HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-10-17 TranscriptionOctober 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 1
October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session 6:35 pm
Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn
UISG Rep: Schreiber
Staff: Atkins, Karr, Dilkes, Helling, Franklin, Boothroy, Nasby, Miklo, Howard
TAPES: 05-61, SIDE 2; 05-66, SIDE 1 and SIDE 2; 05-67, SIDE 1 and SIDE 2
SCATTERED SITE HOUSING TASK FORCE: (IP2 of 10/13/05)
Lehman/Matt, looks like you're number one.
Hayek/Well, good evening. My name is Matt Hayek. I'm the Chair of the Iowa City
Scattered Site Housing Task Force. I am presenting the findings of the Task
Force tonight, along with Jerry Anthony and Joan Vandenberg. Jerry is a member
of the Housing Commission and just replaced me as the Chair of that
Commission. Joan Vandenberg is the At-Risk Youth and Family Coordinator for
the School District. Beyond the three of us, there were five others who served on
this Task Force. All told, there were eight of us - two from HCDC, two from the
School District, one from the Neighborhood Council, one from Planning and
Zoning, one from the United Way of Johnson County, and one from the Johnson
County Board of Supervisors. This group, this Council, created us in April 2004,
and gave us the following instructions. To study the existing distribution, location
and types of assisted housing in Iowa City, and to recommend policies or actions,
as appropriate, regarding the disbursement, location, and type of future assisted
housing. We took that task up and over the next year and a half met two dozen
times in open session meetings, including a bus tour of a good portion of the
assisted housing infrastructure in Iowa City. We held two public hearings, and a
subcommittee consisting of Joan, Jerry, and I met numerous times to put together
the draft, the written draft, for consideration by the Task Force, and that's
ultimately what you have before you. We heard from numerous organizations as
a part of this process, as well as individuals. We heard from a total of seventeen
organizations within the community, eleven of which provide assisted housing.
We he~xrd from City planners, University of Iowa experts, residents of assisted
and nCn-assisted housing, developers, the Neighborhood Council, the School
District, and others. We considered over a thousand pages of written material
submitted to us by City planners, as well as some of the interested organizations.
After considerable deliberation, negotiation, and accommodation, we ended up
with this report, and I do want to stress, this is a product of compromise and
accommodation. There were numerous dispirit points of view on this Task Force,
and we worked very hard to come - to reach a final report that almost all of us
could agree with, and what this report consists of is a section regarding friends
that we see in the community, recommendations that the Task Force would ask
the Council to consider, and a possible means of scattering future assisted housing
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throughout the community. The report in your packet was supported as a whole
by a 7 to 1 vote. Jerry Anthony voted against adopting all of it, but the rest of us
did support it in its entirety. And then there were some sub-votes regarding sub-
parts of this report, and those are contained in what you have before you. Our
intention with respect to what we are giving you tonight was to be as succinct as
possible regarding both the trends and the recommendations that we are providing
to you'. We looked at a lot of information and thought it was important to hone it
down to a manageable portion. This is a busy evening for the Council and for
everybody here, so I'm going to hit some of the highlights of what we came up
with and Joan and Jerry are going to add some important information, as well,
after I'm done. The underlying themes after a year and a half of study, from our
perspective as a Task Force, include some of the following: demand for assisted
housing in Iowa City continues to increase, continues to rise. There is
information in your packet regarding the so-called Section 8 voucher demand and
some statistics regarding that. What we've seen over the last several years is
astounding, and assisted housing demand in other areas of that part of the
community is also pretty incredible. Beyond assisted housing, affordable housing
itself is increasingly an issue for Iowa Citians and those in surrounding areas. Not
just assisted, but private market housing. The demand for that continues to rise.
Iowa City is one of the most expensive places to live in the state. We found that
assisted housing does tend to be concentrated in Iowa City, and the reasons boil
down *~o essentially two: assisted housing continues to go where the land is the
cheapest, and assisted housing tends to go where neighborhood resistance is
weakest. There are other factors, of course, but I think those are the most salient
of them. In your packets is a matrix, I think it's Table 2. It documents where
fixed assisted housing is. That means buildings that were built as assisted housing
or renovated as assisted housing and are static, they stay there, where they're
located. That matrix does not account for the so-called Section 8 vouches, which
tend to move along with the renter. Though it is difficult to show with the census
data that we were provided, and that has a lot to do with the sizes, the size of
block groups and what really convened from them. The Task Force has
concluded that poverty does tend to be concentrated in a community. One way to
measure this is to look at the free-reduced school lunch data from the District.
Table 1, in your packets, we have included to show you what those numbers look
like. As of a year or two ago, whenever that data is current to, in this community
we have elementary schools with free-reduced school lunch numbers as low as
2%. We have a school that is as high as 61%. That is a 30-fold difference, and
those {tumbers have worsened with time. The impacts of concentrated assisted
housing, concentrated poverty, in our opinion, show up in terms of neighborhood
cohesion, middle-class flight, probably crime - although that is tougher to prove.
The data we were able to get did not show much, in part because it breaks Iowa
City down into four quadrants, which doesn't tell you that much. We do know
the Police Department expends additional resources in some of the poorer areas of
town. There's also an impact on schools, and I think Joan will touch upon that in
her presentation. Now to be sure, assisted housing is but one component of a
neighborhood, of the issue of poverty, and indeed I think it's safe to say, 1 in 20
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units i'-i a community is assisted. So it's impact, from some perspectives, is
minimal. Also, assisted housing includes the elderly, the disabled, and those
groups have different needs often than do individuals and families. But assisted
housing was the subject we were given to study, and that's what we did. It is our
recommendation that the City take steps to encourage the development of future
assisted housing in underrepresented areas of Iowa City. Now, there is a map in
your packets, looks a lot like this.
Lehman/Matt, you need to talk into the mic or we can't record ya!
Hayek/There's a map in your packets that looks like that, and that goes with the matrix
that we came up with. I want to refer to that right now because I want to briefly
touch upon the recommendations that we are submitting to you, and again, I'm
not going to hit on all of them, but I think essential to what we are coming to you
with is a suggestion that the City consider its scattered site policy, and that
basically shows up in that Table 2 you have, as well as this map. The map itself
shows!you areas of Iowa City based on block group that we considered to be
underrepresented or to have less than the City-wide average of assisted housing.
Those areas in white are on the other side of that equation. They have in excess
of the Citywide average. And the concept of scattering that we felt made the most
sense really comes down to fair share. The idea that a block group, which again is
the smallest geographic census area we can use, but a block group's percentage of
assisted housing should approximate that block group' s percentage of all housing.
It's a simple concept. It is open to criticism, but we believe it makes a great deal
of sense. The ideas that where a block group is over that Citywide average, which
is I believe about four point something percent. That...in those block groups
where the percent is over the Citywide average, that the City not encourage public
monies to be used for future developments in assisted housing. Conversely,
where there is an underrepresentation, that is to say a block group has less than
the Citywide average, there is an opportunity for the City to encourage and incent
future assisted housing to go into that --- into those areas. Now, that will require
additi?nal monies because to go into these underrepresented areas is to go into
areas that are more expensive, and that was one of the very first realizations we
had as a Task Force, and one of our recommendations is to look for and provide
additional funding to help future assisted housing go into those underrepresented
areas in a manner that does not reduce the stream or the current supply of assisted
housing going forward. There is great concern that doing something like this will
diminish the amount of assisted housing in the future. Now, in my own personal
notes to you, I noted that, in my opinion, the precise method of scattering housing
is less important than avoiding concentrations, and to be sure, this is but one
method, one approach, to solving this problem. We went through numerous
matrixes, maps, approaches, and this was the one we arrived at. We thought it
made the most sense, it was the simplest, but it is not the elixir. It is not the silver
bullet. We offer it as one way to address these problems. That's scattered site.
Some of the other important concentrations, or important recommendations -
census block 18-2, which is bounded on the east by Sycamore Street, on the west
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by the Iowa River, on the north by Highway 6, and on the south by the corporate
City lii~nits merits, in the Task Force's opinion, special attention. In census block,
or in block 18-2, we see heavy concentrations of emergency and transitional
housing. Right now in that block alone, 69% of all emergency housing is located.
If Shelter House goes down there, you will see 100% of all emergency housing
located in that block group alone. Transitional housing, likewise heavily
concentrated in that block group, 41% presently of all transitional housing
Citywide is in that block group. The Task Force believes that future such housing
should be in other areas, and that the City should provide for land for those
endeavors. Now I would note that the Task Force is not taking an opinion on the
current Shelter House plans. That, I think it's safe to say, nobody wanted to
address and we did recognize the difficulty of that situation, but that block group
merits special attention. (someone talking from audience, can't hear) Yes?
Vanderhoef/On that particular point, (can't hear) give Shelter House (can't hear).
Hayek/I do n )t know the answer to that, but we could probably figure it out looking at
these numbers.
Vanderhoef/Okay, and then one other question about the white areas near the downtown,
those (can't hear) and 2 1 believe they are, are those primarily the student
influence down there? I'm not .... I know there's a couple elder housing (can't
hear).
Hayek/There is a .significant impact from elder housing down there, and I think staff can
give you...we've got a list of what is where, and that is, we do need to keep in
mind that this takes into consideration assisted housing of all kinds, including
elderly and disabled, and we...
Vanderhoef/In 05 (can't hear).
Hayek/Correct, correct, and we attempted, but had to stop, to distinguish between those
group~'! and we really could not do so, but we do recognize that different groups
have d]fferent needs, and you can...many people would say that an elderly
assisted housing unit does not present the same needs of the community that
another type would.
Vanderhoef/And, like you say, you have a lot of trouble and this is the one that you
centered on. Did you run any matrixes like what was in the report, to show us
what happened if you took out these large elder housing and then see where we
were with (can't hear). I suspect there may be (can't hear) if you could (can't
hear) matrix like that that we could look and compare between the two?
Hayek/I'm sure...well, I know we looked at that. We ran so many matrixes, I'm not sure
what we ended up with, but you certainly could, I think, do that.
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Vanderhoef/(can't hear) might be helpful in looking at the (can't hear).
Hayek/Yeah, and the idea of this is that these are, this matrix and this map, are based on
current numbers. We have census data through 2000 and we pulled all building
unit permits through 2004, I believe, and it is something that can be updated
annually. So that as neighborhoods change, as development progresses, each
column gets recalculated, and so some will go off the list, some will go on the list.
Vanderhoef/Thank you.
Hayek/So, back to affordable housing. The Task Force recognizes that affordable
housir g is...has got to be of great concern to the City, and again, in my own
opinion, if we are to meet the affordable housing needs for as many people as
possible, it has got to be through the private market. I think realistically we can
expect only 1 out of 20 new units built in Iowa City to be assisted. That leaves 19
units of opportunity for us to help people of modest incomes, and I think that
needs to be a real focus for the City, and I think it is already, but it really has to be
a focus going forward. The Task Force is recommending that the City consider a
mandatory inclusionary zoning policy. That was a 7 to 1 vote - I voted against it,
but the others supported it. Actually, it was 6 to 1 to 1, will point out that our
P&Z member rightfully abstained from that deliberation and vote. But Jerry
Anthony, I think, is going to present a couple of comments on that issue. Other
important recommendations include regional planning. We are in an era of
declining resources, especially from Federal agencies that fund housing and other
such programs. The City of Iowa City is being asked to do a lot. We recognize
that, and we recognize that the City cannot do this alone. Other areas of Johnson
Count's, other municipalities, are already seeing the impact of these changes, and
if they haven't yet, I believe they will soon. I think it behooves all of us to work
together in terms of all the municipalities of Johnson County, and the school
districts and other interested agencies for purposes of collective action on these
issues. Lastly, educating the public, I think, is a very important task going
forward. I think there are a lot of myths with respect to assisted housing, and it
will certainly help us if we educate the community on these issues and dispel
some of those myths. Assisted housing helps numerous working people of
modest means in the community. We believe that low and medium density
developments will not hurt neighborhoods that have not seen this before, and I
think most importantly, the community as a whole is affected by the health of its
subparts, and it is not enough for us who live in the affluent sides of town to
ignore these developments. We have got to work together and address them, no
matter where we live. Before I hand this podium over to Jerry and Joan, I just
want to go over a couple of things. First, at some point, and now I'm speaking
from the Housing Commission. The Housing Commission needs some direction
regardi~ng FY07, whether it's that none of this or some of this is to be the policy
for the'upcoming funding round, whatever the Council's decision, we do need to
know, I think, in the next couple of months whether it should be status quo going
forward for this next round, or whether there will be some sort of change. Lastly,
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this report does constitute the final act of the Scattered Site Housing Task Force.
I'm doing this more out of, as a favor of the other seven members. They have
worked incredibly hard on this. Many of you have been in the room at our
meetings. Our deliberations have been very difficult. I want to publicly
commend them and thank them, and also tell them that they're work is complete.
So, at this point I will hand it over to whoever wants to go. Joan? Would you
like to go next?
Vandenberg/First of all I would like to thank the Council for the attention that this very
important issue is receiving because I think it's a critical one for our community,
and I think it all started with a letter from our School Board, and just to kind of
refresh your memory, the School Board sent a letter saying the concentration of
poverl~/was one of the barriers to learning that we identified at our conference
and I think it's important to note that certainly it's not the only barrier that we
experience in the District, and certainly housing goes way beyond the scope of
what we're dealing with in the District, but there's a common ground, I think, that
we need to identify between the City and the School District, and that's how
we're going to deal with issues of poverty in children in our community. So, I
appreciate the attention that this has, and also just kind of want to help clarify
what the District would like to see happen from this. First of all, there's a strong
correlation between poverty and academic achievement, and it's not a cause and
effect. There are certainly kids who are not poor who have academic struggles,
and there are certainly kids who are, but who do extremely well, but we certainly
see more and more kids who are bright, but because of their circumstances and
their poverty, aren't having the same opportunities as other kids to realize their
potential, and I think, you know, we want to have them have the same
opportunities as their more affluent classmates. Our District data certainly shows
that th:s is the case, and national data would do that, as well, and it's just common
sense,:~vhen you have kids who their parents are maybe working two jobs, they
don't have good nutrition, they maybe perhaps don't have adequate childcare after
school, it just makes sense they're not going to do as well in school. So I just
want to get it clear, we're not saying that all kids have, you know, who are in
poverty, have these issues, but it certainly...there's a strong correlation. And we
have a number of things that we're doing in the District to address this. We have
Family Resource Centers. We have our Afterschool Programs, the 21st Century
Community Learning Grants. We have afterschool tutoring. We have a new
Academic Mentoring Program, and I think we're seeing good success with those.
I think we have far greater challenges in those schools when you have half or
more than half of the kids in the classroom who have issues of poverty. I think
when you look at a classroom teacher, they have twenty kids in their class, and
four of them have some issues, they can accommodate pretty well. It's a
challenge, but they can do it. If you have ten kids or twelve kids or even fifteen
kids in that classroom, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to meet the challenges.
So I tk!ink, as a District, we would welcome a public policy that would not
increase the concentration of poverty in those neighborhoods, and when we're
seeing that already there, we know that more assisted housing would mean more
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low-income children. It's just, you know...how we got there, I don't think we
can necessarily say it was because of assisted housing, but if it's already existing
in that community, we (can't understand) poverty, we just don't want to see that
increase and have more kids of poverty there. Certainly, the Task Force
experience has been an exercise in compromise, as Matt talked about, and I just
want to point to the free-reduced lunch data once again. It is difficult to use in
some :yays because some of the school boundary areas aren't exactly
neigh['orhood schools, but as you look at that and as you look at what has
happened to some of our Iowa City schools, I think it provides a really good
sketch, or a...of how our community is developing, and when we have some areas
of the community that actually have decreased and they go from 7% to 2%, and
you have some that go from, you know, in the mid-20's to over 60%, I think that
says something about the way that our community is going, and you know, in
addition, I just want to kind of remind .... some of you remember that I used to
work in a neighborhood organization and I really believe in strengthening
neighborhoods. This goes beyond the School District. I mean, this is a
community issue, and I think that for a neighborhood to be able to have good
leadership and to do some good community organizing, it's really difficult when
you have a high number of families who are in crisis, who are in transitional
housing, who are in emergency housing, and so I really want to encourage you to
continue those revitalization efforts in that part of town, and as we look to
engineer neighborhoods in the future, that we make all the neighborhoods as
strong as we can. So, that's about all I...
Bailey/Joan, ! have a question. Since you are speaking from the School District's
perspective, what is the School District willing to do regarding boundaries,
because some of these low, free and reduced lunch percentages, these schools, are
certainly close to what might be considered low-income areas, and yet those
students don't attend those schools. So what is the District willing to do as a
policy...
