within that district. Some
codes use a sort of average density approach and require that you have some small
lots, some large lots, the notion being that you'll have different size houses, more
of a diversity of housing types and more of a sharing of the community wide
responsibility for accommodating a broader range of housing types. I heard
mentioned that your going to be considering at some point in the future some
amendments to your accessory housing units, accessory dwelling unit, accessory
building maybe out ahead of us as a consultant team but we saw that as another
opportunity just another small way that you can make a dent at accommodating a
broader range of housing types. Finally in the residential and housing (can't hear)
and theme what we'll come back to in this what I hope is a brief presentation the
notion of using more objective by right standards as a way to accommodate
housing rather than foming anything other than single family detached products on
flat sites into a process, into a be at the sensitive areas overlay plan development
process, we're suggesting that this is a front that a lot of communities are trying to
chip away at and that is the using of objective up front standards that are
predictable both for the development community and for the neighborhood as
opposed to sort of discretionary case by case reviews of every housing
development that comes down the pike. A number of technical issues regarding
set backs, lot width, nearly all the single family districts require 20 foot front yard
setback, here's an opportunity to both address pedestrianism, streetscape, and
efficiency in use of land in one full swoop by in some districts at least allowing
houses to move a little closer to the street with the front porch or whatever. The
notion of reduced lot width standards, another possibility for somewhat reducing
the cost of development because of being able to reduce the amount of street
frontage. And of course when we talk about moving structures closer to the street
we need to be mindful of the impact on the street that garages the place on us so
we understand that if you were to consider those types of setbacks you need to be
coupled with some standards to ensure that garages can be accommodated on the
lot without disrupting the character of the street base. As we look to the
connections between commercial areas and residential areas, we looked at a
number of policies, again looking to the plan, the plan talks about better
connectivity between residential neighborhoods, between residential
neighborhoods and the work place and the shopping place. The notion of access
management as a way to preserve street capacity, accommodating of means of
transportation other than the single use automobile, transit, bicyclists, pedestrians.
The notion of some flexibility with regard to local street and access needs through
revised local street standards, provision of alleys, private access lanes, loop
streets, any number of alternatives being addressed by communities around the
country. We recommended consideration of a number of things on the street
front, we see in the plan really nothing that addresses this notion of con activity
and this is another area that' s going to be a hard sell.
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Atkins/Kirk can I ask you a quick question? It's killing me, what's a snout house?
Bishop/Yes sir. A snout house, think of the big nose that sticks out from the pig or
whatever, it's a term that's been coined to characterize a house where all you see
is the garage sticking out from the front.
Atkins/Thank you.
Champion/That's a great description.
Bishop/We see nothing in the existing regulations that really address this notion of con
activity and as I was mentioning this is another area where the planners have sort
of out fronted the community on this issue because this can be a hard sell as we
open up people' s neighborhoods to cross traffic and the sharing of connections,
that's not always an easy policy sale in communities. Similarly the notion of
access management isn't aggressively addressed in the development code, and
here we're talking about the limitations of number of curb cuts onto streets as a
way to preserve capacity, ensure better traffic safety type issues. We talked about
sidewalk standards and the notion of buffers between residential areas and arterial
streets, right now the burden is kind of placed on individual homeowners to have
a large setback whenever a residential butts arterials and we're suggesting maybe
a better way to do that would be through the subdivision process and the
installation of buffers at the time of residential subdivision. The notion of a more
flexible menu of options when it comes to local street design, we don't have a
silver bullet for you here, I know you've all considered and heard a lot about
skinny streets and the notion of whether or not the 28 foot local street cross
section is the end all to be all the end all when it comes to that. We see
communities grappling with that issue trying to balance neighborhood character
issues with storm water issues, engineering design issues, public safety, fire access
issues, it's a delicate balance but we think that there may be a way to at least reach
a compromise where maybe streets of a certain length, maybe streets in certain
topographically challenged sites could adhere to a different standard, that was
somewhat reduced from your existing requirements. We heard some about the
notion that a new residential subdivisions were not seeing sort of the canopy tree
lined street front that we see in older areas of the community, and what we heard
from the engineers was that the location of sidewalks relative to curb and the sort
of 6 foot window that exists there doesn't lend itself easily to canopy tree
planning's because of root and maintenance issues and just simply space issues
and we're suggesting that as you proceed if you do with the code amendment
process you might investigate some alternatives with regard to sidewalk
placement or fight of way width. And again the greater use of alleys, rear access
lanes, some techniques that I know you've tried and approved in some
developments around the community as I've toured as another way to
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accommodate local street needs. On the housing cost front, we like you had to
approach that as a kind of balancing equation, we looked to the code, we were
asked to identify unnecessary obstacles to the provision of affordable housing.
Clearly any community that's got a zoning or land development code has added
requirements that have some affect on the cost of housing. The question we were
asked though was whether or not those were unnecessary relative to the goals that
you've set out as a community with regard to environmental protection,
community appearance, the preservation in a neighborhood character. And on
that front we don't see that the development code is the villain in that equation.
Having said that we suggest as we do in a number of contmunities some things to
consider as you move forward, land supply being cheap among them, in other
words it may not be what's in the book but what' s on the zoning map may have
some affect on the ability to provide higher density somewhat more affordability
housing in a community. Again back to this notion of relying on discretionary
open ended review processes to accommodate new housing developments, time is
money, you've heard it all before, it's a clich6, but there is some truth to it in
development economics as in all economics and this is an area where again we're
suggesting that more alliance on objective standards and less reliance on
discretionary review processes might be a benefit to everyone concerned.
Kanner/Kirk.
Bishop/Yes.
Kanner/On the first point land supply, does that mean looking at land that' s on the
perimeter as perhaps up zoning that density?
Bishop/Well I think that' s you know part of the equation. I'm not suggesting it, we
didn't do it, we weren't asked thankfully to do a careful audit of your zoning map
and to recommend the appropriate ratio of all the given zoning districts but in our
view and our experience the availability of sites that are pre zoned to
accommodate whatever product is out there is going to have more affect than
tweaking some technical standard in the code. So it could be annexation
opportunities land on the periphery that' s been in the holding pattern at a low
density classification, it plays into to this last point, and I think this Weeber
subdivision that we had on the screen is a case in point. We have zoned, we have
land that's zoned, it looks like it's zoned 44 units an acre multi-family and as a
result of their being environmental constraints on that property that project is
automatically kicked into a planned development sensitive areas overlay, where
the issues, your not alone here, the issues in the debate, the public hearing that
ensues because of the plan development designation, because of the need to get
rezoning are sometimes completely unrelated to the environmental factors that are
supposedly in play. We've suggested that the community consider implementing
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the framework of it's environmentally sensitive lands ordinance through technical
standards and administrative review through the site plan process. We think
you'll be assured of the same level if not a height in level of environmental
protection because everything is not up for play in a sort of discretionary review
process while offering the predictability of the zoning map to ensure both the
developer and the neighborhood knows what's coming. Now the neighborhood is
going to tell me that that' s a bad idea because that site is zoned RM-44 but that's
an issue, that's a rezoning issue, I mean that' s a zoning, that' s a land use policy
issue that you all have to grapple with. But the environmental issues are fairly cut
and dry, you use an approach that we favor in terms of doing the site capacity
analysis, protecting certain slopes, protecting woodland areas, wetlands, flood
plains and so forth. But the features of your ordinance are sound, we just believe
that the process that you use involves a lot of brain damage and we suggested that
it may be, it may be, have a small role in housing prices but more importantly it
has a role in how predictable your regulations are, more importantly for us.
Because we believe that an ordinance should be predictable. The zoning map
should be predictable, the zoning map may be wrong but it should be predictable.
Kanner/So your saying these environmental regulations would be perhaps would
implement them and they would be for the whole city and it's just there, and that
you have to conform to is. Is that basically what your saying?
Bishop/Yes, that's another, yes, absolutely, they're there, they're a standard, we review
for compliance, if you've got a problem there will be an appeal process. The staff
is unfairly administering them, had made some sort of misinterpretation of a
standard, I assume them would be an appeal process but yes it becomes a sign off
like do you have the number of parking spaces just like a number of development
standard issues are in your code.
Kanner/Is there an appeal process, I just want to finish this, is there an appeal process
from the other perspective, that the staff was not strong enough in implementing
them? That perhaps the concern. How do you get to that saying things are, we're
letting things slide, we have these standards so the person that's doing the
building can appeal saying this is too tough. I'm assuming they're not going to
say it's too soft, so how do you get the other side, how do you protect that other
side?
Bishop/Well that' s really a question, I mean the question is what does the appeal
provision look like in this animal I'm trying to sell you which is a ministerial
review alternative to your plan development and sensitive areas overlays
approach. What does the appeal process look like? I don't want to get out front
of your City Attorney or our team's legal advisors on how you ought to structure
that, I think it's partly policy and partly a legal matter but we've certainly worked
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in communities where agreed parties be they the developer or the surrounding
neighborhood have the right to appeal on the record, I mean did they follow the
ordinance. This isn't a question of should they have imposed some ad hoc
standards as part of the review it's a question of did they follow the ordinance and
ensure that these protected slopes, these protected woodlands and other
environmental features were protected. I think your ordinance sets out some fairly
objective, I mean some objective standards on that front.
Lehman/What your saying if I'm not mistaken is that these things can be administratively
applied without going through a political process.
Bishop/Yes.
Kanner/Yea so it's basically the same, it takes away that (can't hear) review of the
rezoning.
Lehman/Well in this case we talked about it here earlier tonight, review of technical
standards of which we have no knowledge.
Kanner/Well actually there' s different standards that are talked about in the
environmental sensitive areas both and so I would say we do have knowledge
about that that it takes into affect the community and other issues like pedestrian
access and those things and that' s why we're involved in the process.
Lehman/Well that's another story, go ahead.
