HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-07-30 Transcription July 30, 2001 Special Work Session Page 1
July 30, 2001 Special Work Session 6:00 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Wilburn, Pfab, Kanner (VanderhoefAbsent)
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Schoon, Shaeffer, Howard, Treeblood,
Wonick
TAPES: 01-69 SIDE TWO; 01-72 BOTH SIDES; 01-73 BOTH SDES
Lehman/I'd like to thank the Planning & Zoning Commission for meeting with us and
we're going to take that up almost immediately but prior to that we have an
addition for the consent calendar tomorrow night.
Karr/Duds 'n' Suds sir, would you like to. Your all set. We have a request for an
addition, a Class B beer permit.
Charles Cody Mason / City Council, thank you, Mayor, Charles Cody Mason Fm buying
the existing Duds 'n' Suds on 5 Sturgis Comer in iowa City, and I need your
approval for Class B beer permit.
Lehman/And that's all in order?
Mason/Yes.
Lehman/lt's just a matter of adding it to the calendar so we can vote on it tomorrow
night.
Mason/Exactly.
Karr/Yes it's all in order.
Lehman/Okay, consider it added, that's probably the easiest thing you've ever done.
Mason/Yep, thank you sir.
O'Donnell/Probably the easiest thing we've ever done.
Joint Meetin~ ~vith Plannin~ & Zonin~ Commission
Planning & Zoning Commission: Bovbjerg, Hansen, Koppes, Chiat, Ehrhardt, Anciaux
Lehman/Well yea, you okay too. Okay we're going to be dealing with the issue of the
Planning & Zoning Commission, I talked to Ann earlier today and what I'd like to
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do is for Ann to briefly give us position of the Planning & Zoning Commission, if
other commissioners want to add to that that's perfectly fine, if Council Members
have questions that's perfectly fine, I'd like to close the hearing tomorrow night
on this so go ahead Ann.
Ann Bovbjerg/Thank you, as you know this ordinance came out of a particular site of the
old library downtown and there are always concerns of the Commission looking at
land use when it's site which triggers an ordinance when the ordinance speaks to
more than the site I mean other buildings than this one and other areas where a
particular zone might be. And I think your information and ours have been
looking at other buildings and this is the only CB-10 zone but the, my summary of
the majority vote and I would like you people to add later if I've been too skimpy
is that the change from CB-10 as is done now would disturb the way downtown is
right now which is concentration of commercial on the ground floor and residents
above and other builders have worked with that and just allowing people to have
residents is might preclude there being creative about the same space. And they
were also concerned about the precedent being set for allowing residents on the
first floor. The two people that were in the minority felt that this was relatively
rare and these would be exceptions and there would not be great, not be an
appreciable disturbance to the current restrictions against residents on the first
floor. Have I been? Okay anything you people want to add?
Lehman/My feeling from the Council is that there were some Council folks that were
concerned that the restrictions were not tight enough that we might allow uses on
residential uses on the first floor where they were not otherwise appropriate. The
original ordinance as we received it from you indicated that it would go to the
Board of Adjustment and those decisions would be made by them. Are there
questions from the Council folks for P & Z?
Champion/Well didn't we add that sentence though that all commercial space in historic
buildings and (can't hear) had to remain commercial so that like (can't hear) the
historic building? And if the people who owned the building decide to put an
apartment down there that would be precluded by adding that sentence to the
ordinance to try to address some of those fears that Planning & Zoning had about
what will happen to the downtown lower level spaces. I do personally think that
this is an unusual circumstance and I think we, I'm sorry, we have to make it
economically feasible for the person who's going to develop this building to
maintain the historic aspect of the building and still be able to make a profit so I
do feel that it is a valid reason to go against Planning & Zoning's decision
although I understand your reasons and I think your reasons are correct but [ think
this is a special exception.
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Kanner/Does it, the people in the majority feel better about the proposed new, the, people
feel better about the amendment that's proposed by Planning & Zoning that voted
it down?
Champion/The alternative language that we have here?
Kanner/Yea that addresses the five people that address your concerns about the urban
fabric and other concerns.
Ehrhardt/Yes, one of the problems that I had was that it seemed like, well one was it
wasn't, seems like it's real emphasis on commercial, shopping on the retail, you
know these criteria you know talked about the front facade and I guess I, when 1
asked questions at during our hearing, why couldn't office be in those spaces?
Why does it have to, we're talking about retail about this you 'kno~v being right up
front by the sidewalk and 1 don't know why those buildings couldn't be used for
office, why does it have to be and once it's you know residential it will remain
residential and it's not convened into commercial so that was one concern I had
which isn't you know it's tighter but it's not it's still not addressed here.
Champion/Right.
Bovbjerg/Did anyone else see commercial as only store? Because a lot of the first floor
non residential is offices downtown, and I was thinking of any kind of (can't
hear).
Ehrbardt/Right but like office doesn't have to have.
O'DonnelI/Retail.
Ehrhardt/Front ~vindows and you kno~v walk right in, maybe I don't, you guys all know
about do~vntown businesses but it seems like an office doesn't have to have that
and the criteria that you've set here is it's son of aimed at a retail front store.
Champion/Oh right.
Karin Franklin/I think the criteria that are included in the language were intended to try
to describe those kind of commercial buildings that we have downtown, not
necessarily Pam to address the retailer or office aspect of it that it could be either,
but I think I understand what your saying is that in any of these buildings even if
they don't have these characteristics that you could office on that ground floor. Is
that correct? That you don't have to go to residential to make it economically
feasible?
Ehrhardt/I guess I haven't been convinced that office wouldn't work there just as well.
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Lehman/But office would come under commercial would it not?
Franklin/Oh yes, yes.
Ehrhardt/Yes, right, yes.
Lehman/I mean it would include office.
Ehrhardt/Right but my point is that these criteria are aimed at retail shopping rather than
the office commercial.
Franklin/Well the criteria are aimed at looking at the buildings that exist in the
downtown, and what they are, how they are configured and they are configured
such that they have at grade entrances or close to at grade entrances that they're
built right up to the property line and many of them have these front display
windows, that's how they're configured now. The language is to get at the
concern that it seemed that many of the Commissioners had that there would be a
radical change in the street level usage of property and that what this language
would do would be to preclude that change happening so long as the buildings had
these characteristics whether they were used for office or retail.
Ehrhardt/So it's limiting the number of people.
Franklin/It's limiting very much the number of buildings in which this would apply, in
fact the overhead which I hope you can see the distinction, the darker buildings
that I'm pointing to here are the ones that would not have the characteristics that
would be neccssary to define them as commercial and would be able to qualify for
the special exception for residential. All of these other ones meet three or more of
these characteristics such, so that they could not get a special exception and be
converted to residential which is what we thought was the concern of the
Commission that this would take off and be something common in downtown. In
tact as this is written, these buildings that are dark are the ones that could
conceivably if the Board of Adjustments so deemed could convert to residential.
Kanner/And then they have to, those seven buildings owners if they're made landmark
buildings they have to prove that they can put commercial in there, they have to
make their case to the Board of Adjustments.
Franklin/They have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Board that the site limits the
ability to accommodate commercial use on the ground floor, yea, they don't have
to prove it but they have to convince the Board.
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Kanned Convince them, and again to confirm commercial does include office by our
definition.
Franklin/Yes, yes.
Anciaux/One of the things the Planning & Zoning Commission brought up is that there is
an exemption for residential on the ground level of all these buildings if it is
senior citizens housing and I think that was one of the things if they wanted to go
with a residential area in lower building, that was built in already for them to do.
Franklin/One of the characteristics of elderly housing in the downtown is that it is
required to have parking, other residential is not, so you would be required to have
one parking space for every four units which may limit some of the properties and
I don't know down to what extent they are limited, some properties clearly could
provide parking.
Anciaux/Because that would be as close to Chauncey Swan parking ramp as the
Ecumenical Towers wouldn't it?
Franklin/To Chauncey Swan yea. No I'm saying that the zoning requirement is that there
is parking on site for elderly housing at a rate of one space per four units.
Bovbj erg/Karin what are the parking requirements for general residents downtown?
Franklin/None, nor li3r commercial, only for hotels and elderly housing and I couldn't
tell you exactly why.
Chiat/Ecumenical's parking is up the immediate site for (can't hear).
Franklin/Ecumenical's parking now is in Tower Place, it was on a lot across the alley
from Ecumenical.
Chiat/That they owned.
Franklin/That they owned yea.
Chiat/My, I mean, as a, when we make an ordinance we don't make it building (can't
hear) there are a number of buildings that fit into this but this ordinance in my
opinion well written, carefully crafted to allow for the Carnegie Library to be
adaptable reused. My opinion is that the downtown, (can't hear) and it's certainly
I guess it could expand but if we give it away, I mean if we want to allow for this
is going to be student housing you know, pretty clear, if we want to give away the
downtown, we lower the bar as to what we'll allow. If this building can't or any
building can't be adaptably reused according to our trying to maintain the CB-10
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that this scale of downtown and neatness of downtown then we can you know
allow for this type of thing and you know over time give this away. On a specific
challenge type of relationship with the possibilities in a building, if we allow for
the bar to be lowered it will be, I mean you know if for me it becomes a slippery
slope, well I can't do this because and have all these reasons. You know unique
character comes from challenges and that's how I see this building as a possibility
for a challenge and you know I support historic preservation and I think the Clark
people have done a great job and the choice is the future of downtown and if we
want to preserve it the diversity of the architecture and all that stuff then they have
to find a way to reuse this building that' s you 'know it's supply demand, cost
effective etc. and if it can't be done then my personal commitment is a bigger
commitment to downtown and not necessarily to reuse the (can't hear) structure.
You know I personally have to draw the line there and that's my opinion, and you
'know I think the issue is the bigger issue of the future of downtown if we want to
hold the line of what we have left of it because we've given a lot of it away and
torn a lot of stuff down that hind site would have, you know we wouldn't do
again. That our vision has to be (can't hear) you know for the future or not 10
years but for the bigger term.
O'Donnell/Are you quite concerned Ben that this gradual erosion a great deal
downtown?
Chiat/Yea exactly, and the fact that you know if, when I looked at the original ordinance
you know what I was seeing is in light, in interpretation of it, is that if you can
demonstrate that you don't have the vision and your not creative enough to find a
use for this or a way to use it then we'll let you do something dift~rent. This is a
little bit more tightened than that but still it lowers the bar to being challenged to
create something unique and maybe commercial you ~know, impulse direct access
street level will work here, but the creative place where people are not destination
oriented but they are destination oriented will find it and they will maintain the
scale and diversity of downtown.
Lehman/Karin the only buildings that would qualify to change those uses from other than
commercial are the ones that are identified in black is that correct?
Franklin/That's correct.
Lehman/Do you have your pointer with you? Or would you identify those buildings for
example the one you have your pointer on is which building.
Franklin/I have my pointer. That's the Camegie Library, the Masonic Temple, Trinity
Episcopal Church, the old Elks buildings, the Press Citizen building which is now
Senior Housing and office, the Senior Center, the old mortuary, the house next
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door which is no~v an arts business in the, and the VogeI house which is slated for
demolition.
Lehman/But those are the only properties.
Franklin/Yes.
Lehman/In the central business district that would be able to have a use other than
commercial and then only if the Board of Adjustment ~vould allow it is that
correct?
Frankl in/That' s right.
Champion/Well the old mortuary's already got commercial space or what we're calling
~ve use commercial we're going office or retaiI.
Lehman/Well so does the old Elks Club so neither of those would qualify.
Franklin/Right because you would have use, you would have to demonstrate that
basically you can't use it for.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/You cannot practically use it for commercial.
Lehman/So realistically there are very very few of those seven if the old mortuary' s got
commercial.
Champion/Commercial.
Lehman/Yea, I mean I don't 'know which buildings realistically could even make
application for changing.
Franklin/ Well all of these that are black could, well anybody could make application, but
in terms of the ones that are not going to meet at least three of the criteria these
are the ones that are most susceptible, to put it that way for conversion to
residential and then it becomes the subject of the debate before the Board of
Adjustment and their judgment.
Lehman/Okay.
Bovbjerg/Karin with the new working especially under D3d, one, two, three, four if any
building has any three or any up to three of those they could not even apply, is that
right since they are, the Found floor is of a commercial nature according to these?
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Franklin/If they have three or more of those characteristics they can not apply for the
residential, I mean they would be recommended for denial flat out, people can
apply for anything.
Bovbjerg/Also on the original wording and on several of the various wordings there was
a clause of that '~use will not be in conflict with the comprehensive plan" is that
going to be inserted or will that be inserted into this language or is that a given?
Franklin/It's a given that the Board of Adjustment and all of the applications that they
review and the criteria that they must look at, that is one of the things they look at
for everything is it's consistent with the comprehensive plan.
Bovbjerg/So ifit's not.
Franklin/It was redundant.
Bovbjerg/So I was going to say if it's not in here it's an overriding consideration.
Franklin/Right, there was one thing that Pam pointed out in D3d in that language
"dwellings are not permitted on the ground floor and above it says on or below or
yea, on or below the ground floor". I don't know why that was not, Karen was
there any, I would like to introduce Karen Howard to the Council too because
Karen is on the Urban Planning Staff; she's relatively new to the staff and has
done a lot of work on this and also does a lot of work on the district plans so
you'll see more of her. The or below is not in that clause, is there any particular
reason7
Karen Howard/No.
Champion/You need to come to the microphone.
Howard/No that may be an oversight I think we can just put that in there.
Franklin/Just put that in there, okay. it will be consistent then with what's under number
3.
Chan~pion/Now I don't know if this is the proper place to bring this up but the only
reason I thought I might object to allowing this is besides what Planning & Zoning
has already talked about is what kind of facade that building is going to have but l
haven't seen that yet but frankly since it is across the street from the library, from
the current library what kind of facade this building is going to have, this sounds
real ly terrible, but I'm really worried about students if they had to much to drink
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hanging on the first floor and scaring families off (can't hear) library l mean that,
because I have a lot of kids I know how they act.
Franklin/The design of the building on the Carnegie Library site will be reviewed by the
Historic Preservation Commission, that particular issue that you are raising is
probably not one that necessarily the Historic Preservation Commission would be
looking at because it's not a historic characteristic but it is certainly something
that we are aware of and have talked with the developer about and that is the
issue of having balconies on the street facades.
Lehman/Irvin.
Pt~ab/I'm really uncomfortable going down this road, I, the more I think about this and
the more, I just, I'm not in favor of this ordinance, I'm not in favor of allowing the
change, I think there's so Iittle ground floor space left in downtown area do you
want to build, we're building a population, a huge population base around it if
we're going to maintain that I think we have to save those places for commercial
use. Now also it brings up another thing because there's a lot of commercial use
right around that and if I'm not mistaken isn't the highest traffic generated
generally the public library street traffic, pedestrian traffic.
Lehman/It's big.
Pfab/So you know it looks to me that this should not be an impossible thing to make this
thing work, I just find it very difficult to think that we should go into change
things when I have difficulty seeing that the need really is there.
Lehman/Okay but tbe purpose of this meeting is do we have any other questions for the
Pla~ming & Zoning Commission or if you guys have any other comments for us.
Jerry Hansen/I have a few comments yea.
Lehman/Please go ahead.
Hansen/I guess when you look at the Comprehensive Plan and what it calls for in newer
development districts that we're going to put around town it calls for business to
have apartments above, we're going to have a small neighborhood commercial
area. I think you have to decide what you want between commercial and
apartments, these landmark buildings in my opinion were never built to be
apartment building, they were built to be monuments to government and power,
and that' s ~vhy the big ti~cades, the doors outside of them, they showed who was
in charge. I think we have to think that we're talking about making the entire
downtown a historic district and why would we do that? Is it to get people to
come downto~vn? And if we want them to come do~vntown are they going to
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come down to look at old apartment buildings or are they going to come down to
shop in old buildings? I think we need to figure out what we want to do with that
one. I think we spend a lot of money on the downtown area to make it attractive
and viable to get commercial business down there and generate enough people to
keep them alive and I just don't see chopping off one whole part of downtown is
doing that any good. I like the elderly housing, that's already there, you know if
the commercial isn't there whose going to come to look at these old buildings and
why would even consider a historic district? You know there's a lot of emotion in
this one I think because so many people ~vant to help in the decision of this thing
have grown up with that building, the Camegie Library particular, and Ijust think
that yes (can't hear) it's a big building to save but I'm very not unwilling to open
the door to allowing this kind of thing, Ijust think that once that door is opened
your going to get an awful lot more requests because somebody just could not
come up ~vith a solution to fill their needs so there will be more (can't hear) like
this.
Lehman/Other comments.
Kanner/I had a question for Karin, from an urban planning point of view are there any
theories about how many people in an area drive (can't hear) assumption and
therefore business establishment? So if we have an empty building let' s say versus
one that's filled with people in the Carnegie building of 100 people let's say, does
that, does urban planning theory say that that will maybe create 2 store fronts
because of the demand down there of people living in this area in sort of a
concentrated area? Do you follow (can't hear)?