Vandenberg/Well, that's a question far bigger than me (laughter). I think .... there have
been some discussions, and I think, you know, how do you decide who to move?
Do you move just the poor kids, or do you move all kids, I mean, it creates a
whole other task force.
Bailey/I mean, I (can't understand) and it was a policy way back then even to bus those
kids to whatever school was appropriate or whatever.
Vandenberg/And I think that's what we would, you know .....
Bailey/...not believed to be the policy.
Vandenberg/And I think it's certainly something worth discussing, but I think that I
would personally hesitate to move, just to bus poor kids...
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Bailey/Well, I agree with that, but I guess, when we're being asked to implement
Policies, I also expect the School District, who initiated this discussion, to know
what policies also will be implemented to know that our policies are actually
moving in the same direction, and not moving in contradictory directions.
Vandenberg/Right, no, and I think that's a good point.
Lehman/Thank you, Joan.
i
Anthony/Thank you very much. I'll be very, very brief. Overall, I'm in favor of a
policy that provides low-income families (can't understand) to locate in scattered
locations in Iowa City, so long as this policy does not worsen the problem of the
lack of affordable housing in our community. Putting these two issues together,
lack of affordable housing is clearly a well-documented problem that our
community faces. Are there any problems in concentration of assisted housing?
The evidence does not show any kind. So when I was appointed to this Task
Force, I was happy to get an opportunity to work for a goal that I think is worthy.
Good policies need to be grounded in data and sound analysis, and adopted to
resolve problems. This Task Force was set up primarily, as Joan said, as a
response to a claim from the School District that its students living in assisted
housing tend to lower school test scores. If the School District's claim could have
been supported by evidence, then I feel that the Task Force would have had a firm
foundation to formulate a legally defensible scattering strategy. Unfortunately,
the Sc ~ool District could not provide us with this data to back its claims. Data
such al where do students live? Are they participating in our free and reduced
lunch programs? And what is the best course? If that data could have been made
available, this debate could have been settled eighteen months ago. But, I guess
the School District could not provide this data, primarily because of
confidentiality restrictions. So the crucial data that could have proved or
disproved their claim is not made available, and in the absence of that, I really
have to conclude that there is no evidence to say that students living in assisted
housing lower test scores. Now some of the data that we did get from the School
District was about free and reduced lunch program and (can't understand) and low
performance, and evidence from that data is not conclusive. You could read it
either way. And therefore, to me, the lack of this evidence to support the School
District's charge was a serious challenge to our efforts. When we came to this
point in our deliberations, along sometime in October of 2004, and perhaps at that
time, looking back, I feel the Task Force should have disbanded. But by this
time, considerable momentum had built up, primarily within the Task Force and
perha[ s outside it too, to come up with findings and recommendations in support
of scattering. (can't understand) We looked for non-school data that would
somehow link concentrations of assisted housing with bad quality of life, and we
could not find data linking the two, and soon we decided to abandon that
approach, too. Finally, we hit upon the fair-share approach. That every part of
the City should have it's fair share of assisted housing. Why? Because it sounds
cool. Fair sounds like a very good thing, so we have this policy of a fair-share
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approach. Now what this approach also means that the scattering would attempt
to improve the quality of life in Iowa City without solving an identifiable problem
and w thout knowing if there are tangible benefits from scattering. That's usually
not a firm foundation for a new policy initiative, especially one that is potentially
very controversial. That said, it can still work if the scattering policy does not
worsen an existing problem, but here's how it can. If, for example, CDBG Funds
are disbursed only to projects that locate in new parts of the City, that is, areas
that have a lower share of assisted housing or none at all, compared to some other
parts of the City. Then the number of new assisted housing units, both rental and
ownership produced in each CDBG allocation cycle, would drop off significantly.
This is because land in other parts of the City is more expensive than in those
where assisted housing now locates. Also, neighbors in other parts of the City are
more hostile than those where assisted housing locates. So, each new unit of
assisted housing would take more time, more money to produce, adding to the
severe affordable housing crisis we face. If the City can create a new pool of
money, dedicated to finance scattering, then we can make this policy work.
Here's an example of how this new policy, new pool of money, would help out to
scatter:, as well as not reduce, the supply of housing, and this is contained in our
recom.nendations, I think recommendations six and seven speak to that. I'm not
sure of the numbers, but this is in the recommendations. So, here's an example.
Let's say a CDBG-funded project plans to build housing for low-income families
and is awarded say $100,000 in CDBG Funds. If it locates in some part in
southeastern Iowa, let's say in tract 13, it can buy say two parcels of land for say
$50,000 each. But if it is required to locate in say Manville Heights or Walnut
Ridge, presuming (can't understand) about $100,000, it can get only one parcel.
At this point, the new scattering fund could step in and give this project an
additional $100,000, thereby enabling the purchase of two parcels in Manville
Heights. So, by this method, the City can get the scatter (can't understand) and a
greater supply of assisted or affordable housing. And this would make a fair-
share concept legally defensible, and the Task Force overwhelmingly agreed that
this should be the approach, and if there's any scattering policy that should be
adopted, it should be after such a fund is created, and after such a fund is put in
operation. But, to really implement this policy, we also need a fair-share matrix
to identify the areas that have more than their fair-share of assisted units, and
those that have less. This matrix, too, would have to be legally defensible. The
matrix that the Task Force has approved has, just my personal opinion, the rest of
the members of the Task Force approved it overwhelmingly. My personal
opinion, it has significant shortcomings, but I wouldn't go into right now because
! have it (can't understand). So, hopefully if the City decides to go ahead with the
scattered site policy, then a new matrix would be used. So in conclusion, to make
a scattered site policy legally defensible, the City would need to identify a new
funding source to enable scattering without reducing the supply of assisted units,
and formulate a better matrix. Both these activities were significant challenges.
A simpler approach, as politically contentious as any other, is a mandatory,
inclusionary zoning policy, applicable for all or most new developments. This
policy would require developers of new subdivisions and apartment buildings to
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 10
set aside a few units for low-income families in exchange for additional density or
some other concession. This would build a steady supply of new affordable
housing at scattered locations, all around the City, and require no additional
sources of funding. In other words, a financially sustainable, long-term option
that at'dresses the current issues of scattering and the lack of affordable housing.
In fact, as the meeting minutes of the October 3rd meeting of the Scattered Site
Housing Task Force read, members of the Task Force, barring Matt,
overwhelmingly felt that this is one of the two specific recommendations that
would make a difference in the location of new assisted units in Iowa City.
During the course of our deliberations, that were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
months, staff presented us with vast amounts of information. We have included
several examples of inclusionary zoning policies (can't understand, some
mandatory, and these policies were enacted in various cities on the west coast and
the east, in red states and in blue, in big cities and small, but perhaps not a single
example of a scattered site policy, such as the one we have proposed, was
presented. It just goes to show how difficult it is to support a scattered site policy,
which is not based on inclusionary zoning. Inclusionary zoning is far more easily
defensible, especially given the well-documented (can't understand) affordable
housing in the City and the County. Thank you very much.
Lehman/Thm'tk you.
Elliott/Jerry, just to respond, you and I have differed before on some things and we've
had some interesting and very respectful discussions, and you know that I not
only respect, but I enjoy our discussions. I do have to disagree with you on the
point regarding the school. When you want to almost ignore the school's
concerns that were expressed because of the lack of test score data. I, in fact, I
think it would be good if we had that, but I understand why we don't. I think you
fail to understand that there are professionally trained, experienced teachers who
are on the front lines of this, and they can provide us, I think, with better more
effective, more productive information than test scores could. So, I'm certainly
not willing to discount any of the information from the schools. I think it is very
important that we pay close attention to that.
Champion/Test scores are published; they're not secret.
Vandenberg/They used to be published, right? (several talking at once) I think what
Jerry is referring to, just to clarify. We have, you know, the test scores for kids on
free-reduced lunch, and there is a correlation. What we don't have is children
who live in assisted housing. So, we can't tell you, kids (can't understand). It's a
breach of confidentiality. So, but I think it's not a leap of faith to say that, you
know, kids in assisted housing generally are low-income. The same trends would
apply. But we can't do it, you know, unit by unit. (several talking at once)
Anthony/Can I respond to Bob's comment, and to some of the other comments? Well,
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I definitely agree that students who come from low-income families may have
lower scores. I agree on that. What I disagree is that students living in assisted
housing are the cause of the low test scores. And we don't have any data to prove
that, and yet, and no, that was the charge that was brought forth in the School
District's letter. Yes it is, specifically it is that. Assisted housing students lower
test scores. Yes.
Lehman/You know, this discussion and action on this report is undoubtedly going to be
made by the next Council. (laughter) No, this is, the only reason I say that, I
think that discussions relative to this are going to need to include the folks that are
going to be making the decisions.
Elliott/I agree.
Wilburn/Wef,, I, one of the questions I had was just were there any, lot of great work,
just were there any questions about just the premise of the charge, and clearly
there were discussion and disagreement on some of them, so it's useful
information, for whichever Council ends up discussing this. I had a question
related to the recommendation, number 4, that the City should enlist other
municipalities, the regional thing, and other school districts. Were there any
particular recommendations that you all had or discussed specific that the City of
Iowa City should bring to, whether it's another city in the County or specific to a
school district? Were there any specific recommendations related to... I mean, it's
a little easier to go to another city and say 'here's a particular policy that we
would like to have joint discussion with.'
Hayek/Well, I think it's fair to say that on the inclusionary zoning issue there was
concern that that, if enacted by Iowa City alone, would have adverse impacts to
future development in Iowa City, and I...my personal opinion is that if the City
does t.i'.ke that up, any policy that ultimately emerges from that, should cover more
thanjdst Iowa City. Another issue, I think, is affordable housing. I mean,
Coralville has now surpassed Iowa City in terms of median housing prices, and
so, affordable housing is an issue that faces Coralville now, and I think it will just
continue to spread. So, I don't know that we came up with specific suggestions
going forward with neighboring municipalities, but we did recognize that many of
the problems Iowa City sees now are problems that exist now or will soon in the
outlying areas.
Schreiber/Is there any reason to believe that by bringing students into other schools from
assisted living that that'll actually help test scores, or will that simply disperse the
concentration of where those lower test scores are? I mean, is that solving the
problem of actually raising the test scores?
Hayek/Let me answer that quickly, and then I think Joan can probably give you some
information on that. I do not see an indication in the November 2003 School
Distrk t letter of test scores, and I don't believe that's what triggered this. Test
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 12
scores!came up later on, and I'm looking at the letter and I just see no reference to
test scbres whatsoever. It was looking at the impacts to school through free and
reduced numbers, which are a proxy for poverty in the neighborhood. Whether
having a disbursement would impact test scores is something I think our resident
educator could answer better.
Vandenberg/Well, I think it's a capacity issue. So I'll give you an example. For our
21st Century School's Grant at Twain, we can serve about sixty kids, and we have
probably about 120 who are eligible. So, I mean if you have less kids in the
school, you're just able to do more interventions for more kids, or meet the needs,
and then similarly, just what an individual teacher can do, I think, is much
different when you have more than half of your class (can't hear). And I just
really want to encourage the point, it's not just (can't hear) it's also our
community, and we didn't get good crime data, but I do believe that there is an
issue of quality of life in some neighborhoods, as well, and I don't want us to
overlook that fact. You know, there are some things the schools can do and can
do in i.ne future, but that still won't support the neighborhood.
Champion/Well, isn't there, there must be some studies done, it seems to me that when I
was on the school board, there was some studies done when we were looking at
Hills that kids who are in a lower economic bracket sometimes aren't exposed to
early learning, and aren't exposed to... starting to learn can start as early as two
weeks, and yet these kids are remedial when they come to Kindergarten, without
preschool, but they tend to do better in an environment where there are kids who
have been exposed to all that, and that kids that are exposed to all that also do
better. It's kind of, what do you call th~tt? I can't think of the word. (several
talking at once) I mean, it might interest me if we could find some research on it
because I know it's been done, that all kids benefit from a mixed environment of
economic...
Vandenberg/And I would say socially as well as academically.
Champion/Ri:ght, right.
Anthony/Can I just offer some evidence, and give you some numbers to support the case
I said earlier, that there is no link between free and reduced lunch and assisted
housing.
Champion/We know that.
Anthony/Okay. Good. (laughs) And to respond to one of the other suggestions I just
made that scattering might increase, yes we don't have any data on that, and in
some situations, there are two broad approaches that can be taken. One is to
scatter all the students and then hopefully things would improve, or to bring all
the students to one place and give them multiple (can't understand). So both
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approaches are possible, and one must say which, you know, there must be some
evidence to say that A is better than B.
Bailey/Concentrate and work on capacity in that way - bring all the students together
And have your most skilled, trained, smaller class sizes - whatever the indicators
are. Are there schools that do that, that take that approach, that perhaps kids who
aren't doing well academically?
Vandenberg/I think that you would have a teacher/student ration that would be, I mean,
you would need a very large facility and a ton of money to make that work.
Bailey/Well, we're going to need a ton of money to address this issue regardless of
where it comes from.
Vandenberg/Yeah.
Bailey/The School District or City or the region, I mean, this issue is going to take a
ton of money to address it, as well as, really, innovative approaches.
Elliott/If this is difficult for the Council, you can only imagine how difficult it is for
the School Board because we in Iowa City have had the concept and the
philosophy of neighborhood schools since time one. Education kind of goes in
cycles regarding mainstream, whether it's disabled students or disadvantaged
students, and one thing that I'm sure the Board is aware of, when you have too
many disadvantaged students in a classroom, for whatever reason, not only do
those students not get the education perhaps they deserve, but the students who
are no:' disadvantaged don't get the same quality of education that they would
have otherwise received. So this is a significant educational problem, and that's
why, Regenia, I think as you pointed out, we need to work much more closely
with the School Board, know what the School is doing and they know what we're
doing.
Bailey/Well, because I don't fully understand, besides Family Resource Centers, because
I'm just not up to speed on what the school is doing, what's the teacher/student
ratio, the District in the K through 3 classes standardly?
vandenberg/I think K-3, oh boy...I think it's right around twenty, but you know what? I
don't dare look. I mean, I can't give you a specific number without looking it up.
It's higher than for 4 through 6.
Bailey/That seems right. But I'm assuming that student/teacher ratios is yet another
way t( address some of these issues. You're talking capacity, but (TAPE ENDS)
Vandenberg/i..in our packet for that, and so the number of staff per child in some
buildings...I think one building was almost ten times as much as the others. So, I
mean, there are additional resources being placed in that way.
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Bailey/Right, and so if we scatter with this fair-share, are we anticipating that the
resources that every school in the District would have to be, you know, it would
have to be equalized? Is that what the anticipation would be?
Vandenberg/I think it depends on how we end up scattering. You know, and where they
scatter to...
Bailey/Well, let's talk about an ideal scenario...
Vandenberg/I think ideally we would have those resources throughout the District, and
we do, I mean, things like Reading Recovery. That's in every building. It's a
reading program for kids who aren't proficient. That's District-wide, no matter
whether you live at Manville Heights or you know in shelters.
Bailey/But we don't have Family Resource Centers...
Vandenberg/We don't have Family Resource Centers...
Bailey/..and that might be something that's could be indicated. I don't know.
Vandenberg/...and after school is a critical time. Many kids have just big gaps in their
education, you know, often mobility's an issue there, so you can't, I mean, they
can't catch up during the school day. So if you extend the school day and you
extend the school year, you do more summer and more after school, that allows
that additional time for remediation.
Vanderhoef/(can't hear) Then I'd scream. That microphone seems to work. Okay,
where is the School District at this point on the preschool education, and
secondly, of the unprepared Kindergartners who come to us who are way behind.
How many of those children are being retained to do Kindergarten a second time?
Vandenberg/I think our retention rate in Kindergarten is very low. So I'll answer the
easy question first. I think, as much as possible, we try to, sometimes kids get
into Kindergarten and we say 'umm, maybe you really should look at preschool'
and they don't, you know, very early on into their year they go back. In terms of
preschool education, I think that we received additional empowerment funds,
and...empowerment is the first through three, or birth through five program that
the County has. Ross is a part of that. And so I think we're.doing some
additional parent support things and some additional preschools. It is in no way
meet the need, I mean, it's one of the major barriers we identified at our
conference is a lack of early childhood programming available, particularly for
kids who don't have resources. So I know the United Way is very interested in
kicking, off the campaign to make, to increase the awareness of the need for that,
but wt have a lot more to do. We have, fight now we have two preschools in the
DistriCt, one at Twain and one at Hills, and we have scholarships available at
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Mann. So, of, you know, how ever many hundred kids that need it, we probably
are able to serve about 35 kids. So...