Bishop/I'm just about done. A number of recommendations in this report it runs to about
100 pages and like well in zoning in particular got us into details, them are a lot of
detailed requirements, we tried to address a number of them, we've included some
suggestions for making the process as efficient as possible. Frankly your doing a
number of things right on that front, our list was much longer until staff looked at
it and checked off that they were doing 50 percent of them. We threw another
half a dozen on the table, a number of other recommendations, the plan talks
about a number of kind of community design, building site design issues that we
don't see carried to their full fruition in the ordinance and so the imposition of
character standards that help the ordinances achieve the kind of vision for the
community that you all talk about in the comprehensive plan. A number of
technical recommendations regarding the use classification, that is the definition
of all the land use types, some alternatives for modernization there. It's been over
20 years since you've comprehensively looked at your zoning ordinance, they tend
to get a little dated at times. Although you've done a good job through the piece
meal process keeping it up to date and responding to evolving issues. Clearly
implementing through zoning the zoning and development related policy and
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vision statements from the comprehensive plan, it is something we would advise
you to do. And a number of opportunities for adding some flexibility to the
ordinance, I mention off street parking on this slide, talking about greater use of
shared parking arrangements with uses that have off peak operating hours. The
notion of maybe some additional flexibility with regard to off site parking,
additional flexibility for large employers, and through transit, and preferred
parking programs, a number of approaches going on out there. The number of
reorganization issues addressed in the code, I won't go into them in detail as well
as a number of very technical standards with regards to signs and adult use
regulations. We have some real radical recommendations regarding organization
and format, we suggested for example, the use of a table of contents that has page
numbers as a way to make the ordinance a little easier to pick up and use and find
information they're looking for in the ordinance.
Kanner/What year were page numbers (can't hear)?
Bishop/I'm like AI Gore I invented table of contents with page numbers. Maybe a how
to guide up front that kind of helps people who don't come into contact with
zoning on a daily basis find their way through the process and find their way
through the regulations. Better use of page layout techniques, tables, charts, as
ways to convey information regarding the types of uses that are permitted in the
minimum lot size and setbacks that apply. These are techniques that you ought to
embrace, I know you will as you embark on that. Clearly illustrations and
graphics help people understand what these sometimes arcane regulations are
talking about. Yea.
Kanner/Kirk your putting out the sort of new urbanist kind of thing and one of them
Kunstler he talks about simplifying it even more, is there a way in a complex city
like Iowa City to simplifying the code so that anybody one of the newspapers that
are 6th grade level or 8th grade level or whatever they are that anyone at that level
can read them, it's like reading the newspaper, is that possible?
Bishop/Well we maintain that it's possible, it would, it's up to our client communities to
decide if we've actually gotten there when we get done, but surely I mean plain
English, the use of plain English writing style, some of these techniques with
regard to page layout and graphics, they all help. This is still complex
information, I mean there are still provisions of any zoning and development code
that are going to be lost on those of use who don't come into contact with the
regulations on a daily basis but absolutely radical strides can be made with regard
to how simple this information is to process and understand.
Kanner/I mean just the names of the different zone, when we have CN-I, why isn't it
NC-I? And how can we simplify that even? Are there ways to do that?
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Bishop/The naming conventions can, yea it can be made easy, I think there's a logic to
CN-1 I understand it but that doesn't mean it's right for you all, it's fairly
common place, for example, we don't want to get into this obviously but for the
C it indicates it's the commercial district, the second letter what intensity level of
commercial and with the alpha numeric N-1 with it but I've got clients,
communities that use any number of naming conventions to better present sort of
an intuitive designator for their zone designations. I can't give you all my trade
secrets as part of the first phase but it's certainly something we'd explore with
you.
Lehman/You mean there' s a Phase II.
Bishop/No sir not on your watch, that' s the question before you as I understood Karin,
we were fortunate to be selected to do this front end piece, the development code
analysis. When the city originally went out with it's request for proposals it
talked about a two phase process and what the city elected to do and it's
something that a number of communities do is let's say do this diagnostic kind of
audit first and see if we really need to do this and if so at what level and so we
prepared our report. We have suggested it's time after 20 years to sort of
comprehensively go in reorganize, reformat, make the thing a little more customer
friendly and some substantive issues while your at it and that question is now on
the table before you and we wish you the best of luck with whatever you choose.
We do do that sort of work and we'd probably be happy to help you in that regard.
Lehman/It was nice to be able to understand everything you said. Very good
presentation, I think we all enjoyed that.
Bishop/Well thank you very much, it's been a pleasure to work with you.
O'Dounell/Everything except the snout house.
Lehman/The snout house we have a problem with, we'd like that removed, put that in the
NC-1 zone. Thanks a lot.
(END OF 01-32 SIDE TWO)
Franklin/Through all of this if we're not going to do anything with it.
Lehman/So what's your recommendation?
Franklin/Well my recommendation is that we continue to work with Duncan Associates,
that will get it done sooner than later, I mean there's a lot of changes that we're
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talking about happening here, we have not changed our subdivision regulations
totally since 1962 and the zoning ordinance (can't hear) points out we're not
looking at approaching 20 years with that base ordinance so I think it's time to
look at seriously. So I would suggest that we proceed with Phase 15I and the
question before you now is there anything here that you have heard tonight that it
is just an anathema to you, you do not want anything to do with it because it's?
Lehman/Snout house.
O'Dormell/Second.
Franklin/Now is it that you want snout houses or you don't want snout houses?
O'Donnell/No I seconded Emie.
Kanner/I do remember 1962 as being a good year.
Franklin/Very good year but a long time ago, getting longer all the time Steven.
Champion/It wasn't that long ago, I like the idea of moving forward with it.
Wilburn/Sooner rather than later.
Champion/Yea, go, go for it.
Vanderhoef/It's certainly time to bring us up to date and reorganization of the code,
sometimes it's much easier for me to pick up the phone and call you than it is to
search about myself.
Lehman/That' s always going to be the case.
O'Donnell/What's going to change?
Vanderhoef/Maybe I'll be able to read it and save a few phone calls for Karin.
Pfab/I think it's a good idea and I think our Peninsula project is going to give us a chance
to open up some ideas that we kind of an experimental place, not that it's an
experiment but it's a chance to on a relatively controlled amount of property to try
some very innovative ideas.
Champion/(Can't hear) talks about how space (can't hear) neighborhoods and that and
how to design neighborhoods that are space, I think it's a lot of good things.
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Lehman/I also think it's pretty complimentary on the way we're doing things.
Franklin/Yea.
Lehman/No I really do I mean I, obviously we're doing a lot of things right.
Franklin/There are some things to do but there' s things that we're doing okay.
Lehman/Is there a priority in this as to what ~ve want to do first or second or third? Do
we want to go after anything in particular more quickly than?
Franklin/This is my question to you, you have been lobbied by at least one person to put
some priorities on the neighborhood commercial area.
Lehman/I know and this is the second or third problem we've had with the CN-1 zone in
the last few years or three years so it might be a priority.
Vanderhoef/That' s one I think we have talked about, the other one I think we talked
about was some of this infill property and in residentials the number of bedrooms
and the footprint of the buildings on those large lots and the setbacks on them that
they just over power.
Franklin/So some of the housing issues that Kirk talked about.
Pfab/I think it's time we take a look at higher utilization of grounds, surface space and
also being looking harder at neighborhood friendly zoning and development, in
other words it supports a neighborhood more so than it has in the past by various
little techniques.
Franklin/Okay, any other input.
Kanner/Well, yea, I like most of what's in here, although I have to say quite frankly I
didn't get to look at all this and I hope that we proceed a bit slowly in this in that
we get a chance to thoroughly look through this, there's a lot of good information
and I'd like to have that. And one of my major concerns is when we're taking
away Council review it might be that we want to do that but anytime we take that
away I think we have to proceed cautiously.
Lehman/What do you mean take away Council, oh?
(All talking)
Franklin/Do things administratively rather than.
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Karmer/In rezoning issues and if we're going to take that away I think we have to have
some good debate on that and see how that plays out.
Lehman/But I think.
Vanderhoef/Well I think is where the "by rights" standards go in there will take away a
lot of that flexibility or what may be perceived as discretionary on the part of
Council or on staff as developers work through the processes and I think that' s
where we have received some criticism in the past and that they didn't understand
specifically. If we have good standards there then we can turn it over to the "by
rights".
Lehman/But I think Steven before we do any of this we have to concur that these
particular things will be "by right", in other words if we don't want them to be "by
right" we can continue to have those things come before us for our review so we
will have the decision of whether or not we feel it should be reviewed before we
act on the changes of the code.
Franklin/Every single change that will occur.
Lehman/Will require CounciI's approval.
Franklin/Will require Council action, and no doubt we will have repeated debates about
this balance between flexibility and being prescriptive, I mean that' s something
that goes on the time and it kind of depends upon which end of the stick your on
as to whether you want to be flexible or not.
Lehman/Right.
Pfab/And i think that we talked somewhere in his presentation there about the appeal
process and how that is balanced so that if parties agreed that they have access one
way or the other and not just one side or the other.
Franklin/Right, right.
Kanner/As far as the process I think it's good to go ahead but I would also ask the
Council that we perhaps in a month from now get asked this same question, we
don't have to have Duncan Associates here but we do that and we say is there
anything in here that we want to get rid of or are there anything that we want to
add and that we have this discussion and I think we're probably going to have a
number of these discussions over the next year or so.
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Franklin/Yea, I was just thinking what we do is put together a work program, these are
the things that we're looking at addressing and then have that discussion with you
to see if that's where you want to go.
Lehman/Well I think if Steven's right if we and I'm sure we have not studied this cover
to cover as we do that and if we have a concern certainly I think we should bring it
up whether that be at Council time or whatever and but I agree I think.
Pfab/Is this a time to maybe put it on a work session maybe a month or two?
Lehman/There' s nothing to put on a work session.
Pfab/No but I mean with the idea to take a look at it.
Lehman/Not until they give us something to talk about.
Pfab/Okay.
Kanner/Well actually it might not be a bad idea if we say we want it in a month or so to
have a work session to look at it in a general sense and/or a more specific sense
with what we get from staff at that time.
Lehman/Well are we going to have anything from staff in a month?
Franklin/The only thing that you would have in a month would be how we're going to
approach this in terms of the specific things that we would do first.
Lehman/All right I ~vould just suggest that with Council's concurrence that you keep us
updated, this can very well be an agenda item on the work session.
Franklin/Okay.
Lehman/And you can bring us an update, we can discuss it as briefly, if it's going to be
extensive discussion we can schedule it for a major part of a work session but if
you just periodically keep us updated on what's going on and we can ~vork from
there.
O~Donnell/Fine.
Franklin/Okay and I mean we'll be coming back to you for direction on various things,
the large philosophical issues.
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Kanner/Okay not too large. Two things that I wanted to bring up. From chair person of
historic preservation commission he had brought up the idea when they reviewed
it looking out for economic hardship in historic preservation districts and he asked
that that be addressed and I didn't have a chance to look through this. And
where' s Kirk? I don't know if that was addressed in here or not, did that end up
making this?