Franklin/I think I do, there is a certain number ofrooftops is what in the commercial
trades they call it that you need to have to make a business viable. I don't think
that' s an issue in the downtown because of the critical mass that you have with the
number ofpeople that are downtown working as well as living. The viability of
commercial in any one spot is temporal in that it depends upon the overall
economy at that time, probably now is a very tough time to endeavor to try to
create much more either commercial office or commercial retail space,
particularly retail because of the abundance of square footage of retail that we
have in the larger market area right now. Will that change over time? Probably.
But you don't know' exactly when that ~vill be. I don't know ifthat's answered
your question at all, there's nothing that says absolutely that a commercial space is
going to work in this location because you've got X number of people around.
Kanner/Or also I'm getting at if you don't have commercial in that, you have more
people that are living in there therefore perhaps you'd have other spaces that
develop commercial because of that.
Franklin/You certainly could.
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Kanner/Because of the demand for more people down there, and we seem to have, at
night time we have a demand for basic alcohol services and food services that
perhaps if you had more people living there even on the first floor you would have
other types of business that might arise downtown.
Franklin/It might, I guess the question would be would the number of people that you
would have on the ground floor be that critical amount that would take you over
the top and encourage those new business to be there and 1 can't answer that.
Kanner/Right the first floor might be inconsequential but if we look at maybe an empty
building versus if they can't make a go of it and they decide just to leave it empty
for some reason maybe then the question is a full building versus no building and
that's a pretty significant.
Franklin/I think the issue for this particular project become for the Carnegie Library
becomes whether there is an economic viability to this building with it being
designated as landmark, with it being preserved, whether it is preserved and to
what degree it is preserved. The building could be reused for the purposes that are
allowed exclusively under the zoning without restoration of the building in any
way. Without the restoration that's certainly being contemplated by the Clark's
and then if it can not be economically used the challenge is we might possibly
have to landmark designation but you know that's all speculative.
Kanner/What was the last, you said the challenges?
Franklin/The challenges that we might have to landmark designation, that by landmark
designation is taken all viable use of the building, i mean that's one of the things
within the spectrum of possibility.
O'Donnell/You know this all kind of started because we have a great old building here,
there were many people that thought in the name of progress you don't tear down
everything in the past. And I'm wondering and it is kind of an emotional thing
with me because I read my first book in that library, probably my last book.
Champion/25.
O'Donnell/(can't hear). No this is a great old building and this was an attempt to try and
save it from a wrecking ball. And is there any way that we can tighten up this
language to make sure it would be more difficult for somebody else to do this?
Because I would like to see this building preserved, however I totally agrce with
you, you don't want to give up downto~vn to residential, you want to maintain it as
retail.
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Chiat/It's a very tough issue, and you know my position is that my bigger commitment is
to the downtown than to this building, downtown was there before this building,
downtown will be there after this building and you 'know one of the risks I think
that we have is that if we say no that we have to be okay with the possibility that
that building come down. Now that building could come down 10 story building
or higher could go up, the first floor could be commercial and there could be a lot
more people in that area to support everything else. But you know it's pretty, it's
a difficult issue but it's downtown versus that building and what is our bigger
commitment? And yes the economy goes up and down the retail is less available
and more available and things change and 30 years when things are very different
than they are now I don't think we're going to see student housing residential
being converted to commercial but I'm speculating there too.
Wilburn/I think we all are, and it's a matter of degree and opinion as to whether or not
you feel this is going to have that large of an affect on downtown and I guess I see
it as a pretty restrictive number of buildings and (can't hear) one of the buildings
the Trinity Church I just don't see that kind of thing happening there so.
Kanner/Well we've got another church that's going to be leaving.
Wilburn/That's why it's a matter of opinion and you know.
Champion/But it's not a landmark.
Lehman/Well the purpose of this meeting is to interaction between the Planning &
Zoning Commission and the Council so I mean if we have further questions for
the Planning & Zoning Commission members or they for us let's do that, if not
we'll discuss this further tomorrow night at our public hearing.
Ehrhardt/Karin could the Presbyterian, the Press Citizen be converted from elderly to
residential first floor not with if this passed? No parking would be required.
Franklin/It could be considered for it because it does not three or more of the criteria so it
is not a building that was that is perceived as a store front commercial building
like many of the other buildings in the downtown so it could be considered for it.
Kanner/Which place?
Franklin/The Press Citizen building which is now elderly housing and an office on the
first floor.
O'Donnell/lt's next door to the Elks (can't hear).
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Bovbjerg/My question is the Council going to be looking at this alternative language
tomorrow night and how since this isn't what we looked at how does that set up?
How you pass it and if your vote were different from ours and how would that be
and I don't know these have to be answered tonight but those are just my thoughts
of after tonight then what?
O'Donnell/Would anybody~s vote be different with this language?
Bovbjerg/Do you want to send it back to us and find out? I mean that conceivably is one
of the roots.
Franklin/It is, I think it would, it might, if you know at this point, I'm seeing some heads
shaking no, but if you know at this point it would be helpful because if it's sent
back just basically to have another no Council might just as well consider
whichever version they ~vant to consider, if the Commission' s view is no difl~rent
regardless.
Lehman/Well I guess that's a good question, would the Commission's action be different
in view, with those modifications.
Bovbjerg/And also legally if this is what, if this is what we voted on and this is what
Council is voting on how does that square? I mean I. We do not.
Franklin/Since you are an advisory body to the City Council, you have had the
consultation with the Council because of differences of opinion I would think that
the Council now having heard your views on the whole issue could make a
determination to keep the original ordinance as to what was given to them amend
it as it is in their packets for tonight or vote it down. Without it going back to the
Planning & Zoning Commission.
Bovbjerg/If their vote on whichever group perceived as different from ours, does that set
up?
Lehman/That's why we're meeting tonight and after this meeting, I think Karin's right,
we can vote on it as originally given to us. We can as a Council offer those
amendments, adopt those amendments, pass it or reject the entire thing. But I
think as far as our obligation to the Planning & Zoning Commission we are
satisfying that obligation to here.
Karmcr/Yea I think I got a sense that it doesn't sound like people will change their votes
with even with the new amendment so I 'know where Planning & Zoning is.
Ehrhardt/One thing I think is a good addition is that you know your addition to, that first
on D3 you put in building or buildings and what I understand from what Karin is
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July 30, 2001 Special Work Session Page 14
saying is you know you ~vould, like you'd like at the Carnegie Library and
whether it meets those criteria, and then they have to look separately, not with the
criteria but look separately at the new addition whether it can be, not this criteria
but whether it can be a viable commercial building or not.
Franklin/Right.
Ehrhardt/So you've separated, and the other wording is I understood it if you k now they
could look at the Carnegie Library and both could go through as long as the
Carnegie Library ~vould, so at least there's two looking both of them separately so
I think that's.
Franklin/Both buildings have to be evaluated for the limitations the sight put on it for
commercial usage.
Ehrhardt/Just because the Carnegie Library maybe can be have residential in it that
maybe a new addition may not be allowed to have residential in it as I understand
at this point.
Franklin/That's conceivable within this yes.
Ehrhardt/Just to add but we never discussed this G3 so I don't 'know, I would the staff
more questions about that so I don't know about that, that's a, we may have other
questions about that.
Champion/I'm not looking, what is G37
Franklin/That is the special provisions which allows modifications to the zoning
ordinance for certain dimensional requirements and any other requirements of the
zoning ordinance that may inhibit the reuse of the landmark building, or landmark
property.
Ehrhardt/That's added (can't hear).
Franklin/Yea it's of the essence of the old G3e which if your not looking at this it doesn't
mean a thing to you.
Lehman/Right.
Bovbjerg/No to me the 3D gets at some of our concerns whether it satisfies everybody I
don't kno~v but I think that speaks to what we were concerned about.
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Lehman/Karin 1 would suggest that tomorrow night we have hard copies of this for the
Council, I suspect that those may be the subject of some discussion at the public
hearing.
Franklin/Got it.
Lehman/So if we refer to G3 or whatever at least they'll have copies of it. And thank
you for meeting with us.
Champion/Thank you.
O*Donnell/Thank you.
Bovbj erg/Thank you for letting us.
Lehman/Appreciate it.
Plannin~ & Zoninl/
Lehman/Okay Karin Planning & Zoning Items.
A. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR AUGUST 21 ON
AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 30.11 ACRES OF
PROPERTY FROM RURAL RESIDENTIAL, RR-1, TO SENSITIVE AREAS
OVERLAY - LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, OSA-5,
LOCATED AT THE WEST END OF BRISTOL DRiVE. (REZOI-00011)
Karin Franklin/Okay the first item is to set a public hearing for August 21 on an
ordinance to rezone approximately 30 acres of property from R-1 to Sensitive
Areas Overlay OSA-5. This is at the end of Bristol Drive, it's the Oakes
Development and we'll more on that next time before the public hearing.
B. AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE, SECTION 14-6E-8
CENTRAL BUSINESS ZONE, TO ALLOW DWELLINGS ON OR BELOW
THE GROUND FLOOR OF HISTORiC LANDMARK BUILDINGS BY
SPECIAL EXCEPTION.
C. PUBLIC HEARING ON A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE ANNEXATION OF
APPROXIMATELY 26.88 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED SOUTH AND
EAST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD AND ROCHESTER AVENUE, AND 6.22
ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED EAST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD AND
SOUTH OF LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD. (ANN99-00003)
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D. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 38.24
ACRES FROM LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-5, COUNTY
HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL, CH, COUNTY LOCAL COMMERCIAL, C 1
AND COUNTY MULTI-FAMILY, R3A TO COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL,
CC-2 (10.99 ACRES), MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-8 (21
ACRES), AND LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-5 (6.22 ACRES) FOR
PROPERTY LOCATED EAST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD AND SOUTH OF
ROCHESTER AVENUE AND LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD. (REZ99-
00017)
E. PUBLIC HEARING ON A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE ANNEXATION OF
APPROXIMATELY 95.2 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED NORTH OF
COURT STREET, SOUTH OF LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD, AND EAST
OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE/SCOTT PARK DRIVE, AND APPROXIMATELY
10 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED SOUTH OF LOWER WEST BRANCH
ROAD AND EAST OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE. (ANN01-00001 )
F. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 105.2
ACRES OF PROPERTY FROM, SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL, COUNTY RS,
TO LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-5 (45.08 ACRES) AND MEDIUM
DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-8 (60.13 ACRES), FOR PROPERTY
LOCATED NORTH OF COURT STREET, SOUTH OF LOWER WEST
BRANCH ROAD, AND EAST OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE. (REZ01-00004}
Franklin/item C, okay i'm going to talk about C, D, E and F all together but separately
also.
Karmer/This is the big annexation area.
Franklin/This is the annexation area yea. There's a total of 138.3 acres more or less, and
one thing I want to point out the slide that' s on the screen now is to illustrate to
you the context within which this annexation is being considered, these
annexations are being considered. This is the Lindeman Southgate Annexation,
this the Plum Grove Acres, this little blue thing here is the Iowa City Care Center
just for your information. The Frank property is here and the Hummingbird Lane
properties are along here. The context I want you to be aware of is where this is
within the cities long term growth plan. This line, this dotted line that runs along
here is what defines our growth area and one of the things we look at immediately
when we're looking at an annexation is if it's within our growth area and this
propcrty clearly is, the current city limits of Iowa City run down here and along
thcre and then we have Windsor Ridge which was annexed in 93 which is on the
other side of what we're considering here.
Kanner/And where's the little county island in Windsor Ridge?
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Franklin/There' s a piece of property right here which is on Taft Avenue which is still in
the County and there is a, the old farmstead for the Lindeman farm I believe it was
for one of the Lindeman farms fight here, and that is still in the county.
Lehman/Karin are the, in the darker portion of the Lindeman property there are two
white squares and then there' s another one, what are those?
Franklin/Yes, okay this is a homestead it's 3 acres, these properties that are still in the
county are not part of the annexation and then this property right here is the
Peterson's property which has been deleted from the annexation, the Peterson's
are the folks that you received a letter from in your packets. That property was
not integral given the fact that Lower West Branch Road comes along here to the
whole rationale behind us doing this annexation and including the Hummingbird
Lane properties which I'll get to in a second. This annexation which is shown in
larger, I have to kind of recall, is shown in a larger format here is consistent with
the northeast district plan in that it is contemplated for residential development in
this area and commercial development in this area. And in a little bit I'll show
you the northeast district plan slide. One of the other things we look at when we
look at annexation is whether there are capital projects that will be a consequence
of the mmexation. With this project this will be an impetuous to a capital project
as well as an enabler to a capital project that we have been wanting to do. That
project is a sewer which serves the iowa City Care Center, the lagoons ~vhich are
in this property, and the sewer would run along a drainage way that basically
comes down through the Lindeman Farm to~vard Scott Park. That sewer is called
the Scott Park Area Trunk Server, it's now unfunded, it's now on the unfunded list
for approximately $670,000. With this annexation we have been able to obtain
the easements for the sewer which is part of the cost through the blue property and
through the green property. We will still need to require an easement through the
Pacha property right in here. Also as the Southgate Lindeman property develops
which we anticipate will be from Court Street north that sewer will be installed by
the developers as they progress to the north with their development. There will be
a choice on the part of the Council probably as we discuss capital projects this
next Fall about whether you ~vant to accelerate installation of this sewer to get it
up to serve the care center which we anticipate an annexation application in a
month or so to get them offof those lagoons. And that's an issue that we've
talked about before but we'll talk about it again as we get into capital projects.
The other potential capital project is the improvement of Lower West Branch
Road, as development happens in this area as the city grows to the east we can
expect that there will be a need to upgrade Lower West Branch Road from Scott
out to Taft Avenue. With these annexations we have committed to the county that
we will take over maintenance of West Branch Road, what that means is instead
of calcium chloride on the road ~vhich is now basically a rock and it's had oil in
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parts of it, we will put chip seal down on the road and that is an approximate cost
of $27,000. However in the long run as property.
(END OF 01-69 SIDE TWO)
Franklin/What that means is concrete curb and gutters, storm sewer the whole works
what you usually get with a city street, sidewalk. We have with both the
Lindeman Southgate annexation and the Plum Grove annexation arranged with
the developers that they will pay a fair share of the cost of the improvement of this
road based upon their front foot along the road and a calculation that is their
proportionate share basically taking 50 percent of the cost out for community wide
traffic and then dividing that in half again for north and south side of the street
and calculating it on the acreage. There's also a stipulation in the zoning that the
or in the conditional zoning agreement that development of this northern portion
and development along Lower West Branch Road in the Plum Grove Acres
annexation can't occur until Lower West Branch Road is in the capital
improvements project and they have paid their share of the improvement fee. So
we're anticipating those capital projects and getting participation of the
developer's in them. Because we are including the Hummingbird Lane properties
in this annexation we have also requested of Plum Grove Acres that they dedicate
the right of way of Hummingbird which is now this part of it the paved portion is
in the city, this portion is now in the county, it was owned by Plum Grove Acres,
there is an easement over it to allow access to these properties. These property
owners are responsible for maintenance and snow removal on this piece. With the
annexation the city would take over ownership and maintenance on this portion of
Hummingbird Lane, the most immediate change would be chip seal of that surface
also, it would have snow removal by the city in the winter time. At some point it
would need to be improved to a city standard.
Cha~npion/Karin the lower half of that road is already a city standard isn't it?
Franklin/Yes it is.
Champion/Okay thanks.
Franklin/Okay I think at this point I'll just get into the properties which are annexed
because of the islands that are being created. First of all the Frank property which
is about 6 acres right here with the inclusion of Hummingbird Lane, the
dedication of it to the City and the annexation of it, it created an absolute island
around the Frm~k property, this you can not do under the state code and have the
armexation go forward so Plum Grove Acres is included in their application, Mr.
Frank's property as part of the overall annexation application. Mr. Frank is
amenable to that, not necessarily desirous of it but concedes to it so long as the
Hummingbird Lane properties are still part of it too, if they are eliminated for
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some reason he would also protest the armexation. The Hummingbird Lane
properties although not being an absolute island in that this part of Lower West
Branch Road and this Iot and the Pacha property across the street are still in the
county, they have become by the annexation of the Southgate Lindeman property
a what we're calling a service island, that is to serve this area by any of the service
providers mainly however emergency service providers puts these properties in a
rather precarious and confusing position in that if they were to stay in the county
they would be served by the West Branch Fire Department, they would be served
by the Sheriff's department, also the EMT would be from West Branch not from
the Iowa City Fire Department, that any improvements and maintenance of Lower
West Branch Road and of Hummingbird Land are basically in the city and will be
in the city and also the fact that in the future if these properties stay in the County
and there is an efti~rt to annex properties on the other side of Lower West Branch
Road which we don't anticipate in the short run but we're thinking future now it
would potentially preclude, it could preclude that annexation if that area were not
large enough on the other side of Lower West Branch Road. I think the overriding
reason to pursue annexation of these properties right now is because of the odd
boundary that it makes on the service island that it creates and the confusion that
results on exactly where these properties are, are they in the city or are they in the
county because they will be surrounded by the city on both sides.
Lehman/Karin do we own, if we do this annexation, do we own Lower West Branch
Road? Will that be city property?