Vanderhoef/And your Family Resource Centers, as far as space is concerned, would
be available for preschool activity?
Vandenberg/~t depends on the building. Oh, and we, I take that back. We also have a
new p)eschool that will open up when we open our Family Resource Center at
Wood, so that.., yeah, that one you probably know about.
Vanderhoef/Yeah, that one I'm aware of.
Vandenberg/So it depends a lot on the building. So in some buildings there might be
more classroom space available than in others. You know what? If you find the
operating, we could probably find the space. I think, I mean, it's the operating
that is generally the harder nut to crack.
Vanderhoef/So that would be a place where the School District could look at some
policy that would have some impacts...
Vandenberg/And I think very interested in doing that. It's just that it's a funding issue.
Vanderhoef/l:)h sure! I recognize that one.
Elliott/Matt, I have a quick question of you. Just so we're all on the same page, you talk
about affordable housing and assisted housing, and affordable you're referring to
more starter homes, homes that people, I guess, starter home's about as
good...and assisted housing, those people who need assistance to have any
reasonable form of housing?
Hayek/Yeah, I think it's fair to say that affordable housing includes assisted housing,
but what distinguishes assisted housing is that it is built with, or purchased with,
public dollars, and so when we talk about affordable housing, we are...we are
talking about assisted housing, but more generally we are talking about housing in
the private market, housing that is not built with public dollars, and again, that,
from my perspective, is where the real opportunity is. We just, it's not realistic to
think that we can solve all of our problems with looking for public dollars that are
dimini,shing with every year.
Bailey/So, we're talking about 50 to 80% median income when you talk about
affordable, or you're talking about...what are you talking about? Because this
(several talking at once).
Hayek/I'm looking over at my City planners here, but I think they're nodding their
heads in concurrence. I mean, affordable housing is not affordable for all people.
I mean, you've got to have an income of a certain level to even have that.
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Bailey/And median income in Iowa City is very high, so 80% of median is omen not
affordable for everybody. I have a question regarding this map and some of these
areas are pretty built-out. Have you talked about what that means to get
affordable housing into those areas?
Hayek/Well, that's absolutely an issue, and there are certain census blocks in town where
development is on the horizon and that's what brings a lot of people to the room
who a~e waiting for that issue to be brought up later on this evening, but certainly
acquisition of existing housing is an option. You've got lead-based paint issues,
but I think the City may have to look for ways to get past that.
Bailey/Well, I've always been interested in doing more (can't understand) programs, but
I mean, I don't know the costs comparison of lead-abatement compared to...
Hayek/Sure, sure, but no, you've got only so many empty lots in the developed areas.
You may have none. But there is certainly housing there that we think could be
acquired, and that's what's happened with a lot of assisted housing to date. That
may not solve the affordable housing issues though. I mean, that's really where
the new housing is being generated.
Wilburn/But I would suppose, if this were chosen, this current map and approach were
approved, that it could be viewed in a similar fashion as our park deficit ration, as
opportunities present themselves for redevelopment, and...
Bailey/...purchase.
Wilburn/Right.
Bailey/Okay. That makes sense to me.
Vanderhoef/Which is a whole other policy issue.
Lehman/Matt, really...thank you, and your Committee. A tremendous amount of
work, long, long time. I don't know how many trees we cut down just to print the
minutes (laughter).
Hayek/I'm filing a Work Comp claim (laughter) just on the binder I carried around. I
think others feel the same way.
Lehman/I kn,.iw it's a really tough job and I know I speak for Council, we really
appreciate your efforts.
Elliott/Emie?
Lehman/I guess it's not surprising that there had to be compromises and disagreements.
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 17
This is really...
Elliott/ When' this was put together, I really thought there was a strong possibility that if
we had a 12-member task force we could end up two or three years later with 12
distinct, divergent philosophies and views and recommendations, and I think the
Task Force did a remarkable job to come up with a reasonable consensus, andto
give time to a very separate, distinct, reasonable point of view.
Hayek/Thank you.
Bailey/So if we accept this you're done, right? (laughter and several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/I think probably so too, and hopefully you'll be available if we get back to this in January or February and need refreshers.
Lehman/We really do need to get back to it, and I think, Matt, you said, you need to
know sometime in the next couple months when it comes to allocations of CDBG
monies if we are not going to permit those allocations to go in highly concentrated
areas, i:~eed to know that up front.
Hayek/Right, and those who will be applying for that round, we owe that to them, as
well, some clarity on the issue, at least for this year.
Elliott/And we will be carrying the emphasis on affordable housing into our
discussions on the zoning recommendations also.
Champion/Did we not put a moratorium on assisted housing, I guess, already?
Elliott/Yes, informally.
Champion/Informally?
Lehman/Yeah...
Bailey/No, w~ didn't. We talked about it, right? We made case-by-case decisions...
Elliott/But, as I said, informally we did.
Hayek/But the impact of that was felt last year. Some applicants just did not know and
that caused confusion on HCDC and we certainly felt that.
Bailey/And so, what's our deadline? From that...
Hayek/For HCDC? Well, I'm no longer Chair - Mr. Anthony is, but I would say, I
think.., yeah, next two months.
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 18
Lehman/We need to put that on a work session. (several talking at once) Okay. Thank
you. We have had a short recess request. (BREAK -- TAPE OFF)
PLANNING AND ZONING ITEMS:
Lehman/Okay. Planning and Zoning items - Karin, you are up - not very far up, but
you're up. Stand up! Stand up, Karin!
a) REZONING PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2)
ZONE TO CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT (CB-5) ZONE,
NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL (CN-1) ZONE, MIXED USE (MU) ZONE
AND PUBLIC (P) ZONE, FOR AREAS CURRENTLY ZONED CB-2
LOCATED SOUTH OF DAVENPORT STREET AND NORTH OF
JEFFERSON STREET
b) REZONING PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2)
ZONE TO CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT (CB-5) ZONE, MIXED USE
(MU) ZONE AND HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RM-
44) ZONE, FOR AREAS CURRENTLY ZONED CB-2 LOCATED SOUTH OF
JEFFERSON STREET AND EAST OF GILBERT STREET.
Franklin/Okay, we're going to run this kind of like we do our normal Planning and
Zoning items, but because the Commission's here there's going to be a little bit
more in depth explanation than you would typically get from me. The first one is
the rezoning that is in the North Marketplace area, and these first, one, two, three
are the CB-2 areas. Recall that we have eliminated the CB-2 Zone from the
proposed Zoning Ordinance, which then precipitated the need to look at how to
zone existing CB-2 areas with what was in the Code, and so the proposal in the
Market Street area is to go from CB-2 to a combination of CB-5, CN-1, and MU.
I will just say at the outset of this discussion before we get into the detail of it that
we have received protests on this and within the CN-1 area, we have 85% who are
protesting; therefore, it will take an extraordinary majority vote of the City
Council to pass that. In the other areas of what is being zoned to CB-5 and MU,
there is not a protest. Okay? So what we will have for you is an ordinance that
will separately address that CN-1 area. I think at this point what we would like to
do is to have the Commission explain the rationale for the zoning selection of CB-
5, CN 1, and MU, and I don't know if whether Karen wants to do that or Bob
or...B3b, belly up to the table there. (laughter)
Brooks/I was ready for the show! (laughter) I think Karin has (noise on mic and
laughter).
Howard/Well, I'll start out here and the Commission can dive in any time they want to
add something to...but basically...what's that? That's not going to....just a
description of the CB-2 Zone that we have in the Code in case you're not familiar
with it. It's an old zone that was in existence prior to what we
currently.., currently we have three central business zones. Of course the CB-10
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Zone is downtown, and we have a CB-5 Zone that was created...how many years
ago? Five, ten years ago .... ten years ago. The CB-2 Zone pre-dates the CB-5
Zone. It's supposed to be a hierarchy of zones, CB-10 down to CB-5 down to
CB-2. Now that's not quite the case. CB-2 Zone allows a whole mixture of
commercial uses, similar to the other central business zones, but it also allows
some auto and truck oriented uses, such as gas stations and auto repair shops. It
allows similar to the other CB zones - it allows residential uses above the
commercial uses, it has a lower FAR, that's floor to area ratio. The floor area in
the building on the lot, as compared to the lot area. So that's lower than the CB-5
or the CB-10. However, the maximum height in a CB-2 Zone is 100 feet. The
maximum height in the CB-5 Zone is only 75 feet. So that's a little bit of a
disjointed...disjoint in the standards in the dimensional standards, and so when
the Planning and Zoning Commission took a look at this, some of the concerns
about the existing CB-2 Zone was that it allows high-density development,
buildi: ~gs up to ten stories tall in areas that area directly adjacent to lower density
residential neighborhoods. From what you can see from the maps in your packet
is that the existing CB-2 areas that are left in Iowa City are areas directly
surrounding downtown. The other.., another issue is that the CB-2 Zone contains
no provisions that insure that the North Marketplace area will keep its pedestrian-
friendly Main Street character, and this was mentioned by a number of folks at the
public hearings in front of P&Z, as well as letters received by both P&Z and the
Council. It does not fit with really the vision that was set in the Comprehensive
Plan for these areas that surround downtown Iowa City. So the things that the
Commission looked at in consideration for rezoning: they looked at what existing
businesses and land uses were in the areas right now; what were the surrounding
areas like; what other surrounding zones; what are the surrounding land uses in
the neighborhoods surrounding these areas; what the intensity of the development
is allowed in a particular zone that they were considering. They took guidance
from the City's Comprehensive Plan and the intent basically was to try to
acknowledge the existing businesses and uses that were in the area, while at the
same l lme trying to accommodate desired uses of the property over time. So the
zones that are considered to be the CB-2 areas are the Mixed Use Zone, the
Neighborhood Commercial Zone, the Central Business Support Zone- that's the
CB-5 Zone; High-Density, Multi-Family Residential Zone - the RM-44 Zone;
and the Planned High-Density, Multi-Family Residential Zone - the PRM Zone.
Just a little description of each of these zones. The Mixed Use Zone in the current
Code is referred to as a Residential Office Zone. In the proposed Code, we've
changed a lot of things in that zone to create a whole variety of uses that are
allowed. It is intended to provide a transition from commercial and employment
centers to less intensive residential zones. It allows all types of retail, office; it
also allows residential uses on the ground floor, which is not...which is different
from any of our other commercial zones. So that's the distinction there, but it
does allow all the same types of uses that most of our commercial zones allow,
restaurants, bars, offices, guest houses, daycares, all those types of things. The
Neighborhood Commercial Zone is intended to be a small-scale retail zone
provid!ng neighborhood shopping areas for surrounding neighborhoods. It also
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allows the same variety of commercial uses. There are some limits on the size,
and it's because these areas are intended to be located next to lower-intensity
residential areas, and are intended to be of a scale that was compatible with
surrounding residential neighborhoods. The Central Business Support Zone, the
CB-5 Zone, is intended to allow for the orderly expansion of the downtown
Central Business District, the CB-10 Zone. So it's intended to be for areas that
the City intends to extend downtown over time, and due to the intensity of
potential development in this zone, it has certain standards for building and site
design to make these areas continue to be pedestrian-friendly, similar to
downtown Iowa City. Residential uses are only allowed in upper floors in this.., a
big distinction here and the CB-5 Zone, as compared to the CB-2 Zone, is that no
parking is required for commercial uses, and that really becomes important in the
discussion that the Commission had for particularly the North Marketplace CB-2
areas. Some of the areas seemed appropriate for High-Density, Multi-Family
Residential. This, of course, allows a mix of apartments and rooming houses and
high< ~nsity residential uses, and the PRM Zone is also a similar zone to that, but
even higher, higher density residential. So on to the recommended...
recommendations from the Planning and Zoning Commission. This is the North
Marketplace area, the area that is colored is the area that is currently zoned CB-2.
The colors indicate the recommended rezonings for this area. The dark red
indicates CB-5. The pink areas indicate Neighborhood Commercial. This is a
publicly-owned parking lot, and so it should be zoned Public, and the brown
indicates RM-44, High-Density, Multi-Family, or excuse me, Mixed Use, MU.
Pointers not working here. This area right next to... on the corner of Dubuque and
Market Street contains a gas station and some existing businesses that are higher
density. They currently have parking provided for those uses. This area, the
Commission felt, was appropriate to be up-zoned to CB-5, as well as this area
here contains an office building that's larger than what would be allowed in the
Neighborhood Commercial Zone, and so we didn't want to create a non-
conformity so this area also is recommended for CB-5. The area shown in pink is
recommended for Neighborhood Commercial. It is currently functioning as a
Neigh)orhood Commercial Zone, as you're well aware. It has a real mix of
neighborhood-serving commercial uses - restaurants, small retail, offices uses.
The CN-1 Zone will acknowledge the existing businesses that are there, and allow
them to continue as conforming uses. The only, the business that will become
non-conforming with this recommendation is the auto repair shop at the comer
of...my pointer's not working...on this property right here. It's currently
developed to its full capacity. The gas station that is there would be allowed in
Neighborhood Commercial Zone. That would remain conforming. It's the auto
repair that would become non-conforming, but of course, the owner could
continue that use for as long as he wished and sell the business to someone else
and it would be allowed to continue, as well.
Elliott/Karen, are those two the same business?
Howard/Yes.
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Elliott/Okay.
Howard/Any zoning proposed, it would be non-conforming. (cannot hear someone
talking in audience) Didn't come out...the blue area's the public parking lot. I
think it's about fifty parking spaces that are there.
Wilburn/Did you just say that the auto repair, should they decide to sell, would or would
not be allowed? Would be allowed...
Howard/Yes,'~a non-conforming use can continue for as long as the owners wish it to. It
goes With the land, in other words.
Wilburn/All right.
Howard/So, I think the consideration after talking...we talked to the property owner
extensively about this and his concern primarily was to keep the gas station
conforming so that he could make some modifications to the gas pumps that he
wanted to do, but the auto repair, basically, is within the existing building and
there's no room for expansion. So it becoming non-conforming would be, would
not really effect that business.
Freerks/And it could be vacant or not in use for up to a year, is that right?
Howard/Right, and then he could still carry on his auto repair function.
Plahutnik/Wf~at if it were damaged?
Howard/It would have to be practically destroyed for it to... (several talking at once).
Elliott/We talked...75% is officially assessed value though, correct.'? Which is not the
same as the real value of the property?
Howard/Well, it would have to be destroyed...it's a figure that would have to be
destroyed at greater .... not to be allowed to be rebuilt.
Elliott/Yeah, but I mean it's based on the assessed value. Okay.
Vanderhoef/Karin, help me out with what the zoning is east of what we're talking about,
but the Bloomington Street area and the corner there with Mercy Hospital.
Franklin/This one?
Vanderhoef/That one, and...
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Howard/This is all CN-1. You see the zoning line here is, this is the zoning, is
Commercial Office Zone. Mercy Hospital is in the Commercial Office Zone.
Vanderhoef/And the Commercial Office Zone splits down the middle, or down the alley,
behind the Bloomington Street?
Howard/This, right here, and north of that is RNC-12, which is a Neighborhood
Conservation, a Single-Family Zone.
Champion/What about...we don't allow gas stations in CN-I?
Howard/Yes, we do, but the gas station .... auto repair is treated...
Champion/Oh, that's the clicker.
Howard/Yes, and the distinction between auto repair and gas station, I guess...
Champion/And auto repair is like getting new tires, that kind of thing?
Howard/Yeah, I mean, it's auto repair would be fixing cars basically. So I think the
concern, the distinction between auto repair tends to be a more .... use that would
have more outdoor storage plus it may have more noise, dust, that sort of thing.
O'Donnell/But auto repair also includes replacing a window, or a battery, and, I mean,
gotta pull it inside to do that. They sell tires so...
Champion/Auto repair is (can't hear).
Franklin/If a gas station was going to change your battery and it's just doing minor stuff
like that, I mean, that's going to sometimes comes under the general gas station
use, but auto repair is engine repair, body repair...
Lehman/Brakes, tires, mufflers.
Franklin/Yeah! The whole nine yards.
O'Donnell/So I couldn't go in and have my spark plugs changes.
Lehman/No, that's auto repair.
Franklin/You could have your car's spark plugs changes. I don't know about yours.
(laughter)
O'Donnell/B it that's just it...how do you decide? I mean, are we going to need a
booklet?
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Lehman/Well, I think the CN-1 use is basically intended for the quick-trip type place
where you pull in, fill up with gas, and leave. Put in a quart of oil if you need to,
but it's not intended for auto service. It's just fuel and oil.
Elliott/For the traditional service station, auto repair is an integral part of the activity.