Franklin/No.
Kanner/So that's maybe something that I would like to have looked at. And the other
thing was about zoning for alcohol licensees and if we want to consider that
because that's one method that was put out there as a possibility to deal with
proliferation of establishments.
Franklin/Okay, got.
Lehman/Okay, thank you.
Franklin/Thank you.
Lehman/We're going to take a break folks.
A~enda Items
Lehman/Anybody have any agenda items?
IP4 of 3/15 of info packet.
Karmer/What's in the info. packet #4 pending development issues, what's the Preucil
special exception in the Northgate Corporate Park? Where is that?
Vanderhoef/The pending item, it's on the pending item list.
Kanner/Steve would you like?
Arkins/No I think I can handle this, Karin would you answer this.
Franklin/That is for a private school's specialized construction which is a special
exception use in the RDP zone, Research Development Park zone which is what
the property's zoned.
Atkins/I knew that.
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O'Donnell/I think I did too.
Lehman/I think we figured that one out.
Kanner/Where is that at?
Franklin/It's on Northgate Drive, it's right on the very end of where the road goes to
now, and on the north side.
Pfab/Up towards, back to 1-80 is that what your saying?
Franklin/It's noah of 1-80.
Pfab/Yea but I mean as it goes back to 1-80.
Franklin/Yea you take Northgate Drive you go all the way in and it's on the north side of
the street.
Kanner/Is that the kind of thing we' 11 look at in the development code to see if we want
to expand the uses in something like an RDP?
Lehman/It would be a special exception wouldn't it?
Franklin/We don't have that specifically called out in the development code, expand the
potential uses in RDP.
Kanner/Perhaps yea.
Franklin/Could, I mean one of the things that we can look at it is when you want to have
something a special exception and when you don't because a special exception is
that extra process. Yep we could do that.
Lehman/Any other agenda items?
ITEM NO. 10. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 6, CHAPTER 1
(NUISANCES) OF TIlE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF
IOWA CITY BY ADDING STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES TO
CONTROL THE NUMBER OF VEHICLES PARKED, STORED, PLACED
OR KEPT OUTSIDE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY. (SECOND
CONSIDERATION)
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O'Donnell/I think we should bring up on Item 10, both papers reported last week, this is
vehicle storage in the yards. Both papers reported last night or gave the
insinuation that this is an ordinance that's coming down because of one problem
and we have between 70 and 80 complaints on this a year so it, I think we need to
point that out to them. I mean this, this is certainly not an ordinance based on one
problem, there are numerous complaints a year and that should be made clear.
Lehman/Okay other agenda items. Okay let's do appointments.
ADDointments
Lehman/I don't have my list. Historic Preservation.
Champion/Wc have one applicant.
Vanderhocf/No applicants for Historic Preservation.
Lehman/Didn't we have one?
Kanner/No.
Lehman/Okay Planning & Zoning Commission, there are two different appointments,
one to fill an unexpired term and one to fill a new term. The unexpired as I
remember there are four or five applicants for that one, let' s do that first.
Someone to replace Norm Osland.
O'Donnell/Fd like to nominate Anciaux.
Lehman/Anciaux. What's his first name?
Vanderhoef/Don.
Pfab/I'd like to nominate Charles Eastham.
Champion/And I like Hertry Madden.
Lehman/We only can appoint one. Okay. Do we have any other? Well let's take a straw
vote, first how many would like Don Anciaux for the appointment. Okay
Mr. Madden, okay and Charlie Eastham. Now we've got three to three, now
we're going to eliminate Mr. Madden. Now how many want Mr. Anciaux?
Champion/Well I'll support Mr. Anciaux, he's my second choice.
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Lehman/All right then the new term, how many applications for that new term, I don't
have that.
Vanderhoef/All of the same again.
Champion/All the same.
Lehman/Well not all the same because.
Vanderhoef/With the added exception we have added Ben Chait.
Lehman/Ben Chaet has completed one term on the P & Z, traditionally we reappoint if
there' s not been a problem, your not (can't hear) Mr. Chaet, is there any.
Wilburn/I'd like to nominate Charlie Eastham and I'll just throw in that he did apply
prior to, he was encouraged to apply again, not that's a reason you have to, but
given his involvement with housing issues and this be our concern then I think it
would be important to have Charlie on.
Kanner/Yea it is pretty impressive what he lists here for his involvement, he's been on
HCDC, Habitat for Humanity, Housing Fellowship, Johnson Cotmty
Empowerment Board, the Eagles Flight, a lot of community groups and he seems
to be well versed and we did appoint someone the last time and we said because
he applied a number of times that we're going to appoint you this time so.
Champion/We didn't say that.
Kanner/Well actually someone did say that.
Champion/We did not say that, the Council did not say that.
Lehman/I think we have appointed people who, we have not appointed people and when
we have the opportunity at some time in the future if they continue to reapply we
occasionally do appointment them but it isn't just because they reapply. But in
any event.
Pfab/I would certainly strongly recommend Charlie Eastham.
Lehman/How many would vote for Charlie Eastham. How many for Ben Chait? All
fight Don Anciaux and Ben Chait. The Public Art Advisory Committee.
Champion/I'd like to nominate Barbara Camillo.
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O'Donnell/I'll second that one.
Vanderhoef/I kind of like Connie Peterson, and I was going to ask because I'm not sure
how many art professionals we have on the committee right now as compared to
at large.
Lehman/The requirement is that we have a minimum of 3 but they can as many as five,
they can all be art professionals if we want them to be but there has to be a
minimum of three as I remember.
Vanderhoef/Well I was looking at both Connie Peterson and Charles Felling in that they
are not both making their living in art, Charles Felling is a citizen who has an
interest in art who may have a different perspective than someone who is an art
professional. The other part that I liked about Cormie Peterson is that she is a
graphic artist and is experienced in the photography area that is different from
what I saw on other' s members of the committee.
Wilburn/I liked Barb Camillo, I liked her international experience, (can't hear) too and
SO.
O'Donnell/I did too.
Lehman/All right how many would like Barb Camillo? Barb Camillo is appointed.
Kanner/One thing we've been seeing the last few months is a lot of strong candidates.
Champion/A lot.
Lehman/Yes.
Vanderhoef/I agree.
Kanner/It's really good to see and we're picking from strength and we ought to keep
encouraging that.
O'Donnell/And we've been mentioning that in our Tuesday night meetings and I think
that does bring people out, good applicants.
Vanderhoef/All right let's get one now for the Civil Service Commission for
readvertising for that.
Lenoch and Cilek Buildinl~ Occupancy
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Lehman/Lenoch and Cilek building occupancy, who is going to speak to this?
Atkins/You are, you asked for it to be back on the agenda.
Lehman/Okay we asked for it to be on the agenda.
Wilbum/I wanted to definitely see it on there because I think, I understand the attempt
that was made to reach out to some of the, to see that leases were extended there
but given the emphasis that was placed on a lot of the downtown activities, the
Friday nights, the Art' s Fest, the Jazz Fest, I think that for the short term or
actually, in the long term I think just the impression the appearance of having
nothing be there would be a detriment so there was a letter from Gary, there' s also
a letter from Susan.
Lehman/Right.
Wilburn/I spaced on your name, sorry about that. I would like to know if Susan Craig
could come forward so we I could ask just for a little more detail about the
conversations you've had with Arts Fest, Jazz Fest, what I'm looking for
specifically is what, have you had conversations about the amount of coverage
throughout the summer that those (can't hear) may or may not be able to provide.
Just give me a little background.
Susan Craig/I left a message on Steve Grismore's machine, I have not talked to him and
he's the organizer for Jazz Fest, I have talked on the phone to Vicki Jennings, she
was thrilled at the notion of having some space and was going to talk to some
people and see what could be arranged to locate some kind of headquarters for
Arts Fest downtown as near the area as she could get it. She's looking at it, again
we had a brief conversation I said well we'll wait until this is settled and I'll get
back to you. A place, a headquarters where they can store their chairs and tables
and t-shirts and sort of a staging area whether people would actually come into
that space to purchase perhaps t-shirts or something you know we hadn't gotten to
the details like that. My notion was that you could certainly use the window space
in the Mind Matters area which are long narrow windows to put some banners up,
advertising Arts Fest, Jazz Fest, the Friday night concerts, the things that go on in
the downtown area and make it an attractive looking space even if there isn't a
business operating out of that space if you know for a few months here.
Vanderhoef/We're you visioning that they would have office space?
Craig/No not office space, more staging area kind of space.
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Vanderhoef/So that would be just a very short period of time.
Craig/Right just for this summer.
Vanderhoef/Well but I mean for 2 or 3 days or what?
Craig/I would say a matter of weeks before the individual festivals as they do their
organizing and people come and pick things up and then during the actual Arts
Fest and then Arts Fest would be over and Jazz Fest would be next, like I said I
have not Steve Grismore yet, just left a message on his machine.
Vanderhoef/If your talking 2 to 3 weeks then I'm saying that' s office space you ~know if
they're working out of there, if there' s someone there that opens the door
everyday so people can come in and out that is an office space.
Craig/Well we had not, Vicki and I had not gotten to the particulars of, but I think she
was envisioning something for some period of days before whether it would have
regular hours or anything I don't know.
Wilbum/I guess more concern is more of those high visibility times, Friday night,
Saturday, people coming in and out of town, and again those festival times as to, I
mean when demolition occurs and there' s construction they've going for a library
and people are coming into town or something else is going there but someone
coming down from Chicago, Quad Cities, Des Moines, friends coming in
internationally they come and see an empty space, or no activity whether that' s an
art display or something but the library may have the rotating art exhibit the
library may have or even a proposal from someone for some type of activity, it
leaves a dift~rent, at least there' s understanding that there' s some type of activity
going there as opposed to nothing during that time so that' s where my concern is.
Vanderhoef/I don't disagree with you Ross, I think them is a perception just in general of
empty spaces or very obvious banners there, above ground art.
Lehman/Did I see in your letter Susan that you might be using part of that window space
to promote the architectural drawings whenever of the library? I mean what?
Craig/The former Freshens space does have large windows and you know did they not
renew their lease and I thought the floor plans, the plans that you all saw at the
joint meeting with the architect you know let' s get those up and say coming soon
you know which is what you do when something exciting is happening around it.
Lehman/Well I think and I think Ross has a good concern and I'm sure you share that
concern.
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Craig/I do.