Franklin/We will have, no, no it won't, we will have a dedication from the Southgate
Lindeman annexation to the center line. Remember in the county property own to
the center line there's an easement over the top. We will own to the center line of
Lower West Branch for that stretch, for that stretch the noah half along Plum
Grove Acres property and then all the way across at this little piece here on
Hummingbird Lane but the south half here we will need to acquire at some point
from these property owners and the south half here from Mr. Frank and then these
from the property owners in the county.
Lehman/How does the argument that you make for Hummingbird Lane differ from the
other three parcels that your showing?
Franklin/These three.
Lehman/I don't understand it because the same thing.
Franklin/Because these are smaller.
Lehman/But the same rationale is true when it comes to service by the sheriff department
or volunteer fire department or whatever.
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Franklin/This is all in the county.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/And these properties, you could conceivably make that argument but I don't
think it's a very strong one when you have all of this property still in the county in
terms of it being a service island because the county is still going to have to serve
these areas here. Yes it would be simpler if you could just say everything south
of Lower West Branch Road is in Iowa City.
Lehman/A lot simpler.
Franklin/But I don't think we could compel these here under state law and I don't think
the City Development Board would accept it. I think they wilI accept this under
the service island as well as the uniform boundaries provision of the state code.
These properties also in terms of the future, these are smaller properties for them
to be 20 percent which is what you need to bring them in involuntarily, they have
to be 20 percent of the larger annexed area, you will get that relatively easy with
these properties once something happens over here. Not necessarily if all of these
are left, if you've got all of these, this and these when you have your annexation to
the north of Lower West Branch Road you get to the point where you may be
stuck.
Lehman/And that is part of the reason I would assume for (can't hear).
Franklin/That is part of the reason, yes.
Lehman/Right and I understand that.
Franklin/ The more immediate reason though I think which makes more sense has got to
do with the servicing of these properties particularly when you get down into this
area here but I don't think it would make any sense to lop off these two and say
okay they stay in the county for a while.
Lehman/Okay.
Franklin/One of the things that is in the annexation resolutions before you to address
these properties and maybe make it a little bit easier on the property owners is a
tax transition. Which basically the state allows the city to transition the
imposition of city taxes over a five year period of certain percentage, and if you
adopt the resolutions as is and your vote is not tomorrow night it's the 21st what
that allows us to do is to transition the taxes on the Hummingbird Lane properties
and on the Frank property.
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Lehman/Do we know why? I'm sorry go ahead.
Wilbum/Do they get city services immediately or gradually as those?
Franklin/They get city service, I mean you can graduate the city services however the
mechanism or the mechanization you'd have to go through to do that I don't think
it would be worth it. They would get city services immediately except for sewer,
this sewer line has to be built and they would have to hook onto that sewer. We
have indicated to them that they would not be required to hook onto city sewer if
they want to keep a viable septic system going for 20 years, that also is to try to
make this less painful for them. Water, they could hook onto it as soon as their
annexed if they want to, they will not be required for 20 years also, refuse
collection we give them a year, they could have refuse collection right away but
presumably they have a contract that they have a year to go through that and then
they would start getting city refuse collection. In the letter from the county the
question was raised well they're going to be paying these taxes but they're not
going to get any services because they're not on city water or city sewer, those are
user fee as the council well knows, they're not paid for by taxes, they're paid for
by user fee, so the taxes go for all the other city services that one gets when you
live in the city as I pointed out in my memorandum, there' s the emergency
services, the parks, the street cleaning, the leaf pick up, using the library without
paying an extra fee or a higher fee that you do if your a county resident.
Lehman/Do you kmow the rationale between linking the Frank property and
Hummingbird Lane, do you know why Mr. Frank, I think that's it name?
Franklin/Lou, yea.
Lehman/Is, wants those two to be taken together, I have no idea.
Franklin/I think it's not so much he wants them to be taken together, he's just saying that
he will go peacefulIy. So long as these folks are still part of it too, but if they're
taken out for some reason he's probably not going to go as peacefully. Now the
circumstances are different in that this is an absolute island.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/If.
Lehman/He has to go if we do the rest of it.
Franklin/Yea, yea, right, right. And I mean this will go before the City Development
Board, there will be a hearing in Iowa City in front of the City Development
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Board because ofthese properties. So there's certainly lots ofopportunities for
people to make their wishes kno~vn but I think there's, I mean there' s a certain
logic and progression that's going on here, Iowa City is growing to the east, we
have a growth boundary, we've got a comprehensive plan, we've got a capital
improvement program, it is a slow but incremental growth of the community to
the east and this is part of it and the reason that provision is in the state code that
you can take that 20 percent is so that when there are smaller pieces like this it
does not hold that up.
Lehman/Tell me again why we're not doing those other three.
Champion/They're contiguous of county property.
Franklin/Because they are.
Lehman/But so is part of Hummingbird Lane.
Franklin/Yes but these can reasonably be left out and they will not preclude us from
annexing these properties in the north later on, however these might.
Lehman/Right, I understand.
Franklin/Okay.
Lehman/Okay.
Franklin/Zoning. Yes Steven.
Kanner/Does it automatically go to the City Development Board or does there have to be
a protest before it goes there?
Franklin/It automatically goes when you are taking in any property that's not coming
voluntarily.
Kanncr/So by definition not voluntarily means they protested.
Franklin/No it just means that they have not petitioned to be annexed.
Kanner/Okay they haven't done, they could just not do anything and that could be not
voluntarily.
Frankli~j Right, right.
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Kanner/And so when does that process end? When would they? They wouldn't have
voting rights for this November election?
Franklin/Oh no, no this is not going for an election. Oh wait I'm sorry.
Kanner/No when do they get to have voting rights because Iowa Citim~s? I assume the
process would probably take a few months if they have to City Board.
Framklin/They might, it might be done by November, yea, assuming that they register and
all that kind of thing. Haven't thought about that but yea.
Kanner/That's another kind of fish you've got is, you get to vote in this election.
Franklin/Yea if you consider that a benefit. Sorry I couldn't leave that out. Okay are we
ready to go to zoning?
Lehman/Yes.
Pfab/Political power.
Franklin/Okay the zoning that is proposed, this shows you the original zoning
applications which well at least in part, the original zoning application ~vas for
CC-2 for this entire area, no I'm sorry, I was getting the two mixed up, Plum
Grove CC-2 in the northern part, RS-8 in the southern part and pointing out here
this is the kind of general area that we're talking about in the annexation and
zoning for the Plum Grove Acres project if we can just focus on that one for the
moment. And this is the commercial center that was envisioned in the Northeast
District Plan and the idea there was that this would be bigger than a neighborhood
commercial and smaller than a big CC-2 area, a big community commercial, so
kind of something in between that was going to serve the neighborhood but also
was larger than a neighborhood commercial that was just focused on a smaller
area. This is the concept plan that has been submitted by the developers with the
commercial to the north of this road which provides for access to the east at some
time in the future. The Care Center is this facility right here, and basically this is
based on the concept that is articulated in the Northeast District Plan of having
your commercial buildings along the street fronts, you have an interior parking,
basically this has got angle parking on either side of these drives or streets that
come through here. It sho~vs a kind of a focal point here in the commercial center,
the possibility of a convenience store bank, I think, which I can't see because it's
so small, a grocery store in this location here. Then to the south of this east west
collector a street which would service this area, this is Sterling House which is
now called something else. The existing lagoons for the Care Center would be
gone, there is a wetland area here that is preserved and there's a buffer that is
shown on more detailed plans. This is a concept for duplex lots along one side of
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the street and then some more clustered housing in this other area. The underlying
zoning being RS-8, prior to development of that would need to come in for a
planned development. Now this is the area for the Southgate Lindeman
annexation, and the proposed zoning here is RS-8, this is basically the line that
defines a drainage area, it's ~vhere the sewer ~vould go through. To the east of
that is RS-8, to the west RS-5 abutting the RS-5 that has occurred already in the
city here along Scott Park Drive and then here's the Hummingbird Lane
property's here. So we have the single family residential backing up against
single family residential at the RS-5 density and a slightly higher density to the
east where it could be single family or duplex.
Kanner/We got a Ietter Karin from a concerned citizen, 1 don't know ifthat's the one you
mentioned before about.
Franklin/That' s another one.
Kanner/What?
Franklin/I think it's another one that your referring to.
Kanner/About how once they have that property zoned and own all of it then they lose,
that person would lose surroundings property owner status and so if Southgate
wanted to change zoning they wouldn't have to ~vorry too much about that 20
percent especially if they leave some of the edge the same but if they go inward
more.
Franklin/If there was to be a proposal for some higher density over here in which this
property would be more than 200 feet away.
Kanner/Yes.
Franklin/Okay, yes.
Kanner/So that' s a possibility of how that could work, the way it was described in the
letter.
Franklin/Yes it is in that there could be, it's not the intention at this point but there could
be a proposal that comes in for a higher density over here which would come
before the Planning & Zoning Commission, City Council. The notice is given to
within 600 feet so it probably still wouldn't, it could possibly still not hit the
Mitro's property that was who the letter was from. And they certainly would not
be in the calculation that ~vould trigger the extraordinary majority vote of the
Council. Obviously they would still have opportunity for public input but yes that
was a valid point.
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Champion/But would there be any legal way from preventing that?
Lehman/No.
Franklin/No, and
Lehman/Well except that the Council will still have to approve the rezoning.
Kanner/Yea.
Franklin/Yes.
Lehman/Council wouldn't have to do that.
Kanner/Just a simple majority instead of a possible super majority.
Lehman/Right.
Franklin/Right, I mean the, yea.
Lehman/If we didn't want to change it Ii'om RS-8 to a higher density Council could just
say no.
Franklin/Yea. I think that's all I've got to say unless you've got some questions.
Lehman/I suspect that we may have lots of questions tomorrow night.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/And we may have some questions that will need some answers to prior to our
next meeting.
Franklin/Okay.
Kanner/I had some questions for you Karin.
Franklin/Steven before you do that you aren't anticipating I was going to have this stuff
tomorrow night were you or were you to have it all?
Lehman/Well I hadn't thought about it I mean I think we're familiar with it.
Franklin/Do you ~vant us to be prepared for it?
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Lehman/Well obviously you can speak to questions that we may have I don't 'know that
it's necessary.
Franklin/Okay.
Lehman/Obviously the folks from the public will be well aware of this, if they wish to
speak to us.
Franklin/Yea, they probably have it ingrained in their head.
Champion/It might be nice to have that map up there the different colored areas.
Kanner/Yea.
Champion/That one.
Franklin/That one, okay, start Steven.
Kanner/We have language about annexation and without, it says area proposed for
annexation, development in the area proposed for annexation will fulfill an
identified need without imposing an unfair financial burden on the city. Now do
we do a cost benefit analysis saying, so you mentioned some figures we're putting
in $600,000 for the sewer, the road.
Franklin/Well it's unclear exactly ho~v much that sewer's going to be because that
$670,000 was anticipating some land acquisition which we won't have to do
because we're getting the easements and the developer's of Southgate will be
starting the sewer here. I don't know how much they're going to put in before,
you know they're going to bite a certain chunk and develop that so there's going
to be some money that we spend on the sewer.
Kanner/Okay but that wasn't my main point, my main point is there' s costs involved and
you learn in urban planning there's costs and then you get some back from
property tax and then you get the intangibles from whatever those development
intangibles are. But do we do a cost benefit analysis saying it's going to cost so
much for the road, for the server, it's going to cost so much for additional police
and fire and?
Franklin/No we don't.
Kanner/Okay, it seems to me we should have that kind of thing when we're talking about
annexation to see if it's going to cost $2 million dollars and we can anticipate
getting a $100,000 back a year from property taxes and figure out 20 years what
our pay back is and what we're paying out. That's, I would propose we get that
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kind of information before we vote on annexation as one vital piece of
information, and then certainly there's the other intangibles that are part of
annexation that we would want to consider of why ~ve do it or not do it. But from
what I've heard is you usually don't get your costs back to the city, you put out
more, and if you include costs for a new school that's going to have to go in there
and other county expenses perhaps or school expenses, I don't 'know about county
expenses but if you add up all the expenses often time they don't add up to what
you might bring in in terms of property tax at least.
Champion/Yea but the intangibles are always hard to put your finger on, does it bring in
more workers? Does it fill more jobs? That kind of thing, does it bring in right?
I mean 1 don't know how you ever assess those?
Kanner/Well that's where w-e as Council make the decision but to have the figures of
projected costs benefit analysis on the hard figures I think ~ve can do that, I would
assume that thaf s done in other places in the country that it's not an impossible
task to do, I've seen it in other places in a general sense.
Franklin/We did a fiscal impact analysis on Windsor Ridge and Sycamore Farms when
those annexation' s came in primarily because those were the largest annexation
~ve had done in this community in probably 20 years. It can be done, it's an art,
rather than a science, you can not say exactly what the incremental costs are of a
policeman, a fireman, I mean to kno~v that's the hardest part to attribute those
costs. It certainly is conceivable to figure out capital projects, to figure out some
guess at what the taxes are that are going to be generated, exactly when that's
going to happen that's a guess and so it is very much an art and not science. We
address the issue of this cost benefit or that whole provision that your referring to
in the staff reports in a much, in a generic sense in terms of looking at with each
annexation, what some of the benefits are, what some of the costs are. In the
Plum Grove one it points out the fact that in the the Northeast District Planning
process there was a desire by the people who were part of the workshop to have a
commercial area in northeast Iowa City that was more accessible. That this as it is
being zoned will provide that commercial service, that by proceeding with this we
will be able to take care of a public issue in terms of the lagoons of the care center
and that's a benefit that is there from this particular annexation but it will require
the construction of the sanitary sewer to do that. With the Southgate Lindeman
basically it's looking more at the housing sector of oar economy and the ability to
provide housing for the community as it grows and then looks at some of the costs
of Lower West Branch Road, it's one of the reasons that we did get into having
the devclopers contribute to that cost of improving Lower West Branch Road to
share some of those costs.
Kanner/What was Windsor Ridge? What was the other one, Windsor Ridge and what
else? You said you did a study.
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Franklin/You know it's been a while and I'd have to go back and look at those Steven to
see exactly what we did. David Schoon teaches Fiscal impact Analysis at the
University and he's the one that did it for us, so we'd have to go back and look at
those and I'm not going to put him on the spot right now to tell you exactly what
was in it.
Kanner/But maybe so at least that would give us an idea if we can get a summary
executive summary of that study perhaps.
Franklin/Yea.
Pthb/I have kind of a, as far as (can't hear) of annexation where does this fit in in the
large (can't hear)?
Franklind Well I refer to the Windsor Ridge and the Sycamore Farms, Windsor Ridge was
240 and Sycamore Farms was 420 and I can just remember those because they
kind of are the same numbers. This one is the total is 138 acres so it's smaller
than those, it's probably bigger than some of the little ones we've had like WB
development which is over on the west side near the interchange of218 and
Highway 1 was just a few acres.
Pfab/How many armexations in Iowa City were larger?
Franklin/Than this one? Well in recent history which I just consider since I've worked
here to be recent history, Windsor and Sycamore are the largest ones, Sycamore
Farms at 420 being the largest. But back in the 60's there were boocko acres that
were annexed at the west side.
Lehman/Write that down boocko.
Franklin/Yea that's a professional term, boocko.
Lehman/Two words. Well isn't there a certain value in, I realize that these annexations
of parcel are rather large and they certainly are not plats for all of those areas but
isn't it an easier planning tool when annexations are of a size such as this where
you can get an idea of what's going to at least at this point in time what the plan
even though economic conditions may change and plans may change it perhaps
gives us some inclination as to what folks are planning to do so I would think in
that regard the larger armexations have a certain value over piece meal smaller
ones.
Franklind Absolutely, because then when your platting them typically your looking at it at
least a concept for the whole place.
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Lehman/Right, right, and I think you probably, I would think from a planning standpoint
if an annexation of this size comes in as a single annexation it would not be
unreasonable to ask the developer when they start platting that to show how that is
a part of the larger piece because we in fact did take the larger piece all at the
same time.
Franklin/And one of the things I'll point out in the conditional zoning agreement there is
a provision that requires that the plats, the future development of this be
consistent with the Northeast District Plan and so you go back to that for a guide.
Now that doesn't mean it's going to follow those exact street alignments but that
the concepts that are in there are going to be embodied in whatever plat is
submitted.
Lehman/Okay.
Kanner/A couple more questions, did we get to the 20 percent protest votes? I saw there
were few protest letters for I think it was the Southgate.
Franklin/No.
Kanner/We got a couple though was that? Did I see a couple in there?
Franklin/Actually I'm not. I think there's no, in fact one.
Kanner/And then we had to redo it.
Franklin/Yea that one was never resubmitted, there was one that was a formal, well a
formaI protest. it was a protest and they may have filed it with the Clerk' s office I
don't know if they did or not. But that was on the original proposal and then you
had the letter from John Yapp saying that you need to refile and as far as I know
we have not received a refiling of that. And so we're not, we're not anywhere a
20 percent.
Kanner/And so people have until the public hearing is closed.
Franklin/Yea.
Kanner/Could be, unless ~ve continue it would be tomorro~v night?