Yeah. (several talking at once) Matter of fact, in present times, that's where they
make .he money.
Howard/Well, and there's nothing to...like I said, this particular property would be,
would not be particularly affected by this change. I mean, the gas station would
remain conforming. He could change his gas pumps...
Lehman/Change your plugs, change your tires, and put new brakes on...
Howard/Right, and so he can continue his auto repair for as long as he wishes to do so.
Elliott/However, it was sold within the past year, isn't that correct? And that sale
probably would not have taken place because it couldn't, wouldn't...am I wrong?
Howard/Goes with the land. (several talking at once)
Franklin/The sale makes no difference.
Elliott/The sale makes no difference.
Franklin/No.
Elliott/Okay.
Bailey/John is very comfortable with this. I mean, I spoke ....Wally, you...(several
talking at once)
Howard/And the trouble, the problem is that none of the other zones that are considered
would allow auto repair as...
Vanderhoef/Okay, would auto repair be okay in CO- 1 ?
Howard/No, he Commercial Office Zone is very limited. It's our lowest-density
commercial zone, limits only 25 feet and it's primarily intended for offices. So
it's more restrictive than anything that's being considered. One of the other issues
that was of concern, I guess, is the idea that CB-2 Zone allows such tall buildings,
and because it requires parking, there's an incentive, if the market were ever to
get to the point where high-rise construction would be feasible. I mean, that's the
big if. Right now it doesn't appear that that market has reached that point in that
area of the city, so we continue to have a small Neighborhood Commercial Area,
but if the market were ever to get to the point to support high-rise construction,
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the zoning standards in the CB-2 Zone would encourage a tall, skinny building
because commercial parking...the requirements for commercial parking are quite
high, and so the tendency would be to create a small amount of commercial on the
first floor, and then of course put the apartments all above in the next nine stories,
because residential doesn't require as much parking for the square footage than
any kind of commercial use, and so, just looking at the dimensional standards in
CB-2 Zone, this is what it would encourage. The CN-1 or MU Zone, there's a
high limitation. If high-rise construction continues not to be feasible in the area,
the bu'idings would tend to look similar, and that's why I think that area has
continued to look the way it has and hasn't really encouraged redevelopment
because the parking constraints in the area really discourage any kind of
redevelopment. Only if somebody would be willing to put parking underground,
very expensive parking option, would it become feasible. CD...
Vanderhoef/But a parking deck could be put over...
Howard/Sure, there'd be lots of options, but all those things are extremely expensive,
compared to surface parking, double Or triple, quadruple sometimes, the cost of a
surface parking space. The CB-5 Zone, on the other hand, and one of the
concerns was that...the Commission felt that CB-5 Zone might be appropriate in
this area at some point in time, but at this point in time the CB-5 areas tend to be
areas that are very close to places that we have publicly provided parking spaces,
like downtown we have, I think, 3,500 publicly provided parking spaces. In the
North:Market Square area, we only have 50, and so if the entire area there is
rezoncd to CB-5, it will allow larger, bulkier buildings, and no parking is required
for commercial uses, and so you could get a lot more congestion, a lot more cars,
demand for parking generated, with no parking provided, and so what happens,
and it's been a...very concerned in that neighborhood about that parking crunch
and the parking congestion in the area. With no parking, if new buildings are
built at a higher density with no parking provided, where does that parking go? It
spills out into the neighborhoods. That is consideration for that...the reason that
the Planning and Zoning Commission didn't recommend that whole entire area
being upzoned to CB-5.
Vanderhoef/Okay, but how would this area be different than what our near-southside
plan is that requires the parking impact fee for a certain number of units?
Franklin/We have, as a matter of policy, we do have the parking facility impact fee in the
near-southside, which is geographically defined. It does not go with the CB-5
Zone. ;'In our near-southside parking facility impact fee district, which we defined
when we adopted the ordinance. It includes CB-5, PRM, existing now CB-2, but
anything within that district, regardless of its zoning and it applies to any
residential development. So, if you have residential over commercial in CB-5,
CB-2, you have to pay into the parking facility impact fee. So that's one aspect of
it. We do not have a parking facility impact fee anywhere else. In conjunction
with that, in the near-southside, we have made a commitment as public policy that
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parking will be provided to a large extent in public facilities, similar to our policy
downtown. CB-10, there is no parking requirement for anything except hotels
and e[terly housing, I think. And why that is I can't tell you - that goes back too
far, bu:t at any rate, there's a public policy that downtown, the parking will be
provided in public facilities, therefore, it is not encouraged, allowed in private
areas, except through action of the Council or the Board of Adjustment - I can't
remember which. So, it would mean if CB-5 were to be truly successful in this
area and not have an impact on the northside neighborhood in terms of parking
issues, that we would need to make a similar commitment to a public facility, or
ramp, and we would need to then figure out how to pay for it. That has not been
the case to date. The policy, so far, with Market Square has been to keep it at its
scale - at the scale that it is at - with the street-scape project that we've done
there, any discussions we've had of the North Market area, it has been to keep it
at that scale. So that's how the conclusion came that CB-5 would not be
appropriate in any large way in Market Square.
Vanderhoef/However, Council could look at a parking impact area in conjunction with...
Franklin/Sur~, you could change that policy, but just given the policies to date, those
were riot in place.
Lehman/But if you had that fee you'd have to have some place where you could build a
facility. You can't just have a fee unless you have some place to build it.
Vanderhoef/And...we have a place. (several talking at once)
Franklin/The lot, the public parking lot that we have between Market and, or Market and
the Pagliai's lot is not big enough, or a ramp. You can't get the circulation.
Vanderhoef/You could get a second deck on it.
Franklin/You couldn't get to it though. (several talking at once) No, there's not enough
(can't understand; several talking) Oh yeah, but then that's expensive.
Vanderhoef/I)o, couldn't you ramp it from the alley?
Franklin/You would have more in ramp than you would get in spaces. I mean, the
economics of it just...we've looked at it in terms of 'Could we get a ramp in that
space?' And to get circulation to get onto that second deck, you would lose a
number of spaces, and it...
Champion/...underground with a down ramp.
Vanderhoef/I'm thinking of similar to what Mercy has, that it's partially down, but it
has...
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Franklin/...access from the alley.
O'Donnell/That's incredibly expensive.
Franklin/It's'?a different grade there. (several talking at once) It's almost a whole block.
O'Donnell/Could you go back up to the...I'm partially color blind, I'm having a
wonderful time with these colors. But where I've got, let's go back to the gas
station. Okay, and south across the street is a big parking lot. Is there like two
lots there? (several talking at once) I notice insurance...two parking
lots...(several talking at once)...okay, and what's to the east of it? Is that another
parking lot? (several talking at once) There's parking behind it? Okay.
Champion/I'm sorry, but I have to ask a very basic question, too. Could you one more
time tell me the difference between CB-2 and the new Commercial, I mean the
new Zone...(several talking at once). Mixed Use .... (several talking at once)..yes.
Howard/Neighborhood Commercial allows, they allow the same.., other than the auto
repair, they allow the same uses. The height is different, 100 feet in the CB-2, it's
35, it' ' 35 in CN-1, similar to all our other commercial zones.
O'Donnell/They're basically two stories...
Howard/Three stories.
O'Donnell/Three stories.
Champion/Tell me the parking requirements again.
Howard/The parking requirements are the same in the CB-2 Zone as other commercial
zones, except for the CB-5 and CB-10, which don't require parking.
Lehman/CN-1 and CB-2 are the same parking requirements?
Howard/Rig? t.
Wilburn/I've'got another Connie-basic question. (laughter)
Howard/Well, it depends on...
Wilburn/If you are eliminating an entire zone from the city, there have been multiple
claims of decreasing, or increasing, somebody's property value. If a zone is not
available in a city and you're redefining, is that, isn't that a different comparison?
I mean, anybody.
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Plahutnik/I think what you'll probably hear is comments from the public that say that
you're down-zoning their property and therefore reducing their potential in the
event of redevelopment of their property.
Wilburn/And, I guess my question is if you're removing that from consideration, I mean,
are you...is it truly a down-zone, unless, I mean, the one distinction I'm hearing is
over three stories, and...
Plahutnik/Beth has prepared a zoning comparison analysis that they did for the
Commission, and if you haven't received that...I think it does a very good job of
outlining it. While CB-2 does permit ten story buildings, it's been in existence for
I don't know how many decades, and I don't think we have any of them, so I
don't know that there's...it's not economical to do still so I don't think that's very
practical. When you compare the two zones with the traditional three story, the
report':indicates that you could get, on a typical lot. They use some real-life cases
here, you could get from 45 to 48 people into an existing property with the current
CB-2 Zone. Under this change, it would be reduced minimally, but down to 42
people. Approximately anywhere from three to five persons, or probably one
apartment, so we are talking probably one apartment or a single property owner,
but you know, an apartment rent per month over the course of the lifetime is a
significant amount.
O'Donnell/But 45 to 48 people in how big an area?
Howard/We just used the one vacant lot that's in the area, which is (several talking at
once). Because all the other property areas are developed, so the idea was if
somebody were to build something there, what could be achieved with the CB-2
zoning and what could be achieved with the CN-1 zoning, and what we found was
it had very similar, if you discount the idea that you could build a high-rise
buildi~ g (can't hear) to do so. Then they had very similar density, or intensity
(can't aear). Have similar commercial floor area on the first floor; they would
have similar numbers of apartments, and because the biggest factor really is the
ability to provide parking that's required. Both the CB-2 and the Neighborhood
Commercial, they would require the same number of spaces.
O'Donnell/So, in CB-2 with this size lot, am I hearing you - you can do 45 to 48?
Plahutnik/Correct.
O'Donnell/And if we take it to CN-1, we're down to 42?
Plahutnik/Correct, about a 10% reduction. (several talking at once) Yeah, that assumes
a three-story. If you went to the extreme, the ten story would be the extreme, and
the illustration here would be you could be up to 81 residents on that same parcel
of lot, and now you would be restricted back to the 42 again, so there's a
differe"~ce there of about 39 people, or residents.
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O'Donnell/What if I wanted to build a five-story building?
Plahutnik/It would be further restrictive than it currently is under CB-2.
Howard/But the commercial parking is where our similarities are in parking between the
two, but when it comes to residential, if people wanted to put a higher building
with more residential, then you still need to have parking provided for much of
that residential. But that's very expensive then again, too, and if you have, you
know, we toyed with all of this really and what it comes down to is CB, the CB-2
is really not a zone that we feel is appropriate for a community in these areas
where it's zoned, and so, we're not a political body. We need to look at what
we're doing and what we feel is right in terms of planning, and we just...our
charge was to eliminate some of these zones which weren't appropriate, and this
is one.that we really felt didn't best suit the areas where it was placed, where it's
been [ !laced.
Elliott/Mike, I don't know if you would be interested, but Karen, Karin, and Bob, I
would really like to take some time, some afternoon in the near future or morning,
but my mornings are kind of sacred to me. (laughter) I'd like to go down and put
a face on all of this. Abstract thinking is not one of my fortes. I haven't found a
forte yet, but it's not one of them, but I would really like to go down, take this
map, look around, stand there, and then you could point out, 'Here are the
changes, here is where they are.' That would be very helpful to me.
Bailey/I have a question about feasibility, given this particular lot's proximity to a
residential zone. Don't we have limitations on the scale of buildings that close to
a residential zone?
Howard/Not in commercial zoning.
Bailey/But... so a commercial zone, CB-2 that close to residential, I thought we had
some different provisions (can't hear).
Howard/Well, we don't have a CB-2 Zone in this ....
Bailey/Right, but aren't there provisions for scale, in that proximity to a residential, or
am I just...
Howard/In some' of the other zones, but we didn't alter this one because we were
eliminating it. The multi-family zones we do, but not adjacencies between
commercial. The idea is that you would locate Neighborhood Commercial zones
next to residential, and the Neighborhood Commercial Zone is formulated with
dimensional standards such that would be compatible with... (several talking at
once)...and CO-l, as well. CO-l, CN-1, those are the zones that, and the MU, the
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Mixed Use, the Residential Office are all zones that would be appropriate, of a
scale appropriate next to...
Bailey/So we have to implement that through the zoning, rather than the...because the
worse case scenario, you could wake up and look across the street at a ten story
building again and never see the sun again? (several talking at once)
Brooks/That was one of our concerns in continuing the CB-2 and since we decided fairly
early that we were not going to continue it, we didn't spend any time looking at,
and sc if there is a desire to keep the CB-2, I would hope that we would have an
oppoffanity to go back and look at things like that 100 foot and...yeah, because
it's totally inappropriate to be something like that up against an RNC-12 Zone.
Even a CO-1 Zone. (TAPE ENDS)
Bailey/... or decrease the desirability of those properties.
Brooks/Desirability of it, yep.
Plahutnik/And that's also the reason why (can't hear) chose CN-1 rather than CB-5.
Brooks/Right.
Bailey/I always thought it was...
Plahutnik/(can't hear) CB-5 and we really were sympathetic with them, but...and
wakin: up and seeing a 75-foot building is not quite as bad as seeing a 100-foot
(can't near).
Brooks/We actually started out with MU Zone, which I really like because MU Zone
allows for residential on first floor. It allows for a mix of a lot of different things,
which to me this northside is. It's a neighborhood into itself almost, and I really
like that, but we had a problem with gas station. (several talking at once) And so
we backed away from that in favor of what we were getting a reading from the
neighbors that they were in favor of the CN-1 Zone. Now (several talking at
once).
Lehman/Did you originally have much of that CN-1 as MU? (several talking at once)
Right. Okay. (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/So, one final question, on this parking lot, as it is now and I assume the one
next to it where that old building is behind there, it's all going to be CN-1 zoning,
so the ~:naximum is going to be a 35-foot building? (several talking at once) As
you go south on that street, what is that? Hamburg Inn there, and (several talking
at once). Do we know?
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Brooks/Hamburg Inn is two stories; the one on the comer where the book store is, I
think, is three, and that would probably be the maximum height. (several talking
at once) Yeah.
Howard/The other thing we should mention about the Neighborhood Commercial
that...you asked a question about what the differences were. The Neighborhood
Commercial, because it's implemented for areas, the other way it limits the scale
is it limits the size. So, for example, a restaurant has a limitation on size. (can't
hear) it's 125 occupancy. So there's some limits on size of the businesses. We
looked at what was existing there today and everything would remain conforming.
(seve(d talking at once) Currently, right. And all the little restaurants in the area
are on ~y at 50.
Vanderhoef/But at...Pagliai's assumed that at some point in time they would build a new
restaurant on their open space there and go to a larger...
Howard/Yes, and that was...
Vanderhoef/The ZOning would not allow them to go more than 25 more.
Howard/Right, but the other factor they have to consider is if you go to a really large
restaurant, restaurants require the most parking of any business, and it generates
more parking needs than almost any other business, and so the constrain on that
particular property is if he would be able to find parking for a larger restaurant,
which is questionable.
O'Donnell/B ~t that, but that...I don't think that holds water in this case because that's a
walk-ln pizza house. I mean, they've got parking across the street.
Lehman/But we make them provide parking.
O'Donnell/What's that?
Lehman/Our Code makes...yeah.
O'Donnell/I know, but I don't think it's going to generate more, Emie.
Lehman/Oh, I see what you mean.
Howard/The parking requirement though in the CB-2 Zone is...
Freerks/1 for:150 isn't it?
Howard/Well, in the proposed Code we actually lowered it and it's 1 for 150, square
feet. So that's a pretty high...
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Vanderhoef/Of seating space or of the entire building?
Howard/Floor area. Floor area in the restaurant space. I mean, they don't count, you
know, storage spaces (several talking at once).
Vanderhoef/~?his is what we got into with the restaurant out in, off Scott Boulevard, the
homet:>wn...that the storage area was counted and so forth, and they couldn't put
as many seating spaces in as they wanted. That might have been before your
time, Karen.
Female/...currently meeting their parking requirements for Pagliai's Pizza?
Howard/They're all grandfathered in... a lot of these businesses in the area, that's the
other factor, a lot of the businesses in this area grandfathered in without any
parking at all. And so that's why there's no incentive to redevelop because to do
so, there'd be no place to put the parking that would be required by the CB-2
zoning.
Bailey/So if they develop that parking lot that is currently used for their restaurant
parking, where would they put their restaurant parking? Am I not...
O'Donnell/'~ fell, if they could go tall with the building, then they could use the parking
on the side.
Freerks/Then you'd have the tall building with the sea of parking around it.
Bailey/But I'm talking about Pagliai's parking currently.
O'Donnell/I am too. If they would go across that big lot, build a building with the same
size restaurant, and if they had the ability to go higher, they could have parking...
