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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-11-14 TranscriptionNovember 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 1 November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session 4:00 P.M. Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum UISG Rep: Schreiber Staff: Atkins, Karr, Dilkes, Helling, Franklin, Howard, Davidson, Yapp, Nasby, Williams, Rackis Tapes: 05-77, SIDE 2; 05-78, SIDE 1 and SIDE 2; 05-79, SIDE 1 KENNEDY PARKWAY TRAFFIC CALMING PROPOSAL (IP2 OF 11/10 IP) Lehman/All right, now you may continue. Davidson/The desire here was to bring some objective criteria to the evaluation of these projects. These projects tend to be very emotional for the neighborhoods, involving safety of children, traffic safety in general, and so the desire was to, because of how emotional the arguments are on both sides, let's bring some objective criteria to the equation, and I think that's been done real successfully. Remember, the notion of this program is to let neighborhoods empower themselves to determine whether or not they want traffic calming in their neighborhoods. The intention is not to impose something, the City to impose something that a neighborhood does not want, and this really has been a model program. Anissa and I have made presentations about it. It has been circulated widely through the State, and also we've had some inquiries nationally about it. It is on our web site and that sort of thing. So, with that background to the program in general, our latest issue is with Kennedy Parkway, and this is something that the Kennedy Parkway folks had, we had some discussions with them and it really came to a head during the Cardinal Ridge subdivision discussion and I'm sure you all remember that. This has also been, and we're going to discuss some of the cost issues in a minute, but this has really been a record year for the traffic- calming program. I don't ever remember having more than a couple of projects in a year, and this is our fourth one this year. This is also by far and away the longest street that we've ever considered doing traffic calming on. The neighborhood did come to us with a petition. Anissa then proceeded with the, you know, the way the program is set up and we determined that Kennedy Parkway, you can go ahead and put it up if you want, Anissa, that we did have a street here that did comply with the program in terms of being eligible based on speeds. We did measure speeds that came out between 30 and 39, as high as 39 at one location. The posted speed limit is 25. At that point then, we met with the neighborhood. John Yapp and Anissa met with the neighborhood and determined, as I say, with the neighborhood that speed humps were the preferred traffic-calming alternative. The other common one that we have evaluated and did consider, we had a couple of these projects and did consider traffic circles, but ultimately the neighborhood determined that speed humps were what they This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 2 preferred. I think by now you're all familiar that we're not talking about speed bumps, like in the K-Mart parking lot - go ahead - these are, if you've been over the ones on Teg Drive or 4th Avenue, you know that these are intended to just get a motorist to go the speed limit. Not 5 mph like you have to over the speed bump in the parking lot. So, that's what we're talking about here. We then went to the survey of the neighborhood - 81 households were surveyed; we've received 56 back, which is a 69% return rate - fairly high. 86% were in favor. That's, I think, by far, the highest we've ever had in favor. You'll recall that 60% is what is required. We now get into the issue of how long this street is. At that point, Anissa sat down with the ITE guidelines for designing these things and we take those guidelines very seriously because we want to make sure we have something that's well engineered and is safe, as safe as we can possibly make them, and by the way, we have not had any safety concerns with these when we've put them in before. You can see here the layout that we've proposed for speed humps on Kennedy Parkway, a total of 18 of these things along the length of Kennedy Parkway. Based on the costs that we've had for other projects, we estimate that what you see before you here would cost between $27,000 and $32,500. Now, we have a budget for the traffic-calming program. You adopt it every year; you have for the time that the program's been in existence. It's $30,000 a year. It has not gone up over the years, primarily because we've hardly used any of it. I mean, the typical traffic-calming project we've had is between $2,000 and $5,000. This is by far the most expensive one. Because of that, we've never come close to the $30,000. There've been some years we haven't used any of it; however, the way it looks this year - we currently, with the projects that we've done so far, which have been 4tnAvenue by City High, the alley between 7th Avenue and Bradley, with those two projects subtracted out of the $30,000, we have a balance of $22,500. $22,500 left right now. So you can see, we're a little bit short in terms of implementing this how. We also have a project in the works on Morningside Drive, which would be the 4th project for this year, and that...what stage is that at, Anissa? Williams/We're going to meet with the neighborhood the end of this month. Davidson/Okay, so that's another one that could potentially draw down out of the program, as well. In addition, we have decided to try and enhance some of the esthetics with traffic circles on College and Washington neighborhoods, College :Street and Washington Street, there are three traffic circles that, you know, we would just like to enhance the way those look a little bit, and we had proposed doing that this year. That could clearly wait if we needed to, but it's probably realistic to say that with everything considered here, another $5,000 to $10,000 could be needed in order to fund all the traffic calming projects for this year. The Director of Finance and the City Manager has indicated that if it is your desire to go ahead with this project, the road use tax position of the City is adequate for doing that, but that is, of course, your decision. Depending on what you decide then, the...if you decide you want to go in, go ahead and do this project then we would set up the signage in the neighborhood, according to what the program is, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 3 just to let people know who use the street. Not as much of a concern for this street because it's a dead end. It's pretty much the people who live on the street and the contractors who are using the street, but we do put up the signs in the neighborhood so that if somebody who is not a resident of the neighborhood, we want them to know about the program and have the opportunity to give you input on this, but we would then put a resolution on for the 13th City Council meeting, and we would install these in the spring. So the expense would not actually be incurred until the spring. One thing I wanted to add before we open it up for discussion is the first logical question might be, 'Well, let's just put in fewer speed humps.' We don't recommend that because of the spacing guidelines for these things. These are designed so that a motorist can't build up a lot of speed before you get to the next speed hump, and if you make the spacing further in between them in order to reduce the number of them, we really don't like the liability position that that puts the City in and we would discourage you from doing that. You could potentially do it on half the street, but then it would be an issue of which half, and you know, we like the idea if you want to go ahead of trying to find a way to afford to do it. So, did you have anything to add? Questions? Lehman/Do we build these ourselves? Davidson/Yes. Lehman/Our own crews build them? Champion/Well, this neighborhood is certainly going to see increased traffic, especially when the construction gets going at the other end, and will eventually become a through street. Isn't that correct? Davidson/That's correct. Champion/So I think it's, I'm in favor of doing it. It is a long street and it does have some geographic problems, and there are no sidewalks in the neighborhood, and so I think this is a very valid thing to do. Vanderhoef/My question is, when this becomes a through street, I have the feeling, whether it's labeled that or not, that this is going to become an arterial. Davidson/Well, we hope not, Dee, and the reason... Vanderhoef/Well, I understand that, but... Davidson/...the reason we think that it won't is because if you look at the design of this street, even without the speed humps, excluding the portion through Cardinal Ridge subdivision, versus the alignment of the new road, which is only partially there now, but if you look at that alignment, it's a much more direct route and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 4 would have a higher speed limit on it - 35 versus 25 - and so we believe it will be an encouragement for the through traffic to stay on the more convenient street that has the lower travel time, rather than this street. Elliott/How far away would that be? Davidson/It's just, I mean it's basically just... Williams/... see the portion of Deer Creek Road, which is now Camp Cardinal Boulevard in the comer of...the lower, left corner. Lehman/Right, I see. Vanderhoef/The early development, the development that's happening from the east to the west, so there's going to be a time period in there where there's going to be a lot of traffic on that road potentially. Davidson/Yeah, now Camp Cardinal Boulevard will be open next year when the second portion of it gets built. Vanderhoef/But Kennedy Parkway may not be completed all the way through. Davidson/Yeah, Karin, I mean, didn't Southgate think it was going to be more like even maybe even three or four years before this would be put through to Camp Cardinal? So, you know, the other thing that that helps, and we saw it with the First Avenue, Scott Boulevard extensions, if we get people used to using Camp Cardinal Boulevard, again, we think there will be less opportunity...less chance that motorists will cut through here. Champion/Well, the fact of it is it's not an arterial right now. Davidson/Right. Champion/And it's not intended to be one. Davidson/Yes. Bailey/Well I'm...I'm certainly supportive of this. My concern, I have two concerns, I mean, this is currently a dead-end and so the people who are typically I would say speeding through this neighborhood are actually probably residents and I think that's concerning on its face, and then secondly, I think that this is a chronic problem as we can see with more people using the program, that we have a speeding problem throughout the City, and when are we going to begin to address that because our $30,000 a year is rapidly going to be depleted as more and more neighborhoods become frustrated with this speed with which people buzz through them. So, I also think that if we go ahead with this, the neighborhood has to take This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 5 some responsibility for their residents and have some peer pressure among residents to do something about the speed, until it's connected. Davidson/The issue that you bring up, Regenia, is typical. Very, I mean, I would say the higher percentage of our neighborhood traffic issues are related to people who live in the neighborhood, not always, but frequently, and in fact, we've done speed enforcement initiatives where we make sure that the neighborhood captains understand, you know, you're going to be making your own residents, we've had police officers say, 'How come you're doing speed enforcement in our neighborhood?' Well, it's because your neighborhood associations asked us to. We've had that happen in a couple locations in east Iowa City. I do want to point out, Regenia, one of the things we are trying to do design-wise with collector streets is not have big long collector streets like this, and this was a unique situation because this was the first large lot development in Iowa City and so, you know, and because it's such a narrow tract, it's sort of lent itself to one big long collector street. Bailey/Right. Davidson/But we typically try to make sure we have breaks, offsets, in collector streets so that you don't have an opportunity for motorists to build up a lot of speed. Bailey/Good. Elliott/My concerns are that if this is becoming a citywide problem, I think we need to do something about it citywide and look at, talk with the public safety people and find out what their suggestions are. I have two concerns about this project. They're asking us to spend city money to save them from themselves, which seems a little unusual to me. I would, I think so far I've been in favor of the calming practices that we have done, but I'm also a little concerned that neighborhoods are beginning to think that the streets belong to them. I'm interested in neighborhoods having a strong voice in their streets, but the streets belong to the city and the people who drive through the city, whether it be from east side, west side, or north side. On this project, I would be interested in spending $2,000 or $3,000 a year, but not $30,000, $25,000 or $30,000 in one year. Bailey/Well, and right now this street does belong to the neighborhood though? Elliott/Pardon me? Bailey/I mean, for the time being, right now, this street does belong to the neighborhood. I mean, because it is a dead-end. Elliott/Uh-huh, but it will not be. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 6 Bailey/Right. Champion/It's going to have a lot of increased construction traffic on it also. That's a real concern when... Davidson/We have addressed that in the design of these, and we feel we have something that will work even with the construction traffic. That'll be a little bit of an experiment for us too, Connie. Wilburn/When the area's all said and done, this is still designed to be a collector and not an arterial, and so in a sense, the arterial represents the broader traffic. The hope is on a collector street you would slow or, I guess they don't have that as a concern and maybe the, maybe the speed humps being voted in here by the 69% is kind of a .... 86%. It's like a physical manifestation of neighborhood pressure I guess, I don't know. Bailey/I think the physical manifestation would be a slower speed. Vanderhoef/Uh-huh. Police yourself and then when traffic picks up, with increased building because we're going to build a lot of houses before Kennedy Parkway connects up with it, and I think that by that time, what you're saying may be four or five years, that the habit is going to be to use this street, and I'm not sure they will go west to come back east. Champion/But, Dee, all the more reason to put those speed humps in. Lehman/Right. Champion/You're just making the argument to put them in. Vanderhoef/Well, I can see both sides of it. So, my question then is what is the cost, I know you said they were not interested in the circles, but what's the cost of putting in a circle, and would that do it at a comparable cost or less if they were strategically placed? Davidson/Well, if you, if you selected two or three locations for traffic circles, that would obviously be a much lower expense. As I'm recalling the three...maybe not as low as I think? Williams/No, I'm not sure that that would be true because there's only one location, one intersection that's wide enough to allow a traffic circle. So in order to have multiple traffic circles, you'd then be taking out the curb sections and repouring that, like we did at Scott and Court, which was a high-dollar project. So, I can't say that that would necessarily be any less, and there's a couple of areas, particularly coming down the hill here by Butternut, there's a large hill that descends down here and the traffic is speeding through there and that, that area This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 7 doesn't lean itself real conducively to put in a traffic circle. So, it could be as expensive as speed humps. That would have to be... Vanderhoef/How about the, putting the traffic circles, it would seem that the space would be there for the traffic circle and not get into the curbs, perhaps, where the islands are, and that's where we're coming into the idea of we have to have two because we've got a divided parkway in some spaces, and would those be big enough to take the parkway island out of there and put a circle in? Davidson/Well, you start taking parkway islands out and that's when, you know, when I was talking about the expense of the traffic circles, I was thinking of the ones we did on College and Washington, where basically just plopping the circles down. We did everything within the existing curb lines and those weren't terribly expensive. This is a little bit of a different situation, and you have to remember, we're designing these things not just for a passenger car, but for, I mean, on College and Washington we literally took the ladder truck from the Fire Department when we were laying these things out just to make sure that that vehicle or a garbage truck or a snow plow could get around them, and so when you're using that large design vehicle, Dee, that's when you get into the kind of reconstruction that Anissa's talking about. It's more expensive. It sounds like it could potentially be a little less expensive, or maybe about a wash. O'Donnell/How many traffic circles would you suggest? How many, but then again, you don't address the problem of building up speed between the circles. Davidson/Yeah, there was speeding through out this corridor, too, I mean it wasn't like it was one single location. Champion/I would think traffic circles would be dangerous for all those construction trucks. Elliott/I would think particularly now since this appears to be the people within the neighborhood, it appears, now perhaps I'd be found incorrect on that, but this appears to be different than trying to have police enforce speed limits on say First Avenue or Scott Boulevard, where you have all sorts of traffic. This, I would think, would be rather easily taken care of by the police because you would have the same people getting tickets multiple times and that would be very, very quickly they would learn not to do it, and so I would certainly like to try that first and then if we need to follow up with speed humps, I would be interested, but not $30,000 in a year. Champion/It's not $30,000 a year. Elliott/$30,000 in a year. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 8 Lehman/Would it be possible to stretch out the construction of those humps over a couple year period? Davidson/Probably what we would do is wait and do the whole thing next year. Champion/Just do them and get it over with! Lehman/Well, you know, I think first of all, Bob, I don't disagree with you, except that I think if you start putting patrol cars on, wouldn't you perceive and I perceive and ! guess we all would (can't understand) private street, if I were a resident of First Avenue, I'd be pretty upset. What are you putting police cars over there for when we got (can't hear) need it? You know, long term, there's a problem out there now, it's probably a problem of their own making, but certainly as that subdivision is built-out over the next four or five years, the traffic on this road is going to be pretty significant. Now, I think the ones we have work very well now, and what is, what is the speed limit? 