Frm~klin/No~v I think so, we are still waiting for the signatures on the CZA which we
expect to have, the conditionaI zoning agreements which we expect to have
tomorro~v. If for some reason we don't get those ~ve'll need to continue the public
hearing until the 21 st.
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Kanner/And there' s no need for a lift station for the sewer or the water or the plan sewer
that ~vill go through there?
Franklin/No not at all.
Karmer/And then I am a little concerned and maybe this is something we can talk about
tomorrow sort of a heads up, maybe we need to make it stronger about, wording
about town square in the CC-2 up in the north, the north part, that's CC-2.
Lehman/That's the Plum Grove.
Kanner/Yea~ staff says it should provide I think it was staff, should provide an attractive
alternative to a typical strip mall arrangement, I'm worried that by the time it gets,
gets to platting and final development, the language might need to be tighter. To
make sure that we, things look really nice the way they have it up here and then
who knows what we might get down the road.
Franklin/This is covered in 3B of the CZA and so why don't you look at that and see if
that answers your concern. Basically what we're saying is that this concept plan is
what we're going with, that the CC-2 property shall development in general
conformance with the concept plan which means that it's got to look pretty much
like this, there could be variations of dimensions and exactly where the buildings
are. And shall be, any subdivision or site plan shall generally conform to this
concept plan and shall be designed to create a Main Street or Town Square style
commercial center. The commercial center shall be designed with a pedestrian
orientation incorporation such features as on street parking, parking lots behind
the buildings, minimal or no building setbacks from sidewalks and upper floor
residential uses. I don't know what ~ve would do to get that much tighter.
Kanner/Okay. Thanks.
Lehman/Okay ~ve'll do the public hearing and see what questions we get tomorrow night.
Okay Karin moving forward.
G. CONSIDER AN ORDNANCE CHANGING THE ZONING CODE BY
AMENDING THE PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY,
OPDH-8, PLAN FOR ARBOR HILL, AN 8.2 ACRE 17-UNIT RESIDENTIAL
DEVELOPMENT, LOCATED NORTH OF WASHINGTON STREET ON
ARBOR HILL CIRCLE. (REZ01-00006) (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/Moving forward, is that G? Yea. Item G is pass and adopt on Arbor Hill.
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H. CONSDER AN ORDNANCE CHANGiNG THE ZONiNG DESIGNATION FROM
GENERAL INDUSTRIAL (I-1 ) TO iNTENSiVE COMMERCIAL (CI-1 ) FOR
APPROXIMATELY 12.09 ACRES LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SDE OF
HIGHWAY 1 (REZ01-00002). (PASS AND ADOPT)
Franklin/H is the rezoning of the Ruppert property which we are going to defer once
more, we are still working through this access easement thing.
I. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROV1NG THE FiNAL PLAT OF WALNUT
RIDGE, PARTS 9 AND 10, A 20.67 ACRE, 12-LOT RESIDENTIAL
SUBDiViSiON LOCATED AT THE NORTH END OF KENNEDY
PARKWAY.
Franklin/I is the final plat on Walnut Ridge Part 9 and 10 and assuming we have the legal
papers all signed tomorrow this is a go. There are no legal issues with this one.
J. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROViNG THE FiNAL PLAT OF NORTH
AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT, A 57.13 ACRE, 17-LOT COMMERCIAL
SUBDIVISION WITH TWO OUTLOTS LOCATED WEST OF RIVERSIDE
DRIVE AND SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 1.
Franklin/Item J is the resolution approving the final plat of north airport development,
just bring to your attention that you need to consider Item 14 on your agenda, the
financing agreement prior to the plat resolution. so it's just, we're suggesting
Emie that you take that out of order go from l to Item 14 and then do J.
Lehman/So we'll take Item 14 in the agenda prior to doing Item J. AII right you guys can
remember that.
Champion/Yea, we'll remember it.
Kanner/Karin and just to reaffirm, we're mitigating the wetlands with 7 seven acres over
by the South Sycamore?
Franklin/Yep.
K. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROViNG THE FiNAL PLAT OF STONE
BRIDGE ESTATES PART ONE, A 4.93 ACRE, 16-LOT WITH ONE OUTLOT
RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH OF COURT STREET
AND WEST OF TAFT AVENUE.
Franklin/Item K is a resolution approving the final plat of Stone Bridge Estates, that is in
the Windsor Ridge area and this is also ready to go assuming the legal papers are
signed tomorrow.
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Al~enda Items
ITEM NO. 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN AGREEMENT
BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND THE NATIONAL SCULPTORS'
GUILD WITH AND THROUGH ITS ARTIST FOR THE LIBRARY PAD OF
THE DOWNTOWN PEDESTRIAN MALL AND AUTHORIZING THE
MAYOR TO EXECUTE AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE SAME.
Franklin/And then I have one thing that is another agenda item, the public art Ties That
Bind contract.
Lehman/Okay.
Kanner/That's a Bruce Springsteen song.
Franklin/Are you going to sing a few bars?
Kanner/No, no.
Franklin/This is the Ties That Bind for anybody who has forgotten. The contract that
you have in your packet was not signed, we got the signed contract back from
them an they made a change that we were not aware of, that this will be I of 20 as
opposed to 1 of 10, we get the first casting but then there's copies that will be out
there in the world. Is that a big deal for you or not?
Kanner/What number is this in the Agenda?
Karr/15, 15.
Pfab/All other parts of the contract are the same, they just double the amount of.
Franklin/Yea.
Pfab/And no consideration.
Franklin/Of copies.
Kanner/Is this the one with the also with the radius extending the boundaries, did we?
Franklin/Yes.
Kammr/I didn't get a chance to look at the contract, did we resolve that? They wanted.
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Franklin/Well to the satisfaction of the Public Art Committee in that this can be sold
within 100 miles, did I say that right? lt's got to be at least 100 miles from Iowa
City.
Kanner/So we wanted.
Franklin/We wanted 300, 300 is what you had on Jazz. The Public Art Committee felt
that what had gone into getting this particular sculpture and the public sentiment
about this particular sculpture was one of the stronger feelings expressed and that
they would live with the 100 miles, that's also a song.
PIhb/How large is that (can't hear) going to be again?
Franklin/This is 4 feet high, so about there.
(All laughing)
Wilburn/I don't think it's funny either Karin.
Franklin/Okay it's down here.
Lehn~an/Very demonstrative.
Franklin/So that's okay with you.
Champion/That's fine.
Lehman/lt's fine with me, okay anything else Karin. Okay folks we are going to take a
break before we do Agenda Items.
(BREAK)
ITEM NO. 14. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZiNG THE MAYOR TO SIGN
AND THE CiTY CLERK TO ATTEST THE AVIATION COMMERCE PARK
FiNANCING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CiTY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA
AND THE IOWA CITY AIRPORT COMMISSION OF IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Atkins/Commerce Park Financing Agreement, page two, the number referred to is $3.1
million dollars is the cost for development, that was estimated at the time, the
correct number is $2,448,748.40.
Kanner/Wait, wait, where are we at, what agenda item number?
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Atkins/Item 14 Steve, Aviation Commerce Park Financing Agreement, second page of
the agreement, near the top, it says $3.1 million, with the attachment that you have
in front of you that is as, it's real close so the annual, so the 20 year estimated cost
is $2.448 million dollars.
Champion/And that' s what you gave us tonight?
Atkins/Yes, and that will be attached to the agreement.
Dilkes/So you will see tomorrow some changes to paragraph number 5 deflecting that
and an earlier paragraph reflecting that new number. Exhibit A will also be
referred to as an example since the total project cost will have to be calculated
finally after they all come in.
Lehman/Steve that 2.448 million.
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/That is principle plus interest.
Atkins/Principle, Interest, Engineering, Planning, Legal, it's everything, so $1.6 million
dollar.
Lehman/Right, right. Principle is as computed on this handout is $ 1.6 million plus (can't
hear).
Atkins/$1.6 million dollars is what we had to spend to develop that park, then over a 20
year pay out that' s how I arrived at the $2.4 million.
Champion/Okay.
Lehman/Okay.
Dilkes/There's also no date for an initial payment in this agreement, Steve and I talked
today about doing July 1, 2002.
Lehman/With interest accruing from the date of the agreement?
Atkins/Yea that's fine.
Champion/Well the day they take the money.
Lehman/Well we've already put the money in. Okay. Other agenda items.
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ITEM NO. 17. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROV1NG A TEN-YEAR
DECLINING PERCENTAGE TAX INCREMENT FINANCING PROPERTY
TAX REBATE TO ASSIST SEABURY & SMITH WITH A NEW FACILITY IN
IOWA CITY.
ITEM NO. 18. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FIVE-YEAR ONE
HUNDRED PERCENT TAX INCREMENT FiNANCING PROPERTY TAX
REBATE TO ASSIST OWENS-BROCKWAY PLASTIC PRODUCTS, iNC.,
WITH A NEW MANUFACTURiNG FACILITY iN IOWA CITY.
Kanner/Tomorrow on, I want to find where it is the for the T1F's agreement, Item 18 and
17.
Lehman/Is that Northgate and Scott 67
Kanner/Yes.
Lehman/Those are coming up later on the agenda tonight.
Kmmer/Oh okay.
Lehman/Any other agenda items?
APPOINTMENTS
Lehman/Okay appointments, Housing Community Development.
O'Donnell/I would like to nominate Lori Bears.
Champion/I'll second.
Lehman/All right just a minute let me get this out here. Okay we have Loft Bears. Shall
we, let's just do, ~veI1 how do you want to do this?
O'Donnell/Go one at a time.
Lehman/All right are there four people who would support Loft?
O'Donnell/Yes.
Wilburn/Yes.
Lehman/Okay thafs unanimous, do ~ve have another nomination?
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Champion/April.
Lehman/April Gutting, are there four folks that will support that? We have five or six.
Do we have another one? We need one more.
Champion/John Deeth.
Kanner/John Deeth.
Champion/Deeth, I can't pronounce it.
Kanner/I think John would be good but I want to throw out Charlotte Walker because I
don't know if we have any senior citizens on the Housing Commission, I think it
would be good to have that prospective and she lives over in low income housing
and she's been active. She had a, her husband, she helped her husband in the
home building so she knows that side of the duties of Housing and Community
Development, and so I think John is qualified and I'd like to have all four on
there.
Pfab/Yes.
Kanner/But I think it is important to have that senior citizen perspective.
Lehman/The make up of that Commission according to the sheet here is 3 males and 3
females, is this prior to our making the appointments?
Kanner/Yea.
Lehman/And we have just two approved, or we will be approving two more females
which would make the mix then 5-3 of female over male, I realize that's not a
governing f~actor, Charlotte would then be the sixth female ~vith 3 males, is that a
factor?
Pfab/I think maybe there's another way, we started going down through, I think we ought
to find out first of all have, I think ~ve have a pool for all four I mean it's.
Lehman/We only are going to appoint three.
Pfab/Yea I know so I mean it's a great, we have a great selection here.
Lehman/No I'm ~vell aware of that but we have a nomination for John Deeth and we also
have one for Charlotte.
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Champion/I just have to raise another question here and I can't remember what our
policy decision was but according to my (can't hear) in front of me it said John
Deeth did not fill out a applicant, confidential page of the application.
Karr/That' s correct he chose not to.
Champion/Does anybody remember what our policy decision on that was?
Lehman/I don't know if we have a policy decision on that but Eleanor you may have to
help me with that, if they did not fill out the confidential portion of the application
and it turns out that the answer to some of those questions would have
disqualified them then they can be removed is that correct?
Dilkes/I'1l have to check that resolution, I 'know a misrepresentation on the application is
grounds for removal but I can't remember, do you Marian?
Karr/I don't.
Dilkes/I'll have to check it.
Kanner/What is the confidential part ask about?
Champion/Well we had a situation arose a couple years ago when we had a commission
member on the Human Rights Commission and I can't remember the exact details
but there were some problems with an assault charge, wasn*t it? So we decided
that we needed to 'know if people had been arrested and whether they should be on
a Commission bearing that information. Can we put this off until the end of the
meeting while?
Wilbum/That forms optional isn't it?
Champion/It is optional but.
Dilkes/You all I'm going to look at the paperwork that preceded that confidential page
and let you 'know so Marjan will see if she can pull it together and.
Lehman/Okay Iet's go to the next one for the time being which is the Human Rights
Commission.
(END OF 01-72 SIDE ONE)
Champion/I'm sorry I couldn't understand you.
Karmer/Who was that?
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O'Donnell/Joslyn.
Champion/Yes.
Lehman/I would, I know I seldom speak to nominations and I have met this person, I am
very impressed with this person and I believe that would be a very good addition
to this commission. With so many folks and we've got six people apply, and I
certainly would entertain other nominations but.
Wilburn/I would nominate Bobby Peffer I, just again like you said there's a big list to
choose from.
Lehman/There really is.
Wilburn/And I was just looking at some of the experiences he listed and what he might
bring with being a teacher on a story, the opt for the male female balance and then
just some cultural background thing so I'll throw that out there.
O'DonnelI/(can't hear).
Lehman/Any others?
Kanncr/We currently have three males.
Lehman/And five females fight.
Kanner/Five females, yea I think that is a positive, Bobby has a multiculturaI
background he mentioned in his application which is good to bring but Sue Joslyn
also has a lot of good work in human rights.
Lehman/Well let's take them one at time. How many would favor Sue Joslyn?
Pfab/I have no trouble with it.
Lehman/Sue has five of us, want to make it six?
Wilburn/Sure.
Lehman/All right that's, thank you. All right the Police Citizen's Review Board, we
have two vacancies, we have four applications.
(Can't hear).
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Champion/I think Patrick Hoe~, I can't pronounce people's names.
Pfab/Patrick you can do pretty good with right.
Lehman/I was going to say you did Patrick real well. Steve how do you pronounce his
last name?
Atkins/Hoeft.
Lehman/Hoeft.
O'Donnell/Since we know that 1'11 second it.
Kanner/Bill Hoe~, he's, so we're looking for a former police officer.
Champion/He is a former police officer.
Lehman/Well I don't know that we are looking for a former police officer. Wait a
minute who' s coming off, oh Paul Hoffey is coming off so we are and this person
would fill that qualification that's right.
Kanner/He seems like a good person and I think he would be objective although i do
have some concem of his closeness with the police officers. I think it would be
natural that he have some affinity and I don't know if thaf s a problem or not.
Karr/Mr. Mayor I'd like to just note that the appointment shall include one current or
former but that can be waived for good cause, that' s at the top of the application
form.
Kanner/So what do people think is that a big deal?
Lehman/Well I think it would be if there were only 3 or 4 members, there*s what 5
members of the commission?
Karr/Correct.
Pfab/And what is the make up before we start adding?
Lehman/Before we start there are three men.
Karr/Correct out of five.
Pfab/Okay.
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Lehman/Are there four people, it would take four.
Kanner/No two males and one female currently aren't there?
Lehman/Well before we make this appointment there are three males and no females. So
the appointments tonight will make up the other two.
Pfab/1 think they're all, they're great group of applicant here.
Lehman/Are there four people who support Patrick?
O'Donnell/Yes.
Lehman/Okay Patrick is the first now we need a second.
Pfab/1 would certainly support Bev is it?
Lehman/Pardon.
Pfab/Bev is.
Lehman/Bev Smith.
Pfab/Especially when there are no other females on.
Lehman/Are there four people who support Bev?
Kanner/Before you do that.
Lehman/I'm sorry go ahead.
Kanner/I want to say Bev I talked to her and I think like all of them she' s very qualified
and I think she would good for the commission I will though have to put in a vote
for Matthew Blizek I think he's right when he talks about he's 21 years old and I
think it's important to have that perspective on the Police Citizen Review Board
since I do think that the, one of the major interactions that police have is people
that age and he's an articulate person who cares, he's shown his involvement in
the community I think in a positive way although I'd be happy with Bev I'm going
to have to propose Matthew because of that reason, I think it's important to have
that perspective.
Lehman/Okay let's. are there fi3ur for Matthew? Are there four for Bev?
Pfab/Yea.
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Lehman/All right Bev will then be the other appointment. Marian did you learn anything
about our, or were you checking something?
Dilkes/The confidential page of applications (can't hear) the individual has to be picked
at the time (can't hear). (Can't hear) the final question (can't hem') circumstance
(can't hear) the conviction to affect their ability to perform the duties of a member
of the commission, and at the bottom when I believe this is consistent with the
resolution we adopted it states misrepresentation on this application will
constitute just cause for removal and it also says if you fail to answer all the
questions on the application you may not be considered for appointment. So I
think the answer to your question Ernie is no is that you can't appointment and
assume that you can remove because something would have been revealed had
they filled it out.
Lehman/All right so.
Dilkes/I think your option is at this point to not appoint if it's not filled out.
Lehman/We either appoint with the information that we have or not.
Dilkes/Right.
Lehman/All right what' s your pleasure with John Deeth.
Champion/(can't hear)
O'Donnell/I certainly don't have any problems.
Lehman/Well are there four people who would support John?
Pfab/Okay so what does that? Yes I would, they were all good so I would have no
trouble with any of them so now how do we mix and match them I guess is what
we're trying to do.