Lehman/An empty window and empty space probably it isn't really putting our best foot
forward so if something, your planning for something to be in those windows and
something to be utilizing that space on and off during the summer is that correct?
Craig/Right.
Karmer/We're talking through the end of July is that correct?
Craig/July 31 st is the end date so talk about the summer, Friday night concerts we, May,
June and July three months is what we're talking about.
Lehman/What's wrong with August, September, October?
Champion/Right.
Kanner/Well I thought we're starting to.
Lehman/Demolition starts in November doesn't it?
Craig/The architect said that he needed to have possession of the site, the building in
order to begin to prepare for demolition on October 15. When the contracts to
extend the leases were drawn up we worked back from that date and worst case
scenario which you always have to plan for if someone had to be evicted we had
to have enough time after their lease expired to evict somebody so that' s where
the August 1 date come right Eleanor.
Lehman/But realistically.
Craig/Realistically if we had something in the windows people would be looking at it
until the first of October or the middle of October when construction fence went
up.
Lehman/Until such time, all right, all right.
Vanderhoef/What would be wrong with since we're talking about two of our summer
festivals and one being art and one being Jazz having Arts Iowa City have some
space to display art in there for the short term.
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Craig/I think the space that would be appropriate to that would probably be the Mind
Matter's space and it's not as big as the space they were in over on Washington
Street.
Vanderhoef/But whatever.
Craig/Whatever.
Vanderhoef/If we're having an Arts Fest why not.
Craig/If the time frame is so short to plan something and then get it in there and have it
open you know, and I know there' s been some inquiries about leasing the
Freshens space too, again my concem is the time frame is pretty short and by the
time you negotiate and make arrangements so it's, you know I think it's in the best
interest of the city too to have something visible there that if not actually drawing
people into that building is saying something neat is going to happen here so.
Pfab/I would ask a question, how many alternatives do we have and how many of them
are mutually exclusive, what possibilities do we have now?
Craig/Well the possibilities are endless Irvin.
Pfab/But I mean what do have on the table or what are we aware of?.
Craig/What I know that we're aware of, the contact I have made is with Arts Fest and a
phone call to Jazz Fest which I have not talked to them.
Pfab/Okay.
Craig/And I talked to David Schoon about the Friday night concert stuff, there is an,
there has been interest expressed from Gary Sanders to come back in there with
the used book store in the Freshens area but that would require negotiating a lease
and you know.
Pfab/So of those four.
Craig/So there's commercial use, there's festival use, I have heard you know I think Ross
and Dee both now have talked about the Arts use kind of thing, some kind of
exhibit or something like that, festival use, commemial use, the arts use.
Kanner/The library use, you were talking about displaying.
Craig/Right, the display in the windows kind of thing.
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Lehman/Is the concern on the part of Council I mean we need to tell Susan what we're
thinking. First of it is the library's basically it's their property and our concern is
as I think Fm hearing it is we do not have anymore than we have to have empty
space and that we would like to convey to the library folks that we would like see
something in those windows or some at your, I think it has to be at your
discretion, it's your building, to see to it that as much as possible that we have that
property being utilized, occupied, displayed whatever so it doesn't appear to be an
empty building. Is that accurate on the concern of the Council?
Champion/I think it's nice to have something nice in them, I frankly.
Lehman/That's the library's call.
Champion/Don't understand our obsession with not having an empty building, I think it
might be the only empty building downtown right now.
Lehman/Across the street from me there's a lot of vacancies.
Champion/Well that' s not you know.
Lehman/Do we want to leave it that with Susan?
Pfab/I would encourage something to happen but if it's Susan call then she, we would
encourage her to go ahead.
Lehman/I think that' s your call Susan in as much as you can we'd like to see something
in that building.
O'Dormell/By tomorrow.
Lehman/Whether it's a beautiful picture of the proposed library, which I think is a
marvelous thing to put in there as well, but just as much as we can utilize it
obviously it's in the library's best interest and the city and everybody so. Thank
you very much.
Craig/Thank you.
Alcohol (IP3 of 3/15 info packet)
Lehman/You folks may think it's time for a drink but this is just to discuss alcohol
issues. As you're all aware we had public discussions for two meetings about the
proposed change or the proposed adoption of an ordinance that would make the
possibility of civil penalties available to us for a number of infractions and I think
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tonight we've got, the first question that we need to answer before we go any
further is are we interested in pursuing the ordinance that has been proposed to us
al~er we answer the questions that Eleanor has put up to us or are we not
interested in pursuing this?
Pfab/Absolutely as they are or just.
Lehman/No, no, if wear interested in pursuing and this ordinance or some variation of
this ordinance then we can proceed to answering the questions that Eleanor has.
Pfab/Let's go.
Lehman/If we are not interested in pursuing it we've wasted a lot of time.
Wilburn/Let's do it.
Lehman/Are we interested in pursuing this?
Vanderhoef/Go for it.
Lehman/Eleanor your meeting, we have some questions we need to answer and if you
would lead us through.
Dilkes/I'm going to kind of break.
Lehman/Let me have a handout by the way tonight from Eleanor.
Karr/It's the same handout you received in your packet by the way, it's not a new one,
okay, it's a hard copy.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/I'm just going to track the questions that I posed in that memo. As you know the
ordinance has a number of different provisions, the two main ones being the
implementation of the civil penalties or administrative penalties that are
authorized by state law and the second real substantive change is the legislation
about drink specials. So I guess the first question would be do you want to pursue
the administrative penalties.
Pfab/Yes.
Wilburn/Yes.
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Champion/Yes.
Lehman/You have a concurrence.
Dilkes/All right then moving to the limitations on specials or sales there are a number of
different aspects of that section of the ordinance. Let me just mn through those,
those are found Section 4-6-7 of the proposed ordinance, number' s 1-6, they
generally prohibit 2 for 1 specials, all you can drink specials, increasing the
volume in alcohol in a drink without proportionally increasing the price. Number
4 is a prohibition of out of sight sales. Are you finding that Emie? Page 4.
Vanderhoef/Section 6.
Dilkes/There you go you've got it.
Lehman/I've got it, sorry.
Dilkes/Number 5 is not allowing the use of alcohol in games and number 6 is the
dispensing or pouring of alcohol directly into someone's mouth which is part of a
kind of a game that goes on at least one bar that we're aware of. So let's address
the out of sight sales first, do you want to prohibit out of sight sales in some
manner?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Wilburn/Yes.
Champion/Yes I do, I have some problems on how your going to implement that, I mean
I, one thing that I thought about today and I guess maybe we talked about and is, I
don't know you separate bars from restaurants but if you have, if your bar only
allows people 21 and above then I don't have any problem with out of sight sales
so I don't think that's a bad stipulation to have in there. If your bar only allows
21 and older then I don't have any problem with that. Also I have some problems
with how to enforce it or how to write it so that, I mean what if I want to go up
and get two pitchers of beer for my family, well maybe 10 pitchers of beer for my
family.
Lehman/They're going to have to deliver them Connie, you're not going to be able to go
up and get it.
Champion/I couldn't carry them anyway could I?
Dilkes/You have to take people with you.
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Lehman/Even if Craig helped you you couldn't.
Karmer/And actually I don't think that's such a bad idea to say, that means the
establishment has to make sure they have enough people to serve people. What
happens is in some of these bars there's chaos going on.
Champion/I know.
Kanner/And so I don't think it's such a bad idea to say you have to go to the table and
they don't look old enough you check the ID's of the people that are there.
O'Donnell/I think the out of sight sales is specifically to stop someone from getting a
half a dozen pitchers, and unfortunately we're all going to live by this ordinance,
and does this include like a golf course, a private club? I believe it does but the
intention of ordinance is to, that's, we have to remember we have to stop young
people from getting alcoholic beverages and to do that I think you have to.
Lehman/And Mike it's more than that, it's to see that people who are not intoxicated,
who are intoxicated do not get more alcohol and I do not believe it is a real burden
on an establishment to require them to deliver the pitcher of beer to the table to
the folks that are going to be consuming it.
O'Donnell/I agree.
Lehman/And to look and see that those folks are not inebriated and are of a legal age.
Wilburn/And I think Steven's point is a good one too that you have to make sure you
have adequate staff to, you 'know control it, monitor what's going on and then it's
a matter of okay Ernie wants to buy a round, let' s see some ID's, you know.
Dilkes/How many drinks should one person be allowed to pumhase? Should it be one,
should it be two?
Vanderhoef/That's an out of sight sales also in my eyes too.
Dilkes/That's what we're talking about is the out of sight sales, right now.
Vanderhoef/The pitchers that, those are real obvious, but more than one drink is a real
problem also so I think if it's more than one why then you have the wait staff
come to the table.
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Dilkes/It's all the same, it's all out of sight sales whether your pumhasing a pitcher
which could serve 5 people or your purchasing two separate drinks that serve two
people. So the question is do you want to allow? Do you want to be able to go up
to the bar and purchase just one serving?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Pfab/That' s what I would recommend.
Dilkes/Or do you want to be able to purchase two for you and your date for instance.
Vanderhoef/One for me.
Champion/This is where the ordinance gets touchy because, but then I'm not, I guess
most of the time I'm going somewhere to have a drink someone's waiting on me,
but if I were 21 and even on a date then I see, this is why I have problems with
part of the ordinance although I think we need it.
Pfab/Well then let's do it.
Vanderhoef/That, I agree with you Connie, but I don't know any fair way and appropriate
way to do it than one for the person who' s buying.
O'Donnell/Yea we can split hairs here we can go two drinks or two pitchers.
Lehman/No, no a pitcher is multiple drinks.
O'Donnell/Well it's one item you've purchased and we'll get into this later, the 2 for 1.
Lehman/We'll get into that later too.
O'Donnell/Well exactly.
Lehman/But I don't think a pitcher, a pitcher does to me selling a pitcher I don't think
you can sell a pitcher to one person that are multiple drinks and it must be served
because it's more than one serving.
Champion/Well basically, I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. Well basically, what
we're saying is that if you need to buy more than one drink then somebody comes
to bring that to your table.
Lehman/Serve you, that's what Dee is saying.
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Kanner/Or both people have to go up to the bar and if they look young enough they're
ID'd or they look at their stamp.
Wilburn/That's fine.
Lehman/All right.
O'Donnell/I think that's fine.
Kanner/So are we saying two?
Pfab/One.
Vanderhoef/One.
Pfab/That's four for one.
Lehman/We haven't even got 2 for 1 's, now that's a special.
Vanderhoef/Aren't we lucky?