25 over those things? And they work. I was surprised though, as I recall, in the packet, that both police and fire are okay with this. But they were not very okay when we first put them in. Davidson/You know, Ernie, I think some of that is that, yeah, I mean it's not a bus route so the transit system doesn't care, it's not a route that fire is going to use regularly unless they're going to or from a residence in this neighborhood. So that lessens their concern. And I think Public Works is just used to them. You know, there's enough of them out there. They've snow plowed over the ones that are out already for 12 years and I think our operators are very skilled. They raise the plows a little bit and it hasn't been a problem. Lehman/It works! Davidson/Yeah. Champion/Don't you think too, Ernie, that I would expect the Fire Department and Police Department not to like any obstruction in the road. Period. Lehman/I guess I would be upset if they liked it. (laughter) Champion/Right. Davidson/You know, I think, and certainly in the discussions I've had with the Fire Chief, and I have to give him a lot of credit, no - he's not thrilled about anything that holds them up, but I think he realizes this is an initiative that Council's put in place for neighborhood safety and he acknowledges that and he's willing to go along with it. Lehman/What's your pleasure, folks? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 9 Davidson/And, before you kind of take your straw poll here, if you, if there's a majority of Council that likes the idea of the traffic circles in lieu of the speed humps, what I'd like to do is give us the opportunity to go back to the neighborhood and discuss that with them further. I mean, we're not going to be building anything until spring anyway, so we've got time to do that. If that's your desire, let us go back to the neighborhood rather than just impose that on them. Lehman/If you've got to do traffic circles, how long is that street? Williams/I thought it was about 2,500 feet. Lehman/Half a mile. (several talking at once) But you're going to have to have several traffic circles, and if you have to, if you start cutting out a curb and gutter and you're going to put in about two of those for what you're spending for the entire speed humps. Williams/And up in the area near the top, it's not real easy to put them in up here because you have a big split. These medians are very wide, so it's real, it's not real conducive to Putting in the traffic circle there. To put them in mid-block on these sections, you only have one direction of travel. So, again, you don't have a real moving around the circle kind of maneuver where you have that, so it's not real beneficial to put them mid-block in those areas where there's one-way traffic. So...and if you did desire it, I would recommend trying to put them in at every intersection because of the speeds. Lehman/I think that's too complicated. I think speed humps are the only thing that's really going to work. As much as I hate to do it, I really would, if we're going to do something on this street, we need to do it prior to the time we get all that traffic coming in from that new subdivision. Vanderhoef/Could you bring us back some costs and a recommendation for us to compare with, on the circles, before you take it out to the neighborhood? I... Champion/Well, are there four of us interested in circles? Lehman/Who's interested in traffic circles? (several talking at once) Well, we don't have enough. How many are interested in pursuing the speed humps? Elliott/I would be, but I would spend no more than $2,000 to $4,000 a year on it. Lehman/I think that that would be $2,000 does one. Elliott/$2,000 to $4,000, I could go up to $5,000, but I wouldn't spend more than $5,000 in a year. Now why would it be more expensive to do two or three one year? Two or three another year? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 10 Davidson/Well, it's just a matter of sort of the localized impact then, rather than... Lehman/Doesn't solve the problem. Davidson/...yeah, if we just had one small localized traffic issue, that would be reasonable. Was there a majority there, Mr. Mayor? Lehman/Pardon? Davidson/Was there a majority there, Mr. Mayor? Lehman/There are a majority to proceed with speed humps. Bailey/And you said that projects that come in, we could use road use tax for... Davidson/Yes, Steve, would you like to speak to the financing issue? Atkins/What was the question again? Davidson/Just the financing of...we're going to be a little bit over budget the speed hump, for the traffic calming... Bailey/... and I also don't want to leave other neighborhoods out of the loop because this seems to be quite a trend. Atkins/We try to budget on an average year, and $30,000 has been a number that, I think, generally we had been comfortable with. We've had a long-standing policy that we maintain in the neighborhood of an $800 to a million dollar reserve in our road use tax. We have more than sufficient funding to cover this, and if you were to say yes to this, I'd authorize a transfer to cover the difference, but we have sufficient funding. Davidson/What we've presented, Regenia, will be it for the year because our traffic calming, our traffic counting program, which is necessary to collect the data for this program, shuts down now for the winter. We couldn't .... if we had other requests from a neighborhood, we couldn't collect data until spring. We wouldn't implement anything until the next fiscal year. Bailey/All right. Vanderhoef/The only thing is we're trading off road use tax for this, when we have some very large projects on the table for our transportation system. I'm not... Bailey/Well, this is an approximate, and we're only going to, I mean, 27 to 32 would probably only involve $10,000 worth of road use tax if we made up the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 11 difference, so I feel like that makes sense because we still have that 22 sitting there in the traffic calming... Vanderhoef/That's on road use tax...(several talking at once) Bailey/We've already prepared, or planned, for that, so that's (can't hear). Vanderhoef/But the expectation of the citizens is that every time my neighborhood gets together and says 'I'm going to do speed humps' it's just going to keep chipping away and chipping away at road use tax, if they meet the criteria. Bailey/Well, what should we do about traffic calming then? I mean, if this is a chronic problem. Vanderhoef/This is a problem, and I think the problem has been shown out to be in the old neighborhood, the original neighborhood, to begin with, that if they can't calm themselves, then that's a problem. Elliott/I would like to ask the Police Chief... Vanderhoef/Send it back to the neighborhood and say 'Hey, folks, we've got a problem here.' Elliott/Following up on what was said about fairness, you said if the police spend time enforcing speed on one area, what are the people on First Avenue left to think? Those people between Court and Rochester when we're spending $30,000 on a basically a private street on the north side of the City. How fair is that? And I would like to hear before we do anything, from the Police Chief as to how much money it would cost for the City to have some kind of city-wide enforcement on speeding. Davidson/Well, we do have citywide enforcement fight now. The Police Department allocates a certain amount of resources in their budget for traffic enforcement. And what we do is we periodically target that, like for example, Court Street just recently between Summit and Muscatine was one where we said 'Okay, police department, please take some of your resources that you're using anyway throughout the city and target it on Court Street.' It is possible to target that wherever you'd like. Every time you target it, then there's less left for the rest of the city, and so, but we do do that with some regularity. Would you like us to proceed with the resolution for the 13th then? Vanderhoef/I suspect this area has been speeding right along because they haven't had enforcement. It's a dead-end street and probably... Davidson/Well, we all know motorists will go as fast as they are comfortable going, and it's pretty comfortable to go 35 here. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 12 Champion/It's kind of a fun road to go fast on. (laughter) Bailey/I think just issue her a ticket right now! (laughter) Lehman/All right, thank you. Vanderhoef/Well, when you live on First Avenue and Rochester, you have to go down big hills, and it's called use your brake or you're not going to go the speed limit. Lehman/Okay. CDBG INVESTMENT POLICY (IP3 OF 11/10 INFO PACKET} Lehman/Steve. Wilburn/Eleanor, should I (can't hear). Okay. All right, I can sit here and just keep my mouth shut. I'm not going to participate in the discussion because I have a conflict of interest with items related to Community Development Block Grant funds. Lehman/Just pretend like it was Historic Preservation; recuse yourself and speak to it. (laughter) Nasby/At your last meeting, you had some correspondence and some input from Habitat for Humanity that would like you to look at the newly adopted investment policy for CDBG and Home funds, and what this is regarding is homeownership activities, and the policy that we adopted back in June, basically provided three options for homeownership assistance, and those options were either a grant, if the money went to a community land trust program, or it was repaid, and the two options for repayment were either a 30-year amortized loan or a balloon loan at the end of 20 years. Habitat has requested that the Council reconsider the policy to do a 15 or 20-year forgivable loan on those monies, and I've put a copy of the policy in your packets and would entertain any questions. Elliott/Steve, what's the usual cost to them for having, are we talking about $80,000 to $100,00 each time, is that what we're talking about? Or the interest on that? Nasby/Okay, the last...in FY06, we're providing $100,000 a Habitat and that will probably be three lots, two maybe three lots. So, the interest on it would be zero. So there would not be any interest generation, but that would be the forgiveness that we're talking about. Elliott/And the payback would come from the eventual owners of the property, as a part of their repaying the loan. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 13 Bailey/It doesn't have to, right? Nasby/It could, there are a couple of different ways that could be structured. Either like I said the homeowner could pay us back over that 30 year amortization period, or there could be a balloon loan at the end of 20, and I think there's a couple of different ways mechanically that could be done. Habitat sells the land and the building to the homeowner; they could sell them that component. The homeowner pay Habitat for both the land and the building - at the end of 20 years, Habitat then could take that money and repay the City, repay that balloon, or the Habitat could say 'We're going to sell you the land and the building, you pay us for the building, but at the end of 20 years, you're going to have to pay the City for the land.' So I think... Lehman/And that would be a 0% loan at the then current value of the land? Nasby/At the current value of the land, yes. At the time that we would do it. That's correct. So it would not depreciate the value of the land. Correct. Elliott/The value of the land at the time of the initial... Nasby/Right, the initial assistance. Correct. Champion/I think the problem that Habitat has, correct me if I'm wrong, was that the people that they're providing housing to really can't afford, isn't that correct - they can't afford? Lehman/They can't afford it up front, but, I mean, I think that's the point. Initially, but 20 years is a long time. Champion/It depends if... Bailey/Well, and there's also the option, I suppose, of the organization making some arrangement to pay off part of it, I mean, Habitat gets the (can't understand) directly to the homeowners, so the organization can arrange how they want to structure it (can't understand). I mean, they are making the assumption that it would pass on to, but it wouldn't necessarily be that way. Vanderhoef/I think it does, if I remember correctly, they have been before us before and said that their bylaws for Habitat doesn't allow them to do that. Am I right, Steve? Bailey/Doesn't allow them to do what? Vanderhoef/Doesn't allow them to carry an interest-bearing loan. Bailey/This doesn't have interest. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 14 Lehman/Doesn't bear interest. Bailey/I'm aware of what you're referring to, I think, but this doesn't bear interest. Champion/I think when we make policy we probably don't really understand the implication it has for different non-profits who have depended on this money for years. I think it's ideal that they pay this money back and put it back into the system, but if we're going to stop the development of housing for people, is it 30 to 50% the income bracket? Nasby/31 to 50 is the typical ownership. Champion/50% for home ownership, then I'd say give the money back because that's important to me, but they're providing housing for people who absolutely couldn't get it any other way, and I feel like the policy when we're deciding we want this money to come back to us, is the ideal situation, but I think the effect is bad. Elliott/I think the question here is whether the City could do more of value with the money being returned, than Habitat for Humanity could do with not having to have that money returned. It...which...which is for the greater good? Bailey/But we had this discussion when we made this policy. The three of us had this discussion when we proposed the policy and I thought the agreement was we would try, we would see the effect, we would understand it comprehensively - instead of saying this is the potential effect - because we don't know. We also don't know what accommodations organizations might make to make this policy work for them. I mean, if we set a policy and change it because somebody says 'this doesn't work for us,' we have no empirical evidence it'll be...we said we would try it for a year. And if it's horrible, we...I think we need some level of evidence. Vanderhoef/I agree we need some level of evidence and the other thing that I'm not aware of is Habitat has been building here for about 10 years, 12 years, something like that, and I don't understand how that house then is sold, whether it has to go back to a low income family or...well, see that's another piece, to me, that when we use CDBG Home funds, I think maybe we should be looking at having it come back to the City in that there shouldn't be a windfall from the sale of that because they've got a grant versus a loan. Nasby/I believe Habitat's philosophy is to use those proceeds to put it back into their program and do more houses. Mark would best be able to answer those questions about the specifics of that, but I believe that's their mission, their philosophy. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 15 Vanderhoef/And that brings up the question then that Bob just presented to us, who can do the most with those dollars that are returned, if that house is sold. I don't know whether any of the homes have been sold here in our community or not. Do you? Nasby/Yeah, Habitat has had a number of homes that have been built and sold in Iowa City market. Lehman/Resold. Vanderhoef/Resold. Nasby/Oh, resold, the second time around? Vanderhoef/Yeah. Lehman/Right. Nasby/That I can't answer that question. Elliott/And... Vanderhoef/And that's where this difference may come in, unless we stick with our policy. Nasby/We would still have an affordability term attached to that property, even if it was resold. (several talking at once) We would, through...there would be a deed restriction that we record on the property when we provide the funds to Habitat. Lehman/For how long? Nasby/15 or 20 years. It depends on the amount of funding and the particular regulation, but it's at a 15 to 20 year window, that's the minimum HUD affordability period. Elliott/Well, one...it would appear on the face that if after 20 years, that home is going to be worth more than was paid for it, and that would be able to compensate for having to not do what Habitat would like to have us do, is perhaps the easiest way to explain that, and obviously, I haven't, Connie. (several talking at once) Lehman/...after 20 years, if they have an interest-free loan, they have a balloon, then becomes a mortgage on the property or they pay it off, one or the other. There probably is very, very reasonable to assume that after 20 years that property would be paid for to the point that a second mortgage would not be a problem, or that they would have the ability to pay for it. Vanderhoef/I agree. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 16 Elliott/And I do think that there certainly is more data, more information needed on this as to what impact it would or wouldn't have, or has or hasn't had. Lehman/Well, are we interested in maintaining the policy that we set up? Vanderhoef/I am. Lehman/Are there four people who would like to do that? All right. The next item is HCDC allocation location policies, Steve, while you're there. LOCATION POLICY FOR HCDC ALLOCATIONS (IP4) Nasby/Locations, yes. When Mr. Hayek was here in October presenting the Scattered Site Housing Task Force information to you, as representing the Housing Community Development Commission, he had asked the Council for some guidance as far as location criteria for CDBG and Home funded projects, because the FY07 funding round is coming up. HCDC meets this Thursday to put their application packets together. We will be getting those out in December to applicants, and so what I did is, in your packets, I put in a memo basically that outlined what the Scattered Site Housing Task Force recommendation was and then what we've done in FY05 and FY06, to kind of give you a starting point if the Council wished to provide any guidance to HCDC. And I guess at this point that's what I'm looking for on their behalf is to know what to tell. them Thursday if... Champion/Well, I know it's going to be very difficult, and I don't know how to approach this because we haven't discussed this at the Council level and it'd probably be a while before we get to discussing it, but I'm going to have a hard time improving, approving any subsidized or low-income housing in the areas that are what I consider saturated. The Mark Twain area, the Grant Wood area... Vanderhoef/I have a little bit of unease. In many places We've got a one and a two within a tract, and I was looking specifically at tract 105, which says it's oversaturated, which as I see it in the south part, there is a large mobile home park there, but then if you go from Court Street north, ! suspect that there isn't much low income housing up in there, and those would affect Lucas and potentially if they were changing boundaries, over to Hoover, which could handle some housing, so I'm not quite ready to blanket no new housing in the tract areas that are listed as over population. Lehman/Well, you know, I'm obviously not going to be here when this comes up, but if...I really believe that if the Council feels as Connie does, that we will not support a significant increase in low income or subsidized housing in any particular area, that we need to tell the Commission that. They're going to go through a lot of work and come back to the Council and say 'Hey, we have this This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 17 project and it's in this area,' and the Council, 'Nope, we're not doing to do that!' I mean, I do think we need to give them an indication that there is a good chance that it might not be approved. Bailey/Well, and it's been my experience (can't hear). I think I supported some of those. I think the majority said no. Champion/Well, the ones we supported were kind of the homeownership type thing or the elderly. Bailey/(can't hear) areas the majority of the Council will not support it. Champion/And we're certainly going to have to be willing to maybe take more funds to one project for land costs, and that's going to be the problem. So, boy it's very difficult because we need the housing so badly. Nasby/And I think that was probably part of the recommendation from Scattered Site was if you look at the map, they wanted it tied to additional funding because there would potentially be increased costs. Champion/They'll have to. Elliott/In Steve's memo to us of November 10, he provides three possible options, and I'm certainly in favor of number 3. I would like to point out that it's always...I shouldn't say disturbing, but I have mixed emotions. Ross recused himself from this discussion, and I think perhaps no one at this table, or these tables, perhaps has more to' contribute to this discussion than Ross does and I'll certainly be talking with you after the meeting, but I would be in favor of option 3, I think that's very realistic for Iowa City. Lehman/What is option 3 .... front of us. Elliott/Option 3 is use the fair share map and matrix without additional City funding because I can't imagine we're going to have additional City funding. That is not... Champion/City funding, I mean money from the... Elliott/Meaning in addition to CDBG funds. Champion/...has the money to do it. It's just going to take some more CDBG money. Bailey/I don't think we're getting more CDBG money. Vanderhoef/No, if anything we're going to be getting less. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 18 Elliott/By City funding, I think Steve, you indicated funding in excess of... Nasby/Outside of the CDBG and Home funding process, and the information that we had over the weekend from HUD, or from our associations, basically say that we're probably going to get about 11% less in CDBG this year than we had last year. Lehman/Well, assisted housing would be encouraged within the areas of the community identified as underserved. That may be a good enough statement fight there. It doesn't absolutely preclude, but it certainly puts them on notice that there's a good chance it won't be approved. Bailey/I think we need to be a little bit more direct. (several talking at once) ... case by case, I don't think, works and until we can have a more comprehensive response to this Task Force report, which I anticipate we'll do up to the first of the year. I think we should just decide on what's this year's policy. Let's be realistic, because I can't see majority of this Council approving something that's...already over. Champion/I can't approve a site in the Mark Twain school district, I really can't. Vanderhoef/Or Grant Wood. Champion/Or Grant Wood, I really can't, or even possibly Mann. Bailey/I think what we should use is this matrix if we're going to give direction, and I don't know exactly... Elliott/It is not perfect, but it's the only realistic instrument we have. Bailey/I agree with this, but I just want to be realistic in the Commission, and until we have a complex discussion, I think this is (can't hear) I can't see this Council approving this. I'm (can't hear). Lehman/Can we communicate...does the Council agree with that? Regenia... (several taking at once) Bailey/What did I just say? (laughter and several talking at once) Lehman/Matrix, and you don't see the Council approving anyplace that is overserved now. Bailey/It's been my experience that I can't actually see a case-by-case situation coming down to it and the majority of this Council approving it over the fair share housing project in that area, so why don't we just own that and be clear? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 19 Elliott/You're saying that in addition to what it says in number 3, they need to know that we can't conceive of approving anything, yes... Bailey/Of this year. We need to have a comprehensive discussion with School Board and ... Champion/We need to have a plan ourselves. Bailey/Yes. And we will have a plan for them next year, right? Promise that? Lehman/Is that clear? Nasby/So I'm understanding that it would be option 3, which is to use the matrix, that map, and you're not discussing any additional City money to the project. Okay. Lehman/Okay. Vanderhoef/That will be a discussion, certainly, during budget. Champion/But ! think it's more than three. I mean, I think we're... Bailey/Oh yeah, I think it is too. We won't consider projects that are in the areas that are considered over the fair share. Nasby/Right. Bailey/For this year. Nasby/But there are, just to address Connie's concern for a moment, there is a census tract that feeds into Grant Wood that shows as a developable area. Vanderhoef/In 18. Nasby/In 18, part of the census tract is in, part of it's out. So, if we use the map, then part of 18 you can develop in, and...right, and so that's why I'm concerned (TAPE ENDS) Champion/It's a tough decision, but I just don't think it's fair to the kids that are there (can't hear). Bailey/I don't totally agree with it, but I would like to have a (can't hear). Champion/But I'm not the only one, I mean, all of you must have an opinion on this besides me. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 20 Elliott/That's what I just said. Number 3 with the additional statement that we cannot see our Council approving anything in those areas for at least the next year. Bailey/But, what Steve said is there's a viable area within the school district that Connie named that shows under our fair share that could be, under this policy, could be an okay project. Nasby/Right. (several talking at once) Bailey/I guess what Steve is asking is .... Nasby/And that's why I'm asking so we can get that to... Bailey/...project was brought to the Council, would the majority approve it? Elliott/Not if it goes to that school. Champion/I could not approve it. Bailey/Okay, then we need a clear up the direction. Nasby/... a little bit more discussion there then. Lehman/Well, I think they need that direction very soon. Champion/Well, I think the two schools I'm really concerned about right now are Mark Twain and Grant Wood. Those schools have very high percentages. Lehman/Only issue I have with that is I hate to single out schools. I think we have a matrix that indicates areas that are oversaturated and that...as a rule of thumb, it's probably a good... Champion/I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying that this particular matrix conflicts with my own personal statement. Elliott/If we use the matrix, but if it appears something in the matrix that would be... Lehman/Offensive to Connie. (laughter) Elliott/Yes, if you put it that way! (laughter) Bailey/If it's offensive to Connie, it's not going to get approved. (laughter and several talking at once) Vanderhoef/Yeah, I'm having trouble with that too. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 21 Elliott/Primary matrix, secondary school. In other words, primary the matrix but if within the matrix there is something that would allow but it would still negatively impact the school, then I would not be in favor of it. Vanderhoef/Because... Lehman/In other words... Bailey/That's when you have other opinions about .... that doesn't seem to make any... Elliott/The matrix to me, the overall idea of the matrix, is for the schools and that neighborhood. Champion/This was brought (several talking at once). Vanderhoef/I'm uncomfortable using, totally using the matrix because our growth areas right now are in that south, south of Highway 6, and we've got areas down there, 18 subtract 1 is certainly one of those areas, and we have some lower income being placed in there, but we can do low cost housing that impacts seniors that don't impact schools. Nasby/Yes, but then we're looking at potentially fair housing issues on what types of households and where and... Vanderhoef/I understand. Nasby/... I think that's problematic. Vanderhoef/But until there's, until there's another school put down there, and... Nasby/Scattered House Task Force had the same issues. Vanderhoef/The school issue is to get that broken up, and as we grow, we're going to get more certainly in that area, and that school's going to be overcrowded very shortly, unless they move into a busing situation. So, I guess my question is what do we hear from the School Board/Administration on potential of another school south of Highway 6? Bailey/This is a good discussion, and I think we'll have to have this discussion with the School Board when we meet with them, but we need direction, I mean, for this year's funding cycle, which is kind of challenging, I think, given that we haven't had this comprehensive discussion, but... Vanderhoef/Because I'm not ready to exclude all of 18. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 22 Lehman/But that would be in Mark Twain. Vanderhoef/I know it is. And that's... Bailey/And then that would be a "no" vote from Connie. Elliott/And me. O'Donnell/And me. Vanderhoef/(several talking at once) But if I'm looking at getting things scattered, new development is where we can step in and put in a unit here or there, and get them scattered, as we are building rather than... Bailey/I don't disagree. I don't necessarily agree with Connie and Bob's position on this. I'm just trying to give it... Vanderhoef/Case by case, and certainly in developing areas, can we do something with developing areas? Lehman/If the issue is the impact on the school system, which it seems to be in large part, any development in the south part of town that impacts those two schools, goes directly against the policy that we've been talking about doing. We have issues in those schools. I know it's a growth area, but adding in that area contributes to an existing problem. Bailey/So, if we have the policy that said we won't support projects in over fair share and all of census tract 18... Vanderhoef/Well, 18-2 is the only one that is over. 18-1 is okay. Nasby/If Connie and Mike and Dee would modify the map, basically take all of 18 off. (several talking at once) Champion/And what I would hope is that next year we would develop and would get with the School District, find out what their plans are, develop sites that are going to be possible, build it into development (can't understand) I mean, you could do it without forcing developers, certain percentages and all that, but we have to come to some...I don't know how we're going to do it, I don't know how we're going to develop this scattered site business, but we have to do it. So, but it's going to...it can't just be us doing it. We have to bring...and maybe, you know, some of the people who build assisted housing, into the program. It's going to have to be a pretty big discussion. So what we're doing instead is putting some things on hold for a year probably, and that's... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 23 Nasby/Case by case is a little bit problematic too (several talking at once) And there's no criteria. Lehman/Basically what I'm hearing is that we will not approve projects in those two school districts? Dilkes/Wait a minute. Are you adding those, do you want to use number 3, or those two school districts, essentially? Nasby/Number 3 with those two school districts added. Dilkes/Added, yes. Lehman/Sounds to me like what we're saying... Bailey/I would rather add census tracts than school districts, but... Lehman/Well, we need something to... Elliott/I think Regenia's right, though. She doesn't particularly agree with it, that we need to send something along that's realistic as to what the Council will approve so that they do not spin their wheels. They've got so much work to do, we don't want them spending time on something that is... Lehman/Right, and we're trying to verbalize .... it sounds to me like if it's in those two school districts, it's not going to get approval from Council. Dilkes/Are there four of you that want to add those two school districts to the language of number 3? Elliott/Yes. Lehman/I can vote, I guess. I would go along with that. One-year policy. Vanderhoef/And if it's only by school district... (several talking at once). Well, then I would like to take the census tract 105 and cut it into two with the Lower Muscatine cut, and allow...because we've got a lot of development going on north of Court Street even that there's some smaller units mixed in with larger units and so forth, and they feed into Lucas, not into either Grant Wood or Mark Twain, and I'm definitely interested in... Nasby/The Scattered House folks had the same discussion on census tract 105, and what is tipping those numbers is there's a large assisted, or senior housing unit up on, no, it's actually off Court, on Scott Park Drive, and so looking at it from a sheer numerical standpoint, which is what this matrix does, is it looks at a percent of housing in the tract. Is it overserved, underserved? Now those demographics and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 24 those numbers are going to change as more units are developed, that percentage of assisted housing's going to come down, so it's going to open up for development in the future, and that's kind of part of the rationale for looking at this annually and redoing the numbers, just to see what tracts or block groups are in and out. I can certainly understand that discussion. Vanderhoef/I would certainly look at allowing it in 105, north of Lower Muscatine. Bailey/But that does contradict the policy... Vanderhoef/Well, I understand that, but... Bailey/Why don't we just list census tracts in which we could see development happen, based upon this matrix and the districts. Vanderhoef/And then go case by case? Bailey/No. Lehman/No. Champion/No case by case. Vanderhoef/I don't want to exclude census tract 105. Bailey/That's what I just said. Let's just list census tracts in which projects can occur, taking into consideration the matrix and the school district. Vanderhoef/So you would allow them in 105, even though the matrix says it's overpopulated? Nasby/But you were going to take out census tract 18 where it said development was allowed, and then take it off the table. So, you're putting in one and taking out another. Bailey/I would just list census tracts in which they.., development can occur. Elliott/You feel comfortable taking from this conversation the census tracts that we've identified, not by number but by concept? Nasby/In the discussion that you're having right now, if you take a look at your map quick, 105 off Court, you would add, or basically you would shade that area. So that would make it available for development, and you would take out census tract 18, block group 1, which is the east portion of that census tract. Basically, those are the two changes, and then 17-2, which is just north of Highway 6... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 25 Vanderhoef/The Mark Twain area. Nasby/...the Mark Twain area, you would take that little block group 2 out. That's what I've gotten from this discussion. Bailey/So the policy just lists the census tracts. (several talking at once) Nasby/Option 3 with an adjusted map, and that I can do. Lehman/You can do that. All right, we're clear. Good. Thank you. Nasby/Clear as mud. Thank you. Lehman/Okay. We're going to ask for a break - we're going to break, for a short break. (TAPE OFF) AGENDA ITEMS Vanderhoef/I've got a couple. One of them is on Consent Calendar to set a public hearing on the... Lehman/Which number? Item 5e(1). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION OF INTENT TO AMEND A PURCHASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND WAL-MART REAL ESTATE BUSINESS TRUST FOR APPROXIMATELY 21.76 ACRES OF PROPERTY LYING WITHIN LOTS 10 THROUGH 17 OF NORTH AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT SUBDIVISION AND LOTS 2, THROUGH 4 OF THE NORTH AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT SUBDIVISION - PART TWO, AND SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR DECEMBER 13, 2005 Vanderhoef/It is...public hearing number 1, El. It's setting the public hearing on the Wal-Mart. We still have two and a half months before the extension runs out, and my concern is that, number one, that we're not getting any income off of this property and we're waiting for court for one thing. So, my first suggestion is that we continue to market this property during this time, if we would go forward with the extension, and I truly believe that we ought to. My question to Eleanor, for sure, is would we be marketing that as CC-2 or would we be marketing it as CI-I? Dilkes/Well, first of all, as you and I discussed earlier today, Dee, you obviously market it with the understanding that you have currently a binding purchase agreement with some unmet contingencies, and so it's, you know, you can't enter into another purchase agreement unless it's a backup offer, but you would...I think I've talked to Karin about this and I don't know if she's had conversations with the realtor, but that happens, for instance, when you're selling your house and you This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 26 have a purchase agreement with some contingencies and you might continue to look for backup offers in case those contingencies fail, and I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that here. The terms of that purchase agreement would, or that potential purchase agreement, would be open to negotiation. You'd have to think about whether you'd want to include a rezoning contingency, but it wouldn't be something that would not be allowed. I don't know why you'd want to do that when, well, I shouldn't say that. (laughter) Given that the contingency that's holding us up is the lawsuit challenging the rezoning, I don't know that it would make a whole lot of sense to do it, I mean one with the rezoning, but you know...so... Wilburn/The other, in terms of looking for a backup offer, the amount of time it took to get this offer, I mean. Lehman/And there's lots of other land. Vanderhoef/The other piece that I thought of, certainly, is the City is holding bond for the infrastructure that we put in on that property and if we were not to be marketing it, then is there a way to give an extension for another six months, whether there would be an opportunity to just say we're going to hold this open for a fee - that helps us pay off our bonds? Lehman/But holding it open is not of their making. Wal-Mart is asking for an extension because of something beyond their control. Why would we try to hold them to something over which they have no control? Vanderhoef/That's all right. I'm just throwing that out there. Champion/Aren't we marketing the other land? Lehman/Yeah, right. Champion/Right now, so we're already marketing land. Isn't that true? Okay, so I don't see any sense, even though I'm against Wal-Mart to... Elli0tt/Our marketing agent, I don't know how much time he or she would be interested in spending on this property, but the person would understand that there is the slightest possibility that Plan B might need to be... Dilkes/Yeah, I think that's really something you have to look to the realtor for advice on, how that would work. Franklin/Can I ask a question then? Lehman/Yes, do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 27 Franklin/In light of this discussion, is the Council saying that you do not wish us to pursue any further marketing of this piece for a backup offer? Champion/No. Franklin/Okay. Lehman/First right of refusal would be a good thing if we could get it, but that certainly wouldn't... I shouldn't think would preclude us from giving Wal-Mart an extension. Vanderhoef/Well, is that their understanding, that we are continuing to market this? Is that Wal-Mart's... Dilkes/I haven't had any conversations with either the realtor or Wal-Mart about the marketing of the property, so... Lehman/Is there any other concern about this item, besides Dee? Okay, any other agenda items. Vanderhoef/So we'll do nothing? Lehman/I think that's right. We'll approve the public hearing and go from there. Item 14. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE PARKING FIBER PROJECT. Elliott/Quick question for the...it says here parking fiber. Is that fiber...okay. Karr/Regenia, do you want to turn your mic... Bailey/Sorry. Item 10. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 10 OF THE CITY CODE, ENTITLED "USE OF PUBLIC WAYS AND PROPERTY," CHAPTER 3, ENTITLED "COMMERCIAL USE OF SIDEWALKS," TO LIMIT FENCES TO THREE (3) FEET IN HEIGHT, TO ALLOW SIDEWALK CAFES ONLY IN ZONE 1 IN CITY PLAZA, TO CLARIFY THE DEFINITION OF AMENITY, AND TO REQUIRE ANCHORED FENCING EXCEPT IN THE WINTER MONTHS, AND CHAPTER 5, ENTITLED "CITY PLAZA," SECTION 7, ENTITLED "USE OF CITY PLAZA," PARAGRAPH A TO CLARIFY THAT SIDEWALK CAFES ARE A PERMITTED COMMERCIAL USE IN CITY PLAZA. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 28 Lehman/Item number 10 in the agenda is the sidewalk caf~ ordinance, and I think it only, I think the only sidewalk caf6 that was affected was Giovanni's. We got a handout tonight, and I think...Eleanor, do you want to explain the situation. Wilburn/I'm sorry, what item is this again? Elliott/Item 10. Wilburn/Thank you. Dilkes/Just before we talk about Givanni's, there is another, as pointed out in the memo, there is another caf6 that is affected by the fence height, and that's...(several talking at once). Givanni's currently has a sidewalk caf6 that extends into Zone 2, which is the space between...Zone 1 is the 1 O-foot that abuts the buildings. You've got the fire lane in the middle, and Zone 2 is that, all that remaining, basically between the fire lane and the area that abuts it. Givanni's is principally the only one that has, that extends into Zone 2 because they're the only one that can. There's a provision in the ordinance that prohibits the use of City amenities, like benches and that kind of thing, and because those amenities are located in Zone 2, most cafes cannot go out into Zone 2. He does encompass a tree, but under the current ordinance, the interpretation of my office was that wouldn't be included. The main issue for him now is the contiguous requirement. It's my reading of the State Code that the sidewalk caf~ needs to be contiguous, adjacent to, next to, butt up against the building, and he and I talked about that today. I frankly think that's fairly clear in the State Code. I think that the State indicated some time ago when the City first was approaching them of a willingness to work with the City on that issue. I think that kind of sent us down the wrong track because I think it's pretty clear in the code that it has to be adjacent. Attorney General's office agrees with that interpretation. So, what...the only way to, so you've got this continuum of contiguousness, and the thing that obviously, that clearly I think is not allowable is a caf~ that sits out eight feet or ten feet or whatever away from the store front, or the restaurant front, and then people, the whole public walks in the middle there. I don't think that's allowable. Elliott/No. Dilkes/Um, so Jim brought in this diagram, and the Mayor and I talked to him about this. I don't think this is doable under the contiguous requirement. I do think, though, and again, this is the degree of contiguous, if you brought the fence, if you brought the fence out from the building like (several talking at once) arms out from the sides of the building. Okay, like this. If you brought these arms out on the sides here from the building, and then there was a pedestrian walkway through here, wide enough for either five feet or six feet, whatever that has to be for wheelchair access. I think you can create.., again, I think you can make the argument that it's contiguous. I think without those two arms, and having it out This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 29 here, I don't see what the difference is between that and setting it over here, or setting it over here, or setting it just about anywhere in the plaza. So, in terms of the legal requirement, I think we can make the argument that if those come out like that, you can .... again, it's all about degrees. It's a matter of degree, you know, and it .... but I think the policy issue is what you all are comfortable with. Atkins/Eleanor, I don't understand that. I understood that these sidewalk cafes must be contiguous, and that was part of the liquor license requirement, and I don't understand how building a wall, or doing whatever...protruding, maybe somebody has to show...it doesn't seem like it accomplishes... Dilkes/Well, in my opinion legally, I think you can make the argument. Atkins/...argue the legal issues, I'm just trying to... Dilkes/Yeah, well it is, .the contiguous requirement is a legal issue. Then the issue becomes whether as a policy matter you all are comfortable with this situation, with people walking through here. Vanderhoef/I'm not comfortable for, number one, a safety reason that if I'm visiting and walking down that public walkway and somebody comes out of the restaurant carrying a tray with hot coffee and soup and various and sundry things, I'm not watching for somebody to come out into my walkway, and I don't like it at all. Bailey/Yeah, who becomes liable? Dilkes/Well, the whole area would be rented, would be part of the sidewalk caf~ and we'd have an indemnification agreement that etc., etc., and I told, you know, I told Jim you need to make sure your dram carrier is okay with this arrangement. Bailey/What's this hinged thing over here? Dilkes/Well, that was his, he was, the picture he brought in had this hinged gate going back and forth. Karr/Staff is not recommending the gates, so that is not... Elliott/I'm just not interested, if there's a legal way of doing it, having the public walk through or push a bike through, push a wheelchair through, walking through a restaurant, it just doesn't make sense to me. Vanderhoef/No. Dilkes/Well that's... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 30 Vanderhoef/This whole discussion about Zone 2, when it first came up, we didn't have anything that prohibited it when that application came in for this one, and we all said we'd look at it. And look at the ordinance. I think we can start excluding Zone 2 again. I just don't think that it is fair to all of the businesses in that area to protrude so far out there that it interferes with public flow. When they come out ten feet, something like that, and there's still plenty of eight feet too. Elliott/Especially, Dee, when the City says you can do it if it doesn't negatively impact those things which the City places and decides where it's going to place. So the City could conceivably design something to the benefit of some retailers or restaurants or whatever and to the detriment of others. Because it's the City who decides where the benches and where the containers are placed, is it not? Vanderhoef/Uh-huh. Lehman/How far out does Zone 1 go? Dilkes/Ten feet. Vanderhoef/Uh-huh, and that's about what we have there on Iowa Avenue and still have the eight foot walkway. Dilkes/Yeah, I think the issue is for businesses is when they have a very narrow store front. Vanderhoef/I understand that, and that's...there are some who have just put two little chairs and to a little round table into their frontage and I'm sorry, but this is not a safe thing in my mind. Lehman/Well, as I understand the item on the agenda, would restrict cafes to Zone 1, which would be no more than ten feet away from the front of the building, and they must be contiguous - physically touching, that sort of thing. All right? (several talking at once) Okay, other agenda items? Item 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION REBIDDING THE PROJECT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DUPLEX HOME UNDER THE AFFORDABLE DREAM HOME OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM LOCATED ON LONGFELLOW PLACE, DIRECTING THE CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS. Vanderhoef/I have one on number 11. Lehman/Okay. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 31 Vanderhoef/Which is the resolution to rebid the project for the affordable Dream House. I have no problem with rebidding it, but I have been thinking about and asking a few questions - I'd like to have staff investigate the possibility of putting manufactured housing in there, and we've never talked about that, per se, as a Council, but that might be another alternative for putting in some lower cost housing. I think we need to have the stats. My impression is that manufactured housing has longevity, holds its appraisal value, and certainly would be comparable to a stick-built house, but I would like the, all of the community to understand and hear some of these with certainly good sources, rather than my general impression...what the value is. Elliott/As I said last time, I don't see why we differentiate between the two kinds of houses based on the way they are constructed. Vanderhoef/But since we do in the Code... Elliott/But I'm saying it doesn't make sense to do that. Vanderhoef/Yeah. Wilburn/What you're talking about is pre-built with the foundation. Vanderhoef/Absolutely. Lehman/I think the Code differentiates primarily for manufactured home sitting on leased ground. I think it was put on...real estate, it's treated the same as any other house now, but I think it's a great idea to check that out. Manufactured homes today are built with the same six-inch walls and whatever, as stick-built homes... O'Donnell/I do too. Lehman/I think it's a great idea to check it out. Atkins/You want to defer this? Vanderhoef/And then the other question would be, should we just defer number 11 and get information and then we'll figure out if we want to put out another RFP that includes both, if that's the consensus that we come to. Is that... Elliott/I guess I'm surprised it wasn't considered. Dilkes/You'd have to have another public hearing on the plans and specs if you were going to change those. Basically have to start all over. Vanderhoef/Well, and so, defer indefinitely or vote... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 32 Karr/You could defer indefinitely and then staff can come back... Atkins/I have an understanding, defer it indefinitely with the understanding that you wish us to bring you back a manufactured housing policy, idea, whatever we call it. Bailey/So, would that lot be one manufactured home, or two? How... Atkins/See, I don't know the answer. (several talking at once) Bailey/I'm just trying to think of... Vanderhoef/... styles like townhouses, so they can be connected, but certainly we need someone familiar with the process to... O'Donnell/I understood there was a lot of fill required of those lots over there, and that's why we arrived at these. I'm wondering... Lehman/Foundation wouldn't be any different though. O'Donnell/Foundation wouldn't be any different? Lehman/Be the same. O'Donnell/Well, if it wouldn't be more economical I wouldn't see why... Lehman/Check it out. Vanderhoef/And certainly, if there's a little urgency in spending, or showing progress, on our CDBG purchased lots, something like this could be ready to go and set in with early season next year. O'Donnell/Good idea. Lehman/Okay, other agenda items? Atkins/Is that your plan, deferring it? Lehman/Right. O'Donnell/Indefinitely. Item 10. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 10 OF THE CITY CODEr ENTITLED "USE OF PUBLIC WAYS AND PROPERTY," CHAPTER 3, ENTITLED "COMMERCIAL USE OF SIDEWALKS," TO LIMIT FENCES TO THREE (3) FEET IN HEIGHT, TO ALLOW This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 33 SIDEWALK CAFES ONLY IN ZONE 1 IN CITY PLAZA, TO CLARIFY THE DEFINITION OF AMENITY, AND TO REQUIRE ANCHORED FENCING EXCEPT IN THE WINTER MONTHS, AND CHAPTER 5, ENTITLED "CITY PLAZA," SECTION 7, ENTITLED "USE OF CITY PLAZA," PARAGRAPH A TO CLARIFY THAT SIDEWALK CAFES ARE A PERMITTED COMMERCIAL USE IN CITY PLAZA. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Wilburn/I just wanted to go back to Item 10 for a second because... Connie, you had something else that you were...you said the problem is, with Item 10, the sidewalk caf6? Champion/No, the only thing I was going to say is I, I mean, I agree with everything everybody has said and I agree you can't have people walking through either the restaurant, or can you image somebody riding a bicycle down at 40 mph, and hitting somebody getting up. But I think it's too bad that we allowed it to happen and they've put a lot of money into the fencing, and architect's drawing, and now we're going to take it away. I'm not saying it shouldn't be taken away, but I think we sometimes make bad decisions ourselves, I think. Wilburn/Well, they did know that it was a one-year deal. I mean, they were clear on that, but I was trying to think of...I was trying to differentiate between like a, and I don't know if this is the concept he was going for, what do you call them, in those shopping centers? Lehman/Kiosks? Wilburn/Food court type of thing, is that the concept he's going for, but then when you talk about the bikes and stuff like that, that's like yeah... Champion/Could be big trouble, and I think alcohol is the problem. Even though I support alcohol being served in the cafes, I think it needs to be attached to the building. Bailey/Well, I actually think it... Dilkes/The contiguous requirement, of course, doesn't apply if there's no alcohol. Champion/Right. Oh, it doesn't apply then? Dilkes/No, it's a liquor license requirement. Lehman/Okay, other agenda items? COUNCIL TIME This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 34 Champion/I have one thing because I feel so strongly about it, I don't want you to think I'm being pushy (laughter). I am passing out the opinion in the, what do you call it, the Daily Iowan last Friday, which I think says better than I said about the Christian angel in the park. So, I'm hoping you're all... Lehman/I already read it, Connie. (laughter) Champion/I'm hoping that you'll all read it and maybe somebody from the majority might rethink it and bring it up for discussion again. I think it's problematic. I think it's a big step backwards for the City. I guess you all know how I feel about it, but I just...I think she puts it much better than I did. Lehman/Okay, anything else for Council Time? O'Donnell/I'd like to know if we've been doing any work on that bus stop out on Scott Boulevard for... Atkins/Other than the whole review you're going to get. O'Donnell/The whole review? When is that due? Atkins/That'll be right after budget. As soon as you get the budget, we hope to have the options prepared for you. Trouble, Mike, was...we just couldn't make, without dramatically altering our route, figure if we're going to do this, let's do this one time, and it's certainly not forgotten in the review. O'Donnell/Okay,' good. Elliott/Connie, I'm not sure you're going to get the results, but I like the fact that you did it, except I'll tell you the last time I did something like this, it didn't do squat! But we'll read it. Lehman/Okay, anything else for Council Time? Champion/Maybe other people will read it besides you, too. Lehman/Is...Mike, I noticed after, and by the way, congratulations on your election, but after the election you made a comment to the press about working on a franchise agreement. Is there any interest from the Council pursuing that? At any time soon? Champion/After the first of the year. Lehman/After the first of the year? Bailey/After budget. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 35 Lehman/Okay. O'Donnell/That's fine, but I think I, you know, we were sent a very strong message and I'm ready to pursue it. Bailey/...franchise, everybody said status quo. O'Donnell/Contrar! Lehman/Any other Council Time? Meeting schedule. MEETING SCHEDULE Atkins/As you begin looking at your meeting schedule, I just want to give you a head's up, the meeting of Wednesday on Geocom has been cancelled. Wednesday at 1:00 P.M. We're just not in a fashion that I'm ready to have it presented to you, so we will probably not do this until after the first of the year. Lehman/Depending on how we proceed with the zoning issues tonight, we might want to reserve that time to finish up the zoning code, unless we're fortunate enough to get it done tonight. Vanderhoef/Okay, 1 to 3... Atkins/1 to 3 on Wednesday the 16th, it was scheduled, Dee, and that is now cancelled. Karr/But don't take it'off your calendars until later tonight, right? Lehman/Right, for now. It may go back on... Bailey/So this meeting scheduled the T.B.A.s, where are we on determining... Karr/That's what I'd like to talk to you about, where we are. Bailey/Super. Karr/First, you've got two meeting dates set for the Local Legislatures Meeting, December 3rd and November 28th. I have heard from four out of five, four legislators and two cannot make December 3rd, one definitely prefers the 28th, and one can do either. Based on that, and I've called all of them a second and third time, based on the information, I would recommend you cancel your December 3rd and retain your November 28th, but it's essential we confirm those dates as soon as possible. Lehman/Considered the 3rd cancelled. What else do you have? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 36 Karr/Okay. Atkins/The 3rd is cancelled? Karr/The 3rd is cancelled. Okay. The... Elliott/We are settled now, 4:30 to 6:30 for Monday the 28th. Lehman/Right. Karr/I think we're settled as much as we can be settled, you know, unless...your Orientation that's planned Tuesday evening the 29th, that is just among outgoing and incoming Council members. We have not set a time yet. Elliott/You mean current and incoming. Karr/Yes, it's you and Amy. (laughter) We'd like to nail down a time as soon as possible. If...it can be any time. Last time we did it, we did it in the evening, hour, hour and a half should do it, it' s more, and it has some implications of setting aside, we discuss scheduling issues, we set aside some times for budget, we discuss scheduling of organizational meetings, things like that, so definitely we want to do the calendar, but I would suggest that we do that, but I'd like a time for that. It can be during the day... Elliott/I have 6:30 to 8:30, is that correct? Karr/That was a suggested proposal we had... Vanderhoef/The 29th? Karr/The 29th. Champion/How about 3:30 to 5:00? Karr/I'd like it, we could do...Amy has a conflict. So we can do it 4:00 to 6:00. Champion/4:00 to 6:00, would the staff go home that night? O'Donnell/Okay, so it's 4:00 to 6:00? Karr/4:00 to 6:00 on the 29th. Champion/And that will be here? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 37 Karr/Yes, that'll be here. Is there any of you who know the Legislative meetings that are scheduled for November 22nd. Would the State League here in town...do you have that on your calendars, so we should keep that posted as a work session? Okay. Elliott/You mean, technically we are to call it a work session? Karr/Well, technically there's a quorum of you going to, if there's going to be a quorum of you going to discuss items that you may be taking action on in the future, I'm not sure how... Elliott/That's what I mean, technically, it's a work session. Actually, it's meeting with Legislators. Dilkes/Unless you want to sit and say nothing. (laughter) Karr/Then, I think the other item I had, Emie, was discussion of the remaining December schedule and some of that will be dependent, I think, on how far, where you end up with your zoning discussion tonight, unless you'd like to discuss schedule right now. Lehman/Well, what I suggested to Marian is that we...we're having the public hearing on the zoning ordinance tomorrow evening, that we continue that to December 12th, which is a work session; have special meeting prior to the work session, close the public hearing, and have first consideration of the zoning ordinance. The next day is the regular, well it's a special formal meeting, on the 13th - have second consideration on the 13th. Then we have to set another time between the 13th and the end of the month for a third consideration. Champion/Can we collapse them? (several talking at once) Karr/You have to have six to collapse. Lehman/I don't think that we probably should do that. Elliott/Just so we get it by the end of the year. Lehman/Well, that we're looking at some date after the 13th of December that would be, and I think we probably should mark that date before things get really hectic. Bailey/Let's do that. Karr/It needn't be an evening meeting. It can be any time of day, but I think it's better to look at setting that aside in case you need it early. Bailey/Let's set it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 38 Lehman/Yeah, it doesn't have to be an evening. It can be 7:00 in the morning, Bob. We're not looking at a date - we're trying to find a date. Champion/I think it depends on other people's schedules, because I'm pretty flexible...I'm not going to be leaving town, but if we could do it sometime during the day, because my evenings...it's so hectic. That doesn't mean I couldn't come in an evening. Lehman/Well, how about the week of the 18th? Okay, let's .... Karr/Is there any inclination to do it the same week, so you'd meet the 12th, 13th, and say your packet coming out the 15th of December on Thursday, you've got a Thursday packet. Is there any thought about...(several talking at once) So you'd be done the same week. Lehman/15th at 4:00, does that work? All right. Champion/And we could pick up our packets? Karr/Yes, ma'am. Vanderhoef/Pick up the budget - is that when we get it? Bailey/Yeah, when are we going to get the budget? Atkins/I don't know yet. We're still doing heatings tight now. Bailey/Do you have a ball park...don't tell me December. Atkins/2005. Lehman/All right, so 15th, the 15th at 4:00 will be a special meeting. All tight. Karr/And just to remind you, it'll have on it, we'll catch up with all those rezoning ordinances we'll have those final readings on there so that agenda will be a little longer, but it'll all just be simple final readings on them. Lehman/All right. Okay. Elliott/And I want to...we won't let the Historic Preservation question fall through the cracks? That's a question. Karr/You mean the enclosed gutters that was reversed? Elliott/Yes, yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 39 Karr/Well, it was on their agenda last Thursday night. Atkins/Okay. Lehman/Karin, you're up. Karr/We do have dinner. I just didn't know if you wanted to do dinner now or wait... Elliott/Karin says 'give me a break.' Franklin/The Historic Preservation gutter thing was referred to the Commission last week. I don't think that they came to a conclusion on it, but I'm not really sure, but that will be coming back to you. Lehman/Can you let us know? Franklin/That's how you left it was to refer it to Historic Preservation, to evaluate that guideline. Lehman/And they'll get back to us. Franklin/Yes. Lehman/Is it my understanding you folks would like to break before we continue? Consider us broken. (TAPE OFF) PLANNING AND ZONING Item 7b. REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE- FAMILY (RS-8) TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY - MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (OPDH-8) FOR LOTS LOCATED ON CATSKILL COURT WITH THE EAST HILL SUBDIVISION. (REZ-5-00012) Franklin/Okay, I'm going to skip A, and go to B, and that's the public hearing and first consideration on the Catskill Court rezoning from RS-8 to OPDH-8 with the Commission recommending in favor of that. Item 7c. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY REZONING APPROXIMATELY 51.9 ACRES FROM JOHNSON COUNTY RESIDENTIAL (R) TO LOW DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS, FOR THE PROPERTY LOCATED ON AMERICAN LEGION ROAD (REZ05- 00018) (SECOND CONSIDERATION) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 40 Franklin/Item C is second consideration on the rezoning for the Fairview Golf Course that has been purchased and is in for redevelopment. Item 7d. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2) ZONE TO CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT (CB-5) ZONE, MIXED USE (MU) ZONE AND PUBLIC (P) ZONE, FOR CERTAIN AREAS CURRENTLY ZONED CB-2 LOCATED SOUTH OF DAVENPORT STREET AND NORTH OF JEFFERSON STREET. (SECOND CONSIDERATION) Item 7e. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2) ZONE TO CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT (CB-5) ZONE, AND HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RM-44) ZONE, FOR CERTAIN AREAS CURRENTLY ZONED CB-2 LOCATED SOUTH OF JEFFERSON STREET AND EAST OF GILBERT STREET. (SECOND CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Then, D, E, no wait - D and E you can go ahead and do second consideration on those, too. Those are a consequence of the zoning ordinance, and then... Item 7f. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTY FROM CENTRAL BUSINESS SERVICE (CB-2) ZONE TO CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT (CB-5) ZONE AND PLANNED HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (PRM) ZONE FOR THE AREAS CURRENTLY ZONED CB-2 LOCATED SOUTH OF BURLINGTON STREET ANt> WEST OF LINN STREET. (REZ05-00016) (PASS AND ADOS'T) Item 7g. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTIES CURRENTLY ZONED RESIDENTIAL FACTORY-BUILT HOUSING (RFBH) ZONE, TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING-HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OPDH-12) ZONE (REZ05-00017). (PASS AND ADOPT) Item 7h. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-8) TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY - MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (OPDH-8) FOR LOTS LOCATED ON LONGFELLOW PLACE WITHIN THE LONGFELLOW MANOR SUBDIVISION. (REZ05-00010) (PASS AND ADOPT) Item 7i. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-8) TO HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-12) FOR LOTS LOCATED ON DODGE STREET COURT WITHIN THE JACOB RICORD'S SUBDIVISION. (REZ05-00011) (PASS AND ADOPT) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 41 Item 7j. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING PROPERTY FROM MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-8) TO HIGH DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-12) FOR LOTS LOCATED SOUTH AND EAST OF WHISPERING MEADOWS DRIVE WITHIN THE WHISPERING MEADOWS SUBDIVISION. (REZ05-00013) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/F, G, H, I, J should all be deferred indefinitely until adoption of the new development code. Champion/I'm sorry, what numbers were those.., letters? Franklin/F, G, H, I, and J, and then we'll remember, Marian and I will remember, to put them back on when we have the final reading of the development code. Item K... Champion/Karin, why can't we pass and adopt those? Franklin/Well, because the text of the code is not totally settled, and so, we just, for safe keepings. Item 7k. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE VACATING A PORTION OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY IN AN ALLEY BLOCK 13, COUNTY SEAT, A PORTION OF SOUTH MADISON STREET AND A PORTION OF DES MOINES STREET IN IOWA CITY COMPRISING APPROXIMATELY 1.31 ACRES (VAC05-00007). (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/Item K is the vacation of the right-of-way for the University, and this is the final reading, and then you get to Item 8 which is the conveyance, public hearing and conveyance of that right-of-way to the University. Okay? So everything is pretty much a repeat. Item 7a. ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 14 ENTITLED "UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT CODE" BY: REPEALING CHAPTERS 4, 6 AND 9 AND REPLACING THEM WITH THE NEW TITLE 14 ZONING CODE, AMENDING PORTIONS OF CHAPTERS 1 AND 5, RENUMBERING CHAPTERS 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 AND 11, AND REPEALING CHAPTER 12. Franklin/So let's go back to A, which is the zoning code. Now I'm going to make some reference to the code itself, so I hope some of you have it. (several talking at once) Do you want extra copies because we can go get them. Okay. Okay, what I thought I would do is just go through the matrix that's included in your packet, so we can try to just point by point get resolution of these items. What we put together for your were the issues that were raised that the Council then said that you wished to (TAPE ENDS) the comments are...tried to resolve where you're going with this. The first one is the suggestion to change the minimum lot width This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 42 in the RS-5 Zone from 70 feet to 60 feet. The question that we have for you is when you do that, in the proposal for RS-5, well - also in RS-8 and RS-12 - there were, there is in the proposal density bonuses on page 19, or page 21 through 22, and what we would do, given your direction, is eliminate A under each of those categories. This is where the minimum lot width is reduced to 60 feet in RS-5, to 45 feet in RS-8, to 45 feet in RS-12, becaUse that no longer makes any sense since you've gone back to that is the base lot width. So, you would delete A. The question is, do you wish to retain B in each of those sections, which allows for the reduction in lot width in RS-5 down to 50 feet and RS-8 to 40 feet, and an RS-12 to 30 feet, if the project is on an alley. Now remember, these are all options. They are not required. They are options. Champion/I'm confused. Karin? Franklin/Uh-huh? Champion/In the RS-8, what did we say that lot should be? Franklin/This is... Champion/In the small lot RS-8, what was the lot going to be? Franklin/In these small lot RS-8, you have taken it back down to 45 feet, for detached single-family. For attached single-family, it was to be 35 feet. Now, attached single-family in RS-8 is only the comer lot duplexes. So, essentially what we're talking about in RS-8 is single-family detached being on 45-foot wide lots. The question is, is whether you would like to provide an option of going down to a 40- foot lot if that development is on alleys. Champion/Or 35? Franklin/The 35, that's just for a duplex or zero-lot line where you have, you're going to have two units together. In the proposal now, there is nothing to go down to 35 in RS-8. That would be getting it quite small. Bailey/And this is an option, it's not required. Vanderhoef/Frontage down to 25. Champion/No, not 25. Franklin/We're just talking about RS-8 at this point in time. Vanderhoef/Yeah. Franklin/Lot width, not frontage. (several talking at once) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 43 Elliott/I guess I thought it was the same. Franklin/Pardon me? Elliott/Frontage and width. Franklin/No. Elliott/I mean, some frontages... Franklin/Lot width is at the building line. So if you have a pie shape lot, here is your frontage. Up here...it's your building line is your lot width. Elliott/Okay. Champion/The building line is the lot width. Franklin/Yes. The setback line. So, if you have a 15-foot setback, you have a 20-foot setback, it's at that line where your lot width...where you're required to have that width of lot to fit the building in, but often on a cul-de-sac you've got pie-shaped lots and so your frontage is less to enable you to have a cul-de-sac. Bailey/What would be the downside of allowing this? I mean, it's not required. Franklin? We don't believe that there is any downside to allowing it. Bailey/Leave it in then, it's an option - right? Elliott/I just think that what we've said is we don't want, we want the normal to be 60 feet and that the front of the house sans garage must be 60%. Champion/But an RS-8... Franklin/No, what you have said is that the front of the house, it needs to be at least 40% residential, 60% garage. Those are the... Elliott/Did I say it backwards? Franklin/You said it backwards. I mean, that's okay, but it's not what you...(several talking at once) Elliott/Thank you, no. (laughter) Franklin/Okay, so what we're talking about now then in RS-5 is a lot width of 60 feet as the base lot width. That is the absolute minimum. It can be built wider than that, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 44 but it cannot be less than that. If you allow the density provision, density bonus, in which it can go to a 50 foot lot width, that is allowable so long as it's on an alley. That's what this provision is about. Elliott/I'm sorry. I thought what the dimensions that we said for the percent of the front faCade was for every size house. Am I incorrect in that? Lehman/No. Elliott/That if... Franklin/Okay, just a minute here. Vanderhoef/Let's take one zone at a time and set it. Franklin/Yeah, RS-5, your standard development, 60 foot lot width. That is what it is right now. You put a house on that lot, there are no restrictions on the placement of your garage whatsoever. In your revisions from what was given to you, you have said that there is a 60% requirement in terms of the garage can be no more than 60% of the frontage, okay? In the zone right now, we have no provision for smaller lots in RS-5. It's 60 or up, but not down. What this proposal included in all of the single-family zones was an allowance to have smaller lots than what was the basic minimum, provided certain things were done. You've taken out all of the garage placement standards, but this one provision that is in here now allows the smaller lot width, but only in those cases in which an alley is provided. Otherwise, you're with the standard 60 foot or bigger, and remember, everything in RS-5 in the last 10 years, 78% of the lots have been 70 feet or bigger. Elliott/I guess my understanding was that the whatever width the house is, you would not need anything different, so long as the garage did not take up more than 60% of the front facade. Lehman/We're talking lot width, not house width. Elliott/Yeah, but I...that's my thought... Franklin/Okay, the other option is not to allow any density bonus at all. Well, there's a number of options. You can do density bonus at the 50 feet and not require an alley. We would not advise that. You can leave it with no density bonus whatsoever, that you can't go down to the smaller lot size in RS-5, leave it at exactly what you have now which is 60 foot minimum lot width. Bailey/I think we should allow the option. It's an option. Lehman/Right, option doesn't hurt anything. (several talking at once) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 45 Elliott/No, except you're saying that a house of a certain size, even if the garage took up only... Lehman/Has nothing to do with the size of the house or the garage. Only lot size we're talking. Franklin/Are there four people who would like to have the density bonus in RS-5? Vanderhoef/This is the density bonus under the...(several talking at once) Franklin/I've got two people that are raising their hands. Lehman/How many folks want the density bonus? O'Donnell/As long as it's an option, I'm fine. (several talking at once) Franklin/It's an option. If garages are accessed from an alley or private rear land, then the following modifications to the dimensional requirements: the minimum lot width may be reduced to 50 feet. So, if you provide the alley, you can reduce your lot width down to 50 feet. If you don't, then you've got your 60 foot lot width just like you do today. Elliott/But, you're saying you can't have a 50 foot lot, which you could then put like what, a 40-foot house? Franklin/Yes. Elliott/You couldn't have it unless you had an alley? Franklin/As this is proposed .... for RS-5, right now you can't have a 50 foot lot at all, no way, ever in RS-5, except going through a Planned Development. (several talking at once) Elliott/I just don't understand why you can't have a 50 foot lot, 40 foot house. Lehman/You can in an RS-8 Zone. Elliott/Yeah, I just don't understand why we can't allow it wherever. Franklin/That's another option, if you all want to consider making another amendment, that enables 50 foot lots somewhere in RS-5, however you want to do it. Lehman/(can't understand)...an acre, is that correct? Well, at 50 foot lots, you'd have how many per acre? A lot more. So it doesn't work in an RS-5 Zone anyway. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 46 Vanderhoef/And it doesn't work to put double garage, and keep it on the 60/40 on a 50- foot lot. Bailey/I don't see any harm in allowing density bonuses as an option. Franklin/It's an option. That's the important part of... Elliott/ What's the big deal about the alley? I mean, why do they have to have an alley? Bailey/You have an option, there are certain requirements to have the right, the option by right. Elliott/Yes, but if we... Bailey/Otherwise it becomes a planned development situation, like we have now. Vanderhoef/Here's the reason, Bob, because if you have a 50 foot lot and you have your 5-foot setbacks, so that's the 10 feet, you're down to 40 feet. You would only end up with a single garage in... Elliott/But maybe that's what the person wants. Franklin/Remember, the RS-5 Zone is your standard, single-family zone. It's what most of our residential single-family is zoned as. We're then going to talk about the RS-8, which is intended to be a smaller lot, single-family, and we'll have the same discussion to a smaller lot size. Elliott/But you're saying you could negotiate the smaller lot, 50 feet. Obviously, the City must think that's a commendable thing to do. If...why, if it's commendable to do, why are you saying they have to have an alley to do it? Howard/I think the...there was an assumption that you wanted to keep a distinction between the different zones. If what you're suggesting, Bob, is to get rid of the minimum lot width all together, just allow whatever size lot you wanted, that would get rid of all...you'd just have one single-family zone then, and that wasn't what our understanding was the direction the Council wanted to go. Elliott/I guess I don't understand why you have to have an alley if you're 50 feet. Howard/I guess the reason then, the Commission looked at what would give you the same character, the same feeling as far as the density goes, because the lot widths and the number of units per acre, like the Mayor said, gives you a certain sense of the scale of the neighborhood and how dense it is, and so an RS-5 Zone is our low-density, single-family zone. The feeling was, if you put an alley in, you get the same feeling - you don't get that crowded feeling that you might get once you get the denser lots. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 47 Elliott/You do in your backyard. Howard/So, that was just the... Lehman/But if you want the 50 foot lot, or the 40 foot, you go to RS-8 Zone, where you can do that. On a 45 foot lot, you don't have to have an alley. Elliott/I just object to requiring the alley for something that apparently the City thinks is a good thing to do. Lehman/But you wouldn't require the alley in RS-8 Zone. (several talking at once) Elliott/Go ahead and vote. If I'm the only one, that's fine. Franklin/Can we move on if there's four people? Okay. Because we've got 12 of these to go through and I thought that was going to be the easy one. Lehman/Okay. Franklin/Silly me. (laughter) Okay, do we carry this through then, because we did RS- 5. In RS-8, the proposal...okay, option in all three zones. Champion/No, wait, what's the option...right. Franklin/In RS-8 it would be down to 40 feet, 12 to 30 feet. Okay. Now, this next one is... Vanderhoef/Excuse me one minutes. Franklin/Uh-huh? Vanderhoef/In the book, reduced to 45 feet, not to 40. Franklin/No, go to B. Dee, we're eliminating A entirely. That'll be taken out. Elliott/A in both instances. Franklin/A in all three instances is out, and then we'll just have B. Okay? Which is 50 foot in RS-5, 40 foot in RS-8, and 30 feet in RS-12. And this is for detached, single-family. Okay? And the base lot widths go back to what they were. Lehman/Right. Franklin/Okay. Okay, now 2, 3 and 4 of the matrix are all related to the issue I'm going to get into right now. In the RS-12 Zone, if you look at the dimensional This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 48 requirements, which are on page 16, in that chart you can see that there is a...the detached single-family now will be back to 45; duplex was 55 and attached single family 20 and 28, 28 being for the end unit on a townhouse development. Understand that in the current code, there is one lot width - 45 feet. That lot width being used for townhouses precluded the construction of townhouses, because it just doesn't make any sense to use up that much space for a townhouse unit. So the only way we were getting them was through Planned Developments. This was an effort to try and get a townhouse-type of development with a by- right, as opposed to going through the Planned Development process. Since you have taken out all of the standards relative to garage placement and We're going to be left then with this 20-foot lot width in here. There was an illustration that was in your packets of what the consequence of that would be, in admittedly a worse- case situation in which both sides of the street were maximized for those townhouse units, and it creates some of the issues that were brought to your attention on Jema Court. It diminishes the amount of on-street parking that you can have and so we again would recommend that if you are going to retain that 20 foot lot width that you make those dependent upon having alley access, and again, this is an option. People can still go through the Planned Development process if they want to, but the desire is to enable the townhouse-type of development with these 20 foot wide lots, but have an outcome that is comparable to what we've had in the Planned Development process. If you do not wish to do this and have the alley access with the 20 foot wide lots, we would recommend that you take that lot width out of there, go back to what we had, and we'll do these through Planned Developments. Elliott/Would an exception to this be if they put in something which would be like an access street? Lehman/Alley. Elliott/No, in front. I can't...I don't think they'd want to use that much property for it, but they could. Champion/When I think ofa townhouse though, and maybe I'm wrong, but a townhouse, the house part of the townhouse (laughter) I've never seen townhouses with garages in front. Vanderhoef/The Court Street ones are all parking in the rear. (several talking at once) And then the garages are under, therefore, you always walk up stairs. Franklin/No, I know that's an issue that you've raised before, Dee, and some...and when you have certain topography, that's going to be an issue. That's going to be an issue. Yeah, and I don't know what the solution is to that with that kind of topography. Champion/Karin, what's the difference between a townhouse and a row house? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 49 Franklin/Not...row houses typically are in big cities... I don't know, there's really no difference. They're in big cities, you don't have any parking, I mean, there's no garage, unless it's in the back, along...I mean they may have it back along the alley so I don't know. I don't think there's any difference, unless it's an ownership difference, that's it's rental versus owner-occupied. Townhouses as we define them, there's a property line that goes through, that's why the lot width becomes an issue, is because you're defining that lot and the building at the same time. Elliott/It's multiple zero lot lines. Franklin/Yeah, yeah. Bailey/Well, I don't want to see it happen, what happened on Jema Court happen again. Lehman/Right. Bailey/So what... I mean I think we need to... Franklin/Yeah, 20 foot lot width, your 60%, you still can only get a single-car garage there. So, I mean, we're setting up then exactly what happened on Jema Court. Okay, sounds like there's agreement on that to go forward. Well, that wasn't so hard. Okay. Number 5 then. The CB-2 Zone, we need to put that back in the code as a consequence of your decisions at the north and across the way here, and the question is, is what do you want us to include in the CB-2 Zone as it goes into this revision? Vanderhoef/Are you on number 3 or number 5? Okay. Franklin/5, yeah, Dee, t he 20-foot thing addressed 2, 3 and 4. Those are all related to... Lehman/! think we're going to have to put a height restriction. O'Donnell/That's the only thing that's... Lehman/I think that's... Bailey/Well, I think parking too should be examined considering it's transitional. It's a transitional zone, I mean, I think (can't hear). Elliott/The agreement that I had was the only change would be a height restriction. O'Donnell/That's what I have. Franklin/For this draft. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 50 Lehman/Well, I think for this draft. I don't know how much time...obviously we're in some sort of time constraints to get this through... Franklin/Yes. Lehman/And I don't know, if we have consensus on the height restriction, I don't have a problem...I think we should do that. I don't know how much in-depth work we can do and still get this done. Bailey/Can we look at parking though because I see potential impact...these are transitional zones, it's a potential residential impact if we don't address some parking issues. Franklin/We can look at whatever you all conclude. Now the question I think is whether it is reviewed and made part of this draft, or you make a modification and then the Planning and Zoning Commission is directed to look at the entire zone. Lehman/Could I suggest that we make the height modification and leave it on P&Z's table to complete the review of it after the first of the year? Does that.., can we do that? Elliott/Sounds good, fine with me. Franklin/Four or five heads nodded. What height? Elliott/What are we talking about height restriction, four to six floors, something like that? Franklin/I think 45 feet is what we had talked about. (several talking at once) No, that's four. Elliott/Mercy is five, is it not? Five floors? Lehman/At least. Vanderhoef/At least. Franklin/That's a different zone. Bailey/How tall is Brewery Square? Three? Lehman/Would that, Brewery Square, would that fit under 45 feet? Franklin/Oh yeah, I would think so. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 51 Vanderhoef/I'm not comfortable with only three. I'm sorry, but that's huge. Franklin/45 would allow a commercial, ground floor of 13 feet, and then three floors of residential. Elliott/So we're talking about four stories? Lehman/That'd be four. Elliott/Four stories. Franklin/Yeah. Vanderhoef/I would be...(several talking at once) It has a bunch of high ceilings, but I'm thinking maybe that would be equivalent to a five... Elliott/The objectors with whom I talked indicated four stories would be fine with them. Bailey/Well, I mean, it's not only about the objectors! Lehman/Well, I mean, 45 feet would give you one commercial and three residential, or you could build a... Bailey/Well, I just want to know what we're talking about here. What is 45... Franklin/Something a little bigger than Brewery Square. Bailey/Yeah, and Brewery Square is plenty tall if we're talking about right next, or right adjacent to a residential. If you're looking at transitional, Brewery Square is plenty tall if that's sitting next to or across the street from you. O'Donnell/In CB-2 now it's 100 feet, isn't it? It's 100 feet, and... Elliott/Yeah, if we cut that in half. O'Donnell/Well no, it's not in there it's...if you cut that in half, between 45 and 50, I think that's realistic. Elliott/That's fine with me. Vanderhoef/What...the possibilities between 45 and 50 feet... Bailey/You're going the wrong direction, Dee. Vanderhoef/I would like to give them the option of five stories, and it might get restricted in that how the parking comes in. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 52 Champion/Four stories. Vanderhoef/Well, it depends on what can be arranged for parking in the area. Bailey/It's a transitional zone, that's getting pretty tall to be right across the street from residential. O'Donnell/I like the 45 feet, Ernie. It's one commercial and three residential stories. That's fine. Lehman/Do we have four for 45? (several talking at once) 45 (several talking at once) 45 once. Vanderhoef/Okay, 45 and/or four stories. Lehman/No, it's got to go feet. Bailey/No, no... (several talking at once) Vanderhoef/Karin, you said, four stories in 45 feet? Franklin/Three residential and one commercial. Lehman/Oh, we're having trouble hearing whatever it is we're saying (laughter). You didn't miss a thing, Marian. Vanderhoef/Karin, another question. What about if you had commercial, then a floor of office, what's the difference between ceiling heights for office versus ceiling height for residential? A mixed use building could, and I don't want to preclude anything that is done that would change the four stories if that is where we are, are set with four votes here. Howard/We could look something up like that for you. From what I read about the reason the first floor is intended for retail, retail tends to like a little taller ceiling and that's why considering to allow that first floor to be at least 14 feet tall. For office I don't think you need as much space for...because you could have it, the same as a residential floor. Vanderhoef/Well, that's what my question, is there any restriction... Howard/No. Franklin/In the building code? No. Vanderhoef/For ceiling height in office space. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 53 Franklin/I don't think so, but I don't know that for a fact. (several talking at once) Champion/In new construction, what do they make the ceiling? Franklin/If there's agreement on the 45, remember, this is going to go back to the Planning and Zoning Commission and you're going to have this to look at with their recommendation on it... Elliott/Is there a reason we have to designate feet rather than floors? Vanderhoef/That's exactly what I'm asking. Bailey/I could have 16-foot vaulted ceilings in my apartments, or my condominiums that I want to build up there. Lehman/But 9 foot residential. Bailey/Yeah, I mean, it's not much of a latitude, and then it gets into interpretation and that's clearly... Vanderhoef/Then I'm not okay with 45 feet because I want the, that option in there that there can be this mixed and some latitude on the design. Dilkes/You don't have to set the feet now. I mean, you can have P&Z look at the feet when they look at the whole zone. Lehman/Well, the issue is whether or not we want a height restriction to be part of this zoning code. Bailey/And Emie believed we had an agreement on height. Lehman/I thought we did come up with some sort of restriction on height. O'Donnell/Could we not, Ernie, put one commercial floor and three residential floors? Lehman/That's 45 feet. O'Donnell/We don't know that. Bailey/But that's the thing, we don't know it. Vanderhoef/If somebody wants to build upscale, residential on that top floor and they want 14 foot instead of 12 or 10... Lehman/So they get two stories instead of three. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 54 Elliott/Eleanor has Suggested that we use height restriction and allow P&Z to come back to us. How about that? Vanderhoef/What? Elliott/That we approve this... Dilkes/It doesn't sound to me like you all have the information that you need to make a decision about height here, and if that's the case, then I just want to remind you you can have P&Z look at the whole zone, including the height restriction. Elliott/And come back to us with a specific ....I'm in favor of that. Lehman/In other words, if we... are we okay with no height restrictions in this code? Elliott/No. (several talking at once) Bailey/No, because we're leaving it the same. Elliott/Eleanor said height restriction, but the specific footage would come back to us (several talking at once). Dilkes/You have the option to retain the code, retain the CB-2 as it is. Lehman/I don't think we should either. I think we should put a restriction. Dilkes/Okay, then you need... Franklin/Are there four people who that are agreeable to 45 feet? Lehman/How many would go 45? Two, three, four, 45 - thank you. Elliott/I would rather have 45 or 50, but then (several talking at once) Champion/How many stories is the Pagliai building - is that three stories? Elliott/It's two and three. (laughter) Well, it's three...there's some places where it's one more story than another part of that same building. (several talking at once) Franklin/Okay, Item 6, is to correct an error in the draft in which the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation was to have the density there be 1,800 square feet per unit, this is for residential in CN-1 when you have residential over commercial, and it was a typo that we just didn't put in the draft. Vanderhoef/On page 63, CN-1 Zone... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 55 Franklin/It's to...the density that should have been shown there is 1,800 square feet of lot area per unit, not 2,725. 1,800. That's comparable to RM-12. Vanderhoef/For both CN-1 and CO-l? Franklin/Oh, RM-20, sorry. Vanderhoef/Now you've totally lost me. Franklin/Okay. O'Donnell/It's getting late. Vanderhoef/Area dwelling unit 1,800 square feet for CO-1 ? Franklin/Yes. Vanderhoef/And any of the other... Franklin/CN- 1, CN- 1. Vanderhoef/CN-1 and CO-1. Franklin/No, CN-1, just CN-1. (several talking at once) Champion/The per unit is 1,800 square feet? Franklin/That's a land area per unit. It's the way we measure density. Not the unit itself. Champion/Oh, okay, okay, why would you.., okay, all right. Franklin/You need 1,800 square feet of land to have a single unit. Number 7, damage and destruction clause, we talked about this in terms of it not being based on assessed value, but on fair-market value, and we got to thinking about this, which we should have thought of that night, was okay, how do you appraise something that's not there. So, in looking at ordinances, yeah, well (laughter) O'Donnell/It's fairly easy. It's fairly easy if you do it by the income rate, which is what a lot of these are going to... Franklin/But it's gone. O'Donnell/But you have records on income. That's how they arrive at figures for a lot... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 56 Franklin/That's assuming that there's a current appraisal somewhere that has been based on the income approach, and that's available to us. O'Donnell/Comparable properties... Elliott/There would certainly need to be an alternative, I agree. Lehman/No, Karin, what are... Franklin/Yeah, what we would suggest, the other metric that has been used besides assessed value is replacement value, and that is a figure that is taken off of the insurance for the property. Lehman/That's good. Franklin/Replacement value? Dilkes/That could be significantly higher than fair-market value. O'Donnell/Twice as much. It could be twice as much. Lehman/Well, that's also the issue when you have situations where you have properties that are nonconforming, and if they're damaged to 75% of the assessed value - we can't rebuild, the loan could be 90%. It could be a real problem. If it's the replacement value, the property owner is protected in case of a fire, at least he's not going to go bankrupt over it. Elliott/Well, and that also, I think the property owner by the amount of insurance he or she is paying for has indicated what value that has to the owner. Lehman/Insurance companies frequently do that. Elliott/Yeah, I like that. Franklin/Replacement value? Lehman/Replacement value okay, folks? Bailey/Eleanor, going to say something...nope. Elliott/As identified by insurance coverage, did you say? Franklin/Yeah, that would the only way I know where we would get it. Lehman/All right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 57 Champion/And don't insurance companies usually appraise the structure they're insuring? Elliott/They would hesitate to make it much higher. Lehman/They do commercial, I know. Champion/Okay, 'cause I could insure my house for $5 million then burn it down? Lehman/No, they don't do that, Connie. (several talking at once and laughter) All right. Franklin/Okay, Number 8 is the request to include the bicycle parking for Community Service Shelter uses. We've just included that which is comparable to group living, assuming that that's okay. Nine is to clarify the sensitive areas review language, as to when it, the approval criteria are used. We talked about that. I don't think there's any further issues that... 10 is that the fees paid in lieu of land dedication would be automatically refunded to the property owners after the allotted period of time, as provided in the ordinance. This will require the City setting up some sort of system to determine owners of the lots and so forth. It is possible to do. It's administratively... Bailey/I want to track this though. If somebody buys a house in a new subdivision, and sells it, and then so the new person gets the money. Champion/It's included in the price of the house. Franklin/That's the presumption. Bailey/That's the presumption. Champion/Well, the developer's not going to pay it. Bailey/Right, but you're also assuming it's in the price of the house when it's resold. Franklin/It's built into the value of the house over time. Dilkes/That's not changing under the current ordinance. It' just who... (several talking at once). Franklin/Okay, Item 11, the way we would amend, this is the provision relating to the number of votes required for consideration and the intent here of the by-laws and everything has been that for Comprehensive Plan amendments, for zoning map, text amendments - any kind of rezoning - that it requires four votes of the Commission, and so we'll just put that in there. That four votes of the Commission are required in those circumstances, and get rid of that two-thirds This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 58 thing. Item 12, we had some discussion the last time about this whole thing with when there's a consultation required with Planning and Zoning, and felt it might be prudent to include in that an option for the Planning and Zoning Commission to decline the Council's offer and not have it held up. And then one that we just looked at today, since there was all this discussion about occupancy, and.., on page 235... Wilburn/Can you tell me what section? Franklin/14, 4-E, 9-A. We would...I'm looking at Karen...we would reword Section A, the last sentence somehow. What was it we were going to... (laughter)... she can explain it better than me. Elliott/The last sentence, once brought into... Franklin/Yes, once brought into compliance. Lehman/I knew what it meant. Howard/The concern was, amongst the property owners, does this mean that if one season you rent it to a family and the next season you rent it to unrelated persons whether you would loose what was granted in your rental permit, and that was not the intent here, but somebody could read this sentence that way and we felt that that would be what the concern was. So, we would reword that last sentence to say, you know, something like if a rental permit for a dwelling unit upon which the legal nonconforming occupancy was based is discontinued, then said dwelling units must thereafter comply with the occupancy standards. So, just that the rental permit is discontinued. Lehman/Right. Franklin/And then likewise in B, we would delete the last sentence. However, the use may not be enlarged or the occupancy increased unless it is brought into compliance with current applicable occupancy standards, referencing the use enlargement here under occupancy just adds to confusion. That's what we have in the matrix right now. As I indicated in the memorandum to you, we can make your, well, now December 12th deadline if we have everything from you by tomorrow night. Are there any other issues that the Council has that you wish for us to address? Elliott/We have the issue of whatever zone it is that commercial businesses, such as the surgical office. Franklin/They are not, I'm sorry, I was going to jump ahead to what I think you're going to say. (laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 59 Elliott/No, but it's my understanding that the zone identification in which an office like that can be located, that the City maintains the right to determine whether the parking is in front or the rear, whether access is from the front or the rear? The City has no... Franklin/No, not in CO-1. In CN-1, CB-5, CB-10, which are the downtown zones, that's where the parking needs to be in the rear or... Elliott/So, only those previously identified zones. So that...I was in error in thinking.., all right. Franklin/Right, yeah. Dilkes/I think you're talking about that provision where there's a neighboring residential zone? Lehman/Right, CO-1...it's the one that Dr. Kammermeyer brought up, where...page 273 and 274 of the code, according to him. Franklin/If you're within so many feet of a residential zone? Lehman/I think the... Franklin/That's signs, Ernie. Lehman/Well, no...try the earlier version. The issue that was brought up was location and dimensional standards for driveways, which if I read it correctly, indicates that the access to the lot may not be allowed to be the access to the lot, depending on anticipated traffic, location of crowding land uses, and availability of cross access easements, alley or private rear lane access. Howard/The City has always determined access to property, and that was... Lehman/Doesn't a lot always have access to the street? Howard/Yes, you are always guaranteed some access, but not necessarily direct access. That's why we control access points, like for example, along an arterial street. Lehman/But in an existing neighborhood, if you have a house and you're going to change it to an office use, you're telling me you're not guaranteed access to that street? Howard/If you've already got access, you've already got access. Lehman/If you have access you'll continue to have the access you already have? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 60 Howard/Right. Vanderhoef/So, even if you are changing use on that property, for instance, if two houses go down and medical office is built in that area, particularly where we have encouraged it north of Mercy Hospital, there would be two drives potentially. Howard/In the City sometimes when there's a rezoning or something happening that has to occur, we sometimes ask them to consolidate driveways in order to improve safety along the street. I mean, we've done that before. So the access management standards are really to, for safety along the street, and not really as a...you know, everybody gets access to the street, but an access management standard is to give some guidance to people how the City decides what's safe or not. Franklin/Are you concerned specifically with the Bloomington Street situation? Is that what... Vanderhoef/Well, there's that whole potential for redevelopment in the area that has always been set aside as growth area for medical. Franklin/Okay, now that...Bloomington is a local street. There needs to be a minimum of...I'm on 278, just looking at driveway spacing standards. On local streets, six feet between curb cuts, we talked about that. What we would do is in that circumstance when we had redevelopment of a site, we would go to these access management standards and look at what was applicable. Vanderhoef/But they would be allowed at least one drive from the front, even if it happened to be a couple of houses that only had alley access before. Lehman/Well, ! don't know that... Vanderhoef/Well, those that have garages on the rear right now in those older sections of town. Howard/Bloomington Street and most of those houses have driveways. (several talking at once) Dilkes/Maybe we should move on from this one, and Marian's going to find, so we can get the section that we were talking about, and then we can come back to it. Elliott/My concern with what Ernie read was that it mentioned or if there's access from an alley or what have you. That's the part that concerns me. Franklin/What were you reading, Ernie? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 61 Lehman/Well, I just got this one that Kammermeyer brought to the Council, gave us a handout. I don't... Dilkes/Does he site a section? Those were Tom Gelman's comments that Kammermeyer submitted. Elliott/I looked it up and it did match what's in the presently proposed revision. Vanderhoef/14, 5, C-57 Lehman/Yeah. But you say Marian's getting something...okay, Dee? Do you have another one? Dilkes/It's probably the same thing you've got, Ernie, it's the wrong section. (several talking at once) Howard/There's a section on page 281 the bottom where it says "nonresidential uses" and this whole section is... if you look at the top of page 279, it gives the reasons why we have this whole section in here in the first place, so you'll understand what...and then on the bottom of page 281, I think is the section that Tom Gelman is talking about. Elliott/Yes. Franklin/Okay, so this is looking at number and location of access points, and so that, on local and collector streets...I mean, every, if a property has, is on a street and the only means of access they have is on that street, we have to grant them access. Lehman/What if they have an alley access, as well as a street access? Franklin/It's going to be a case-by-case situation. Vanderhoef/Direct access to local and collector streets; the City will grant direct lot access to local or collector streets that are nonresidential in nature, based on the size of the (can't hear)... Franklin/Type of use, the anticipated... I mean... Elliott/But it also says based on alley or private rear lane. Franklin/And the availability of cross access easements or alley or private rear lane access. Elliott/I certainly wouldn't want someone wanting to put up a business office and then the City saying 'you have an alley in back so your access has to be in the alley.' This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 62 Franklin/Understand. Vanderhoef/So how do we rewrite that? Champion/In practicality, that's what's worked out because that surgical office has a lot of parking in the front. Franklin/If there is a majority that wishes, we could add something, I don't know right off the top of my head what it would be. Okay, is there a majority that has a concern about this provision? Elliott/I would say that the access should be from the front with parking in front, unless there's a problem with safety or the topography of the property. Now, I don't know what else...you folks deal with these sort of things all the time, so you may have other... Franklin/The safety issues are going to be the main things, and the functioning of the street - the ability of the street to function for the purposes that it's there for. Whether there is a problem with on-street parking in an area is going to come into play (TAPE ENDS) I'm not sure there'd be any particular safety features...if it was close to the corner, but we've got standards for how close it can be to a comer. Bailey/I think this, I mean, I think this allows a ... Elliott/I just wouldn't want the same thing to happen that happened with that surgical office where they had to battle for two years to get some sort of a situation where they could have it in its present location. Lehman/...that was a parking issue. Bailey/That was a residential (can't hear). Elliott/But, what the City at that time was trying to do in certainly my eyes, was very unreasonable. Bailey/In my eyes, the current situation... Elliott/To try to have access from an alley to a commercial, to an office, it makes no sense at all. Bailey/Well, it makes no sense to build parking when there's a parking ramp really close and to build parking that's never used. (can't hear) Lehman/Getting back to the issues, are we interested...I think the issue...you know, if you didn't have access to a street, I have no problem with that lack of access This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 63 being continued to the next use. If you currently have access to a street, I would have, it would be nice to insure that that access would not be discontinued, except at the owner's...in other words, see what I'm saying? If you have two houses with alley access and no street access to start with, I can understand why you might not want another curb cut. But if you have an access, it would seem that that access would go with the property, unless the owner agreed to a different access. Franklin/I would encourage you not to do that on arterials and collectors. Local streets, yeah, fine. But, often what we're trying to do, particularly on arterials, but on collectors too sometimes depending upon the area, is trying to, you know, minimize those access points so those streets function well. And if there is another way to do it, there's a way to do the site plan that enables good access and not have to have it on that particular street, then I'd like to have us have the ability to do that, because that's for the functioning of the whole system. And there are some times when we want to minimize the access points. Lehman/I'm saying on collector or arterial streets that that's the property owner's advantage to do. Franklin/Well, yeah, it often is, in terms of how traffic can get in and out of the lot. I mean, in that, you know, there's two different issues there because I think that on the one that you're raising, Bob, there was no...was there a driveway on that lot? Okay, there was no access to that street when it was residential use. It all came offthe alley. So that's one issue, and then you're issue is another one, Ernie, of retaining. You know, I think we could probably easily put in a statement that properties that currently have access to local streets shall... Lehman/Okay. Franklin/...be enable to continue to use that access, or something more graceful than that. Lehman/Or, I think it'd also be great if whoever's developing this property, if they wanted to trade off that access for something else in working out a site plan, certainly I would think we would work with them (can't hear). Franklin/Oh, absolutely, we do that all the time. Yeah. Lehman/...don't want that access and willing to make some sort of concession to get them to relinquish. Vanderhoef/But the...I'm still concerned with the other piece, that if we're into redeveloping property and we have two properties combined, or three properties combined, and there are no street accesses, I see that as a potential of keeping that from being redeveloped, if the only access is from the alley. And certainly the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 64 condition of the alley and the maintenance of the alley and some of those things are there and visibility, which we heard some comments at the public heating about visibility, how do I get in there, how do I find my way, where am I going to park, do I have to park out here on the street, and then walk up through a sidewalk or whatever. I'm thinking about the confusion of out-of-town people coming in, trying to find a medical place... Franklin/Okay, I understand the concern here. Now I've just got to get a sense of whether there's a majority that has a concern about this issue that Bob and Dee are focusing on. Elliott/I think it's vitally important. Lehman/I think visibility on things such as medical office or whatever is important. They've got...people've got to be able to find them. Franklin/Okay, I mean, understand these standards are for all nonresidential uses. Lehman/For example, a medical building in the middle of the block with only alley access, probably's not a very good situation for the office or the patient. Bailey/That's exactly right. O'Donnell/And with no parking in front. Lehman/Well, then obviously they didn't have access. Do you see what I mean? Franklin/No. Well... (several talking at once). Lehman/I'm just envisioning a situation where we have an office building in the middle of a block, with no access from the front, and you...the only way you can get to it is from the alley. If you're from out of town, you may not even know there's an alley. I think that's asking a little much, for that to... Franklin/What I'm trying...okay, so I've got three now that...are you a four? (several talking at once) I'm not quite sure. It's going to be page 281, l-A, something about the alleys, and I don't know what. But, I'm going to think about this and come back to you. I think I know what you're saying. Lehman/...willy nilly kind of driveway everywhere, but I think the situations where the visibility is important enough that alley access may not be sufficient. Franklin/Yeah... Bailey/Every business owner feels like they're situation is that situation. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 65 Franklin/...and we're trying to right here for every conceivable situation of nonresidential uses in every zone because these provisions apply everywhere. So, jus give us some time... Elliott/Shared driveway, where maybe in a block you have only two entrances, and... Franklin/And that could be an outcome with this language. I mean, what I'm hearing is that you have concerns about the code enabling the staff to restrict access to an alley. Elliott/Well, if you have an area where you'd like to have commercial property, obviously, you are defeating the purpose if you make it very difficult for that commercial property to be profitable, and that's what you do when you say you have to go around to an alley and get where that is. Franklin/I got your point. Okay. Lehman/All fight. Next? Franklin/Anything else? Lehman/All right. I have an issue with the mandatory neighborhood meetings, and I don't disagree with as much public input as you can possibly get and I think as many folks should be aware of development as can possibly be, but I think mandatory meetings are perhaps not a good idea. I think mandatory notification of neighbors is probably a good thing. I think it's something the City probably should be in charge of, rather than the developer. Franklin/We do that already. Lehman/Okay, but that mandatory notification could include the developer's name, phone number, whatever, but I just have a problem with mandatory neighborhood meetings. Champion/Well, a lot of times it wouldn't even be necessary. Lehman/What? Champion/To have the neighborhood meeting. There are a lot of times where it's only... Lehman/Yeah, and I think it has to be the call, I mean, I think the developers will do that. If you have to do it, I think you defeat the purpose of the meeting. Vanderhoef/I do too. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 66 Elliott/The only change I would have, Ernie, you said the developer's name and contact information could be included. I think it should be, yeah. Lehman/Oh, it should be. O'Donnell/I agree. I think there's four of us. Vanderhoef/Are you saying you want it done on every development? Lehman/Well, what do we mean every development? Only when it would have been called for. Franklin/When we provide notice now, right? Okay, you're not talking about additional notice beyond what we...because right now we do... Miklo/We don't put the developer's contact information. We just say that there's an application, the meeting is this date, if you want further information, call the City Planner's office. Franklin/Every application you get? Miklo/All preliminary plats and rezonings, we don't do it for final plats because most of the discussion has already occurred. Vanderhoef/For even things that are done by right? Franklin/No, no. Vanderhoef/Okay. Franklin/Those are building permits and, no, no, mercy, no. Vanderhoef/That's just it, that's what I'm... Lehman/Okay, Franklin/So you want.to include the developer's name and phone number? Lehman/I think absolutely we should do that. Franklin/Their home phone number? Lehman/Connie, did you have anything? All right. Mike? O'Donnell/My concern that we've already talked about is the reduction on family members in zoning. We've already beaten on that one. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 67 Lehman/Okay. (several talking at once) Oh, come on, Regenia! Yes? Wilburn/I just have one other thing. Lehman/Yes? Wilburn/We got an email, this is more of a question and maybe you can educate me. We got the email from the folks, it's a couple out near Scott and Court, about the car wash, and CN-1. It's allowed by special exemption, for one bay. I think...were they thinking of like a three-bay? Franklin/Four. Wilburn/Four bay. I was trying to think of the, I know this would go for all neighborhood commercial, but I was trying to think of that neighbor...well, actually it's a special exception in every zone. Is the lot where they're talking, is it central to that commercial plot anyway? Franklin/I don't know what lot they're talking about. I know, the only thing I saw was the email that was pretty generic. Wilburn/I thought it was in the middle of the cul-de-sac back there, and there's commercial... Elliott/By the family restaurant? Wilburn/Yeah, there's Neighborhood, the commercial, the cul-de-sac, and then the BP station there...I was just trying to see what would be the difference between a one and four-bay if it's really surrounded by commercial... Franklin/When, I mean, the whole thing with car washes and auto orientation in the neighborhood commercial was something that we struggled with over the years and have made changes to the CN-1 on a number of occasions, and that change to allow a carwash at all was one that occurred, oh I don't know, maybe it's about five years ago now, and then we, it was clearly to be just for a one-bay car wash because, again, this is supposed to be a neighborhood-oriented commercial area that if you want a larger carwash, then the place that you should be going is either a CC-2 or CI-1 zone. Elliott/Such as along First Avenue? Franklin/Uh yeah, the First... Wilburn/So that one that used to be ....is that a CC-2 then? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 68 Franklin/Where .... I'm sorry? What did you say first, Bob? Elliott/It's along First Avenue. Franklin/Oh, yes, yes. Right. Across from Goodwill. Right. Yeah. And I'm sorry, and then you asked? Wilburn/I was curious about would the, if that type of facility is central, if it's surrounded by commercial anyway, is there the same concern of the impact on the neighborhood, despite the traffic? I mean, do you get my point, if it's... Franklin/I'm not sure where that site is. I mean, I didn't think it was a gas station next to Midtown. Elliott/Gas station and... Franklin/...is right on the comer of... O'Donnell/I thought they were going to add it to the convenience store, is what I thought. There's a little BP...I thought it was in that area. Elliott/Yeah, it's on that street. I'm not sure which side. Franklin/It's a stand-alone car wash? Lehman/Yeah, Karin, ifI remember correctly, the CN-1 zone, which is what we're talking about, really is not intended for auto intense uses, and about the most intense use that we permit is a handimart or quick trip or some such thing, and I think it's not the carwash, it's the number of cars it takes to keep a four-bay carwash busy. That's...my guess is that's the reason that we don't want four-bay carwashes in CN-1. Wilburn/I was curious as to how it even came into being that one, a one-car bay with a, some type of service, quick service facility was allowed. Lehman/One car at a time. I think it's the number of vehicles. Franklin/It came to pass because over time the CN-1 has been whittled away at, I mean, the ability to have larger establishments there to have carwashes, when car washes were not previously allowed. I mean, before it was drive-through financial institutions and that was it. Well, then that changed to have convenience store gas stations and then to have a one-bay car wash and to have office a little bit bigger and, so, that's been something that that zone has been evolving for some time, and certainly we would not recommend that you go further with that evolution to make it even more auto oriented, but that's your choice. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 69 Elliott/I think that woman talked with me, did she not, Karin? Yeah. Vanderhoef/Well, one of the things I know a number of years ago when the hometown restaurant went in, we had a real struggle with that because of the square footage and the number of tables that could be put up, and the viable alternative to the location that they were in at the time, and... O'Donnell/That was the footprint wasn't it? Vanderhoef/It was...well, they were counting the space in the, underneath - a little office - that had nothing to do with... Lehman/Well, that was... Franklin/You know, if there's going to be a lot more discussion on Midtown Restaurant, we probably ought to have the facts of that put out. Lehman/Thank you! Because the issue right there... Franklin/...it keeps coming back up again. Vanderhoef/...restaurant size in neighborhood... O'Donnell/I don't even want to talk about that. Wilburn/What I was getting at, and it helps to have that evolution because I guess what I was trying to think when they were asking about it was is the effect going to be as dramatic in terms of what we've evolved with in the CN-1 zone because I was looking at how much more traffic would be there. I know lots of folks use the BP station and so I was like, would it really be a difference that would make a difference, in terms of, and I guess your feeling is it would make a difference. Lehman/Well, I think philosophically we have tried...downtown we tried to get rid of all automobile oriented, I mean, car dealerships, we had tire companies in the downtown area and we tried to move them out. Firestone being the last one, I think, downtown, that's really automobile oriented. Wilburn/Okay, that's all. Lehman/I think the same thing is true. Yeah. Vanderhoef/Refresh for me the.., square footage and occupancy on restaurants in neighborhood commercial. Franklin/What is it? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 70 Lehman/Before we do that though, that restaurant deal out there was not a zoning issue. We changed the zone to allow restaurants. The issue became one between Housing Inspection Services and the folks who were trying to building the restaurant, and what they counted and didn't count on. We're just getting the facts straight. Vanderhoef/But I'm looking at the square footage because the square footage and the occupancy per establishment. Dilkes/While Karin's doing that, what was the outcome on the neighborhood meeting? You switched to notification. Franklin/No, it's not going to be mandatory. Dilkes/Oh, okay. Lehman/Okay, while we're looking for that, whose looking up the footage? Franklin/How big of a restaurant? Vanderhoef/In neighborhood... Howard/In neighborhood commercial, there's a limit on, they did a whole study, there's a whole stack that we did on, if you want to read about how they decided what the size the restaurant could be, when we research for restaurant sizes and we decided whether to do square footage or whether based on occupancy, and they found that the occupancy was much more a predictor of how many people were going to be in a restaurant. So that was what was decided to be used was the occupancy figure. It's 100. It can go up to 125 if, um, by special exception. And we all have the figures we had, comparisons between different types of restaurants and the sizes and what that meant. Vanderhoef/Okay. Howard/So we have information if you're interested in looking... Vanderhoef/Occupancy is 100 and there's no limit on the size of the building then, the square footage of the building. Howard/No, because usually there's more than one use in a building, in a commercial .... a lot of times there's more than one use. Vanderhoef/Well, I'm talking real specific. Howard/No square footage on the restaurants, no. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 71 Vanderhoef/In neighborhood CN- 1. Wilburn/The only time I can see 100...is it can be the maximum occupancy load they may increase to 125 by special exemption provided that the following criteria are met: increased area will be supportable primarily by residents of the surrounding area; two, the proposed exception will result in a more attractive neighborhood commercial development due to the presence of outer eating area that enhance the pedestrian orientation of the development, additional parking lot, landscaping, additional (can't understand) and the proposed exception will be consistent with the stated intent of CN-1 Zone. So it can go up to 125 if those three are met. Elliott/You are a talent of information. Wilburn/It's... 14-4B. Lehman/Karin...(several talking at once) Franklin/Yeah, page 199. Wilburn/I'm looking. Franklin/Yes, Mr. Mayor? Lehman/Would you look at page 39 for me, please. Franklin/I'd love to. Lehman/At the bottom of the page, and this is re: parking standards for service parking and the bottom figure that is listed as unacceptable, and I understand why the other ones are acceptable, but what would we do if we had a lot that rises from the street where we cannot put parking behind the building? Where it really isn't possible... Franklin/There's an exception, isn't there? Lehman/Oh, there is. Okay. Franklin/Where is it, Bob? In the beginning of that? Lehman/Good. Franklin/At the very end. Lehman/That's all, no, no. As long as there's something to cover that situation because I can understand... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 72 Franklin/I want to make sure he's telling me right. Minor modifications on page 46. Lehman/I believe you, and then on page 29, we had a question the other night that I thought was, I thought might be a good question, but where we have multi-family buildings across from each other, and we have a direct view, the word direct, I think, needs to be defined a little better. Directly like lined up exactly, or 10% or a foot off or two feet - what does direct mean? Franklin/You know...just to give you history on this one. We thought we were, you know, making things easier here, but we used to have this requirement that if you had multiple buildings on a single lot they had to be separated by the height of the tallest building, which didn't seem to make any sense since you can have two separate lots and there'd only be ten foot in between, but it did make some sense too that if you've got multiple buildings on the lot, that you don't put the windows right across from each other. Okay, so you want us to define what "direct" means? Lehman/Well, I don't know... Franklin/To prevent direct views. So that you're not looking in somebody else's windows. Yeah. (several talking at once) Vanderhoef/It happens all the time. I've got a two-story house and I look down into the windows of two homes. (several talking at once) Lehman/It seems to me it would be so easy to see to it that you didn't do that, when you're building. Why would you build a... Howard/Well, one of the issues with apartment buildings, if the...the people that live in the buildings don't really have a say over what gets built, so they have to live with whatever gets built, but it's a little different with single-family homes. A lot of times buildings are close together. You notice that a lot of buildings, they don't have windows on the sides that are close together. Elliott/This doesn't apply to single-family homes? Howard/Right. This is just multi-family. So and the other issue is on multiple buildings on one site, you could have three or four or five buildings on one site, whereas if they're on separate lots, you're going to have backyards and front yard requirements, so this would allow buildings clustered really closely together, both on the back and the sides and the front. It's really a means to create some privacy and open space on the lot. So, this gives maximum flexibility, as long as they can meet the fire code and make sure there's some privacy between buildings. And we thought this was a better standard than what we have now. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 73 Lehman/Can we just say that the windows must be offset by the width of a window? That's not direct anymore. Elliott/See the thing is if I'm on the second floor and there's no windows here, but there's a window over there, I have a direct view into that window right over there. Vanderhoef/The word direct is a real problematic...no, I like the clustered buildings, and at the same point, with the way that... Howard/... gives the developer the maximum flexibility. Lehman/We need one at a time. Marian is going to go nuts trying to... Karr/Too late! Lehman/Too late! (laughter) All right. One at a time. Champion/No, I don't agree! Lehman/You don't agree what? Champion/Well, maybe I misunderstood because it's my brains kind of going dead for the first time today. We... (several talking at once)... Lehman/I think she's looking in somebody else's window. Champion/Clarify this for me because we talked about duplexes where they like to have the garages on the inside, because it offers a lot of noise privacy so if you have several duplexes in an RS-12... Howard/This is just multi-family buildings. Just apartment buildings. Lehman/Apartment buildings. So you don't have a window directly outside of another window, which I think doesn't make a lot of sense. O'Donnell/Do you know really...you can turn your head, you can look up and down. I mean that's why there's curtains and draperies. Lehman/You're younger than I am. I have to look straight, and if the window's right there, I can see. (laughter) Champion/But what if you want, I don't know...I keep seeing these apartment buildings with scattered windows all over and trying to avoid, and I personally like symmetry in buildings, so... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 74 Bailey/I think that's getting close to design standards, and I would watch that. (laughter and several talking at once) Champion/I think it's nice to think about somebody looking in on somebody (laughter) and I don't think it's our concern. Lehman/Karin, I don't think anybody else has any concern about the word "direct." Leave it alone. It's fine! Is there any other issues that we should be addressing today? We have too many people that like to look directly... (several talking at once) Does anyone else have any other issues they would like to discuss? If not, this is going to be the last time we're going to discuss the code. Karr/No, tomorrow night. Lehman/Well, tomorrow night we'll have the public hearing and another issue or two may arise, but...are there other issues that anybody wishes to address now? Bailey/I have one question, on 363, there's a group of procedures and approval procedures and there's a statement, "The building official shall, within a reasonable time, make a determination." I think...what's reasonable? (several talking at once) Franklin/Is this is the flood plain development permit thing? Bailey/And it could jus be boilerplate language, but I see that I have a little question mark here so I just thought I'd bring it up. Franklin/Oh, shall within a .... that's more than five and less than 30 days. Lehman/That's reasonable. Bailey/Well, reasonable to me is yesterday. Dilkes/I think it's always better to have a time, but... Lehman/But the word reasonable depends on what you're asking for. Dilkes/It depends varies from person to person. Lehman/Reasonable is six months (several talking at once). Bailey/Is this... I mean, obviously, this links to probably federal. Just a question. Lehman/Reasonable time and directly across are in the same category. Bailey/Yes they are! This represents only a reasonably 'accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 75 Vanderhoef/If you put 15 working days, something like that. Franklin/Yeah, if you're going to put a number in...we have to have DNR review this if we change it. Lehman/Yeah, I mean, suddenly reasonable might be six or eight weeks. Franklin/A reasonable for DNR might be six months. Is this critical to you, Ms. Bailey? Bailey/No, ma'am, it is not, but I had a question mark and I'd like to take it away, okay? Elliott/It seems to me we're not going to have time length, because it seems to me if you do you have to have a backdoor on that because there are so many variables that are out of your control, I'm sure. Franklin/I don't believe, unless you all have received phone calls or comments, that this has been an issue with anyone in terms of HIS getting back to them. (several talking at once) Okay, so I've just got a couple things that are from tonight. That deal with the access and then taking out the mandatory neighborhood meetings and requiring the developer name and number. Okay. Tomorrow night then you're going to have a public hearing, and if there's anything that comes up, fine, but please at tomorrow's night meeting then during the public hearing if it's something that a majority of you want to address, tell us tomorrow night during the public heating, okay? Because tomorrow, as I noted, is the last day we can assure you then that we can have a draft for your meeting on the 12th. Lehman/And if we run into a situation that we cannot...I can't imagine, but if we have enough stuff, we're going to meet at 1:30 on Wednesday. Karr/We'll decide that tomorrow night. Lehman/We'll decide that tomorrow night. But my guess is, unless something really drastic comes up, we're through. · Elliott/Did you say the hearing tomorrow night will be continued until... Lehman/It's continued to the 12th of December. Franklin/Okay, and I guess I would ask then at what point, or, Ernie, do you want me to put something together, during the public hearing indicate the changes that the Council's going to make. Do you want to do that? You evidently don't have to legally. Lehman/I really think it would perhaps be a good thing to reiterate those tomorrow night at the beginning of the hearing that these are preliminary changes that Council has This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005. November 14, 2005 City Council Work Session Page 76 agreed to. That I think is good for a couple of reasons. First, it tells the public, second it might address issues that public may want to talk about that have already been discussed. Franklin/Yeah. Lehman/If you'd like to put that together for me, something real simple so I can read it. Franklin/Gotcha. Lehman/No big words. Franklin/Is mandatory too big? Lehman/Mandatory... (several talking at once)...reasonable's a good word. Is there anything else, folks? Tomorrow night, thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of November 14, 2005.