Kanner/Well 1 think that senior perspective, that's important for me, to have that for
Charlotte.
Pfab/I think they're all.
Wilburn/1 agree with Steven on that.
Pfab/I'd have no trouble with any, I'd be pleased to have any of them, no trouble's a
negative Fd be very happy to have any of them.
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Lehman/Well are there four who will support John Deeth, FI1 take him first?
Pfab/Yea I would support him.
Lehman/No that's four.
O'Donnell/And it's four (can't hear).
Pfab/I think it's a process of how you eliminate somebody.
Lehman/Well unti3rtunately that's, it's a mix bag, you don't get enough people and then
all of a sudden you get more folks that you can appoint, it's kind of too bad when
you have to say no to somebody who volunteers so. Okay.
Kanncr/And just to clarify, people because when I called some of these folks they
weren't aware that they were still being considered, so our policy again is we keep
it on for six months is that? How long do we keep someone on file?
Karr/Sorry I didn't bring the application with me but it's right on the application, I
believe it's 3 months.
Kanner/3 months, okay.
Karr/lt's right on the second page, I've got one right here.
Lehman/Okay the Northgate Economic Development Project, David if you'd just go over
that briefly with us.
Northl~ate Economic Develol~ment Project
(ITEM NO. 17. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A TEN-YEAR
DECLINING PERCENTAGE TAX iNCREMENT FiNANCiNG PROPERTY
TAX REBATE TO ASSIST SEABURY & SMITH WITH A NEW FACILITY IN
iOWA CITY.)
David Schoon/On your agenda tomorrow evening is a resolution approving a ten-year
declining property tax rebate for a project for Seabury & Smith, the project would
be located in Northgate Corporate Park. Seabury & Smith is already a company in
the community, they have a facility right now at Northgate, they're looking to
build ancw facility to combine all of their existing Iowa City facilities into one
facility. Seabury & Smith is involved in insurance services and originally the
company started in Iowa City and since it's start it has been purchased by other
national and international companies and is now presently owned by Marsh &
McLennan Company. The expansion will consist of a 46,000 square foot
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building, they will create 30 full time position, 5 part time positions for an average
wage of $11.32 this will bring their total employment roll to 227 employees with
an average wage of $ 15.32 an hour. With the total project investment of a little
over 6 and a half million dollars, they're requesting a 10 year property tax rebate,
it's a mechanism similar to what we used at Sycamore Mall, it's just a different
time period for the rebate and a different percentage each year and that percentage
is outlined in the resolution. They would over that 10 year period save
approximately $780,000 in property taxes but during that same period they will
pay $753,000 in property tax. Then after that 10 year period the building will
generate approximately $154,000 annually in property tax, that' s total property
tax, all taxing entities. I want to make it clear at this point those are all estimates,
the actual rebate will be based on the assessed value that the building comes in
at. The added value to the site includes not only the building which are estimates
show but also any added value to the land as a result of those improvement so at
this point those are estimates, I guess the more important point is it's a 10 year
declining percentage rebate that we will be granting them.
Lehman/David. I'm sorry go ahead.
Schoon/I was just going to conclude with Scott Fisher who's the managing director for
the Seabury & Smith operation is here and also Harry Wolf with Southgate
Development.
Lehman/David is that an urban renewal area?
Schoon/It's in the Northgate Corporate Park urban renewal area.
Lehman/Will there be any other incentives available under urban renewal?
Schoon/For this project?
Lehman/Right.
Schoon/No.
Lehman/So this would be the 0nly incentive?
Schoon/This would be the only incentive we would be providing them.
Lchman/Okay, all right, thank you.
Pfab/Is city, does the city have to add any additional cost, spend any additional money
for projects to support this?
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Schoon/To support this project.
Pfab/Right.
Schoon/At this point no, it could see possibly in the future with the development we may
be seeing more requests for it, a travel signal at this drive but I could see that
coming in the future with the development of this site and future development of
Northgate Corporate Park.
Pfab/And all the infrastructures are (can't hear).
Schoon/Correct.
Champion/I think this is the kind of economic development we're after, it's providing
good jobs and they're good neighbors and I totally support them.
O'Donnell/Good jobs.
Lehman/Are there other? Go ahead.
Pfab/I have a question, go back when we were talking about the number of jobs and how
that was defined or script, the description of those jobs that are going to be
created. If you can go back to the original text that you read it there.
Schoon/There are 30 full time positions and 5 part time positions, average wage of
$11.32 an hour.
Pfab/Right, $11.32, now is that, okay so there's 30, half of those will be higher than and
half will be lower than that.
Schoon/Correct and those are listed in the application, the position titles and the average
hourly wage.
Kanner/Now do we have? Like with Sycamore mall we have a guarantee.
Schoon/I take that back, what was your statement again? You said half were above and
half were below.
Pfab/Well that would be the median, that's not the average. All right so what is the
highest pay and what is the lowest pay then? Is there?
Schoon/A full time position.
Pfab/Is every person there going to have a living wage?
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Schoon/Of the full time position's yes, as you recall if you had a chance to read the
memo the part time positions would be paid $8.00 an hour.
Pfab/Okay what about the full time.
Schoon/The would pay from, of the new positions from $11.30 to $14.35 an hour.
Pfab/So that leaves $11.32, 1 have difficulty making the math work there.
Schoon/Well most of those positions are, there are 10 that pay, most of the positions pay
bet~veen $11.30 and $11.80 an hour.
Pfab/But the average is $11.32.
Schoon/Because most of the positions, well over, well 25 of the positions pay $11.30 an
hour.
Pfab/So there's, so you have to pick up, so something brings up 2 cents difference from
the minimum.
Schoon/The other 5 positions.
Pf:ab/Okay.
Lehman/Does that also include the part timers or is that just full time?
Schoon/The $11.32 is just the full time positions.
Kanner/Now ~vith Sycamore Mall we tied our rebates to fulfilling certain obligations, it
appears that we're not tying the TIF rebates here to making those jobs correct?
Champion/What other obligations did we have?
Schoon/Yea we ~vi ll put in in our agreement with the company that they would create
they would create the number of jobs they said with the average wage they say
their going to create.
Kanner/That' s in the contract.
Schoon/That ~vhat we will include, right now you just have a resolution approving the
use of this mechanism, then we will negotiate a formal agreement with the
company which will be on an agenda of a future Council agenda.
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Kanner/Connie what were asking.
Champion/What stipulations did we have on the Sycamore Mall TIF I don't remember
any?
Kanner/They have to have a certain percentage of their space filled by a certain time.
Lehman/Well and I think they also had to improve the property by wasn't there a
minimum improvement in the increased valuation of the property?
Champion/Right. right, correct.
Schoon/They had to have a one major anchor of a certain size.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/Right, but those are the details that will come out in the actual contract which
we then also have to approve.
Schoon/Correct.
Lehman/So I mean this is not the end of it this is.
Pfab/Okay that's what I was going to say are we locking in? No matter what we
negotiate we have it.
O'Donnell/Well this addresses (can't hear) for the city, it's full time jobs, there are
people who need part time jobs it's kind of growth and we're looking at it as an
increase in the tax base of approximately $154,000.
Lehman/Well our action tomorrow night will enable you to negotiate a contract which
will then come back to the Council for our approval.
Schoon/Correct but as long as that agreement contains concept.
Lehman/Essentially what you've given us, what w(re really saying is that ~ve will
approve this contract as long it is essentially the same as what we have received
from David in the memo.
Kanner/Right, well that's one of the reasons that I think that tomorrow l'd like to ask for
deferring this for a couple of weeks, I feel that just like PATV we needed a couple
weeks to look at it, 1 think quite truthfully it was a very full packet, l wasn't able
to read in detail as much Fd like and in general I'd like more than the four days
that we had to review it. I think this is a big commitment, and there are some
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good things in here that meet our financial guidelines, but I'd like to explore for
instance whether we should. My understanding ofTIF is that it was put in place
to use that money to put back into perhaps infrastructure or something that
benefits immediate area, not necessarily to put the money back into the
developer's hands. So for instance we could say with that $700,000 over 10 years
which would be about $70,000 a year, iet's put it into an additional bus route to
get employees out to Noahgate.
Lehman/That isn't money we get though.
Karmer/No we could get it, we're giving back $700,000 we could say instead of giving it
back to the developer to do as they want, we can put conditions on it, we can put
whatever type of conditions we want, we can say we want you to put a child care
center in there, that' s pan of our agreement that we're negotiating, we could say
we ~vant to put that money, we're going to use it to benefit your li~cility by putting
an extra bus route out there for your and other employees in the area. Or we're
going to put in int~astructure, we're going to build that stop light with the money
and other necessities, we're going to do landscaping out there. To me that's the
original intent of TIF and 1 think I'd like to have time to explore that and have
people in the community to explore that and see if we want. So one way to look
at it as David said is we're getting also $700,000 possibly an additional tax
revenue, you could also look at it we're losing $700,000. We could have that
addition, that could do a lot of work in the community and I think that on the list
of~vhy a company stays or expands or relocates tax abatements is low, I've heard
of studies that show that it's low on the list of ~vhy companies make their moves.
Certainly they'll take it, they're smart people to ask for it, but I think we can do
better and I'm going to tomorro~v ask for a deferment at least for two weeks
before ~ve vote on that.
Lehman/Okay we'll talk about that.
O'Donnell/I wilI not support any deferment on this and must we grow this tax base out
there why would we need a bus.
Lehman/Well we'll discuss that tomorrow but David typically when TIF's are given by
cities do cities take the money that they are supposedly giving to the developer as
an economic incentive and take that money back and spend it for something else
or do they let the developer have the money to decrease the cost of the project?
Schoon/It could be used for infrastructure improvements like Steven expressed or it
could be used as an incentive to a business to construct a facility, to make an
improvement to a site through the construction of a private project.
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Pfab/Part of the cost of building a fire station up near there that could, that could benefit
them. Now see, I think we should have learned something from the way
Coralville did it, that's what they did, the money didn't go back to the developer,
the TIF money went to develop the infrastructure of that place and that has been
very successful to them. Maybe ~ve could learn something from them.
Lehman/Well let me, I have a question first.
Schoon/Coralville has also used TIF in the fashion we're using it.
Pfab/Can you give me an example?
Schoon/For some of their projects out in Oakdale.
Pfab/But their big ones are not that way though.
Champion/Well this is not a big one.
Pfab/Well but that' s ~vhat makes it work.
Lehman/Well Steve.
Pfab/We look at our, hitting our limit of financing capability, our police force keeps
saying we don*t have the manpower to do this, this and this, and we're going to
have to put up a fire station. I think that money should be used to fine, to help the
city go into to support those.
Lehman/Steve, and I think what we're really talking about in Coralville is the Coral
Ridge Mall, would, did the tax incentive for the Coral Ridge Mall was used to
provide the infrastructure to service that facility is that correct?
Atkins/Ernie i'm not intimately not familiar with the financing, I understood they created
a TIF district and with the dramatic increase they expected in the value of the
property with the construction of that mall they used those moneys to build the
roads, the water, the sewer to get to. That's what I understand but I've never.
Lehman/But they could have as well required the developer to provide his own
infrastructure for that same facility is that not correct?
Atkins/Absolutely, yes.
Lehman/So I mean basically rather than have the, require the developer to provide the
infrastructure, they provide the infrastructure with the tax dollars that the
developer didn't have to pay.
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Champion/You know we are not Coralville, we're not talking about the Coral Ridge
Mall, I think it's, you know insignificant.
Lehman/No, well get, this discussion will proceed again tomorrow night obviously
Steven would like to defer it and we will talk about that tomorrow night as well.
Karmer/And it's for the same with the other one that I assume David's going to go over
right no~v.
Lehman/Yea are there questions about Scott's, well go ahead on Scott 6 ifthere's any
significant differences in the philosophy of the two.
Scott Six DevloOment
(ITEM NO. 18. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROViNG A FICE-YEAR ONE
HUNDRED PERCENT TAX INCREMENT FINANCING PROPERTY TAX
REBATE TO ASSIST OWENS-BROCKWAY PLASTIC PRODUCTS, INC.,
WITH A NEW MANUFACTURiNG FACILITY IN IOWA CITY.)
Schoon/With the Owens-Brockway project they're requesting a 5-year 100 percent
property tax rebate, Jeff Townsend, the project manager from Owens-Brockway is
present as well as Dell Clemens a consultant from Fisher and Company. Owens-
Brockway would be a new manufacturer in the community, they would produce
plastic bottles serving first as a supplier for Procter & Gamble and they would
look for other markets to produce products out of this facility for. It would be a
64,000 square foot building located in Scott 6 industrial park, they would create
30 full time positions with an average wage of $13.43, the total project investment
would be a little over $11 million dollars. The rebate on the building they're
proposing to build would save them $520,000 over the 5 year period, after the 5
years the building would generate approximately $115,000 annually in property
taxes. That's all I have in summary on that project.
Kanner/So we're saying, what was the assumption $115,000 a year for 5 years would be
100 percent rebate.
Schoon/Pardon.
Kanner/What was the 5 year total again for the abatement (can't hear)7
Schoon/On the value of their proposed building improvements it would be $520,000 or
$522,000 over the 5 year period.
Kanner/Okay.
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Pfab/Are there, I'd ask the same question are there other infrastructure needs that the city
has to provide?
Schoord No not that I'm aware of.
Champion/That's a good question Irvin.
Pfab/And is it a hazardous place where your going to have the ability to fight fires and
things like that there and who's going to pay for that? Police force, I don't know.
Kanner/Can you go over the environmental facts of (can't hear) like that?
Schoon/The environmental effects.
Karmer/Yea.
Schoon/I couldn't go into detail over the environmental effects of a plan like this.
Karmer/Just basic, and again I didn't have a chance to go into details into the report but
that is part of our guidelines for financial assistance. Is it not?
Schoon/Yes. l*m trying to look for the question. Question 5.3 on page 9 of the
application it addresses, the question is "Will you be treating, transporting, storing
or disposing above ground on or about your business premises, in tanks or
otherwise the following materials, petroleum projects, agricultural, other
chemicals, waste oils and such and it goes on to respond. Water for non-contact
cooling process. Oils for hydraulic and lubricating applications, water treatment
chemicals for cooling towers. Plastic resin in silos, bins, hoppers, gaylords,
and/or railcars. Parts cleaning solvents for formulations that may be hazardous
materials. Compress gases as needed. Maintenance chemicals." As I read that it
appeared to be common materials that you would find in a manufacturing facility.
Pfab/Did you get any feedback or any comments from the fire department or the Hazmat
team?
Schoon/No.
Lehman/Well I think the point, well I think anything that occurs within the city limits has
to comply with our ordinances regarding hazardous materials, fire prevention, and
obviously Fm sure they have to comply with OSHA standards and that sort of
thing so I mean from that perspective they're, that's not something we have to
worry about because they do have to comply.
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Pfab/No, but we have to build it in our cost of supply and services to these people and
you know there's $500,000 t hat the city isn't going to have, it's going to take 9
years to make up that difference so 9 years of the, this facility is operating on the
goodness of the rest of the citizens of Iowa City.
Schoon/I guess to first make a statement, the City Council rezoned over 90 acres for
industrial uses so the Council was committing to providing services to the
Industrial Park.
Pfab/Fine.
Schoon/Then becomes the question if you want to provide financial assistance or not to a
business and I guess your fundamental point is no you would not like to provide
financial assistance to those.
Pfab/I think if you build the structure and the climate for these business I think sure
they're not stupid their going to take it but that' s asking an awful lot of the
citizens that spend the tax dollars every, pay taxes every year to say well some
people are entitled to some additional services, I have great difficulty with that. I
mean if the city isn't, doesn't apply, we work, we build a superstructure, we build
everything for it, we do everything to the very best, the best details, the best
standards of any place of the country and then say well sure if we hand it to them
they're not stupid they'll take it.
Schoon/I would just like to reiterate, or to state at this point, both of these operations are
part of companies that have many options in terms of where they'd like to locate
facilities and those, each of those operations have to present to their corporate
headquarters a reason, a cost reason for why they should locate a facility in a
particular facility, so it's not just what will you give us, they're working on trying
to present a cost estimate their corporate headquarters can support. And they have
expressed that in the applications, now whether you believe it's needed or not that
will be your determination and they will then determine whether or not it was
needed or not.
Pfab/Okay so now in the $500,000 in their whole scheme of their operations is a mere
drop in the bucket but to the City of Iowa City, to the citizens to Iowa City that' s
big money, that's not chunk change.
Schoon/Them producing plastic bottles.
Pfab/I'm not, this isn't personal.
Schoon/No and it's not necessary, they have lots of money to produce a bottle they have
certain costs they need to meet, it doesn't matter whether they have $14 billion
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dollars or $200 billion dollars, it's just they need to meet some cost estimates and
I guess my only point was that that' s what they presented to us that that' s what
they need to do and that's what their requesting.
Champion/Well we're looking, we're really talking about the future of Iowa City, we're
talking about.
Lehman/Growing the tax base.
Champion/The Ii~ture of jobs, they're talking about growing the base, they're talking
about bringing a really good industry here, and you know what your going to have
to give them something to get them here. And if you don't want them here then
you just vote no.