Lehman/All right how many folks object to serving more than one drink per person? In
other words how many want to go for one drink, no more than one drink per
person, you can't be served more than one drink?
Champion/I don't know if I can handle that one.
Lehman/Well it doesn't make a difference Connie because the majority said that that's
okay.
Champion/Oh good.
Kanner/Yea I would have gone for two.
Champion/But I don't have to handle it.
Lehman/So no person may purchase more than one drink if we adopt the ordinance as
we're now doing it.
Champion/Oh my gosh we sound like we're going back to first grade.
Lehman/Now wait a minute, now just as you said Connie most people, you go for a, they
serve you.
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Champion/Right.
Lehman/All we're doing is going to ask them Steven and Ross as well.
Champion/Okay.
O'Donnell/Or have Steven and Ross go up to the bar with you and you can buy three
drinks.
Lehman/Okay next item.
Dilkes/Do you want to go through each of the special provisions individually, or can I
assume when you say you want to adopt those provisions that then we can move
to the exceptions, which exceptions you want to implement?
Lehman/I think number two is acceptable as far as I'm concemed, read it, sale off, sale
offer to sale dispense or serve for on premises consumption and unlimited number
of servings of alcohol, liquor, wine or beer for a fixed price. That is an all you
drink special, I think we do want to prohibit that. Correct?
Champion/Yes.
Dilkes/Okay so let's go through them. Number 1 is aimed at the 2 for 1 's, is that, you
want to prohibit that?
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Pfab/No.
Vanderhoef/You want to prohibit.
Lehman/I do, I do not feel that a person should be required to get two drinks if they want
to buy one. If we allow 2 for 1 specials which we may at some point, I do not
believe that you should be required to get drinks when you buy your drink.
During happy hour a lot of restaurants and bars, you order a drink they bring you
two drinks, they will not sell you one drink.
Dilkes/Well this would prohibit them from doing those 2 for 1 specials.
Lehman/Well is there something that prohibits the serving of one drink at a time?
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Dilkes/Number one prohibits serving for on premises consumption two or more servings
of drinks to one person for the price of one such drink.
Pfab/That's what we wanted to do.
Dilkes/I thought that was pretty essential to the.
Lehman/That's right, all right.
Kanner/The way you were talking it sounded Ernie, like two at the same time that if we
allow 2 for 1 that it would be, they couldn't serve them all at once.
Dilkes/No you can go up and buy two drinks for the price of two drinks, not two drinks
for the price of one drink, that special would be prohibited.
Lehman/You can't buy two drinks either because we just said you can't.
Vanderhoef/Right, I'd have to go with him to get.
Dilkes/Yes, your right.
Lehman/So we've taken care of, thank you very much, we've done one and we've done
two.
Pfab/Spiking them.
Dilkes/Number three is directed is increasing the amount of alcohol in a drink and not
proportionally increasing the price.
Champion/Same thing, 2 for 1.
Lehman/That's okay.
Kanner/Do we need to do a corresponding ordinance for retail outlets off site?
Champion/We need to finish this first.
Lehman/Well let' s do this first, but I do think these regulations would apply to any place
that sells alcohol.
Kanner/But I'm talking about if there's specials on a 6 pack or something do we need
something corresponding.
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Lehman/No, this is for consumption on site.
Dilkes/These are dealing with on premises consumption.
Lehman/On site consumption.
Kanner/Well I'm thinking of it because people have talked about it's not fair that the
majority of people buy their large quantities of alcohol at off site premises.
Lehman/Which means they don't have to sit there and drink it and go home drunk.
Kanner/And so they're saying that well they could have specials there but the bars can't
have specials.
Lehman/No it doesn't say bars can't have specials in here, it says t hey can't have 2 for 1
specials.
Kanner/Well whatever the special is they're saying that these retail outlets are able to
discount it and so.
Lehman/So can a bar.
Vanderhoef/On a single.
Lehman/There's nothing that says a bar can't sell a pitcher for 50 cents.
Kanner/No but they have to keep it at that price that' s their price, they can't be that
special.
Lehman/Well we'll get to that.
Kanner/So I'm saying do we need corresponding specials for retail outlets.
Champion/That's a whole different.
Lehman/That' s a whole different.
Dilkes/I understand that that question has been raised and I think that' s a whole different
ball of wax and would be I think much trickier in terms of avoid the price
legislation but if you all want to look at that we can.
Pfab/Is that basically a red herring to take us what we're really trying to do here? I think
it is.
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Karmer/I think when you get figures that.
Pfab/I mean not to point out you but it's a tactic.
Kanner/Over (can't hear) percent get their alcohol from that I think it's something we
need to consider.
Pfab/Well how many of them stagger home?
Lehman/Well, no, no, hold it, we'll deal with that separately, we're going to do this one
now.
Vanderhoef/Right.
Dilkes/Okay number 4 we dealt with which was the out of site sales. Number 5 is.
Lehman/Prohibits prizes of games.
Dilkes/The use of alcohol in games.
Champion/I have one question about our out of site sales though. What about that bar
that you pay $5.00 and you get all you can drink.
Lehman/We just prohibited that.
Dilkes/That' s number two.
Champion/Okay I just wanted to make sure we covered that.
Kanner/Unless they do that as a regular.
Lehman/No, they can't do it at all.
Kanner/But they could do $5.00 for 50 ounces or 100 ounces as a regular price.
Pfab/I'm sure there will be very creative ways of trying to get around this, don't you
think?
Lehman/We may have to deal with that but this is a start.
Dilkes/Yea there may be and we'll just, we may have to amend the ordinance and deal
with those things but.
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Lehman/Okay.
Dilkes/Okay and is number 6 is okay.
Champion/Tell me (can't hear).
Lehman/Well you can't pour.
Wilburn/You can't pour it in their mouth.
Lehman/Pour directly down the mouth.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/All right.
Vanderhoef/All 6.
Dilkes/Let's move to the exceptions then, or the potential exceptions and these came
from other legislation, most of the legislation you see at the state level but other
legislation that we have looked at and just included, these were not uncommon
exceptions that were included. So remember we're looking at these as if for
instance there is a potential violation by a hotel that offers drinks as part of the
hotel package that that might be a potential violation of the restrictions we just
looked at, these would accept these out of there so it would not be a violation and
so that' s how you need to look at these exceptions.
Pfab/On this first one I'm really, I'm uncomfortable with it and is there a big demand to
do this?
Wilbum/Well for number 1 and 2 I'm thinking of you know I'm planning a conference
and or some type of banquet and so whether or not, well some folks don't have
alcohol as part of that but it, I mean it seems to me.
Pfab/Are you basically forcing the people to buy but don't want alcohol to take it?
Champion/No they don't have to take it.
Wilburn/No.
Pfab/Well if your going to put it as a package are you going to unpack it?
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Wilburn/They can offer it without.
Pfab/Well they can put it on the side.
Champion/No a lot of times you buy a meal at a.
Lehman/It comes with a bottle of wine or something.
Champion/It comes with a bottle of wine, or if you do a catered party for 20 people it
will usually include two drinks per person I mean so that's all this is saying.
Pfab/But does it have to?
Champion/No it doesn't have to.
Lehman/It doesn't have to.
Vanderhoef/You make it possible to do it either way.
Lehman/We don't make it illegal is what she's saying.
Pfab/Well what is the big demand here if we're really working, in a sense your saying
well you don't have to buy two drinks for the price of one or you don't have to
take two drinks. Here you have to take the drinks with the food.
Champion/No you don't.
Lehman/You don't have to drink them.
Vanderhoef/You don't, you don't.
Champion/You don't have to take them at all.
Pfab/Well it's as a package.
O'Donnell/You can substitute a coke.
Pfab/Okay.
Dilkes/The question is on these exceptions is for instance, is the including alcohol as part
of a meal package, is that something you are concerned about?
Champion/No.
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O'Donnell/No.
Pfab/Is is, okay, let me ask you this. Is this something that's done an awful lot, is there a
lot of demand for it? Is the hospitality industry carming for this?
Dilkes/I can't answer that question for you.
(END OF 01-33 SIDE ONE)
Dilkes/That these are common exceptions we found in other legislation, and so whether
there's a demand for it locally I can't answer that.
Pfab/I think I would want some proof that there was some demand for this locally.
Champion/Well you know we don't, we support it.
Lehman/Well my only concern is if for example number one ifI were a bar downtown
and basically we're talking about that's the area we're having the problems with.
I perhaps could advertise a burger/fries and 3 beers for $2.00. And that becomes
the special included with a meal and circumvents what we're trying to do so
number one I really I'm not sure should be in there. And I think that will be the
first thing we would see happen.
Dilkes/Well I think you may be right.
Lehman/As part of a hotel package I do not have a problem with that whatsoever.
Wilburn/That' s a good point about number 1.
Lehman/But number 1 I think we should not allow alcohol as part of a meal.
Pfab/Okay let me ask you this, by tomorrow how hard would it be to check with the local
hotel people here and see if this is a big issue, a hotel package?
Lehman/What difference does it make?
Pfab/Well is it, is it again it's a case of whether is it forcing people that don't want to
take it as.
Lehman/We're not telling them they even have to offer it, they don't have to offer it but
if they do offer it it's legal, that's what we're saying.
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Pfab/No, no, but I'm saying so, but, I'm the hotel person and your a customer and you
come in and you don't want that in that package so am I basically forcing you to
take it if you don't want the package.
Lehman/No, I don't have to buy it.
Pfab/Well you don't have to buy it well why is it in it then?
O'Dormell/Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that says "Just say No?"
Lehman/It allows it to be legally offered. Is that correct? That's the only thing that does,
it allows.
Dilkes/It will not violate our ordinance under specials.
Lehman/Doesn't violate our ordinances, it says the hotel if they want to can offer it, it
doesn't mean they have to.
Pfab/Well then your going to have the bar owners saying hey if they can offer it why
can't I.
Lehman/Because we said they could.
Pfab/Well maybe we ought (can't hear).
Lehman/(can't hear) we just said that. Okay
Kanner/Well what I have a question about that hotel package I assume we mean catering,
hotel might be a bad word for use.
Lehman/No because places offer it as, you know you get a weekend, that includes
Saturday night a meal and a bottle of wine, that' s part of the package.
Kanner/So we're not talking about catering then if you have a catering.
Lehman/It would include catering.
Dilkes/Number 5 is set out here separately, number 5 deals with catered events, it's
something separate you need to consider.