Bailey/I'm not talking about building a restaurant on that spot. I'm talking about if they
did (can't hear) a shop and apartments, they would have parking requirements for
that, and they would basically be foregoing their parking spaces for the restaurant.
O'Donnell/(several talking at once) It would be the same principle, you go taller with
the bu:lding and you have parking behind... (several talking at once). ..
Franklin/Right now that's where you park for Pagliai's. I think is Regenia's point, and
by building on that lot, Pagliai's Pizza then would have no practical parking.
Now they would not be required to by Code because they are non-conforming as
to parking, but the practical matter is the people park in their parking lot, Pagliai's
parking lot, to go and have pizza. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/Tell me about the, if you put the other map up again. The Gilbert Market,
that comer in there where we're getting some rezoning of RS-5, or CB-5, excuse
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me. (several talking at once) Well, but you're...it's going to CB-5, is
recommended, right there, and at the other end of that, to the east, you have
Mixed Use, and there's some requests for CB-5 along that Gilbert Street area, and
further north going all the way, and I look at Mercy Hospital and think about
future expansion and so forth. That's why I was talking about the Bloomington
Street, and Bloomington has a number of homes, some of which have businesses
in them, like law office and doctor's office and stuff across there, but there hasn't
been hny redevelopment as far as large buildings in...along that part of
Bloomington. So why would we not be looking to allow some CB-5 to follow
along Gilbert Street, going north, at least up to Bloomington. It, to me we have
two zones side-by-side, and we're going from CO-1 to perhaps CN-1, but they're
going to impact each other.
Plahutnik/I think I can answer this in that what you are talking about is starting at, let me
get my bearings straight, just about, yeah, right there...you have, the downtown
area pretty much ends. It's...you have John's Grocery where I work, and then
you have some houses there, and you have the little park area in front of Mercy
Hospital, houses across the street there, the book store, and if you, if you do this
CB, or give me a second, CB-5, what you get is an area of allowing 75-foot
buildings. You're starting a new downtown, not contiguous with downtown.
You go downtown and then you go through an area of smaller, mixed residential,
business and then again you start large-scale office buildings and apartments. So,
you hl ve to ask yourself, do you want that.
Lehman/You also don't have any parking requirements in CB-5, which would be a huge
problem.
Plahutnik/Right, that's...right. They would be in my front yard.
Howard/Dee, were you considering that to be an expansion then for Mercy Hospital? In
the CB-5? CB-5 doesn't allow hospitals. The only zone that allows hospitals is
CO-1. So you'd have to rezone this area of Commercial Office to allow
expansion of Mercy Hospital.
Vanderhoef/Well, you could have office...
Howard/Sure, office is allowed in almost any...
Vanderhoef/...in CB-5, and (can't understand) kind of service.
Howard/As well as CN-1.
Vanderhoef/Uh-huh.
Howard/So CN-1 would allow medical offices.
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Vanderhoef/I just have a feeling that that corridor there, I'm not talking over on the Linn
Street :and stuff, but that corridor, it just seems to me ought to be, instead of
coming down it should either stay at CB-5 or CO-l, that if there is to be
redevelopment, we have directed where it's going to be and it's going to be beside
some other CB-5. We've got a Mixed Use piece that will be a transitional piece
there to the east on Market Street. So it just...
Freerks/Where would your parking be then?
Vanderhoef/Well, that's a question. I understand that, but I think we have to look at
what is possible, and it may be there will be possibilities for parking along that
area, if it were zoned so it could redevelop.
Koopes/Okay, so when plans come in to redevelop that area they should come in with a
request to rezone it, with the plan.
Vanderhoef/!'d rather do it when it didn't have a name on it, when...I mean, I'm sorry,
but technically we need to have a vision of what we're going to be doing without
having a name or a project in mind that creates a huge outcry, 'Well you're going
to do it for this person or that person,' and that was where we got into the
rezoning to begin with is because we were getting requests.
Koopes/We do have a vision. They presented it at CN- 1. (several talk!ng at once)
Vanderhoef/...on vision, and I'm offering the possibility of another vision that may
address some of the concerns of the property owners along there.
Champion/(can't hear) CB-5?
Vanderhoef/I'm thinking the Gilbert Street corridor there, and...
Howard/This...these properties along Gilbert Street?
Vanderhoef/~ }p to Bloomington.
Howard/Up to...oh, just up to here, this area right here.
Bailey/You've got two houses on the comer of Bloomington and Gilbert, and Murphy
Brookfields, which is also essentially a house.
Brooks/Historic house.
Bailey/Historic house, so you...I don't, and then you've got the paint store, the barber
shop, Riverside Theatre - very important.
Champion/And what's that bar on the comer? (several talking at once)
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Bailey/And then you've got those little shops, that little shop, and houses, houses, guest
housei, right? (several talking at once) I think they're doing different things with
that area than CB-5 right now, especially when you come to the Jefferson-Bostick
House and then there are a couple rental houses along that alley, right? Right
across from...
Brooks/I think the one right across the alley is still part of the (can't hear; several talking
at once)
Howard/The other issue is, these are very small properties that we're talking about. I
mean, to give you some idea, I mean, the typical property is about 12,000 square
feet. This is only, like the little artifacts and stuff, it sits on a lot that's only 6,000
square feet. Smaller than a single-family lot. So to get parking on, in any of these
particular areas would be kind of difficult.
O'Donnell/Tell me the reason why we jogged into the CO-1 there on the northeast
comer: of Gilbert and Market. Looks like we...(several talking at once)
Howard/It's currently zoned CB-2 so you have to rezone it to something... (several
talking at once) Where the bar is?
Miklo/One would make it non-conforming and also one of the principles in a
commercial district is you have all four comers commercial to keep it vibrant so
changing it to office would make the bar non-conforming and also (several talking
at once).
O'Donnell/So this is already (can't hear). I don't understand why (several talking at
once).
Bailey/...below it is an MU Zone, right? So it's just a jog out from a...(someone talking
in audience, unable to hear).
Lehman/CN-! makes it...
O'Donnell/...everything else that's in there that's in CO-l, with the exception of the
hospital.
Freerks/But we're not charged with rezoning CO-1.
Franklin/Those...yeah, right, I mean, that's an existing situation and it wasn't an effort
to solve all problems.
Elliott/The CO-1 would allow offices in any location, that is CO-l, is that correct?
Howard/Right, as well as the CN-1 Zone or the Mixed Use Zone or the CB-5 Zone.
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Elliott/Okay. So then the thought that perhaps at some point in the future, Mercy could
be ringed by related offices is certainly still stable? Good.
Lehman/Okay.
Howard/Do you have any questions on this one?
Lehman/Karin? Is this one of the ones where we have more than 20% on A?
Franklin/On A you have (can't hear) On A you have more than 20% in the pink area, in
the CN-1 area. Yes, so that's going to require an extraordinary majority vote to
change that to CN-1, and what we're going to do is have a separate ordinance, I
mean, we started this out with this all together, but because of the protest, we'll
break this out in a separate ordinance so you'll have one ordinance that goes from
CB-2 to MU and CB-5, and one ordinance that goes from CB-2 to CN-1. Okay?
Lehman/Okay.
Vanderhoef/And which are in the...then the CN-1 that you're breaking out will be the
protest group?
Franklin/Yes. The CN-1 is what's being protested, and that's where we've got 85%
protest so that will be broken out, and that would require six out of seven Council
members to approve it. (several talking at once) No. 85% of the area is
represented by protestors. That's not necessarily 85% of the owners. Remember
with a protest it's representation of the area. You have to have 20% or more of
the area represented by protestors.
Smith/They x?ant it to remain either CB-2 or upgraded to a CB-5 so that they don't feel
that they're downgraded is their desire, I think. They're not lobbying...yeah, I
don't think they prefer a CO'or an MU. We kind of went through all of those.
They're...we've looked at it. I think their position at this point is they prefer to
stay status quo and not be impacted by the change of the zoning ordinance, but if
they are to be impacted, they would prefer to see a benefit, from it, rather than
potential downsizing.
Freerks/But of course all of their uses can remain in the zone we're proposing, except for
the auto repair. (several talking at once)
Franklin/Everything can remain as non-conforming.
Vanderhoef/And the height difference in the buildings? I mean that's .... and...
Smith/And tl'~at's been in existence for decades. It's a theory that there would be... (several talking at once)
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Franklin/Okay, shall we go to B?
Lehman/Yes.
Franklin/Okay, B is just east of this area, I mean where we are in City Hall, and again,
it's from CB-2 to CB-5, MU, and RM-44.
Lehman/Do we have objections to this? (several talking at once)
Howard/Protest of the brown area here, the Mixed Use area - that's proposed for Mixed
Use, they have 85...also, 85% of the land area, is under protest in that particular
area. We'll break out an ordinance for that area, as well. The areas, this is a
descri ~tion of the area, this is the Co-Op, Co-Op Grocery, the Community Credit
Union¢ other buildings next to the public uses along Iowa Avenue. The CB-5
Zone, the Planning and Zoning Commission considered this the best zoning for
this area. It acknowledges the large office and retail uses in the area, allows the
Co-Op to expand if they choose to do so. If there's any opportunity for
redevelopment in the area. It keeps the bank building conforming with the CB-5.
The area here, of course, is the church on the comer of this particular, next to us
here, the City Hall... (someone talking from audience)...that's the church. So
(several talking at once and laughter) Right. This is the Mid-American station so
that has to stay some sort of commercial zone. These properties (several talking
at once) ...this area, all right, this brown area, the Mixed Use area, this is, the
reason the Planning and Zoning Commission is recommending Mixed Use here is
because it's contiguous to the lower-density residential zone surrounding College
Green Park. The stream tends to form a kind of natural barrier here between this
area and areas to the south. The businesses that are there are office, low-intensity
office, single-family residences that have been changed to small retail uses, bed
and b~ 5akfasts, some residential uses in the area. So it's very similar to all the
uses tfiat are allowed in the Mixed Use Zone. Mixed uses of similar scale to what
we described with the Neighborhood Commercial. The difference tends to focus
more on office, but it does allow restaurants, retail uses of the same scale as
Neighborhood Commercial Zone. It allows office buildings of any size. It also
allows residential uses on the first floor, which would keep some of these
properties conforming. If it were changed, right now the CB-2 Zone, they're non-
conforming. It would bring, perhaps, some of these residential uses into
conformance. So that's the reason this area is recommended for Mixed Use.
O'Donnell/But there is an 85% protest?
Howard/They want CB-5; they want to be up-zoned to CB-5, or remain status quo at
CB-2.
Elliott/Karen you were just talking about, which part of this is the brown part which is
the M xed Use. Is that the only part that's being protested at this point?
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Howard/Right.
Elliott/And they want that to remain CB-2, or be... okay, thanks.
Howard/Or be up-zoned to CB-5, and the same kind of issues we talked about before
with the parking issues, transition to the lower-density neighborhoods. The area
south of here, this is the Hanson's Auto Repair. It's surrounded right now, you
can't '~;ee from this particular map, but it is completely surrounded by RM-44
zoning, so that is really the most appropriate zone for this to be rezoned to. It
keeps...the auto repair will remain as a non-conforming use and can continue
however long they wish.
O'Donnell/It's presently CB-2?
Howard/It's presently CB-2. All the areas we're talking about are CB~2...
O'Donnell/Okay.
Howard/...currently.
O'Donnell/What are CB-10?
Howard/Properties right along Burlington Street here, the Commission felt were
approl 'riate for CB-5 zoning. It acknowledges the gas station, keeps that
conforming. It's on the comer of Van Buren Street and Burlington Street. It's
along a major arterial street. It's more suitable for higher density, higher...taller
buildings along Burlington Street. Questions about this?
O'Donnell/No, that was really good.
Brooks/One of the issues that may come up is in that brown area, the perception that
parking is available through Chauncey Swan and the Clocktower ramp, and that,
that's still, I think, an issue, but...
Freerks/We did some research on that.
Brooks/Yeah. (several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/...like 400 of the 500 were...
Brooks/And again, our feeling, I think, is just as strong here as it was on the Market
Street area, that this is a transition between fairly heavily developed commercial
zone and residential zone, and again, we felt that the Mixed Use seemed to fit that
better, and didn't take away, although there's that perception that we're
downgrading them, and I really don't think we are. I think we're providing for a
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use that is compatible to what's there, and also provides opportunities in the
future for things that transition between these different parts of the community.
Plahutnik/And we're presented with one group that is counting on their retirement for
ten-story building on currently three lots, but it's a ten-story building that isn't
there. So, it was really difficult, but their argument would be a lot stronger if
there were a ten-story building there.
Lehman/Okay?
Vanderhoef/~;)kay, what's the polka-dotted distinction.
Howard/This is a zoning map, and so the dotted area represents a historic district.
College Green, Historic District.
Vanderhoef/But the...
Brooks/Which butts up against this area. (several talking at once)
Howard/The asterisks are the historic landmarks. The landmarks are the asterisks.
(several talking at once)
Elliott/Any other Council person would like to go with me if I talk to Karen, either
Karen, to take a look at these things?
Bailey/I am ~o familiar with the Market Square that I, I walk it every day.
Vanderhoef/I would walk with you but I can't do it till Saturday.
Elliott/Okay, well I'll check with you and see if we can find a time. Thanks.
Wilburn/Bob, I live on the comer of Market and Dubuque. You can stop in for coffee.
(several talking at once)
Lehman/Moving along! (laughter)
c) REZONING PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2)
ZONE TO CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT (CB-5) ZONE AND PLANNED
HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (PRM) ZONE FOR THE
AREAS CURRENTLY ZONED CB-2 LOCATED SOUTH OF BURLINGTON
STREET AND WEST OF LINN STREET. (REZ05-00016)
Howard/All ~lght, these are little remnant pieces that are south of Burlington Street that
are currently zoned CB-2. (several talking at once)
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 39
Lehman/Do we have objections to this one too? This is an "okay?" What's the next
one? (laughter)
Howard/Youwant hear about it or not? Okay. Give it over to Bob then.
d) REZONING PROPERTIES CURRENTLY ZONED RESIDENTIAL
FACTORY-BUILT HOUSING (RFBH) ZONE, TO PLANNED
DEVELOPMENT HOUSING-HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OPDH-12)
ZONE (REZ05-00017)
Miklo/The next several items are rezoning properties from RFBH, which is factory built
housing, to Planned Development Housing Overlay 12, and I'll just show you real
quickly on the map where those are. It's basically Bon Aire, Saddlebrook, some
undeveloped portions of Saddlebrook, Hilltop Mobile Home Park, the Baculis and
Thatcher Mobile Home Parks down off of Riverside Drive, Forest View, a
property, and I'm sorry this is not, I call Camp's property. This is 1705 Prairie du
Chien. There's a small collection of mobile homes there. And as I said, the
proposal is to rezone these to OPDH-12 to recognize the existing manufactured
housing parks. In the proposed Zoning Code, we're treating manufactured
housifg parks as a subset of the Planned Development Housing Overlay. So
someOne wanting to amend one of these zones would go through a Planned
Development Housing Overlay rezoning, or to create a new manufactured
housing park, they would do the same. There was some concern expressed that
by zoning these areas to OPDH, we're going to make it easier to eliminate mobile
homes from these areas, and that's not the case. Any change in the status quo
would require submittal of a rezoning to a different form of OPDH, so it would
have to be reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Commission, and approved by
the City Council, to change this type of housing to another type of housing, such
as multi-family or (can't hear), etc.
Elliott/Bob, just a quickly so I understand. You're not reducing the capacity for
manufactured or mobile home, but you are making it more difficult.
Miklo/No, no, no.
Elliott/OPDI: is more difficult than if they could just do it, however.
Miklo/Well, right now, to do manufacture housing they have to have a manufactured
housing site plan approved, which goes to Planning and Zoning Commission and
City Council. So it's very similar to the OPDH process.
O'Donnell/What it's going to do is be more difficult if somebody wants to change.
(several talking at once)
Elliott/...make it easier than more difficult.
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Franklin/IfI might, ifI might because I...shoot man! (noise on mic) I guess! I brought
this up initially because it seemed to me that we need to be treating manufactured
housing the same way that we treat any other single-family housing because it is
detached single-family housing. Now, it's all a matter of nomenclature, as to
whether you call it RFBH and single it out as something special, or you do it as a
planned development. When you single it out as RFBH, you're saying that it's
some :-:ind of special single-family housing. Well, it's one of the more affordable
ways to provide housing in this community. Why not have it go through the same
sort of process that we do for other kinds of single-family housing, and the only
reason it's a planned development is because we need the opportunity for lease
lots, and that's the only way you can do that and still kind of incorporate it into
our single-family housing inventory.