Lehman/Well ~ve'll discuss, go ahead.
O'Donnell/This is exactly the type of growth we're looking for, we gave very specific
instructions to grow the tax base, this is a tool to do it. I mean you want all these
infrastructure needs and fire and police and so forth this is how we pay for it, you
increase the tax base.
Lehman/Well these are the arguments that ~ve'll be making tomorrow night.
Pfab/The community has a right to sit here and decide when you ask them (can't hear).
Champion/We are the (can't hear).
Pfab/We don't have enough money to hire more police people, to keep people safe in
their homes.
Lehman/All right but this discussion should take place tomorrow night.
Pfab/That' s fine, I didn't want to pull any, I didn't want to be caught off guard.
Kanner/When we, we talk about economic development, we talked also about why this is
a good place to be not just economic incentives but we have members of the
Economic Development Committee that go out and talk to people and that' s one
reason why we're responsive in a number of ways is that correct? When we talk
about why businesses should be here, we talk about a number of reasons why it's
good to be here so there' s a number of reasons that bring people in and I think we
could have good businesses like these folks appear to be and still talk about
putting money into increased Hazmat thcilities t hat we're going to have to have
in the future if we continue to have these kinds of facilities, there' s different ways
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to finance these things and it doesn't have to be all or nothing and so I would say
that tomorrow we could talk about some compromises.
Lehman/Okay let's do the Economic Development Committee recommendation.
Economic Development Capital Fund
(ITEM NO. 19. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A COUNCIL
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND.
ITEM NO. 20. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A COUNCIL
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CAPITAL FUND.
ITEM NO. 21. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND.)
Schoon/On your agenda tomorrow evening you have three resolutions, two basically
formalize ideas that you have talked about in the past Economic Development
Fund, and Economic Development Capital Improvement Fund are the titles we
have given them in terms of amount of dollars, you've talked about setting aside
to use for Economic Development projects. The third item which will require
some additional discussion or action is the establishment of the CDBG Economic
Development Fund and if the Council adopts the resolution establishing that fund
you'll want to direct the Housing and Community Development Commission to
consider an amount to set aside annually. You also have a recommendation from
the Economic Development Committee and they recommend that you annually set
aside 9 percent of federal dollars that we receive. That was an amount, a
percentage that used to be in the City Step plans and was just recently reduced
down to 5 percent. If the Council directs HCDC to consider annually setting a
side an amount over 5 percent that will require an amendment to City Steps.
Lehman/And that needs to be done at a time soon, if we approve this then we need to.
Schoon/We want to get started on that so that amount is set aside prior to the allocation
process for next year.
Lehman/Procedurally how would we do that?
Schoon/Well procedurally you'd adopt the resolution.
Lehman/Right.
Schoon/And then you'd want to direct HCDC to consider an amount that you would like
to set aside.
Lehman/Okay.
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Kanner/David, in regard to setting aside Economic Development money from CDBG and
Home Funds, this would not be until fiscal year 03 that the funds would be set
aside.
Schoon/The CDBG funds.
Kanner/Okay no Home Funds, CDBG Funds, would this be fiscal year 03?
Schoon/Correct.
Lehman/Right.
Kanner/So the Economic Development Committee would not, would they begin to make
decisions on this in the same time frame that HCDC does which is Spring of next
year? I know this is suppose to be a year long thing, Fm trying to find out when
would they start controlling this fund or looking at this fund in your mind set.
Schoon/I'm assume they wouldn't start doing it before the Council voted to set aside if
it's over 5, whatever the percentage is so they'd have an idea of what the
percentage is and given that the dollars would not be available until 03 that puts
some limitations on who may be interested in those dollars because they wouldn't
be available until after July 1 next year and so it would be a process that would
start time, I ~vould guess after January 1 but that's something the Committee has
not talked about.
Lehman/It would also require applications for that money, I mean if no one applies for it
there' s probably not much the Cotmcil can do with those funds, I mean I would
assume we would encourage people to make application but we would only be
acting on application basis would be my guess unless we decide to go into a job
training program or something which would I believe be allowed.
Kanner/And I have a question in regards to the first two resolutions about Economic
Development Fund. In our goal setting we talked about last year about child care
being part of Economic Development, not just part of CDBG Economic
Development but in a larger sense, has there been any child care projects that have
been looked at in regards to some of these fundings capital or otherwise?
Schoon/In terms of setting those as a criteria?
Kanner/No in terms of putting aside money into a project that deals with establishing
more child care in ~vhatever sense that happens to come up.
Schoon/The committee did not discuss that.
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Kanner/Okay, thanks.
Lehman/Thank you David. Cemetery Issues.
Cemetery Issues
ITEM NO. 26. CONSIDER RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A REVISE SCHEDULED
OF RATES AND CHARGES FOR INTERMENTS, LOT SALES AND OTHER
SERVICES IN OAKLAND CEMETERY.
ITEM NO. 27. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTING REGULATIONS FOR
OAKLAND CEMETERY REGARDING THE RIGHTS OF LOT OWNERS,
MAINTENANCE PRACTICES AND RULES FOR VISITORS.
Lehman/We have in our packet this time a memo.
(All talking).
Lehman/We have a memo regarding I believe we're talking about changing the fee
structures, starting to make the new cemetery more accessible, is that the fight
word?
Terry Trueblood/1 don't 'know if that' s the right word or not.
Lehman/Probably not.
Trueblood/Just more accessible for certain people maybe.
Lehman/There you go.
Trueblood/You do have two resolutions on your agenda, one dealing with the rates and
charges for Oakland Cemetery and the other one dealing with regulations. If it's
okay we can handle the rates and charges first. As your agenda shows it's been 10
years since the fees have been increased at the cemetery, the fees for the most part,
other than the infant, for the most part are based on our actual direct cost for
burials on the interment, now it's not going to be exact but it comes fairly close.
The lot sales are based more on just you know what the market bears, for example
Jim did have a, oh by the way this is, lbr those of you who haven't met him this is
Jim Wonick, who's our senior maintenance worker in charge of the cemetery
operation. Jim is here hoping he doesn't have to say anything. Frankly I hope he
doesn't either because that means he's bailing me out of a tight spot that I've
gotten myself into, but he had a couple surveys, one dated July 2000 where there
was 15 cemeteries surveyed and the adult interments for example, the range was
$425 to $795, the average adult burial $552 and Iowa City's proposed fee is $500.
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And on that survey they just dealt with adult burials and cremains and their
average aremain is $276 and our proposed fee is $135. In January 2001 there
were six cemeteries that participated in more of a lot sales survey and there' s
really quite a range, they range from $195 to $1295 with the average being $498,
and you'll see that our proposed fee is $500 for the flush marker areas and $600
for the monument areas. The infants that they did on the survey they included the
lot and burial together, there again the range was from $100 to $490, the average
was $260 and ours proposed fee is $170. Now I mentioned before that fees with
the exception of infant are based largely on direct cost. The infant for example,
Jim does a very nice job of taking all costs into consideration, when 1 tell Jim to
round something off that means to round it off from 16.1 to 16 cents, that's his
way of rounding things off. But anyway the actual costs, our actual costs on an
infant burial is $190 on a weekday and our proposed fee is $70. Past Council's
have figured they want to give as much as break as possible on infant burials, a lot
of times people don't have insurance to cover it and figure they've been through
enough of a loss already. And we average under three of those per year. The
youth for child burial we do base that on exact cost, there again it's less than the
adult considerably, but we average one of those about every five years thankfully.
At any rate if you go right down the line on our proposed fees, if you have any
questions certainly I'd be happy to answer them. The one thing that I did want to
call your attention is the new one that' s for the columbarian niches which we
haven't had in the past and we're proposing a fee of $600 for that, we figure to
recoup the construction and design costs for that particular part of the cemetery
expansion would have to charge a little over $400 per nitch. We talked with a
local funcral home owner/director to see what he felt would be fair and he really
felt that if we charged anywhere from $700 to $850 per nitch that that would be a
fair price but he was including the lettering add that sort of thing in it too. And
we want as regulations would show we want to have control over the lettering but
we don't want to have that included in the costs, we would always have to be
allowing for increases there and that kind of thing so we think it would be better if
it was just left up to the purchaser to take care of that. There's also in your packet
a page of definitions, those definitions are just as they relate to the rates and
charges that we're proposing like partial weekend holiday and a titll weekend
holiday resident definition that sort of thing. So I can just stop right there for a
moment and see ifthere's any questions about the rates and charges.
Kanner/What happens to a person who dies and they don't have money or there family
doesn't have money where would they be buried?
Trucblood/We have provisions for welfare burials.
Kanner/Do they get a marker of any sort?
Trueblood/Jim.
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Jim Wonick/(can't hear).
Trueblood/It's up to the family or friends to do that. We provide the space.
Wonick/The space is free.
Trueblood/Right, we provide the space and we can get money back from certain agencies
at time if there's money available, if there's not we just eat the cost.
Kanner/So when you say the space, that includes the digging out also or is that?
Wonic 'k/ The opening and closing we bill the funeral home for the full amount but they're
only required to pay either the full amount or 1/3 of all available funds whatever
that may be usually it's about $1,000 but we usually get about $330.
Lehman/You said that we haven't changed the fees in 10 years.
Champion/It's amazing.
Lehman/i don't have any problem with the fees and the way that you've computed them
and it sounds to me that you've done your homework as far as other communities
are concerned. And I'll support the resolution but I would certainly to encourage
you to perhaps at some point put an escalator fee in there where it just becomes an
automatic thing based on cost of living or whatever or cost of dying I guess as it
may be but rather than having to come back and neglecting to do this as it's easy
to do that it would just be kept up on an annual increase rather than having to
readdress it. And I think that could be done couldn't it Steve? If we had an, I
mean if there were a multiplier effect it would have just, we can always stop it if it
were wrong but it would seem to me it would make your life a lot simpler and
probably ours to if we didn't have to address this every.
Atkins/It might even easier to put together a schedule, just lay the schedule out for the
next 5 or 6 years.
Lehman/I mean I really that would be in your best interest, and ours and the public's, I
mean I have no problem approving this but I'd like to see something like that
instituted.
Trueblood/Frankly that's all we needed to hear from you, in the past Council's have
indicated to us that they didn't really want to address cemetery issues every year.
Champion/Well we're not going to your going to.
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Lehman/I don't want to either. We won't have to if we put that automatic escalator in
there.
Trueblood/Yea, we could do it similar to how we do recreation fees.
(END OF 01-72 SIDE TWO)
Trueblood/Down you know what we're proposing for this this year and then what we're
estimating for it to be next year and the year that kind of thing, something for you
to look at along those lines each year.
Champion/Why can't we just use the cost of living index every year and?
Trueblood/That's a possibility as well.
Champion/It's convenient and you wouldn't have to come back to us.
Lehman/Your problem.
Champion/Deal with it.
O'Donnell/Minus the columbarium how many spaces did we pick up? How many do we
have?
Trueblood/Full body is a little over 2,000 spaces.
O'Dormell/When are ~ve going to be, when are these going to be for sale?
Trueblood/Wednesday morning if you approve these tomorrow night.
O'Donnell/Wednesday morning, okay, I've been asked that question.
Trueblood/I know you have.
O'Dormell/Thank you.
Lchman/Steve.
Kanner/I'm not quite sure how to put this but cemetery's are used in a recreational sense
too I think by the population of peaceful place to be and the history that' s there,
we had a tour Irving Weber Day we had a tour there with Lauren Hutton, Laura
Horton I think his name is and do we do anything to enhance that maybe some
signs or anything, any historical markers? We have the angel out there that people
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come to see, I think it's a nice place. Is there any thought given to are there subtle
things that can be done to enhance that?
Trueblood/We haven't tried to enhance it frankly, we get a lot of people who just use it
to walk or jog or ride their bicycle through which is fine we don't discourage that.
But you also have the other side of the story or the other side of the fence where
there' s a lot of people that feel that that' s not appropriate for a cemetery so like I
said we don't discourage it but we don't advertise it as a great place to jog
through or anything either. Frankly the fact that Hickory Hill Park is right on the
other side I think adds a lot to people walking through the cemetery or jogging
through the cemetery in one direction or the other. But to answer your question
no we haven't done anything to specifically try to enhance that.
Champion/Okay.
Lehman/Irvin.
Pfab/To answer, you brought up a question Steve about where do funds come for people
who have no money. I'm on the Johnson County Social Welfare and there are
county funds available for people to do that, I'm trying to, does somebody have
the name, what is it, what's the fund? Anyway I know Kay Hull does it and she
reports how many burials and that is one of the areas where funds are put out by
the city to help those people in that situation and I would imagine some of those
funds go to the cemetery is that it?
Wonick/Yea we ask for 1/3 of all available funds which might be that money or it could
be from the family members.
Pfab/Okay so but I mean but if there is no, there's just a body there does the county does
cough up the money to help, I guess maybe that' s not the right word but they
allocate money?
Wonick/Yea I think it's a $1,000 (can't hear).
Pfab/A $1,000 so that's.
Wonic 'k/ But that's for the funeral home and the cemetery.
Lehman/Okay any other questions about the cemetery fees or regulations or whatever?
Thank you Terry, I really ~vould encourage you to work on a schedule though that
~vc wouldn't have to address every year.
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Treeblood/Sure that would be our preference as well. The regulations is a separate
resolution, I'm not sure how you wanted to handle that, there's regulations in your
packet totally 14 pages.
Lehman/I think they're wonderful.
Champion/I thought they were great too.
O'Donnell/You did well.
Trueblood/Well we tried hard.
Champion/Aren't we easy?
Lehn~an/Obviously you understand those issues a lot more than we do. Okay thank you
very much.
PATV Fundin~ Request
Lehman/PATV Funding Request, Dale.
Dale Helling/I apologize for having to do this at the last minute, I don't know what it is
(can't hear) the project is on. If you'd like I can summarize this for you, basically
this is the product of the last meeting of the Telecommunications Commission and
our meeting with PATV trying to outline what are the basic issues that would
underlie an agreement by which you'd convey money then to PATV for this
project. ls providing partial funding for the project the amount of $125,000 with
the city holding a lien and placing us in the second position and that lien would
only terminate if the for some reason or the other PATV defaults and there assets
have to be turned back over to us or in the future if some future City Council
would negotiate something with them to release them from the lien either having
it paid back or if the Council felt they were had successfully carried this out 10-
15-20 years down the road and wanted to release them something like that but it
would have to be negotiated in the future otherwise the lien would be in
perpetuity. We're asking that they lease part of the building that they won't be
occupying at the market rate so that the cable money won't be subsidizing some
other interest or organization in the community at a minimum of a 5 year lease, it
looks like they're going to have it right now that they're going to have a 10 year
lease with the Everett Connor Center, obviously we want them to continually
occupy and operate out of this facility, that's number 4. Number 5 they have an
appraisal that I think the appraiser calls it hypothetical, but with the improvements
that they tend to do his guesstimation is that it would appraise at about $380,000
which is the loan from the bank that they're getting is $270 plus the $125 here so
you can see that a lot of the vast majority of the $125,000 would be collateralized
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under that circumstance, not all of it but a great deal of it. And as the property
appraises or whatever that would more solidify the $125,000 in collateral,
however we have this in here so that for some reason or another they did need to
liquidate, that equipment was sold or other to go back to creditors that we were
stay in the second position for the full $125,000. Then number 6 just spells out if
this goes sour for any reason how the assets would be disposed of and gives the
city the right to claim whatever is left after the bank is taken care of to pledge that
to another organization to provide the same types of services. And I would add in
there under A that termination for any reason would also include if for some
reason or another if we're not able to renew or sign a new contract with them after
this franchise is up again keep in mind this is not meant to be contract language
that will be spelled out more in detail in the contract. And finally number 7 what
we've tried to do is come up with a way and this may have to be manipulated a
little bit in order to meet the requirements of the bank so that $125,000 can be
considered by the bank as collateral but some way so that it's a joint effort they
come up with a plan for improvements in the building and we can work with them
on that, we have some expertise obviously they don't have and so we were
offering that as a way to make sure that the improvements that are done are
consistent with their plan and what's needed so they can get the best bang for their
buck out of money. The Telecommunications Commission met earlier this
evening and what they have done is basically made a recommendation to you that
to proceed ahead with this with the with this as the basis for the agreement.
Lehman/Dale it says all expenditures for all alterations for the building will be consistent
with said construction plan blah, blah, blah, now do we as a city approve all
payments for the renovation of that property above and beyond the $125,0007 In
other words that's the amount of money that we would be investing in the project
but at the same time it would certainly be in PATV's best interest and also the
City' s best interest to be sure that all of the payments for remodeling and
alterations were appropriate and I mean I like the idea of checks being made out to
PATV and the contractor so that I mean we're ~vorried about protecting our
$125,000 investment, I really think we're really worried about seeing to it that
PATV is also protected and it doesn't do us any good to exercise this interest
against only the $125,000 because obviously there's a much larger issue there.
Helling/Well actually no the improvements that we're talking about they estimate
between $90,000 and $100,000 dollars.
Lehman/Oh then we would approve all of the improvements, payment for all of the
improvements.