Karmer/So this is specifically with hotel room rental packages for number 2, maybe we
should be a little more specific in saying hotel room rental package.
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Lehman/Well it could be hotel room, it could be hotel room restaurant, it could be hotel
restaurant.
Champion/Conference, dinner.
Kanner/Well then I'm wondering is them a bit of hypocracy there that you can get
sloshed in this hotel conference thing.
Champion/They're not giving you that much to drink, your not going to get sloshed.
Kanner/Well sometimes there is and I think that we should be consider, consider being
more specific if this is what we want, as an exception.
Pfab/I think this puts the camel's nose under the tent.
Lehman/It's a good place for a camel' s nose, I like that.
Pfab/Well it's as important as his mouth.
(All talking)
Wilburn/Why don't we look at the things that have applied to the environment of the
bars as encouraging some part of moderation and consuming food with alcohol,
and alcohol with food as another form of drinking moderation (can't hear). Will
that help you with that then?
Kanner/Well that' s the first one, the second one it just seems that their number 2 is more
of a problem I guess in my mind in that I'm not quite sure where I fall down on
that if we, if we're saying this is a problem here we ought to look at the holistic
problem because there's a lot of people t hat are getting drunk and excessive
drinking at other venues besides just these 4 or 5 bars that are a problem
downtown.
Dilkes/I think the hotel package, the number 2 is meant to address the you know included
with in an ovemight stay, not just renting a room for a conference room area and
maybe we need to clarify that so you know it's tied into the overnight stay.
Lehman/Fine do that.
Dilkes/Does that help you with that?
Kanner/I think that would.
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Pfab/But just the other thing, let me give you another example, okay also you get a carton
of cigarettes, why don't you do that?
Lehman/We're not working on that.
Pfab/No but I'm saying to you is the people that don't want the alcohol is it basically is it
basically saying I if want to get my money's worth I've got to take it, maybe I
have an alcohol, maybe I have a drinking problem, so why not just throw in some
cigarettes too then?
Champion/(Can't hear).
Lehman/All right but your going to make that, when accompanied by at least one night's
lodging.
Pfab/IfI was a marketer for the alcohol industry I would love this.
Lehman/Okay.
Pfab/But I'm not, so I don't love it.
Dilkes/It sounds like from your earlier discussion that you do not want to accept pitchers,
carafes, or other bottles or other types of alcohol that are typically sold in that kind
of quantity.
Pfab/Right.
Champion/I think you have to, I mean (can't hear).
Lehman/Well I think we said we can sell pitchers, carafes, but they have to be served.
Dilkes/Right they have to be served to the people who are going to be drinking them.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/You do not want to accept for instance, this exception would allow somebody to
go up and buy a pitcher by themselves and take it back to the table, you don't
want to allow that.
Lehman/We're not going to allow that.
Pfab/That's out.
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Dilkes/You don't want to allow somebody to go up and buy a bottle of wine by
themselves.
Pfab/That's out.
Lehman/They can serve it to their table, that's no problem.
Dilkes/Fine, that's what I thought.
Kanner/Well this said two or more persons at one time and you were.
Vanderhoef/Even so.
Lehman/It just makes (can't hear).
Dilkes/No, no, it's talking, it's describing the way the alcohol is sold in a bottle, in a
pitcher, in a carafe, and it's suggesting a possible exception for those but what I'm
saying is it sounds like you don't want to accept that.
Pfab/So what's, so how are we going, what's the feeling here on this one?
Dilkes/No, to number 3.
Lehman/Well just a minute though, it says and are delivered to two or more persons at
one time, we said we'd do that.
Champion/That's okay.
Pfab/I would not.
Lehman/We won't let one person walk up and buy the pitcher but if we serve those folks,
we said they could serve a pitcher of beer or a carafe of wine, as long as the
establishment serves it we assume their serving it to people who are not inebriated
and who are of legal age.
Wilburn/That' s what I thought we said.
Dilkes/Now that's not what this exception is directed to. What this exception is directed
to is accepting out from any prohibitions on out of site sales, carafes, pitchers and
bottles of wine.
Lehman/Your right, right, right.
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Dilkes/You do not want to do that.
Lehman/That's exactly right.
Pfab/I would make an exception to this here, I would take the pitchers out because you
can recap the bottles and the other thing.
Lehman/We just took the whole thing out, it's not going to be an exception.
Pfab/Oh okay so it's all going to be out, okay that's fine, that' s better than that.
Dilkes/Okay do you want to do any time restrictions on happy hour, drink special? In
other words allow the drink specials during particular times of the day, that's not
an uncommon thing to see.
Pfab/Well again if I was marketing for the alcohol industry I would think these are great.
Champion/You know there' s no.
Dilkes/My question to you is whether you think they're.
Pfab/I'm against it.
Champion/It seems to strange to me to take happy hour away from Iowa City but their
trying to control abusive alcohol, by I think it's still a number of people. What do
you think?
Vanderhoef/There were a couple of states that I read early on in some of the stuff that
passed over our desk from outside sources and it had to do with if you had a
special, the special had to run for 24 hours. Does that interest anybody?
Pfab/Okay if you have to do a special, yes I think it should be about a week.
Dilkes/I've seen those to.
Lehman/Well the question is do we want to prohibit happy hours?
Pfab/Yes.
Champion/No.
Dilkes/No we are prohibiting happy hours, in other words do you want to allow a happy
hour?
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Lehman/We want to allow happy hour?
Pfab/No.
Dilkes/For a particular period of time.
Lehman/I don't have a problem with allowing happy hours.
Champion/I don't either.
Kanner/Because the affect is that they'll have to use other things like food, snacks, or
whatever to entice people instead of lower price alcohol.
Champion/They can lower prices.
Dilkes/The question is do you want to suspend the prohibitions on specials during
particular hours of the day?
Lehman/If we want to allow happy hours, if we do, that' s the first question, if the answer
to that is yes, do we want to restrict them to a certain amount of time.
Kanner/I was just answering yours Connie that there' s other ways they can attract instead
of lowering prices so we don't necessarily need to make this exception.
Dilkes/I'm assuming you have to, this is really not an exception.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/Your prohibiting drink specials. Do you want to allow them for any part of the
day?
Pfab/That' s a camel under the tent again.
Lehman/Right, that camel, we've got to get the camel out of the tent. What do we want
to do? Do we want happy hours or not?
Pfab/No.
O'Donnell/I don't think so.
Vanderhoef/I don't either.
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Kanner/Connie you were making a case before, can you make the case, maybe I might.
Champion/Well you know, I don't, I mean I don't ever go to happy hour but it is kind of
an American institution and I don't think it's our problem. I don't think happy
hour is our problem.
Pfab/So is binge drinking a custom.
Champion/Well you know, come on just be a little bit serious here.
Pfab/No, no, I am serious.
Champion/No your not.
Pfab/I am.
Champion/So you know it seems to me that we could allow happy hour from when,
when does happy hour take place? 4 to 7 or 4 to 6 or.
O'Donnell/What is a happy hour?
Dilkes/Let's forget the reference to happy hour, let' s say do you want your drink special
prohibitions to apply only at certain times of the day, like only 7, only after 6, only
after 8.
Champion/Yes, that's great, that's perfect.
Dilkes/That' s the question that' s being asked here.
Vanderhoef/The drink special to me is what contributes to overindulgence in a short
period of time.
Wilburn/You want a free for all during a focused period of the day.
Vanderhoef/That' s what I don't want.
Kanner/7 AM.
Dilkes/I do that the enforcement issues will be tougher if we have a period of the day
where these are allowed and when they're not. Are you nodding at me RJ?
Wilburn/I agree.
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Dilkes/Do you agree with me RJ?
RJ Winkelhake/Yes.
Lehman/RJ agrees that happy hours are an unhappy event. Now do, how many folks
would like not to have happy hour specials? I see one, I see two, I see three.
Pfab/These two are sleeping over here.
Lehman/Are you two having a happy hour?
Kanner/We're in agreement.
Lehman/You want to eliminate happy hours, there will be no specials, you got it.
Champion/I feel like the mother superior.
Lehman/By the time we get through your going to be the mother inferior.
Dilkes/Okay and the last exception for your consideration is fixed prices at catered
events.
Lehman/Is that specific enough?
Champion/I don't think it's necessary.
Lehman/Well no I think that' s a sort of thing, you know like you have a wedding
reception, which I'm familiar with.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/And means, I, well I guess that wouldn't quite be the same, yes it would be the
same, where you have an open bar and it's a fixed price.
Pfab/(can't hear).
Lehman/Are you going to make that illegal? I don't think you are.
Champion/No, no.
Dilkes/This exception would say it wasn't.
Lehman/That exception, that would be an exception and so I would.
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Champion/Right, okay.
Pfab/Okay where else besides Ernie's wedding does it go on here.
Vanderhoef/So that' s a by invitation only.
Lehman/Private parties basically.
Vanderhoef/When you have a catered event.
Champion/Parties.
O'Dormell/I think that's fine.
Pfab/While as long as it's a catered is it a private catered event?
Champion/Right, of course, it could be, of course, it could be in my front yard.
Pfab/Well we had pizza in here, the employees had pizza in here, that was a catered
event, that wasn't by invitation only.
Champion/But we didn't have any beer.
Lehman/Yea I think it was Irvin.
Dilkes/We can work with the language a little bit.
(All talking)
Pfab/Right as long it's.
Vanderhoef/Marian says that was an invitation only.
Lehman/That's right.
Karr/That was an invitation only.
Pfab/All right, but anyway if you can keep people from wandering in that' s fine.
Kanner/So private catered events.
Pfab/Private, catered, invitational catered event.
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Lehman/All fight you know the intent. Okay.
Champion/Now can I speak about this for one minute? Are we done going through
these?
Dilkes/i'm not through with my questions but I'm done with the specials.
Lehman/Go ahead.
Pfab/Finish up.
Dilkes/Okay, one of the ordinances that you have in front of you would increase the
maximum penalty for simple misdemeanors to $500.00 as I said in the memo and
as I've said before that doesn't apply just to alcohol offenses, it applies to
everything in the city code that is a simple misdemeanor and is unscheduled or
does not have a specific penalty attached to it. For instance, the specials, the
prohibitions on specials, currently under the city code they're going to have a
minimum penalty of $50.00 and a maximum of $500.00 or a maximum of
$100.00 at the discretion of the magistrate okay. If you pass the ordinance
implementing the $500.00 maximum, the maximum will be $500.00 on those
unscheduled offenses.