O'Donnell/But if it's OPDH, do not we, as a City, have more discretion?
Franklin/Not any more than you do when you zone something RFBH. There is no
property right now that's zoned RFBH that you don't have a plan approved on it.
All of it exists. So, if someone wanted to have a new manufactured housing park,
they would need to come to the City Council, go to Planning and Zoning, come to
the City Council, and go through the same process as you would for an OPDH, in
this case, OPDH-12, and that is to establish on that piece of ground that you are
going ':o have a living arrangement in which you've got private streets, in which
you h~'ve leased lots like condominiums, and you own the particular units. It's
exactly the same, and so to change it, to create it or to change it, is going to be
exactly the same, whether it's OPDH-12 or RFBH.
O'Donnell/Has there been any objections to this?
Franklin/Only from some email chat rooms. (several talking at once)
O'Donnell/What are the objections?
Franklin/The objections, evidently, are that we are doing this to try to get rid of
manufactured housing and to provide for condominiums.
Lehman/Okay, what's the next item?
Franklin/I thi"tk it's a misunderstanding.
Vanderhoef/I like this for more than one reason, but the sooner that we get the State
Legislator to recognize this is single-family housing that if permanently placed,
the sooner we can get at this whole business of how they are taxed because
they're using service like every other single-family house and if we can get rid of
that connotation of trailer park or all those old names that they called it, the better!
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Elliott/(sever!al talking at once) I like the idea of doing this. I just think we do have
some work in the future on this, and Dee's point is on target.
Lehman/All right, we have had another break request. (BREAK - TAPE OFF) Okay,
let's get started again. Although Marian, who is our best friend, hasn't said
anything yet, she's about to say something. When we all talk at once, we all have
microphones and they can't do the transcription. So if we, one at a time, would
help. 'Okay, Karen.
e) REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-
8) TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY - MEDIUM
DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OPDH-8) FOR LOTS LOCATED ON
LONGFELLOW PLACE WITHIN THE LONGFELLOW MANOR
SUBDIVISION. (REZ05-00010)
Miklo/These next several rezonings are from RS-8, Medium-Density, Single-Family, to
either DPDH-12 or RS-12, and the reason we're doing these, of course, is because
the proposal eliminates duplexes from interior lots, but there are several recent
subdivisions where that pattern has already been established. Longfellow Manor,
the proposal is to go to OPDH, a) because the current pattern of development has
houses which are duplexes, one facing the street and the other facing the alley,
which is not permitted by zoning unless you do an OPDH plan and so that's why
we're rezoning the remaining few lots there to OPDH-8. Just to continue the
existing pattern of development.
f) REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-
8) TO HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-12) FOR LOTS LOCATED ON
DODGE STREET COURT WITHIN THE JACOB RICORD'S SUBDIVISION.
(REZ05-00011)
Miklo/ The next area is up off of Dodge Street Court and North Dodge Street. These
were r'~cently platted in mid-1990' s, and all of them are built with duplexes
except for two. So the proposal is to rezone those to RS-12 so the existing pattern
can continue.
g) REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY
(RS-8) TO HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-12) FOR LOTS
LOCATED ON CATSKILL COURT WITHIN THE EAST HILL
SUBDIVISION. (REZ05-00012)
Miklo/The next area is the East Hill Subdivision, and this was the one that Steve Ballard
raised a concern about, given the steep grade of these lots and their narrowness,
it'll be difficult to adhere to the RS-12 requirements of the new Code, so in this
case we're recommending that this be deferred or recommending that this be
deferred at your meeting tomorrow night, and the Planning and Zoning
Commission is going to be looking at rezoning this to OPDH-8, similar to
Longfellow Manor, will recognize the existing pattern of development.
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h) REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-
8) TO HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-12) FOR LOTS LOCATED
SOUTH AND EAST OF WHISPERING MEADOWS DRIVE WITHIN THE
WHISPERING MEADOWS SUBDIVISION. (REZ05-00013)
Miklo/The next item is Whispering Meadows, and here there are several zero-lot lines
and duplexes that have been established in this neighborhood and given the
pattern of development and what's been proposed, we're recommending that that
be continued so the proposal is RS-12 again. We've heard...at the Planning and
Zoning Commission we did receive a few emails from some of the neighboring
property owners that were concerned about the RS-12 Zone, and concerned that it
was too dense or that there were already too many duplexes in the neighborhood
and I believe those letter are in your packet, but there have been no property
owner objections to these proposed rezonings.
i) ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED
DEVEL£!PMENT CODE" BY: REPEALING CHAPTERS 4, 6 AND 9 AND
REPLACING THEM WITH THE NEW TITLE 14 ZONING CODE,
AMENDING PORTIONS OF CHAPTERS 1 AND 5, RENUMBERING
CHAPTERS 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 AND 11, AND REPEALING CHAPTER 12
Franklin/Okay, then Item I is the Code, the text, and what I'm going to hand out now is
some material we've put together for you that answers some of the questions the
Council raised during the discussions. Affordability is addressed, the insurance
question is addressed, cost of trim is addressed, and what I thought I'd do is just
hand these out tonight, given the hour, and hopefully you will read it, and then
we'll discuss it at your next work session. Okay?
Champion/Can I ask a question - one of the things that was brought up by the (can't
hear) was that the new zone, I can't remember the numbers, that would allow
duplexes by right...
Franklin/RS-;.
Champion/Okay, yeah, and their question was have any of these been indicated on the
new zoning map?
Franklin/Oh, is RS-12 on the map? Okay, that's kind of small. When we discuss this,
we will have a large version of this map which shows the RS-5 which is purple;
RS-8 which is green; and RS-12 which is orange. To give you an idea of the
pattern of development that we have now. Is OPDH shown on here? What color
is it? Okay, so the OPDH-8 is light purple, or... oh I see, light purple for OPDH-
5, light green for OPDH-8. It just...there's not a lot of RS-8. There's not a lot of
RS-12, and so what we're talking about with a lot of these changes in the Code, is
new zoning designations in growth areas, which are going to be Council decisions
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 43
as to where that happens, and one of the things that we're going to want to be
talking to the Commission and you about is City-initiated rezonings to direct
growth. So we'll be zoning ahead of time.
Wilburn/If I'm not mistaken, the one concern from a person was how many hoops they
would have to jump through to get the RS-12. That was...
Franklin/...yeah, I think that was something Steve Gordon brought up.
Wilburn/That's correct, yeah.
Franklin/An(i' Steve did come into my office the day after that public hearing and we
looked at the South District Plan and the South District Plan, in the Saddlebrook
area, indicates small lot, single-family or duplex, which would then mean that the
RS-12 would be a zoning designation that would be consistent with what is shown
on the Comprehensive Plan. Now, whether we would want to zone the entire
thing RS-12 or not is something that we would have to consider as that came in
because we are talking about higher density than what may have been anticipated
by the larger planning process.
Vanderhoef/May I go back just one...it just comes to mind. Eric Bochner...
Franklin/Chocolates?
Vanderhoef/And what his proposal was...yes, the chocolates. That he spoke to P&Z
about but I'm not clear what it was he was asking for.
Franklin/Oki y', there was a change made that would enable his kind of
operation...Karen?
Howard/The concern was that we didn't have...the businesses like his that have a retail
component that's important for a business starting out like his, has some
manufacturing component, has some wholesale component, there wasn't a
particular zone that allowed all three together. We either had industrial zoning or
we had commercial zoning, and either one didn't quite fit what those sort of
cottage-industry type businesses. So what we did was we changed some of the
commercial zones to allow cottage-type industries and some of the, yeah,
commercial zones to allow wholesale sales, and some manufacturing uses if they
were cottage-type industries. CC-2 and CI-1.
Brooks/And there had to be a retail component with that.
Howard/Rigl' t.
Brooks/That was...
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Vanderhoef/There had to be a retail to have the manufacturing?
Howard/Right.
Vanderhoef/Okay, so that was taken care of.
Howard/And I think the size of what they were manufacturing goes into play, as well. It
had to be some .... you know, furniture or smaller or something like that comes to
my mind.
Vanderhoef/Well, I had spent about three hours with this man when he realized what the
zoning was, and I said, 'Get in there,' and see what you can do.
Champion/Well, like the little loading dock is kind of the same thing, he makes that
furniture, retails it out.
Howard/Yep, uh-huh.
Champion/The other thing that you, I don't know if you discussed it or not, was the, I
can't remember the gentleman's name, about the universal component to
apartment buildings with one-bedroom units, some kind of density bonus to...
Franklin/Mr. McCallum's proposal? We do address that in this document. There was
quite a bit of discussion about that at the Planning and Zoning Commission, but
also in looking at them, what Mark is suggesting, as I understand the document
that he submitted to you, was to look at density bonuses to encourage one, two,
and maybe three-bedroom apartments, in a series of the multi-family zones. Right
now, we have such density bonuses in PRM and CB-5 that is right around the
downtown. We have those for efficiency apartments, for one-bedroom
apartn~.ents, and for affordable units. His proposal went beyond that to include
some of the other multi-family zones that are beyond the downtown proper, and
so if that's something that the Council's interested in doing, there are
consequences to that that we don't know totally what those consequences are
because we're talking about increases in density of some type, and I know what
he has expressed is that the people density would be the same, and before the
Commission wanted to consider this and I think before we could consider it at this
level, it would take some time to look at what the consequences of that is, both in
terms of density and in terms of how it's enforced, because one of the reasons that
we use units as a density measure is because it's physical, it's built. Bedrooms
are hard to use as a measure of density because, okay, it's a bedroom - no, it's
actually a study, and people come and go so occupancy is a hard density measure.
So I'd think we'd want to be careful. I'm not saying it's not something to
consider, but we'd want to be careful doing this and make sure that we understood
what the consequences of it were and what incentives, frankly, were reasonable
becam~ we've had these in the Code and no one has ever used it for the one-
bedrot, m apartment. They've used it for affordable units, once in the PRM. So
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obviously our incentives - the density bonuses we have now - are not enough to
make it happen. So it's, it's not a simple issue.
Champion/But it would be nice to find a way to allow that type of (can't hear) residential
areas where you might only be able to have a duplex. Why not have...I mean, say
you might have a house with (can't hear)
Franklin/I thilnk what we're saying is that if you wish, if the Council wishes to do that,
that what we would need to do is to go back to Planning and Zoning with this
issue, look at it carefully, and then come back to the Council with it.
Freerks/I would really feel uncomfortable doing it without doing the research that we
need to do, but it could be a very good thing potentially.
Champion/...people who need, what do you call it? Handicap-accessible units into
neighborhoods instead of into apartment developments.
Bailey/I'm also interested in this because I think, and especially surrounding the
downtown, it could have a potential economic impact. We are developing some
non-student housing downtown and this could increase that possibility because
most adults, not all, but most do not want to live with four other people and have
a five-bedroom apartment. So...(TAPE ENDS)
Howard/...b~'~aks it down. We have 36% are one-bedroom units, 43% are two-bedroom
units, 15% are three-bedroom, 4% are four-bedroom, and only 2% are five-
bedroom. So there's this perception. There's some new buildings going in close
to downtown that do have four and five-bedroom apartments, but I think some of
the areas surrounding downtown that are zoned, like the RNC-20 Zone, already
have quite a few one and two-bedroom apartments. So that...
Champion/(can't hear) ...but they're not all accessible. That was the whole point (can't
hear) people are putting universal design apartments in, and they're making them
four-bedroom (can't hear).
Howard/Once again, nobody wants to...
Champion/No, I mean that was his point. I think it was a very valid point.
Lehman/Yea.l, but I also think that he was making a point that you could put a two and a
three il place of a five and have the same density, and it appears...I'm really
surprised at those numbers because I thought, given all of the hoopla...
Howard/Well, I think what we have...there were 75 pages on this, in this report, that we
did and I think what we need to do is break it down by the area so we could list
the street so we really knew what the mix was because if you put a density
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formula in there without knowing what the current mix is, you may have
unintended consequences that...
Elliott/Karen, that's in fact...I think you said 36% of all the apartments are one-bedroom
apartments?
Howard/Right.
Elliott/That's... I would suspect many, many people would be very surprised about that.
It wot: Id be interesting to know where those one and two-bedroom apartments are
located.
Howard/Right.
Elliott/I think that would be...
Howard/That would take some work to be able to map all that.
Champion/(can't hear)
Franklin/It sounds to me like there's two issues here. Two issues - one is the number of
bedrooms in an apartment, and the other is the universal design apartments.
Lehman/Right, right.
Franklin/OkaY.
Howard/And maybe breaking that apart a little more.
Franklin/And so if the goal is the universal design, density bonuses for universal design,
you know, we would look at it that way. I guess that's what...we would need to
know what the consensus of the Council was as to what the goal was.
Bailey/And I would like to see some...there are apartments on the corner of Burlington
and Summit that are one and two-bedroom apartments that tend to be, beautiful
brick building, cute brick building (laughter) that tend to be one and two
bedrooms that you see older renters in them, young professionals, older
professionals. I'm interested in a greater mix near downtown so we can see some
economic development in downtown that would sort of match their needs, of
older professionals, young professionals, because if we talk about maintaining and
attract!~ ng young professionals to Iowa City, I'm not sure we have the housing for
them, quite honestly, close to the interesting areas to be. I mean, we might have
the housing out, but I'm not sure we have the housing...
Franklin/And that would be a conversation as to how we, through a zoning ordinance get
at who's living there...
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Bailey/... some economic development, and I mean, it's a complex thing, but that's my
interest. I appreciate your universal design.
Vanderhoef/r:i'he... concern that I recall when at least one of the buildings that was built
south of Burlington and there were a couple of one-bedroom apartments in this
brand-new building, but the rent then required for a single bedroom was
astronomical and as I recall it was an accessible apartment so there was some
assistance given on that one, but to get a nice apartment for a young professional,
but still keep it cost-effective, that they could put it into one of these older
neighborhoods. I think that's the problem. I don't think some of them necessarily
want to go into existing housing stock so how do we get affordable mixed
building that is basically a non-student, or at least the professional student, the
slightly older, mixed in with the young professionals, that's affordable.
Bailey/Well, some of them are, I mean, affordable, the older. It'sjust...I guess I see
what you're saying to build doesn't make economic sense, but...I think it's an
interesting question to look at, but maybe not...
Vanderhoef/It's the kind of thing that you're seeing in some more metropolitan areas that
used t~:~ have industrial areas close to their downtown and they are reusing old
buildings and coming up with that, and I don't have one, a building that sticks in
my mind that fits this category for us.
Franklin/Well, the bedroom issue, the universal design issue, and whether you use
density bonuses to incentivise that - if that's a word - those are zoning
considerations. Attracting young professional to cost-effective units, I haven't a
clue. (several talking at once) Okay, now as far as working on those first two, if
we are going to work on those first two, is it your direction that we work on those
two now and go back to Planning and Zoning with it. Is that what I'm hearing
from a majority?
Elliott/I want to get what we're doing out of the way and then look at...
Lehman/Right...
Bailey/Could' you put it on your "to do" list?
Elliott/Yes!
Bailey/You know, take a little break after this, and then... (several talking at once,
laughter)
Franklin/Is that.., okay, so it's put it on the pending list (can't understand; several talking
at once)
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Lehman/Do we have anything else for P&Z? Tonight?
Howard/I'll just talk to you about it later. I just had a comment about accessory housing
and affordable housing and universal design because we did have something in
where we had accessory living for elder or handicap accessible, and it wasn't
being ~;tsed. So that wasn't enough incentive, and now we're opening it up to
everyone. Those apartments can be for anyone. So it's just another thing to think
about, you know, it wasn't enough, what is enough - I don't know.
Champion/I don't know either.
Franklin/We can move on to Item J of the agenda.
Lehman/We would like to. Thank you, so much. (several talking at once, laughter)
j) VACATING A PORTION OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY IN AN ALLEY BLOCK
13, COUNTY SEAT, A PORTION OF SOUTH MADISON STREET AND A
PORTION OF DES MOINES STREET IN IOWA CITY COMPRISING
APPROXIMATELY 1.31 ACRES (VAC05-00007)
Franklin/Iten J is the public hearing and first consideration of an ordinance to vacate a
portioh of the right-of-way in the alley in block 13, county seat. This is in the
area that's essentially surrounded by, it is now, surrounded by University
property, and the University of Iowa wishes us to vacate the remaining portion of
Madison Street and a portion of Des Moines Street and ultimately convey it to
them.
Vanderhoef/For how much?
Franklin/The conveyance, Mitch is working on the conveyance, and I don't know where
that is.
Dilkes/I think the understanding has been, as we have understood it, that it will be for, it
won't be for a fee.