Helling/We would unless they got a gilt of some substantial amount otherwise they're
going to mn out of money to do anything before they get anywhere close to
$125,000 in improvements to the (can't hear) unless they buy it.
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Lehman/Right, but I think we're protecting them as well as ourselves by this.
Helling/And we're willing to work with them in the future and help them review those
things if they need to do other kinds of improvements to the property.
Pfab/Dale I have a question. At some point assuming that PATV is reasonably
successful financially will they eventually own this building ~vithout any
encumbrance by the city?
Helling/Only if the city releases them.
Pfab/And is the $125,000 a grant or a loan?
Helling/It's an amount of money that's being provided for them and you hold the lien.
It's not a loan but it's not a grant either it's not.
P/hb/So there's no interest required on it..
Helling/There's no interest, it stays at $125,000 but you hold that lien and you have that
interest in the property unless for the city negotiates some way to release them
from that.
Pfab/Okay so in other words, so if they find a great big pile of money and they can, and
whatever they need us and the city' s happy to let them go or whatever.
Helling/If the city's happy to let them go otherwise the city could hold that Iien forever.
Pfab/Okay. Now at the, is there, what was the understanding of at the meeting was there,
are there reservations? Is there overall general satisfaction agreement?
Helling/I think there are a couple of representatives from the Commission that are here
that could speak to that, it was not unanimous therefore members present it was 3-
1, there was some concern, this is tight, they provide a cash flow analysis that the
Commission has reviewed and it shows a positive cash flow but it's going to be
tight for them there' s no question about that.
Pfab/Okay so it's not a walk in the park.
Helling/Pardon me.
Pfab/lt's not a walk in the park or the cemetery.
Helling/I wouldn't characterize it as a walk in the park or the cemetery.
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Pfab/Okay, all right so this is the result of the meeting now went on concurrently while
we were in meeting, okay, that's fine, that's what I needed.
Lehman/Are there other questions for Dale? My understanding is that the Board is
recommending that we proceed with this?
O'Donnell/3-1 is that what I hear?
Lehman/Right.
Helling/What we'll do is we'll draft a formal agreement and that will have to be on your
next agenda and that will have to be approved before any money is disbursed.
Lehman/Which will be the August meeting?
Helling/Right.
Lehman/Questions.
Champion/So we will not, this will come the end of August, okay.
Helling/Right three weeks.
Smokinl~ in Restaurants
Lehman/Smoking in restaurants.
O'Donnell/Bruce Springsteen's.
Lehman/Saying what?
Kanner/Mike you've got the wrong top 40.
Lehman/Pardon.
O'Donnell/Never mind.
Lehman/We got a memo from Eleanor in response to a letter that you had sent out to all
of the restaurants and bars is that?
Dilkes/Anyone with a liquor license.
Lehman/Anyone with a liquor license.
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Dilkes/This is the information that you had asked for and so I'm simply providing it and
asking for your direction from here. The last thing you told me you wanted me to
do was draft an ordinance essentially prohibiting smoking in restaurants and
exempting those establishments of alcohol sales of 50 percent or more. I'm just
giving you the information and you need to tell me what to do.
Wilburn/I would like to proceed with that in the ordinance.
Champion/Fd like to, I mean I do think restaurants should be non smoking, I like the
idea of Ames where there is non smoking up to a certain time. I think you 'know, I
do have problems with this ordinance, I'd like to see some type of ordinance in
place but I feel like we're being big brother that people who own restaurants and
bars ought to be able to kind of decide who comes into their restaurant, I can
decide who comes into my clothing store. I do, I just don't know, I adopt the
philosophy, I don't know if I adopt the way the ordinance was talked about in the
begirming, I'd like to get more input from the people who are really going to be
affected so I'd like to hear some other comments so I can react to those.
Wilburn/I guess just in response and it's a matter whether you, what it comes down to or
what it seems to come down to is whether you believe that what we are looking at
is addressing a health issue or discussing the issue of rights and I guess I just view
the health issue. You know we don't ask, or businesses aren't asked, given the
option of whether or not their employees can wash their hands before they handle
food.
Champion/But they're state laws.
Wilburn/That's correct.
Lehman/Maybe we ought to get the state to do this.
Wilburn/Well apparently the state is not going to do that so I as a Council member am
willing to. But those are state issues based on issues of health. And in terms of
whether your talking about allowing ban or smoking or allowing have to be done
in a certain number of hours, I believe the information and data that suggests both
empirical that suggest that carcinogens and other particle matter do not disappear,
can not be addressed adequately with ventilation systems. They do not take a
certain amount of time of information we've already received. Just in a good
visual there are some restaurants where if you walk into some of their areas if they
have a low ceiling you can see the tar on the ceiling from cigarette smoking so
again I just. my personal preference is we view this as a health issue and move
forward.
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Pfab/I think we, the tobacco industries felt Morris' study that they had the accounting
firm do for this country and eastern Europe said let us sell tobacco we'll save you
money people will be dead so you won't have to take care of them.
Chan~pion/But that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about restaurants here.
Pfab/Well this is, but it's all the same thing. No, I think it's a health issue, case closed.
Lehman/Eleanor what are some of the issues or difficulties that will be involved in
determining and I know we used the number of 50 percent, 50 percent of the
revenue from food made them a restaurant, is that correct? Or over 50 percent is
that correct?
Dilkes/50 percent or more is what we had talked about using of on premises sales since
what we're attempting to look at is what' s happening within the restaurant.
Lehman/What kinds of issues does that present for I guess us, obviously it's going to be,
we have to work this out with the purveyors of food.
Dilkes/Well it presents a number of political issues, I don't know that it presents Iegal
issues at this point except for some enforcement issues I suspect we'll have in
terms of you 'know the 50 percent issue but I think I've told you in the past that I
feel comfortable drafting it particularly in light of the Attorney General' s opinion
and I think it's a political issue for you all.
Lehman/Steven.
Kanner/And in terms of enforcement there have been suggestions to go like Ames like
green light, red light with time.
Champion/Right.
Kanner/It's much harder to do enforcement when you have that, I think when you set a
firm definition it's self enforcing for the most part and you don't have to put as
much effort into police or whoever might do the enforcing. Your either meet the
definition of a restaurant or you don't and smoking is not allowed and you know
it, that' s a place that smoking is not allowed and I think that' s been the case in
California that it's mostly selfenti3rcing because it's very clear about what's
allowed and not allowed.
Champion/What about the businesses in town that are restaurants until about 8:00 or
9:00 and then turn into bars or you know entertainment for bar kind of
entertainment. How does that affect their business? Those are the kind of
concerns that I have.
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Dilkes/Well I think that' s one of the things we talked about earlier in terms of ~vhether
you want a time limitations and you decided you did not at least that was the
direction you gave me before. We went through that list of questions remember
in my initial memo and that was one of the ones we talked about was whether you
wanted to do a time limitation so that the prohibition apply at some times of the
day and not at others.
Champion/The only, well you know, my problem with the way we do ordinance,
although it all sounds really good when we first talk about them, we write
ordinances like we're approved them before we've had any public input, I mean
we suggest what we're going to do before we have public input, before we hear
problems from the people who are going to be affected. And I know personally
I've been accused of changing my mind for that very reason that i say we should
look at that ordinance and we draft it and then I decide I'm not going to support it
for some reason but I mean that, so 1 think it's important that people understand
that we do input from people, there are people out there ~vho's businesses will be
deathly affected by this ordinance and I guess I do have problems with that. I
don't have any problems with making restaurants non smoking, I mean don't
misunderstand me but I do think it does affect people in different ways.
Dilkes/Sure.
Kanner/I think it would be good to hear from folks, usually I would like to have some
sort of collaborative effort which we don't tend to do of discussion going but I
think in this case it's pretty clear cut your going to find people lining up pretty
easily and I don't 'kno~v how much compromise there is so I think to have just a
public hearing on the issue would be good, we've heard through letters I think it
would be good to hear. Just be warned as we all probably ~know the tobacco
industry is very powerful and they put up front groups to look like grass root
groups and we're going to hear from those too but that' s okay but we should be
forewarned about that.
Champion/That' s not what I want to hear, what I want to hear is how people's businesses
are going to be aff~ctive, I don't want to hear from the pro (can't hear) group and
the con (can't hear) group. Obviously more people don't smoke than smoke or at
least I hope that's getting there. What I want to look at is how we're going to
businesses by being their big brother for this year, that' s what I want to hear.
Kanner/Well we can do the same thing we did with the bars and have the owners, a night
for the owners to come in and present, we've heard from 7 of them in quick notes
but it would be good I think to have someone come up, have them come up here
and see what they think.
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Champion/But I know we have the right to inflict this restaurant owners or bar owners
Fmjust not so sure ho~v we should do it or if we should do it.
Pfab/Connie maybe do we, maybe we not only have a right but maybe we have an
obligation to protect the public' s health too.
Champion/The public can pretty much protect themselves they don't have to go into that
restaurant.
Pfab/Well some people work there, some people need a job.
Champion/Well you know that might be true Irvin but yet we're saying it's okay to
smoke in bars the waitresses and waiters in restaurants should be protected but
people who work in bars should not be. I mean I (can't hear) that too.
Pfab/Well that's, maybe thafs the next move.
Champion/Well I don't know, how do you decide who your going to protect?
Pfhb/Well they used to smoke in airplanes too but they don't anymore because of.
Champion/Well they shouldn't.
Pfab/Well but they did for a long time, it was legal, this is legal too.
Champion/(can't hear).
Lehman/How do we want to proceed? I mean I do think there are issues here that, first
of all it's, it's difficult to discuss or have a public hearing betbre you get some sort
of, you need something to talk about, now if we want to talk and obviously we can
do whatever we'd like to do but if we want to try to call a meeting of the bar,
pardon me restaurant, the purveyors of food and discuss this with them, I have no
problem with that. As to how, I mean I do think that Ames, Eleanor is this, Ames
has a prohibition on smoking up until a certain time of the evening is that correct?
I mean is that tree of every.
Dilkes/They've got a time, they've got, I mean it's, they've got a time restriction, they've
got a number of. Well there's is a, it starts with a general, and I haven't Iooked at
it in a ~vhile but a general restriction on smoking in public places and then
provides a bunch of exceptions to that, one being a time limitation, one being a
bowling alley exemption, one being a truck stop exemption, a rented room, a
social event exemption, a number of exemptions so that's how they approached it.
And 1 know that went through a number of different.
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Lehman/Oh yea I remember.
O'Donnell/Does Ames not do like 10:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night?
Lehman/I don't know.
O'Donnell/ls that what I read in the paper?
Dilkes/I'm sorry Mike.
O'Donnell/I thought I read in the paper Ames does like 10:00 in the morning or 8:00 in
the morning until 8:00 at night.
Dilkes/I can find you the time here just a minute.
Champion/Well whatever but I mean I'm just wondering if we ought to be thinking about
some way to do this and not affect people's businesses, I do agree, ! think in 10
years everything will be non smoking.
Pfab/So what are you waiting for?
Lehman/State may do it.
Champion/You know because it may affect people' s incomes Irvin and that might not be
important to you but you know what it is to me.
Pfab/No it is but at the same time if I go out and poison you I maybe.
Champion/Don't go into my restaurant.
Pfab/Okay.
Karmer/Well actually the studies that have been out there show that there isn't an
economic efl~ct that it that if you make a leveI playing field then I think that' s
what Mondanaro was saying, let's make a level playing field and you tend not to
lose the business.
Champion/I think he said that he would prefer that restaurants made their own choice, his
restaurants, most of them are non smoking but not all of them.
Kanner/But also the point that was about it's hard to do it alone and we would be making
a level playing field so you wouldn't suffer economically.
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Champion/I don't think we would be making a level playing field because we do have
restaurants that turn into bars and we also have Coralville. I mean I don't think
we have a level playing field.
O'Donnell/it appears like we need some more discussion.
Lehman/Well how do we want to, how do we want to pursue this?
Champion/How do we want to proceed?
Dilkes/There's a couple.
Champion/I think we're proceeding but I'm not sure how.
Pfab/I ~vould suggest we have a public hearing at City Council if nothing else and get
let's done ~vith it, get on with it whatever is on the people's mind let them come
and talk.
Lehman/Eleanor.
Dilkes/Yea there' s a number of ways you can do it, you can draft an ordinance and then
you can have a public hearing on that particular ordinance that you draft, you can
have a public hearing on a number of discussion points that you may ~vant to, I
mean there are different ways to approach it.
Pfab/Well how, I guess I have a question. How long have we been playing with this idea
or talking about this idea?
Champion/We haven't, we talked about it once.
Lehman/Well we didn't really play with it because we were awful busy taking care of
alcohol and a couple other things and this has just now gotten back to us.
Pfab/But this has not been sitting on the shelf here.
Lehman/Well it has been on the shelf.
Dilkes/My recollection is that in fact, CAFE brought it to you in the Fall of 2000 1 think,
we put it on hold while we were doing the alcohol stuff then my memo to you
asking the questions which kind of kicked it back off again was in April of this
year.
Pfab/So 1 mean this is kind of starting long into the tooth.
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Champion/Oh come on.
Pfab/I think we need to do something here, yes or no.
Lehman/WelI we haven't, we haven't discussed it, I mean it's time for us to.
Pfab/Yea it's time to discuss it.
Lehman/And I don't know we've been sitting here for three hours tonight, do we want to
think about this and at our next work session come up with something among
ourselves as to what we'd like to do. Steven.
Kanner/Well I don't if Ross still feels the same way but I thought I heard him say let's
get a resolution and 1 would agree with that, it seems like it's a pretty simple clear
cut resolution, let's put that out there and let's go from there, so we'll have that
resolution the one that was the original proposal that we initially agreed to look at
what we're, the 50 percent and no smoking whatsoever.
Wilburn/And I do still feel that way, the concepts have been discussed somewhat
amongst ourselves, somewhat back then and amongst the community to a certain
level, the concepts are there and so that's why I think much like your preference
with the alcohol ordinance is to have something in front of us to discuss, to focus
the discussion.
Lehman/To shoot at.
Pfab/That's, i think, I would support that 100 percent, let's do something, let's get a
resolution and put it out to the public and let's go with it.
O'Donnell/You know that's our problem, and we got into the alcohol ordinance, we
developed this tweaking method, all right, I didn't like that back then and I would
like before we do something like this to at least some assemblance of an idea of
how w(re going to do it. What goes in there?
Lehman/Well what? The question is how do we proceed from here?
Pfab/I would put it as a resolution and have a public hearing and have it.
Dilkcs/Just for clarification it's an ordinance we're talking about.
Pfab/Right, three hearings and go on with is.
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Wilbunf And if we use the alcohol as an example, we had several work sessions where
were basically had the same question in front of us, what is we're going to put
forward? Or do we want to have something drafted or don't we?
O'Donnell/See we did that prior to the resolution, and I think that' s the way we should
do this, we need to hear from some people.
Wilburn/Well I remember several persons frustrations with coming and sitting at a work
session, well what are we going to do? Well what are we going to do? And i
don't see anything different happening unless we have a. Go ahead I'm sorry.
Pfab/I think we had the most public discussion at the time we were getting ready to pass
the resolution and the hearing, that's when it all came together, we found out there
were some things we wanted to change so we went ahead and changed them.
Wilburn/In fact there were several frustrations myself included about what was, back to
the alcohol ordinance, what was in it? I'll bring an example, specific example to
mind, there was all this debate about ~vhether or not it banned folks from under 21
going into bars and so after all of these meetings sitting around and staring at each
other what are we going to do then we had an ordinance and then everyone ~vas
confused about ~vhat the ordinance said until there was some specific discussion
about okay this is what it does say so I really encourage let's do a, make a decision
about continuing on with having with having the resolution drafted, the ordinance
drafted with the 50 percent and no red light green light.
Pfab/I guess how long would it take to put a resolution together a 50 percent as we
discussed?
Dilkes/I don't think it will take that long to put the ordinance, assuming it's just the
ordinance just with the, the very simple one that you talked about.
Pfab/Right.
Kanner/We don't have to vote on it, we don't have to put it on the agenda to vote on it
until we're comfortable with it.
Lehman/Well I'm sure that's true and also it would probably, I would assume we would
want to have public discussion or public meeting on it once or twice as we did on
the alcohol ordinance. Do we want? And I suspect, now the process, Ames
talked about this for at some length as I recall and I didn't follow it as closely
because we were in the middle of something else. But Ames started out in one
direction, what they ended up with was certainly not what they started out for as a
i recall, are you familiar?
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Dilkes/I think that' s right, in fact my recollection is is that the Council initially the
ordinance presented by the City Attorney even more restrictive and then in the end
it was quite broad the number of exemptions.
Lehman/Well I don't really want to go to and I guess that's a good question as to the
amount of work it would take to draft a, my feeling is that we may drift, we may
draft a simple ordinance that by the time we get through with it it may not be a
simple ordinance, that there may be a lot of things that we're going to want to do
and I hate to see an excessive amount of time spent by staff you know putting
together an iron clad sort of thing because 1 do think there' s going to be a lot of
folks who are going to want input in this.
Champion/And there could be exceptions to some of the situations that I'm talking about
too, I mean there are people who are going to be economically affected by this
ordinance. I'd like to see us draft an ordinance that started out with a time.