Lehman/But is the minimum still $50.00?
Dilkes/The minimum is still $50.00.
Lehman/The discretion is to the judge.
Dilkes/And the discretion is with the judge.
Lehman/Then I would certainly, I would (can't hear).
(All talking)
Dilkes/This was made a change at the state law, a couple years ago state law was
changed to increase the maximum for simple misdemeanors to $500.00, they
brought the cities, the maximum for cities simple misdemeanors in line with that
to $500.00 so that's what this.
Pfab/So which is a new idea, I wasn't aware of that so before it was a minimum of
$50.00 and a maximum of $ 1 00.00. Now ifs a minimum of $50.00 and a
maximum of $500.00?
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Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/Authorized by state law.
Pfab/But the minimum hasn't change?
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/The minimum has not changed.
Pfab/Okay then that' s fine.
Lehman/I think it's fine too.
Pfab/I wasn't aware that there was a minimum like that.
Kanner/For PAULA's, this is.
Dilkes/No, no.
Lehman/PAULA's are fixed by law.
Dilkes/PAULA's have a specified fine, these are only for unspecified fines. Now one
problem with not making this change at the local level that' s already been made at
the state level is that if you have an unscheduled offense that's both a city offense
and a state offense it will not have the same maximum fine and that' s not a good
idea. For instance, serving of intoxicated persons are simple misdemem~ors under
both state and city law, currently under city law it would be a $100.00 maximum,
under state it would $500.00 and that's really not a good situation to get into so.
Lehman/This would make it consistent with state law.
Dilkes/Yea.
Lehman/And still give the judge the discretion.
Pfab/Right, as long as the judge has the discretion to not you know.
Lehman/(can't hear).
Pfab/The maximum, the maximum.
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Dilkes/That's right.
Kanner/Is there a misdemeanor for the person who' s drinking that this would apply to, is
there a case? What would be a case where this would apply?
Dilkes/Person who's drinking.
Pfab/I think that's a scheduled.
Vanderhoef/Underage you mean.
Pfab/Yes.
Kanner/Underage or whatever the case might be, we have PAULA is already a $100.00
fine, fight.
Vanderhoef/With a schedule that' s move it up.
Kanner/That moves up.
Vanderhoef/Second offense.
Kanner/How would this apply to?
Pfab/Dee that's a scheduled, that's scheduled, this is tinscheduled.
Kanner/Right, how would this apply to someone who is another situation that would be a
misdemeanor that this might apply to? Purchaser.
Dilkes/It would apply for instance to the open, having an open container of alcohol in
public.
Pfab/Well that's fine.
Vanderhoef/(can't hear).
Lehman/But it still has, the judge has the discretion.
Dilkes/Right. You know I can give you an example, it would apply to disorderly house.
Magistrates do not levy the maximum, the maximum fine is currently $100.00,
they do not always levy that maximum fine for disorderly house they look at the
facts of the case.
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Pfab/I'm supportive as long as it doesn't take away the minimum if the judge decides it.
Lehman/Right. Okay.
Dilkes/Then the follow up to that is if we're going to implement that the $500.00
maximum with respect to the specials do you want to just keep it as an
unscheduled offense meaning the judge will have discretion to impose a fine
between $50.00 and $500.00?
O'Donnell/I think so.
Dilkes/Or do you want to specify a particular fine?
Pfab/I would say at this point let' s go as an unspecified but keep an eye on it.
Lehman/Unspecified would mean a minimum of $50.00.
Vanderhoef/That' s (can't hear).
Pfab/But the judge has the discretion also though to $500.00.
Vanderhoef/Our choice is having the $50.00 to $500.00 or setting a straight out amount
for each one.
Dilkes/ThaCs right.
Kanner/But if there are violations of some of these amendments that we just said we
wanted by the licensee even if their given a $50.00 fine we could administer civil
penalties.
Dilkes/That' s right, we're just talking about.
Kanner/That' s the hard hitting thing that we're going to get people with.
Dilkes/Right we're just talking about the criminal penalties right now.
Lehman/I'd leave it that way.
O'Dormell/I think it's fine.
Pfab/That's fine here.
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Lehman/And I would guess that about the third or fourth time that someone appears for
offering specials the judge probably is.
Wilburn/It's going to be a judge (can't hear).
Lehman/Not going to be $50.00 anymore it's probably going to be $500.00.
Dilkes/Well and I think, only to the extent that the fine imposed by the judge reflects the
egregious of the circumstance.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/Will it play into the administrative penalty, but the actual fine itself would not.
Pfab/I would say that this would be one thing that we would want to keep an eye on say 6
months or a year from now.
Lehman/Oh I'm sure we will, no I'm sure we will this whole thing.
Pfab/And no I don't think we have to you know come down like a sledgehammer but at
the same time we want to.
Dilkes/And the final question I had are there additional changes the Council desires to
make in light of the public comments or otherwise?
Lehman/Connie's got an alcohol she (can't hear). You've got three minutes.
Champion/Because I wouldn't take three minutes. There's been a tremendous amount of
public input, I've hurt a tremendous amount of comments from friends, people
downtown, telephone calls, letters, here, teachers I run into, that now you know, I
really wish that somehow I could would tour through the process faster than I do
and because of some of the comments I've heard there are some things that I'm
willing to talk about that I was not willing to talk about before. And number one
I'm willing to talk about changing the age to get into bars. Fm thinking that
maybe 20 is a great age because that keeps the high school kids out and there' s a
big difl~rence between maturity between 18 and 20 1 mean I'm just throwing this
out, I'm not saying we should discuss it tonight. But I never thought I would get
to that point. I'm also willing to talk about zoning liquor licenses which I never
thought I'd be willing to talk about since I grew up in Chicago with such a terrible
problem but I think there' s are some things that I'm seriously ready to look at.
I'm done, that's it, I'm done.
Lehman/Oh thank you Connie, I happen to feel the same way.
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Champion/I mean I really have not heard such an outcry from the public, and I'm not,
I'm talking about the public that feels (can't hear) by our alcohol situation
downtown. I'm not talking about the people who are getting drunk downtown,
I'm talking about I guess these people feel their the victims of that.
Vanderhoef/The consequences.
Champion/The consequences that.
Vanderhoef/That happen from the bars sometime.
Champion/I think I even had a dream about this one night, which is really pathetic but I
think I did, but those are things that I a year ago I said I was absolutely not
interested in and those are things I'm willing to talk about now.
Lehman/Well why don't we see what happens with this ordinance, see what kind of
impact it has.
Champion/See 1 don't think it's going to have any impact at all.
Lehman/If I didn't think it had any impact.
Champion/The bar owners are going to get richer because they're not going to have any
specials anymore.
Lehman/I don't, ifthat's.
Champion/I mean I don't care if they get rich, I didn't mean that negatively but I really
don't think that it's going to be very effective and I think we're going to get, I
think it's putting Band-Aids on a big problem, I mean it really needs to be (can't
hear).
Wilbum/I guess I was planning.
Vanderhoef/But you know what I see on that Connie is I think this Council has really
listened, I think they have digested it, you have moved along a continuum here but
I really see is this is the opportunity for the young people who say we want a place
to go be with our friends, we want to dance, we want to do these things. This is
their own opportunity to show their own maturity. This is the opportunity for our
bartenders to also step forward and say we are going to get a handle on what's
happening in our establishment and if they don't take advantage of this
opportunity I'll talk with you also about moving the age up.
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Wilburiv I'd also like to point out that you know this time last year when we first started
talking about it, I was willing to move it up and I may be in the future but for the
past several months we've had this on the table and upping the age was not a
component of that and so after having the hearings and comments what was in
front of people I guess I would feel like I was changing you know, changing.
Pfab/Going from where to where? I thought I understood you but.
WilburiV We'd be changing, we told the public, in fact several of the University student
folks, people in general said because the press kept coming back to us are you
going to be 217 Are you going to be 217 We had said no, this is what is on the
table right now, this set of ordinances. Upping the age is not part of the
ordinances, and in light of comments I've made in response to people asking me
about that if I were to go right now and change that I would feel like I misled
them, I would have lied to them.
Lehman/We said we would try other things, 21 would be an option and I feel that we
need to try this and I am encouraged for what you said Eleanor from the outset
and I think the response that I think I've seen from RJ that this does give us some
tools to address a problem that we are currently being fairly unsuccessful in
addressing it and I think we need to try this and see if it works.
O'Donnell/This is also if you read this everything right on the bars, this is asking the bars
to be more responsible.
Lehman/Right, we've never done that.
O'Donnell/We have never done that so, Connie I agree with you, I was thinking myself
21 after 10:00 but maybe we'll get in that down the road.
Lehman/All right we go with this for the time being.
Pfab/I'm just going to make a comment here, I think eventually we will end up going to
21, it would be nice if we didn't have to.
Champion/I'm not at the 21 yet.
Pfab/No, no, but I mean, that's the law, you can't drink so why should you be there.
Lehman/Right. Steven.
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Kanner/I just needed some clarification on the civil penalties, I'm still a little confused
because I see one pan where it says we give a dollar amount fine and then there' s
another part that says we can suspend a license for up to a year and I was
wondering if you could tell us again if it's okay with the Council where, how
that's going to play out and exactly when is it that we can give the suspension of
the license and when is it when we have to give a fine of money?
Dilkes/The state code and the city ordinance will track that provision, provides for
specific civil penalties when it's based on the conviction for sale to minors. Okay
that's set forth on page three, and they're very specific, upon a first conviction.
Pfab/Which line? Where at?
Dilkes/Page 3,H A-D.
Pfab/I,A-B.
Dilkes/Yea I'm looking at my old one, A-D and do you see those there Steven?
Kanner/yea.
Dilkes/They just specify what the penalties are for that. Those are the penalties we're
going to have to administer for that offense. With respect to other behavior that
you believe warrants an administrative penalty, if it is a violation of state code you
have available to you a fine, a suspension, revocation. Obviously your going to
look at those as graduated penalties. The only exception to that and that's a
change I've made recently you can see in my memo is that if it's based on a
violation only of city code which doesn't have a corresponding state offense you
are limited to suspension and that is due to kind of a quirky little provision in the
state code and that's just kind of the way it is. We've been in touch with the
Alcoholic Beverages Division about that because we noticed some discrepancy in
the language and after some looking at it they concurred. So, not, and that doesn't
specify the length of the suspension but your limited to suspension. And for
instance with a drink special, if you were looking at administrative penalties
because you had a licensee where there had been violations of the drink specials
then you would be limited to suspension of some sort.