Franklin/Okay. That's a Council decision.
Vanderhoef/Why not?
Franklin/With the University...
Atkins/Was there any discussion about doing a little swapping for a potential jail site?
Franklin/Uh, no, no, there was not. ! mean, usually the conveyance part of it doesn't get
discussed at Planning and Zoning.
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Atkins/Well?when you...you're going to have your hearing tomorrow so you can think
about it.
Franklin/Okay, we'll just hold the final consideration on this until we've had a chance to
talk about this conveyance a little bit more.
Vanderhoef/Have the public hearing and defer the first consideration?
Lehman/You can have first...
Franklin/You can go to first and second consideration. You will...it will still be an alley,
or street. You just don't want to do the final consideration, which ultimately
vacates it. Then what you've got is City-owned property that is not open for
public access. But you will still own it. You will own it until it's conveyed.
Elliott/Is the~: any question here, other than whether or not there is, I don't want to
say...x'll say something...is there some compensation for this?
Franklin/That is the only question is to...
Elliott/There's no downside to this.
Franklin/To the vacation?
Elliott/Okay, uh-huh.
Franklin/No, I don't think so. There's no other property owners around here that are
going to care about using it for public access. So as far as vacation goes, I don't
think there's any issues. The only issue is if, when you convey it to the
University, you wish compensation or some other form of...valuable
consideration, like a swap. Okay?
k) APPROVING THE VOLUNTARY ANNEXATION OF APPROXIMATELY
51.9 ACRES LOCATED ON AMERICAN LEGION ROAD (ANN05-00002)
l) CONDITIONALLY REZONING APPROXIMATELY 51.9 ACRES FROM
JOHNSON COUNTY RESIDENTIAL (R) TO LOW DENSITY SINGLE-
FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS, FOR THE .
PROPERTY LOCATED ON AMERICAN LEGION ROAD (REZ05-00018)
Item K is public hearing and resolution. This has been deferred. It was the annexation
of Fairview Golf Course. We are still working through the Conditional Zoning
Agreement. It is possible that we will have the agreement signed tomorrow. If
we do, we can just go forward with the annexation and the rezoning, which is
Item L. If we don't, I'll request that you defer this again, continue the public
hearing and defer. Okay?
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Lehman/Okay.
Franklin/Wai.: there a question, Dee?
Vanderhoef/Both of the ....
Franklin/Yeah, both the annexation and the zoning because we don't want to annex it
until we know we can zone it appropriately.
m) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF
CARDINAL RIDGE PART ONE, IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SUB05-00018)
(DEFERRED FROM 10/4)
Item M is the final plat of Cardinal Ridge Part One. This is the very first part of Cardinal
Ridge as it comes off of Kennedy Parkway. The legal papers and construction
drawings have been approved so this is ready to go. Okay?
n) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF
CARDINAL RIDGE- PART TWO AND THREE, IOWA CITY, IOWA (SUB05-
00022)
Item N is a resolution approving the final plat of Cardinal Ridge Part Two and Three,
which is the shaded area that's shown. Part Three is going to be broken out as a
separate resolution and we are going to ask you to defer Part Three, but proceed
with the final plat of Part Two.
O'Donnell/Are you going to separate these?
Franklin/We're going to separate Two and Three, and the reason is, in Three, in the area
that is abutting old Camp Cardinal Road, Joe Holland being the vigilant (laughter)
being the digilant attorney that he is, realized that part of Camp Cardinal Road is
in Coralville, and so we need to work that out. It's nothing insurmountable, it's
just...
Lehman/So we defer Part Two and pass Part Three.
Franklin/No, you defer Part Three and pass Part Two: Okay?
Lehman/Got it.
Franklin/Part Two is right after Part One.
Vanderhoef/Okay, just while you're on that Part Three, will that necessitate some sort of
upgrade then to the old Camp Cardinal Road?
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Franklin/Well, this will because to get to these drives it has to be improved to City
standards to get access here, which is the rub. Probably what we'll do is put
together a 28E agreement with Coralville for old Camp Cardinal Road, agreement
on improvement and maintenance of it over time, and at the same time we might
just as well do Kennedy Parkway over here because we need the same thing there.
So, it may take a little bit to get that together. Hopefully not a year.
Vanderhoef/Well, what we had questions about from the Walnut Ridge group was not to
open, not to do those until that was opened up...
Franklin/I understand, but we resolved that through the Conditional Zoning Agreement.
This...'.'this improvement to Camp Cardinal Road will be only for this stretch.
Their Obligation is up to their property line, and then the rest of Camp Cardinal
Road is where you go, down off the end of the Earth.
Lehman/Right.
Elliott/That's going north towards Coralville? That's the mountain we climb, yes, okay.
o) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF
WINDSOR RIDGE PART 21, IOWA CITY, IOWA (SUB05-00006)
Franklin/Item O is the final plat of Windsor Ridge Part Twenty-One - this is ready to go
also. Well, anyway, this is the two lots at Court and Taft is zoned RM-12.
p) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF
VILLAGE GREEN PART XXIII, IOWA CITY, IOWA (SUB05-00024)
q) CONSID ~gR A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF
VILLAGE GREEN PART XXIV, IOWA CITY, IOWA (SUB05-00025)
Franklin/Item P is the final plat of Village Green Part Twenty-Three and Q is Village
Green Part Twenty-Four, and both of those we would request.., deferral. To
November 1 - yeah, the part, back up a minute, the Part Three deferral, Ernie, on
Cardinal Ridge, that would be indefinitely.
Lehman/All right.
Franklin/On P and Q, we would have deferral to November 1st, and we need to have a
letter from the applicant requesting that deferral because we're at the 60-day limit.
If they do not submit that deferral request, your only option is to deny.
Lehman/Ohhhh, well, then P and Q would be denied.
Franklin/No, We'll get it by tomorrow. There's no reason they .... (several talking at
once).
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Agenda Items
Lehman/Okay. (several talking at once) Okay, agenda items.
ITEM 14. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PARKS AND
RECREATION DEPARTMENT'S MEMORIAL DONATION
POLICY.
Bailey/Number 14, I have a question about this the memorial donation, the Parks and
Rec, memorial donation policy.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Bailey/Oh you have one too? Okay. Do you want to go first?
Vanderhoef/No.
Bailey/Okay, so what does that mean for this angel?
Dilkes/Well, that was a question I had for you. The last...when the angel was brought
up, the Council indicated their desire to have a policy and I think that was one
thing I recommended in the opinion I did on the angel but there was no...but it's
unclear as to whether you want to take the angel through this policy, or the
angel...you're fine with the angel. So we need to know that. If you're fine with
the angel, well, no - let's put it this way. If you want to review the angel in a
more formal way, I'll put a resolution on the next agenda and you can talk about
the angel specifically then. If you're.., if four of you can tell me right now that
yeah, you're okay with the angel and you wanted the policy for future things, then
we'll f~ast go ahead with the angel.
Bailey/I would like to more formally discuss the angel since it's an unusual park
amenity.
Dilkes/Yeah, I just need to know what four of you want to do.
Lehman/I have no issue with the angel.
Vanderhoef/I'm not pleased with the location chosen by Parks and Rec, and I wondered
if we had had any future correspondence from Parks and Rec?
Dilkes/On the location?
Vanderhoef/Uh-huh.
Dilkes/Not ti at I'm aware of.
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Lehman/I think the issue though is the angel itself, not the location.
Vanderhoef/Well, but it's already been recommended, and...
Dilkes/...oh you could. I mean, you could say you're okay with the angel but you want
it in a different location.
Bailey/So, if eqe did have a formal discussion, location could come into play? Okay.
Vanderhoef/Okay, I would like a discussion, but also on...under the process...
Dilkes/Okay, can we resolve the angel question first?
Vanderhoef/Okay.
Dilkes/Are there four of you who want to have a formal review of the angel?
Lehman/Two, three, four.
Dilkes/Okay.
Lehman/Five, Mike even, you angel you. (laughter)
Vanderhoef/~hen my second question, under the process, the statement is, "A decision
by the Parks and Recreation Commission may be reviewed by Council within 60
days." And so on and so forth, but then we get down to the bottom sentence on
that page, "The memorial shall not be installed until the City Council approves the
memorial."
Dilkes/The City Council waives its right to review the memorial, or the 60-day period
expires, whichever is earlier.
Vanderhoef/But, the memorial shall not be installed until the City Council approves the
memorial.
Dilkes/No, there's three...it can't be installed until...it's approved, the Council waives
its right to approve, or the 60-day period expires. So in other words, you get the
notice that they want to put in such and so sculpture, and you say fine. Then they
can in:itall it. You get the notice they want to put in the sculpture and you say,
'We don't want to review it. Go ahead.' They can put it in. If you don't do any
of that, they have to wait for the 60 days and give you your time to initiate a
review if you want to.
Vanderhoef/So if we don't want it at all...
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Lehman/Just say so. (several talking at once)
Elliott/But if we don't say anything within 60 days, it happens. Okay.
Bailey/And that's when we're approving their minutes, right?
Dilkes/Well the notification period starts when you accept their minutes with their
decision.
Vanderhoef/So there won't be a regular resolution by Council to accept or reject?
Dilkes/Right2 The way this works is that Council has to initiate a review. If Council
wants to review everything, then this policy needs to be changed.
Vanderhoef/I would just as soon have it come through as a resolution regularly, and vote
it up or down.
Elliott/No.
Lehman/No.
Dilkes/Well, that's...and I think the way some of this in my conversations with Terry,
there's a number of things that have been done that probably would fit within this,
that would fit within this review provision that Council has not in the past
reviewed, and there was some thought that maybe they wouldn't. The angel is,
you krow, for obvious reasons a different kind of animal, and I think not all
sculpt ires, not all non-park amenities are going to be that way. So that's how this
policy came up; that's how it was drafted this way. That's why it was drafted.
Wilburn/I like it because it gives...it gives them room to, I mean, they have a policy
function. It gives them room to do their policy function and it won't bog us
down. However, if we see something that's of concern, we can bring it up, or if
we hear from the public, it's something...because it's on public property which, if
there's something that (can't hear) for the Council, we've got room to act. So it
won't bog us down either, or load up our agenda.
Vanderhoef/What I'm not clear about is whether the public will know about it until after
it happens. Yeah, I will, but that's beside the point. Okay, and then the art object
or things that get referred back to the public art, are those, pardon me?
Franklin/That all goes through the Council. You made a determination when you
createi the public art program that no piece of art would be placed in a public
place xn Iowa City without Council approval.
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Vanderhoef/Okay, but plaques, are those...well, I can remember a discussion that we
had once while I was on Parks and Rec, people who wanted to do a memorial tree'
and they wanted a plaque with grandma's name on it and...
Franklin/Ok~:y, but that's not public art though.
Vanderhoef/Well, but are plaques just in general public art? (several talking at once)
Franklin/What general plaques? I mean...I'm sorry...
Vanderhoef/No, plaques in general. (several talking at once)
Franklin/No, it's not public art. We have plaques on public art that say what the name of
it is and who the artist is, but if you put a plaque up somewhere, like what, Dee?
Vanderhoef/Well, they want markers, whether it's stuck in the ground...
Franklin/Those wouldn't be...we wouldn't consider that public art, and it's not paid for
with public art funds. It doesn't go through the Public Art Committee.
Bailey/The p aque signs and engraving may be requested by the donor but are subjected
to the approval at the time of such donation is approved. So if the plaque goes
with the donation, Parks and Rec takes care of it.
Dilkes/But if we're talking about a tree, it's going to be a decision by the...I think the
plaque would go along with whatever thing they were "plaque-ing." (laughter)
Vanderhoef/Personally I don't think we should have those kinds of plaques.
O'Donnell/I just heard Eleanor say "plaque-ing." (laughter and several talking at once)
Vanderhoef/That's fine. That's fine. On individual plantings maybe is...
Elliott/I think we just make our preferences known to the Commission and they move
forward.
Bailey/Because if we see, I guess, in the minutes that there's going to be a "plaque-ing,"
(laughter) we can call for the review, right?
O'Donnell/Stop using that legal garbage. (laughter) I'll never forget that word.
Lehman/Are there any other agenda items? Worthy of review? Oh, good. Go ahead.
ITEM 9. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 4, ENTITLED,
"ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES," CHAPTER 5, ENTITLED,
"PROHIBITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS," SECTION 4,
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ENTITLED, "REGULATION OF PERSONS UNDER LEGAL
AGE" TO PROVIDE THAT SECOND AND SUBSEQUENT
OFFENSE VIOLATIONS MAY BE BASED ON A PRIOR
CONVICTION UNDER EITHER THE CITY ORDINANCE OR
STATE LAW. (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Schreiber/Ite!n 9, I guess it's kind of a legal question. I guess somebody (can't
understand) under the age of 18, does that...is that removed from their record by
the time they're 18 because it seems to me, you know, somebody gets something
in high school and they come into college, like maybe they could start with a
clean slate and like in their hometown if they get something, and that doesn't
(can't hear).
Dilkes/No, I think it would be considered a first. I mean, it wouldn't be excluded from
the counting. It would not be. I don't think it is under state law, and our local
ordinance just mirrors the state law. What this, the issue that has come up is
because of the wording in the state code provision, which we kind of mimicked,
the argument can be made that if you were cited with the state charge the first
time and the second time you were cited with a city charge, it would still be a first
offense on the city charge because the first, the real first one, was a state charge
instead of a city charge. It's the same town, same officers, I mean, it's just how it
was c! arged, and so we didn't think there should be any difference. In other
words, if two people have two PAULA's the same distance apart, it shouldn't
make any difference whether the officer charged it as a state charge or a city
charge.
Elliott/So, that would be different state or local charges, or a PAULA in any other
location in Iowa?
Dilkes/No, we just did it...
Elliott/In other words, a previous PAULA conviction need not be in Johnson County for
violation.
Dilkes/Yes, yeah.
Elliott/So, let's say, I'm 18, I get a PAULA in Washington, Iowa. I get one up here - -,that's he second one. Okay.
Vanderhoef/But it doesn't apply then to the out of state kids.
Dilkes/No, we limited...
ITEM 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A YOUTH
ADVISORY COMMSION FOR THE CITY OF IOWA CITY,
IOWA.
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Lehman/Regenia?
Bailey/On Item 15 this Youth Advisory Commission, I was...oh, I was hoping we could
perhaps move this up tomorrow night. I know that there may be young people to
speak to this.
Lehman/Oh, i~hat may be a good idea.
Elliott/Yes.
Bailey/Is everybody in agreement that...okay.
Vanderhoef/Ahead of Zoning?
Lehman/We'll do it right after the public discussion. If you'd like to ask at that point,
Regenia, to move it, we'll do it at that point. (several talking at once)
ITEM 10. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THE
DEVELOPMENT OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN THE CITY OF
IOWA CITY AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN A
LETTER OF SUPPORT TO FULFILL THE THRESHOLD
· REQUIREMENTS OF THE LOW-INCOME HOUSING TAX
.' CREDIT APPLICATION.
Elliott/Ernie, 10 - that is the Burns' project that's out by the County home? Okay.
Lehman/Any other agenda items? Coming meeting schedule...
O'Donnell/Well, I don't know really what there is to talk about.
ITEM 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK
TO ATTEST A CONTRACT WITH TODD HACKETT
CONSTRUCTION COMPANY FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
DUPLEX HOME UNDER THE AFFORDABLE DREAM HOME
OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM.
Lehman/Just a second, we have... (several talking at once) We have bids on a duplex, is
it not, :that were...Item 11, which estimate was $220,000. The bid is actually
$288,000. If we have any questions, Doug is here. Doug, I got a question. Why
is it (laughter)
Boothroy/Several things, um, the excavation costs are higher than expected. What I
didn't know at the time we did the plans that the fill in that area is suspect, and so
the contractor put in for complete excavation of the foundation. So, in other
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words, I've got it set up for slab on grade, but on the topside, Longfellow Place,
instead of 4-foot walls, we may end up putting in 8-foot walls and filling it with
sand, which adds about $10,000 to the price of the unit. Utilities to the site are
more expensive than I realized. (several talking and laughing) They have to
come across the bulb of the cul-de-sac and so it's going to be about $5,000 to get
the sewer to the lot. Katrina has raised the cost of OSB and lumber. I think the
contractor figured about 12%, and then of course there are some features that
we've:put on the house that make it run a little bit more, not significant. It's
mostly these other things, but we provide a refrigerator and we provide some
other things in the property you don't typically get with a spec house.
O'Donnell/Are we going to need $70,000 more though?
Boothroy/Well, I figured that at...I underestimated it and so I don't think that's a fair
way...I mean, according to the estimate, that's $60,000 difference, but...