Pfab/I have no interest in that.
Wilbutn/Neither do i.
O'Donnell/I do.
Lehman/Well I guess we do have several options, and I don't, I mean I hear a time, I hear
no time, we obviously have two different opinions.
Wilburn/Yes we do.
Dilkes/Looks like you've got 3 to 3 at the moment.
Kanner/Well no.
Lehman/Well what, do we want to draft something and then have public meetings and
discuss it is that the way we want to do it?
O'Donnell/It seems to be Ernie like that' s exactly backwards of the way it should be
done.
Lehman/Well we can have public meetings and then draft something.
O'Donnell/(can't hear) give some direction.
Lehman/The only problem that generally I think you have better discussion if you have
something to discuss.
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O'Donnell/I believe so.
Lehman/Pardon.
O'Donnell/I believe your right.
Lehman/Yea but I'm just saying that if you have a proposed ordinance that you can take
apart, discuss, cuss, whatever.
O'Donnell/Well I don't think so, I misunderstood the question.
Kanner/I think that.
Lehman/Well Steven.
Kanner/The group that proposed us came with what they felt was their strongest position.
Champion/Sure.
Kanner/And I think you start with that and then use that as the base and so if things, if we
want to modify it then we move to something that's at least more acceptable to all
sides instead of starting somewhere and it's most likely to go farther away from
that group. So I would propose that we start again with this as a model, what
we've been talking about and put that out to the community and say what do you
think of that and chip away at it if you want or give it your best shot and we'll
consider that.
Lehman/We have that model ordinance is that correct from the CAFE people? Do we
have the model?
Dilkes/We have the model ordinance yes but thafs I mean, we talked about there were
some conflicts within that in terms of the definitions and I mean I have, just in
terms the way some of the technicalities of the way it was drafted i think are
problematic so.
Kanner/But I would say we heard from Eleanor that it won't be too hard to put a
resolution that' s based on that but is better or crafted not better but in a way that' s
satisfactory to our City Attomey.
Lehman/Well would we accomplish anything Eleanor if we got copies of that proposed
ordinance, let the Council digest it and then at the next work session discuss it
with you and decide whether or not, what changes we'd like to see and whatever
do it. Is that going to get us anywhere?
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Pfab/Sure I mean we've got.
(All talking)
O'Donnell/I'd be comfortable with that.
Dilkes/I would probably, what 1 would probably do at such a meeting is run through the
same list of questions I ran through with you in April and I certainly can do that if
that's what you ~vant to do.
Lehman/That may be the best, that may be the best for the time being to proceed with
that, get us a copy in the next packet, let us go through it, go over it with you
again, refresh our memories our old memories and decide at that point where to go
with it.
Dilkes/Okay.
Lehman/All right.
Pfab/At the same time could you also either take a sample draft, a sample ordinance that
there' s a lot of people are willing to abide to and explain why they work or why it
won't, pick one of them, a fairly strict one as Steven said and work from that if
there's problems.
Dilkes/I think as I said earlier Irvin I don't have any problem drafting an ordinance, I,
that's not a problem for me I can do that quite easy if I get direction from you all
to do it. So but I have to know, I have to have certain questions ans~vered so I
know what the substance is to be.
Pfab/Are you willing to make it easy for Eleanor?
Lehman/I think we just decided we'll take the ordinance, if you'd like to make some
notes on that ordinance before giving it to us that's fine, the ordinance that has
been suggested by the CAFE people.
Dilkes/Why don't I give you the CAFE ordinance and I'll give you memo that I did to
you in April and go through that again.
Lehman/Revie~v that, all right and we will and we'll take it up at the next work session.
Resolution Re~ardinl~ Public Comment
Lehman/Okay folks the next item is Resolution Regarding Public Comment. This is here
as I guess all of us are aware, we have public hearings, in the past there have been
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I guess Council's and Mayors who have limited the comments on issues to the
time reserved at public hearings and that after those public hearings the public was
not invited nor were they allowed to comment at the first, second, or third
readings of ordinances that had public hearings. Since I've been Mayor I have
always felt, I find it very difficult to tell someone that they should not be able to
speak at a public meeting. The thing that this resolution that my understanding
and Steve you suggested this is that we make a resolution that would give the
public by right the opportunity to speak at each of the three readings of an
ordinance following a public hearing. Is that correct?
Kanner/Yes.
Lehman/I personally do not agree with that, although I have always agreed with folks
being able to speak to an issue at a Council meeting, I think, and I can certainly
envision occasions where there may have been all of the discussion that is
reasonably with one could reasonably expect on an issue and we could draw
things out basically from one public hearing to effective four public hearings.
One public hearing, close that public hearing and then each of the first, first,
second and third readings essentially have another public hearing, I think that
defeats the purpose of efficient government. I think we've been very fair with the
public but I believe the Council should keep the policy that we presently have at
which I think there' s some disagreement that I perhaps allow more public input
than I should. i think that it should be at the discretion of the Mayor, or if the
Council chooses to overall a Mayor to accept public comment at a public meeting
but I do not believe that we should as a matter of procedure tell the public that
they can in affect, they can in affect have a public hearing at each reading of an
ordinance, now that's just my opinion so it's open for discussion.
Champion/No I agree.
O'Donnell/I agree.
Pfab/Okay I have one as a possible compromise here, okay we say at time of public
comment up until 8:00 whatever it is now you can't talk about that because that's
on the agenda, now there might be time in there where people could do that.
Lehman/That's absolutely not going to happen as long as I'm Mayor.
Champion/No.
Lehman/If it comes up on the agenda you will wait and talk about it then otherwise we're
going to have everybody jumping all over the agenda.
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Pfab/Right so there, they come to speak and you say you don't want to let them do that
and I'm not criticizing.
Lehman/You have to do that to keep any kind of order.
Pfab/(can't hear) find any common ground, okay so if they can't speak then they say
okay then I'll wait until it comes up, well then do they have the right to speak or
not?
Champion/Yes.
Lehman/Well no, no, what, no, the right to speak I think is what we're talking about, I
believe that there are issues that we can beat into the ground so far that there' s no
point in further discussion. I think the public has a right to expect that the
discussion on an ordinance or ~vhatever will take place at a public heating. I also
believe that there are people who have questions that are raised by a public
hearing that might like to come back and talk to us about it and I've always really
let those folks speak but I think we have to have the discretion on the part or the
Council to accept public discussion or not after a public hearing. I don't think that
it's a matter of right.
Kanner/Right I agree with you Ernie, actually I was going to say basically the same thing
except with looking at it a little differently and saying that generally the resolution
would say that people have a tight to public comment on any agenda item but
Council rcserves the right to say we don't want to hear.
Lehman/Or to limit discussion.
Kanner/Or to limit it, so I would rather put it that way than your putting it the other way
saying you don*t necessarily have that right unless Council majority says you have
that right, do you see where I'm flipping it a bit? l'm saying that they have the
general right by resolution which could change at any time, we could always make
another resolution to take that a~vay but we're saying and this is to our staff also
~vhen you talk to people tell them they have the right to come at any agenda item
but we also reserve the right as a body to say no we don't want to hear anymore at
this time.
Lehman/I think that' s sending a message that it's going to be extremely difficult to
justify, the staff tells someone who calls yes it's on the agenda and you have the
resolution that says you may speak as long as the Council says it's okay for you to
speak and they show up and we say no we don't want to hear you.
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Champion/But we've created the other problem that Marian has said that we do allow
people to speak or you do and that she tells people they won't be able to speak,
isn't that what part of this discussion?
Karr/1, ,,veil I don't know what brought up the discussion.
Kanner/(can't hear).
Karr/1 clarify that the public hearing is closed and it's up to the Mayor and Council
whether you'll be allowed to speak once the public hearing is closed.
Lehman/I think that' s a pretty good way to leave it though, I mean our track record has
been very liberal when it comes to allowing people to speak and I think is it
working? I mean I don't think ifs broke, I hate to change it because I think it's
working okay.
Pfab/Is but, but the only thing is, the only place it may not be working is a persons that' s
somewhat timid has something to say, that's the problem, it's they for 75 percent
of the people it's not a problem but as for the 25 percent of the people say well I
don't have the right to speak so I guess there's no use going. And they may have
an idea or two. I don't know that' s the person that your trying to bring into the
public discussion.
Kam~er/Right we heard from staff that Jeff Davidson is the person I think he talked about
and talking to people about traffic calming I believe.
Lehman/That's a little different because those issues have not been on Council agenda's.
Kanner/But I think in general though then we found out that other staff is not necessarily
saying your free to speak.
Lehman/I don't think we should tell staff that people are flee to speak because that' s not
the case.
Karmer/See I think that should be the basic message your flee to speak.
Lehman/No.
Kanner/We don't have to tell them that Council reserves the right, I think it's pretty
understood that most bodies you reserve the right to use parliamentary procedures
to limit speech, we do it with fellow members and I think we, people understand
with people that come before us. But I think the general message we should put
out there, like the open records law we should ere on the side of openness if we're
going to ere. And in that sense we should ere on the side of saying come speak to
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us we want to hear what you have to say, we welcome your thoughts, it's good for
our process.
Lehman/I think your right Steven but I also think there is a process and that process does
include public hearings and the times that we invite public opinion and we ask the
public to speak and I do think there' s a certain responsibility on the part of the
public to speak at the appropriate time from a procedural standpoint. The way
we're doing it I think works pretty well, we do allow people to speak, I have, but I
also believe that we need the ability, I think it would be very easy if we tell people
they have the right to speak and we have an issue that is closely divides the
Council for whoever, whatever side you want to pick to load the audience with
people who are going to try to speak to that issue and they have the right, no, 1
disagree with that, they don't have the right to speak, they have the right to go to
the public hearing, they have a speak when that item comes up and with the
permission of the Council or the Mayor they may speak at the first, second or third
consideration. i do think they do not have the right to do that, they do have a right
obviously to speak at public hearings, and they have the right to speak with
Council and each Council person but I just think we're making a mistake if we tell
the public that there is a right to speak at every reading of an ordinance event
though essentially let them do it, I don't think we, we're taking a wrong road.
Kanner/We don't know what we're missing for information I~om people who might talk
to staff or in general might feel that they are not welcome, we might be missing
that information that might be crucial and we don't legally~ we don't have to give
them that right under state code, we don't have to give them the right (can't hear).
Lehman/Yea but once you pass a resolution you tell people I think.
(END OF 01-73 SIDE ONE)
Lehman/Speak if we tell them they have that right and I do not believe that we.
Kanner/Right, right I'm saying legally under the state code we do not have that
obligation, we would do this as a city, but morally I think we do, I think that it's
the right thing to do to further good process and to let people get involved, feel
that they're involved.
Lehman/Why would I come to a public hearing ifI knew I could speak at the third
consideration, why would i even bother to come to a public hearing?
Kanncr/Because people tend to make up their decision, make their decisions early, they
tend to but things can change so people will tend to want to come early to do that
but that doesn't negate the thought that they can maybe change something at the
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end and have, I think they, that's the whole theory behind having three readings of
it and why it's important.
Lehman/And that obviously is something we've allowed. Is there interest in changing
the rules?
Champion/No because we do have e-mail, phone calls.
Lehman/I mean I try to be very.
Champion/There are plenty of ways for people to contact us, no I think your very
generous.
Letunan/But 1 think we as a Council have been very receptive to the public, I have no
reason to think that wouldn't continue but on the other hand I don't frankly want
to encourage people to come to first, and second and third readings when they
really should make themselves heard at public hearings. By the time we get to the
second or third consideration we've put a lot of time and effort into something, 1
don't want to see stuff pop up that should have come up at a public hearing,
certainly we'll take that information and we do that now but I don't think we want
to encourage people to wait until the second or third consideration to speak to the
Council and I think that we're doing that.
Champion/And that's what we'd be doing.
Pfab/I have a comment, I think we wanted to discuss it, I think we did and I think that's
great and I think that's fine.
Lehman/Well 1 mean if there's interest in changing it that's fine.
Pfab/I'm serious, I think it was something we wanted to discuss, we've discussed it and I
think.
Lehman/And I think at such time if we don't feel that we're giving the public if anybody
on the Council feels that we're not giving the public an opportunity say so.
Pfab/Are you comfortable with leaving it go at this Steven? Or do you still?
Kanner/Irvin what's that question?
Pfab/No, no, in a sense, are you still saying that you would like to know?
Kanner/What do you feel?
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Pfab/I'm comfortable the way it is.
Kanner/Okay.
O'Donnell/Well that's five of us that are comfortable.
Lehman/All right well anyway but I think it's something to keep.
Pfab/But it was good to discuss it.
Wilburn/About the only time we're, I think where it's a problem with some fairness that
I think comes up with the way we have, even though I'm willing to keep it the
way it is now is when someone who gets up and really takes advantages,
monopolizes the time when others haven't had the chance to speak, that's the only
time where.
Lehman/Yes.
O'Donnell/But that's our problem that we don't hold them to five minutes.
(A couple talking)
Pfab/Or whatever it is and then ifthere's time left you can come at the end.
Wilburn/Understand necessarily of Robert's Rules of Order and conducting the, I really
don't think the public has an understanding of that.
O'Donnell/But ~ve tell them before each meeting.
Wilburn/We don't.
Champion/I was going to say who are you talking about the public?
O'Donnell/That may be the best thing you've said Ross.
Lehman/All right.
Council Time
Karr/Mr. Mayor.
Lehman/Yes.
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Karr/Can I real quickly, and I apologize there were b,vo items that I wanted to mention
earlier just very quickly, number one is you'll be having hearings on Tobacco
tomorrow night, one of the establishments has paid so we will go ahead and
revise, a hearing is not necessary, we will prepare a resolution accepting the
waiver and the payment in the typical fashion and when that comes up we'll just
note that the resolution has been properly noticed and you'll be, instead of
holding a hearing and assessing a penalty, accepting payment on that one.
Wilbum/Which one is that?
Karr/That's College Street Oasis.
Wilburn/Okay thank you.
Karr/Item number 5.
Lehman/So in that we'll accept a motion to accept payment on that item.
Karr/It wilI be a resolution so we already have a resolution on the agenda we're simply
swapping one resolution for another.
Champion/Right, okay.
O'Donnell/Good.
Karr/And secondly.
Champion/If this happens like before the Council is out will they just be in the consent
calendar?
Karr/Yes, absolutely.
Champion/Great okay.
Karr/The only reason these were different was they were your hearings, you have a
number of them on the consent calendar, that' s correct.
Karr/And secondly I just wanted you to notice the revisions to the precinct boundaries
that I distributed this evening that are very minor but I did want to note those,
that's it.
Pfab/So we have to do the third one now, that's the official one as of now, first.
Champion/This is number three.
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Pfab/This is number three, that's, three~s the magic number.
Karr/Correct.
Lehman/All right anything for council time?
Kanner/Yea I had something. Last Friday I walked the ped mall beat with the police
officer and appreciated being able to do that from about 11:30 PM to about 4:00
AM and it was interesting, it's quite an assault on the senses going into each of
those bars, it's a pretty wild time. One thing that did concern me though was we
went into one bar with a second and a third floor and we grand parented in bars to
allow them to have alcohol services up there and I don't 'know ifI want to
completely change that but I am concerned about the safety of people up there, we
went up there to the third floor and it had a very narrow stairway and couldn't see
the second exit through the smoke and the darkness and then the police shined his
light, the light actually was out on the EXIT sign but it just seemed very
dangerous and maybe we ought to talk about limiting the number of people on
second and third floors, perhaps we don't want to eliminate them but we might
want to limit how many people can be on second and third floors where alcohol
and/or food is being served because.
Champion/I'm sure they have a limit.
Lehman/I think there, isn't there a limit now?
Atkins/I assume there's something in the fire code.
Karr/There is (can't hear).
Kanner/I would assume so too, one we might want to talk about enforce, on the weekend
nights to enforce those stricter enforcement's. Two if we find that it still allows a
lot of people up there we might want to restrict it even more because those places
get really packed and if there was a fire up there.
Champion/It's all over.
Kanner/It would be dangerous so I would ask that we get a report back on what the code
is and two if it's a matter of code enforcement, if it's not then we look at stricter
regulations on what's allowed on second and third floors how many.
Atkins/(Can't hear) to the Council that's easy enough to do.
Lehman/I think that's something we.
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O'Donnell/(can't hear).
Lehman/And I think there are regulations on those, I'd like to know them as well.
Atkins/There' s a couple others, plus the basement too.
Champion/Plus the Fieldhouse has three floors and so does The Union and other bars.
O'Donnell/One Eyed Jakes.
Champion/One Eyed Jakes yea, there's a lot of them.
Atkins/Too many complaints from the police about restricting that because if they have
to deal with a drunk up on the second or third floor and try to get them down and
outside it's a real bear.
Karr/We did, we had that problem with Woodfield's a few years ago and that' s what
prompted that.
Atkins/Yea, let me find out what we've got in town just a little summary memo and I'1I
put that together for you.
Kanner/Thank you.
Lehman/Anything else?
Arkins/Good night all.
Lehman/Tomorrow night folks.
Adjourned 9:30 PM
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