Karmer/But if we find that there's a pattern of abuse by allowing underage drinkers and
excessive drinking when people are drunk, that comes under the state code and
that would give us a choice of a civil penalty of a fine or suspension is that what
your saying?
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Dilkes/If it's based on a conviction for sales to minors your going to have to follow
those, in fact you have to follow those.
Pfab/The steps that we have put together.
Dilkes/The ones in I,A-D.
Karmer/Right.
Lehman/And that' s set by state code.
Dilkes/And indeed it's stated again in G, that's the other change I made, the state was
just changed to make the two fines consistent $500.00 so it doesn't matter
whether it's conviction or just, it's based on that offense, your stuck with an initial
civil penalty of $500.00. In the case of I think maybe the question you were
asking me was, if the penalty is based on a variety of things, or if the, what your
concerned is a variety of things we're going to just have to take a look at that.
You know ifit's based on a conviction for sales to minors and it's based on, I
think your probably going to have to address those separately.
Lehman/How soon will we get this back?
Dilkes/I'll put it on your next agenda.
Lehman/It will be on for two weeks from.
Dilkes/Yep.
Wilburrd April 3rd.
Lehman/April 3rd on the formal agenda.
Karr/I would like to talk to the City Attorney regarding it's going to be afl~ct about
publication or giving some notice because there' s been a lot of discussion, there' s
a lot of confusion, there's a lot of education, and there' s a lot of people in the
process right now renewing so I think we want to give ample notice.
Lehman/Fine, fine.
Karr/You can certainly proceed but the affectlye date may not be as quickly.
O'Donnell/I agree.
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Champion/Good point.
Dilkes/Well why don't we talk about that now because we can include that in the
ordinance itself.
Champion/But what do we give as time?
Dilkes/How much time do you want to give before this would, these would be effective?
Lehman/Well if we vote on it the third of April, the second reading would be on the 17th,
the third reading the first par of May, the effective date would then be the first part
of June.
Karr/No the effective date.
Dilkes/The effective is publication.
Karr/The efl~ctive date as we currently do would be a week later, I'm suggesting at least,
that would be what we typically do with all of our ordinance.
Lehman/We could make it June 1st (can't hear).
Karr/We could make it July 1 st.
Vanderhoef/July 1 st.
Lehman/July 1 st.
Champion/Or August.
Kanner/August, why not August.
Pfab/No, no, wait, can we make it June lst?
Karr/You can make it effective, it's effective upon publication typically and I'm saying
that ~vould not be recommended here I would put a date in it, and I would suggest,
again I would not suggest any earlier, I would like July 1 at the earliest.
Lehman/I would think July would be a good month so that the bartenders have an
opportunity to live, deal with this prior to the rush of fall.
Vanderhoef/Students coming back to.
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O'Donnell/They can get their help in place then.
Lehman/Right.
Pfab/Okay that's one of the reasons I was going to suggest June 1 to give them a little
more time.
Vanderhoef/There isn't time to get it published.
Pfab/But is June 1 not possible?
Lehman/That's too soon.
Champion/That' s too soon.
Karr/We can get it published within three days after the date, it's not the publication, I
don't believe that's enough time personally of defer to you to educate, get the
forms ready, and get. We already have people right now coming in for papers for
May.
Pfab/That's fine, I have no problem, a July 1.
Lehman/Do we have consensus on July lst?
Vanderhoel7 Yes.
Pfab/That's good.
Lehman/We have that, okay. Thank you Eleanor.
Vanderhoef/Yes thank you.
Senior Center Accreditation
Lehman/Okay Senior Center Accreditation appointments, is this for the 28 of women,
they need two Council folks to be on that accreditation committee and I think
working on the 28E with the county. Two Council members.
Pfab/I'll be one if something.
Lehman/I would like to, and of course we, the Council can appoint whoever they want
but I would like Mike and Counie to serve on that, you both worked with the
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county and with Senior Center I'm certainly willing to listen to anybody else' s
recommendation.
Vanderhoef/If you guys have the time to put, do it.
Pfab/I made the offer.
O'Donnell/I would like to.
Lehman/Is that all fight with Council?
Champion/I mean as far as (can't hear).
Lehman/You don't want to do it either.
Champion/lt's not easy.
Lehman/All right, then will we get those names to the appropriate people? Okay.
Schedulin~ of PCRB Joint Meetin~
Lehman/We need to schedule a meeting with the PCRB.
Champion/Can we do it before a regular work session?
Lehman/Well here' s the, the purpose of the meeting with the PCRB is to address the
sunset clause that comes up this fall, as to whether or not the PCRB will remain in
existence after the first of the.
Karr/August.
Lehman/After the first of August?
Karr/Correct it's an August I st sunset clause.
Lehman/Their charge ends the first of August when the absence of that being renewed by
the Council.
Karr/We have two vacancies coming up on PCRB September 1, we would typically be
advertising in June and July so obviously the future of that needs to be addressed.
Lehman/Now we can, we can schedule the meeting and address the sunset clause or if we
have a consensus on the sunset clause we don't have to schedule a meeting.
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Pfab/I'm opposed to a sunset clause.
Lehman/We have the sunset clause.
Pfab/I mean I'm opposed to putting it, I think it's something, all you have to do is keep
reading the papers and from my experience in police work I know it's kind of a
pain in the butt to them but I think it's a safety valve and I strongly recommend
that we continue (can't hear).
Karr/Irvin can I just clarify? The question before you is not the sunset clause, the sunset
clause says that unless you readopt the ordinance the entire ordinance ceases to
exist August 1st. So what we need to do is figure out, again the ordinance, if you
take no action.
Lehman/It goes away.
Karr/It goes away, not the sunset clause, the entire ordinance.
Lehman/That's, I didn't know that.
Karr/Yes the chapter, the sunset clause governs (can't hear).
(All talking)
Pfab/Well I think we ought to take action.
Champion/I think we ought to listen to the PCRB, then I think we ought to hear from
somebody else (can't hear).
Kanner/Why don't we have a June meeting with them or May meeting.
Lehman/I have no problem with that, I'm just saying that if we choose, the purpose of
that meeting is to decide whether or not we want to continue the PCRB. If we
have a consensus that we do want to continue the PCRB then we don't have to
schedule the meeting anytime soon, we might want to meet with them anyway, but
if there are 4 or 5 people on the Council or 6 or 7 that want to continue the PCRB
we can schedule the meeting at our convenience rather than scheduling it sooner
because of the sunset clause.
Karr/Council can act on the readoption of the ordinance without meeting with them
jointly if that's your wishes to do it.
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Lehman/Right, right.
Wilburn/I'd like to continue.
Lehman/You'd like to continue the PCRB, in other words we'd like to re.
Karr/Readopt the ordinance.
Lehman/Reopt.
Kanner/Well I'd like to meet.
Lehman/The meeting, I think the meeting we can have in any event.
Karmer/Well I'm not sure, I'd like.
Lehman/So you don't know whether you want to consider the PCRB or not.
Kanner/Right.
Lehman/Your uncertain?
Champion/I would say that I'm leaning toward not continuing it but I certainly want to
hear what they have to say.
Lehman/All right we're going to have a meeting.
Karr/Do you want to do it prior to like 6:30 on one of your regular scheduled meetings?
Atkins/A work session time.
Champion/Yea that's what I.
Lehman/All right needs to be a work session, is this an ordinance that requires three
readings?
Karr/All ordinances require three readings. But your not rewriting the ordinance
necessarily, your simply taking.
Vanderhoef/Action to keep it in fome.
Lehman/So that action would require three readings.
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Karr/Absolutely.
Lehman/And that's going to take a minimum of six weeks.
Karr/Yes.
Champion/We could forego one of those can't we?
Karr/You can collapse.
Vanderhoef/You can collapse.
O'Donnell/We need to, when we get together we need the cost broken down by year.
Lehman/Well we can get that.
O'Donnell/But I mean that' s very important Ernie.
Lehman/But there' s a much bigger issue than cost.
O'Donnell/Well you didn't let me finish, I'm not finished.
Pfab/You just wanted (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/Thank you very much for Mr. O'Donnell.
Lehman/We need to know.
O'Donnell/Part of it Ernie is we need to know the cost and the efi~ctiveness and that' s
what I'm after.
Lehman/Okay.
Vanderhoef/And how much is happening there.
Lehman/When do we want to meet with the PCRB? I am not going to be around the first
10 days of June.
Karr/I don't think it can wait until June with all due respect, if you want to meet I think
it's got to be.
Lehman/Second meeting of May.
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Atkins/No I'd do April.
Pfab/Or April.
Lehman/The second meeting of April.
Atkins/I'll check with them, Marian and I will talk with them but I think the sooner you
get it scheduled (can't hear).
Lehman/The second meeting of April.
Karr/We could offer them both meetings in April.
Lehman/Either meeting in April works.
Karr/We could offer.
Vanderhoef/Second meeting (can't hear).
(All talking)
Pfab/I think there' s a new appointments I think they have a right to know as soon as we
can I think we ought to do it, as soon as possible whatever we do.
O'Donnell/Okay at 7:00 we'll meet tomorrow night.
Pfab/(can't hear).
Summer Schedule
Karr/Could I very quickly could you bring your schedules the next time, we'll have to
talk about summer scheduling because we are backing into it with vacations and
things.
Joint Meetinl~ with County
Karr/And also the county has asked if we'd like to have a joint meeting with them on
May 9, that would be a Wednesday after your Monday Tuesday first meeting in
May.
Pfab/May 9.
Karr/And I'll put a memo in the packet but.
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Vanderhoef/For what.
Champion/It's what now?
Karr/A joint meeting with the County.
Vanderhoef/The joint with the school board and the (can't hear)?
Karr/Yes.
Pfab/And what time of day is that generally?
Karr/I'm just, it's generally 4:00.
Lehman/4:00.
Pfab/No I mean I'm just.
Karr/And so I'll put a memo out and we'll talk about it next time.
Lehman/All right.
Vanderhoef/Is it our time to host?
Karr/No it's their turn that' s why they're offering the date.
Lehman/All right do we want to do any Council time tonight?
Champion/No.
O'Donnell/No let' s do it tomorrow night.
Lehman/Steve I've got one and this is tinofficial Council time, when are the signs going
up on the ped mall for bikes.
Karr/Are we adjoumed? Is this unofficial business?
Lehman/The only reason I ask is I see now.
Adjourned 9:45.
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