O'Donnell/$68,000.
Boothroy/$68,000 difference, but that was figured at about $85 a square foot and I really
should have figured it at something higher than that, so...we can make it
affordable and that's the recommendation.
O'Donnell/Do you not think that we (can't hear) other bid?
v
Boothroy/We won't get another bid. I don't believe we'll get another bid. I've tried, I
contracted at least one other contractor, in fact, I contacted both of, two
contractors to bid because nobody had showed interest. Part of the reason for the
lack of interest on this project is under Iowa law it requires the contractor to be
bonded, which means most small contractors can't bid on the project. Only the
larger contractors, like McComas-Lacina, Frantz Construction, some of these. In
the past, those people have not shown any interest once contacted. One other
Iowa City contractor was contacted. He picked up bid materials but chose not to
bid on it because he didn't want to go through Davis Bacon. So, I worked with
Todd Hackett Construction of Muscatine. He did the ten-unit apartment building.
He's an excellent builder and I think he would give the best price.
O'Donnell/I would just really like to see this done locally.
Boothroy/We.!l, I'd like to see it done locally too. That's why I contacted a local
contra~:tor, but he chose not to bid it.
Vanderhoef/Do you think at this point in time that we'd be smarter to rebid in the
spring?
Boothroy/I don't know if it would make much difference in the price. I can't answer
that. I don't know that...with the problems, in terms of materials, I don't expect
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them to go down. They haven't even started using materials in the south yet to
rebuild, and the prices are already going higher, so I don't expect to see much
change in material cost between now and next spring, except that they may be
higher, and the other thing, there may be a shortage. I know that some contractors
in town have bought extra material just becaUse they expect going into the spring
they may not be able to get OSB and other kinds of materials because they're all
being used down south for hurricane repair. So I think it comes down to whether
or not we can make the project affordable, and you know, we can make this
afford'~ble.
Elliott/Obviously I don't read the journal - the trade journals - but everything I read in
the newspapers, things are coming in over bid all around. That's...
Boothroy/...and I think it's going to get worse. Yeah.
Elliott/...everywhere, and they don't know for sure if it's al Katrina, but it certainly
didn't help.
Lehman/But how can we make it affordable when it's 30% higher than we figured it was
going to be?
Boothroy/Pardon me?
Lehman/How, yeah.
Boothroy/The way that we'll make this affordable is much like what we did on B Street,
we'll take a third mortgage back on the land. On B Street, if you'll recall what we
did, is the value of the land was a, was the...let me go back. The first mortgage
was with the bank, okay. The second mortgage was with the Housing Authority,
which is paid back at a low interest rate after a period of time and the third
mortgage on B Street was for the land, which was held to only be due upon sale or
resale of the property.
Lehman/City held that?
Boothroy/City held that, and so that's how we'll make that affordable. And the land in
this case was purchased in part through the use of CDBG Funds.
Vanderhoef/Okay, but then this truly cuts down on our possibilities for any other units,
certairly when we use an additional $68,000.
Boothroy/Well, I don't, as I said, Dee, the...I made a mistake when I estimated it. The
estimate should have been at least $130,000 per unit because we've got 1,242 in
each side, and I was under the impression when I was looking at this that we
would be able to save a significant amount of money by doing slab on grade.
What I found in doing this, because of the soil conditions and stuff like that, that
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that savings wasn't going to be there like I had anticipated, plus I didn't anticipate
the material costs going up. The, so it's really a difference...the last house we
built or that I built was B Street, and that came in at a little over $100 a square
foot, about $105 a square foot. We're at $115 a square foot, and I think that can
be explained by the differences that I explained tonight.
Vanderhoef/So we're getting a basement instead of a slab?
Boothroy/On B Street?
Vanderhoef/i,lo, here.
Boothroy/No, here we're getting the slab. Did I say that?
Lehman/No, you said you were going to excavate, fill it, and slab.
Boothroy/There's more excavating, plus you got to haul the dirt off. Now, if in fact that
doesn't happen, then the cost will go down accordingly because if in fact he
doesn't have to haul the dirt off and we can get by with a 4-foot wall, then the
price of the property will be reduced - he won't charge for what he's not going to
do.
Lehman/But if we have to dig it out, why wouldn't we put a basement under it?
Vanderhoef/Yeah!
Boothroy/Well, because it's still not going to save you quite the same amount of money
because with the footings and the wall, you're now putting in a floor system. So
you're filling it up with sand and you're putting, you're capping with concrete,
but we're not sure that there's going...that it's cheaper to do a basement than it is
to...
Lehman/No, it may not be cheaper, but that basement would be very inexpensive...
Boothroy/Well, it would add cost to it, and that's not, that was not part of the plans and
specification, so at that point, I think we'd probably have to rebid it if we in fact
put a basement in there.
Lehman/Did you...
Vanderhoef/But if you've got 8-foot walls.
Boothroy/We don't. My point is that we're not.., in his bidding, he took in a worse case
scenario for himself because he didn't want to be caught on the construction site
with a situation. In order to do it correctly, he needed to adjust for the soil
conditions, and so when I asked him why the certain things came in as high as
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they did, he said, 'Well, the sewer contractor said this is the condition of a lot of
the soil out there. It's lousy fill. Therefore, I wanted to cover myself so I didn't
get burned on the project,' and that's the way I did it. We won't know until we
dig, frankly...
Elliott/What's the process...
Boothroy/...until we get the dirt out.
Elliott/What's the process?
Boothroy/Wi~at do you mean the process?
Elliott/I mean, we have rent to own.
Boothroy/This will be homeownership.
Elliott/This is...sale. In other words, it's a starter home.
Boothroy/Right.
Elliott/So that's why I say we need to keep an eye on this to see if in fact something at
this price is in fact affordable, can people afford it. That will be the bottom line.
Boothroy/Well, I think that is the bottom line because as land gets more expensive, and
we know material and labor keep going up, each house that we've done has been
more ,fpensive every time we've done it, and there may come a point in time that
either the subsidies get higher, such as we're talking about here, or we do less
new housing construction for homeownership. (several talking at once) Yeah,
you're getting two units; it's 144,000 per unit, and...
Vanderhoef/Even with the third?
Boothroy/Pardon me?
Vanderhoef/It's costing us 144,000, but the sale price will be less than $144,000, if we
hold the land?
Lehman/That doesn't include the land.
Boothroy/That does not include the land. It's 144,000. The land is about 15,000.
15,000 or 16,000.
Vanderhoef/So the 15,000 is not even figured in to this 144,000.
Boothroy/Right, right.
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Lehman/$159,000 is still pretty, that's about starter price. You're not going to find
anything any lower than that.
Vanderhoef/I'd like to see a figure on what the difference would be to put that basement
in as you go through...
Boothroy/And I don't know whether we'd...at this point...I don't know whether we'd
have to rebid that or not. It would be more...I've got to believe that by adding the
wood floor and doing some other work to make that a basement that we're going
to add cost. Because right now what we would be doing is filling it with sand,
obvio?sly. There will be...
Vanderhoef/Well, hauling dirt away and sand in, versus we are already putting in 8-foot
walls.
Boothroy/I've asked Todd to look at that as a possible option, but I won't have that
information by tomorrow night.
Lehman/You know, I think it's worth looking at. Because you're doubling your space
for very little more money. You don't have to haul the sand in.
Boothroy/That's why I asked him to take a look at it, but at this point...
Vanderhoef/Can we just defer this one time to get a little more information?
Boothroy/I don't know, can you defer it? Can they defer it?
Dilkes/Oh yeah, they can defer it. I think she's asking about the scheduling, whether it
will be a problem with the building and the...
Boothroy/Well, we would have started the first week of November, but if it's deferred,
we'll...
Lehman/I don't have a problem with moving forward with it. If you can negotiate, I
don't know if you can or not.
Dilkes/Well, I think we can...we'd have to look at whether we could do it by change
order, and typically we look at what the change is compared to the cost of the
entire project.
Boothroy/If the cost was less or the same as, would it ....
Lehman/Wel it would cost more - I'm sure it would cost more.
Vanderhoef/But, how much?
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Dilkes/I mean we're not going to do a change order on a, for $100,000 on a $288,000
project. We might do a change order for $200,000 addition to a $288,000 project.
Boothroy/So I guess the question is whether you want to...how do you want to handle it?
Lehman/I have no problem moving forward, but I would really like -- if that basement
could be done, if it was 6 or 8 or 10 or $12,000, you've doubled the amount of
space in that home for very little money.
Boothroy/Oh, I agree. I mean, I think the preference was based on all along, there... I
don't think there's any question about that.
Dilkes/I... I t. tink you can go forward tomorrow with it, and then given what it sounds
like we're talking about in terms of cost, and given that we didn't have any other
bidders, you probably can do it by change order, and then Doug can look at that
after you approve the...
Lehman/Thank you, sir.
Vanderhoef/That would be my request, too.
Boothroy/Well, we have...we have five lots there so we'll see what the next bid after
this one holds. It'll be another year from now so maybe things will settle down.
Vanderhoef/And we'll have the same conditions for soil there.
Boothroy/We don't know.
Vanderhoef/But after this first one, we'll have a pretty good idea what the others will be.
Boothroy/It's all fill so it's probably .... mixed bag.
Vanderhoef/Uh-huh, so we may be putting in basements all along.
Boothroy/Well, we can put a basement only on one side. The other side is in the flood
plain, so it will be slab. So only half of the building...well, you know. (several
talking at once) Well, it's a tandem duplex, it's back-to-back, and so the lower
unit is raised one foot above the flood plain elevation, but you can't put a
basement on that side, next to the creek. It just can't be done.
Vanderhoef/So you dig out one side and dump it on the other side.
Council Upcomin~ Meetin~ Schedule
Lehman/Schedule...Marian7
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October 17, 2009 City Council Work Session Page 64
Karr/Schedule, there was just a few things we needed to clear up tonight if we could get
some direction, and I'm looking at my memo of October 12th, it's in your packet.
First of all, the changed meeting date for the League meeting that Dee announced
the other evening has been changed form November 9th to November 22nd. IS
there going to be a quorum there so I need to post it as a work session...I
need... (several talking at once) This was the State League meeting that Dee
mentioned, the League meeting with area legislators on property tax legislation,
was originally set for November 9th, has been rescheduled by the State for
November 22nd, Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Do you know if you all plan to
attend, or...will you let me know -just let me know. (several talking at once) It's
at the Library.
.t
Vanderhoef/l~t's going to be televised.
Karr/7 to 9.
Bailey/You should probably give us a deadline for when you want to know.
Kart/That would be why I put it in the packet Thursday to know today.
Bailey/So you really wanted to know.
Karr/I really did. Tomorrow night? Can we check?
Vanderhoef/I'll be there.
Karr/Wednesday, November 16th, we've got 1 to 3 P.M. for the Joint Communication
Cente:, the Geo-Comm radio system upgrade. We wanted to invite the County.
It's been set up so that's a go.
Vanderhoef/I want to be there. (several talking at once)
Karr/In discussing with the area legislators, you had set a time for Saturday, December
3rd, as a possible time to meet with area legislators before going back to their
session. I've heard from at least one, if not two, they would like an option to a
Saturday date, and suggested maybe Monday afternoon, maybe 4:30 to 6 on the
28th, and then I could send out and give a preference to either, I could give them a
choice of either the 28th or December 3rd?
Bailey/And I have the 3rd in the afternoon because I couldn't meet in the morning.
Karr/Okay, and that may make a difference to a number of them.
Bailey/Becat se I have it scheduled here in the afternoon. So...
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,.
Kan'/Okay, so it'd be...I can change December 3rd then to the afternoon. Is there any
discussion, can We offer the 28th in the late afternoon as another option, or do you
have another suggestion? I had suggested November 28th, 4:30 to 6.
Champion/That's all right.
Bailey/That's good for me.
Vanderhoef/I think it's okay, but I can't remember.
Elliott/I know Monday, I have to look at the University schedule too on those things.
Karr/Okay, do you want to let me know because I'd like to get it out as soon as we can
because their schedules are filling up too, so...then the confirmation of, we
tentatl Cely set a goal-setting with the 2005-2006 City Council on the next
evenirlg, Tuesday, the 29th. If we could confirm to that for a time, and also an
interest in an outside facilitator, we need to proceed with that.
Champion/Are we still discussing the zoning?
Bailey/I'm confused, I thought we would do the outside facilitator thing in January.
Karr/That was the goal setting. We could do that. We haven't set up any time for that.
We could put that on. (several talking at once) So we'll just...
Wilburn/Some time in January with the outside facilitator (TAPE ENDS)
Bailey/...came on, that would be good.
Karr/Okay, 1:. ~t we usually have though, let's rephrase it that if it isn't a goal-setting we
usuall) have a transition time for the old and the new, as far as procedures,
policies, we have a general overview. We've had that the last four years. Is there
no interest to do that this year? (several talking at once) Yeah, yeah, it was after
the election, it was in November.
Wilburn/Was that helpful for you?
Elliott/I don't remember it.
Bailey/I remember it, I thought it was helpful because Eleanor went over open meetings.
Karr/And we also set up time like for goal setting, we identified when we were going to
start meeting, budgets, we identified when we were going to start our first
meetings in January.
Bailey/I thini that's a great idea. I found it very useful.
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Elliott/I'm sure I did too. (laughter) When are we doing priorities, budget priorities?
(several talking at once) No, no, no, no, we did not do priorities. We talked about
items to be included in the budget. We did not talk about priorities.
Champion/Yeah we did.
Bailey/I thought that's what we did.
Elliott/No.
Champion/Yeah.
Vanderhoef/We listed a whole lot of wants and wishes.
.i
Elliott/Nobm ~y ever asked me whether this was more important than that. We talked
about things...we talked about things that we were interested in.
Champion/We did it by consensus. We didn't ask you directly.
Bailey/Well, I thought we did a little bit of that once we got the budget.
Elliott/My recollection is we just listed those things in which we were interested. We
did not set priorities.
Vanderhoef/I agree with you, Bob.
Bailey/Well, won't we do that when we put the budget in front of us?
Vanderhoef/Uh-huh.
Elliott/Well, ~ think it would help the City Manager if he had an idea what our priorities
are.
Bailey/I think the budget is already in process, right?
Atkins/It's in process, yeah.
Champion/And when would you plan on, we would do that?
Elliott/Whenever we can. If the City Manager now thinks he'd rather just go ahead with
the budget now and we discuss it after it's been put together, I just thought it
would be helpful for him to have that kind of consensus. (several talking at once)
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 67
Champion/I thought when we talked about all those budget issues, I think we kind of
made it clear which ones we preferred. I guess we didn't vote on it, or talk (can't
hear) but he certainly knows issues we were interested in, don't' you?
Atkins/Yes, ma'am.
Elliott/I was interested in everything that went up there. That doesn't mean they all had
my priorities.
Champion/V~ ~ know that. (several talking and laugher)
Elliott/While we're on meetings, the next time we set a time for a meeting, if we're not
going to be sure when it is, put down TBA will you? Because I set in motion a
number of things that had to be changed because the meeting tonight was set for
5:00.
Champion/Yes, I wasn't nuts!
Elliott/Yes, I had to contact someone to fill in for me at a designated time and then I find
out it isn't at 5:00.
Bailey/But it says 6:30 here. I know we originally...
Elliott/Well, the stuff we received last time.
O'Donnell/I'-~)e got this sheet right here, so you're still not...it said 6:30, October 17th.
Lehman/But the first, you got it on Thursday.
Elliott/Yeah, so, if we're not sure of it, don't put the time down.
Lehman/At the time I think, Bob, we were fairly sure of it, but...
Bailey/Are we, did you get all the dates you needed, Marian? Did you get all the dates?
Dilkes/I think you should always assume that until you get your final agenda, they're all
to be announced. Because when you get your final agenda on Thursday, that's the
only time when that's a formal time.
Elliott/There ~tre things that are planned that you can't change with just three days notice.
Period:
Champion/I agree with you. The other thing is, are we going to set a time for this
November 7th meeting (can't hear)?
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October 17, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 68
Karr/On that note, did you happen to read the last paragraph of the scheduling memo, if
Council chooses to wait until November 7th to discuss the changes, the text will
not be ready for first reading on November 15th?
Champion/I see.
Karr/So I'm just calling attention to that as you're looking at your schedule.
Champion/So we need to cross that off?.
Karr/No, no, that's not what I...what I'm saying is...
Lehman/We need to have our work done before then, is what you're saying. (several
talking at once) If some of us leave, are we going to miss anything? (several
taking at once)
Karr/31st is your next work...(several taking at once) Are we adjourned? (TAPE
ENDS)
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