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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-02-04 Transcription February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #1 February 4, 2002 Special Work Session 6:50 PM Council: Lehman, Champion, O'DoImell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn, Pfab, Kanner Staff: Atkins, Helling, Kart, Dilkes, Franklin, Fowler, O'Neil, Schoon, Scott, Fosse TAPES: 02-20 BOTH SIDES Lehman/We have one item to take care of. Addition to Consent Calendar Karr/Mr. Mayor we have a late addition to the agenda, John would you like to come to the podium please. John is here representing GA Malone's, and he would like to be added, no come to the podium over there sir, there you go right over there. O'Donnell/Representing who? Karr/And John would like to be added late, he can tell you a little bit about. Okay. Lehman/What's your last name John? John Morain/Morain. Lehman/Okay thank you. Morain/I'm in the process of buying Malone's from Kip Pohl and I would like to be added late to the City Council agenda for tomorrow. Lehman/Okay for? Champion/Liquor license. Morain/Liquor license. Kan'/A Class C liquor license. Lehman/Okay. Champion/Okay. Karr/It will be contingent upon title papers coming in, we're still short a couple of signed releases but I understand they're forth coming. Lehman/Okay, is that okay with Council? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #2 Champion/Sure, fine. O'Donnell/Yea, it's fine, thank you. Lehman/John that was easy, I wish everything was that easy. O'Donnell/It is. Jet Air Introductions Lehman/Okay we have Jet Air Introductions, Ron. Rick Mascari/Actually I'm going to take over is that okay Ernie? Lehman/Oh that's fine, I just, it just says Ron on this one. Mascari/Well it does. Hello again everybody, Rick Mascari with the Chair of the Airport Commission. And I just wanted to say a couple of words, first of all as we spoke about earlier we have a new Fixed Based Operator here in Iowa City, Fixed Based Operator basically means that they provide the services of fueling, and charter and maintenance for aircraft, and they have started with us on January 1. I just wanted to say one quick mention to thank our interim FBO which would be Iowa W Arrow they did an outstanding job for us during the transition period last year but I'd like to introduce Harrel Timmins and the rest of the Jet Air Crew to come on up and introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about their organization. Harael Timmins/Thanks Rick. Lehman/Well you brought the whole air force didn't you? Timmins/Need a lot of help. I'm Harael Timmins and I'm president of Jet Air Incorporated, I have with me tonight, this is Ron Duffee, he's our manager and associate at the Iowa Airport, Barry Barash has been my long term partner in this endeavor and Philip Wolford who's my number one assistant, he's young, he does all the work, I just try to keep him directed and we're happy to be out here, ~ve're real pleased with what we see at the Iowa City Airport, we think there's a lot of potential there and a lot of activity and we certainly invite everyone to come out there, we've, for the folks that are here I've got some handouts here that give a little bit of an introduction, it comes in a different cover but if there's enough there. It gives you some idea of the services that we do and some of the aircraft, some of the. Pfab/Not intentionally though. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #3 Timmins/And I don't have any prepared speech but we'd certainly answer any questions of, we hope to have some open houses coming up here pretty quick as soon as the moderates a little bit and we get ourselves, get our feet on the ground and running, it takes a little time anytime you start a new business even though we've been in this business about 33 years, it takes a little bit of time to get things up and going, we've made incredible investment out there so far and we're in the process of moving airplanes to the location, we'll actually be basing, what do we have there fight now Ron three or four airplanes? Ron Duffee/Probably about five right now. Timmins/Five right now, depends on, and we'll be moving more and bigger airplanes as the business grows and as we get our organization up and running so. Lehman/Well welcome to Iowa City. Champion/We love having you here. Lehman/We're pretty proud on that airport, we've spent a lot of money on it and, oh no it is, it's a beautiful airport, very few cities the size of Iowa City have an airport as nice as that one and I think the Council has been very, very supportive for that airport over the years and we're pleased to have you. Timmins/Well thank you and I would say your absolutely right, I've been in this business long enough, I think I've landed in probably almost every airport in the United States and most of them in North Amehca and you certainly have an outstanding facility, especially for a location this size, very quality. Pfab/I'd like to ask him a couple of questions? Lehman/Okay we're not going to take a lot of time. Pfab/Okay I'd like to ask you when you looked at this thing what couple of things attracted you the most and I'm going to ask you what may cause things you have to work through? Timmins/Certainly the thing that attracted us are certainly the facilities, are real quality facilities, well done, well set up for the type of operation and then we feel there's a great potential in this area and especially for our sized operation we just feel there's a potential here. Pfab/What are the couple challenges? Timmins/Pardon. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #4 Pfab/What are a couple of the challenges that you see? Timmins/Oh with any business just getting to know the customers, getting people on board to do what we need to do and just time, time and money. Pfab/Okay. Lehman/We know what that. Well thank you for. Champion/Yes, thank you for coming. Vanderhoef/Thank you for coming, this was just a chore to get you all here. Champion/We're glad to have you. Planning & Zoning Lehman/Karin Franklin yottr up. Franklin/ Okay this should be quick. A. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTiNG A PUBLIC HEARING FOR FEBRUARY 19 ON AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 2,800 SQUARE FEET FROM LOW DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RM-12, TO HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY, RM-44 FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE NORTH END OF WEST BENTON COURT. (REZ01-00027) Franklin/The first item is to consider setting a public hearing for February 19 to rezone a small sliver of property for Oaknoll so you'll need to excuse yourself from that Emie. Lehman/I will. B. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR FEBRUARY 19 ON AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND THE SENSITiVE AREAS DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR LOTS 3 AND 4 OF A RESUBDIVISION OF LOT 53 OF WALDEN HILLS, LOCATED AT THE INTERSECTION OF SHANNON DRIVE AND ROHRET ROAD. (REZ01-00026) Franklin/The second item is setting a public hearing for February 19 to amend the sensitive areas development plans for lot 3 and 4 of lot 53 of Walden Hills. This is a redo of the Bums project over on the west side. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #5 Vanderhoef/Karin, excuse me on that one, do we have any updated in£ormation about the number of units of assisted living in the city and what, whether that state survey has been done on assisted living? Franklin/I'll check with Steve Nasby on that. Vanderhoeff Okay please do. Kanner/What was this regards to Dee? Franklin/So you want the total number of assisted living units that wa have in Iowa City? Vanderhoef/Yes and occupancy in those and then whether the state has done that survey on both nursing home and assisted living units in iowa City. Lehman/Although Karin correct me if I'm wrong the rezoning is relative to density and not what goes into those properties is that correct? Franklin/Well this is a change from a basically a subsidized apartment to an assisted living type of facility so it's. Lehman/I mean is them a zone for assisted living? Vanderhoef/It's a different use. Franklin/No there isn't a zone for assisted living. Lehman/And the heating is on the zoning though. Franklin/Yes it is. Vanderhoef/On this particular piece but we also have the notice in the packet of wanting expedited. Champion/That's in here too. Franklin/Consideration of tax credits. Vanderhoef/Consideration of that so they can get tax credits and I'm wanting to know this other information before I make a decision on that. Franklin/Okay. Vanderhoef/Thank you. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #6 C. CONSDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR FEBRUARY 19 ON AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND SECTION 14-6E OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE IN ORDER TO ALLOW GROCERY STORES IN THE INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL ZONE, CI-1, AS A PROVISIONAL USE OR AS A SPECIAL EXCEPTION. Franklin/Item C then, setting a public heating for November 19 on an ordinance to amend the zoning ordinance, the CI-1 zone, commercial intensive zone to allow grocery stores. The Planning & Zoning Commission will be meeting tonight and I should be able to tell you tomorrow whether they are want to have a consultation meeting with the Council. Given their recommendation to you which is not in line with the Council's majority wishes the resolution would direct you to have a joint meeting however Planning & Zoning can decline. Lehman/Okay. Kanner/I have a question. When we had our last joint meeting in regards to this issue, what was the majority of the, it seemed to me the majority of Planning & Zoning was agreeing to the concept of a grocery store but not the method per se. Vanderhoef/Not that location. Lehman/I didn't. Kanner/There was something they did agree to if we change it in a certain way and I have a little confusion about. Lehman/I don't think that's right, there was one, one commissioner that voted with the majority in denying the application who said that this was a different situation and he might not vote the same way but I did not hear Planning & Zoning concurring with Council on this. Kanner/Okay. Lehman/I may have misunderstood. Franklin/Initially there was one commissioner that voted in favor of the rezoning and then your right during the discussion there was one commissioner Don Anciaux who indicated that he might be willing to look. Lehman/Might, right. Franklin/At the change in the zoning but there was no consensus expressed by the total group. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #7 Champion/So we agreed rather than changing the zoning would find a way to put it in that zone. Lehman/Well we. Franklin/That's what you directed to refer to the Planning & Zoning Commission. Lehman/Okay. D. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDiNANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 0.63 ACRES LOCATED AT 707 N. DUBUQUE STREET FROM HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY, RM-44, TO HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMiLY SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY, O SA/RM-44 (REZ01-00010) Franklin/Item D is a public hearing to rezone approximately 0.63 acres located at 707 N. Dubuque Street. Oh okay. Lehman/It says no show. Franklin/I know. Lehman/It's right there isn't, still no show. Kanner/Talk to the American Music Box. Lehman/Video one. Franklin/I don't know why that would happen, okay. Lehman/Computer 1, Computer 2. Kanner/While we're trying to get that, does anyone here at this table know the change that we got? Pfab/What for that area? Lehman/No we don't. Kanner/No we got a new 7D, oh this is 7, not 7D. Franklin/Could you hit the light a minute. Lehman/Yea it is. Karr/Mitch brought up a revised 7D. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #8 Lehman/This is what we're talking about right now. Kanner/Yea. Franklin/Well we have irresolvable technical difficulties that I can't figure out so this is all stuff that's in your packet, what you were going to see would have been the location map to show you where this is, it's on Dubuque Street right near the Frat. Houses between Ronald and Brown along the River. And the request here is a rezoning to OSA-RM44, the issues have had to do with the steep slopes in this area and the protected slopes, these are man made protected slopes and therefore the developer is unable to work within those man made protected slopes as long as it is engineered to show that those slopes will be stable. What has been recommended by the Plarming & Zoning Commission was a 7-0 vote, staff recommends approval also is that this be approved subject to the final site plan being a detailed plan which our city engineer can verify that the stability of the slopes will be handled and that any drainage that goes from this property will not affect the fraternity house to the north. Vanderhoef/Tell me about the flood plain in there and the parking that is going to be down below. Franklin/The flood plain does not get close to the parking, the parking will be underneath the building and then there's a number of approximately six, I can't remember the number of spaces that are surfaced parking in the back of the building which will be defined by a retaining wall and then there's vegetation between that retaining wall and the river. The flood plain does not get up to that point. Vanderhoef/The 100 here. Franklin/Right, this site it is pretty dramatic if you've ever been down in there. Vanderhoef/Oh yea I've been there. Franklin/Where the house is now this building will be closer to Dubuque Street, you will see two stories at Dubuque Street and you will see three stories and the retaining wall on the west side of the river. I wish I could get these illustrations up. Pfab/Are you saying retaining wall or a barrier wall or so you can't see all the cars, the folk behind it? Franklin/The wall is to is a retaining wall, however there's a requirement that there be vegetation put up at that level also that will soften that wall and mask the cars. I'm not going to say that you'll never be able to see a car there. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #9 Pfab/But so I was thinking that there was. Franklin/But if your in a boat on the river what you will see will be the plantings and the wall behind it. Lehman/Okay. O'Donnell/I can't wait. Kanner/How far does the private property go? Do we own anything along the river or? Franklin/No we don't, we have talked about well this is property that we have considered involving in the river bank erosion control project the 206 project that we were working with the Corp. and Coralville on which is in the river corridor from about this point up north up by Water Works Park. One of the parts of that project was to look at bank stabilization along there and the property owner or Mr. Svoboda has been cooperative in terms of working with us on that whether we actually we do that part or not is still in question because of the inability to get to the fraternity houses on the other side. But we do not own property there now nor do we own an easement. Lehman/Okay. Franklin/Okay, sorry I didn't have visuals there. E. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE 95 ACRES LOCATED BETWEEN COURT STREET AND LOWER WEST BRANCH ROAD FROM LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-5, AND MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE- FAMILY, RS-8 TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY. (REZ01-00023/SUB01- 00025) (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Item E is first consideration on the Lindemann Subdivision rezoning for the sensitive areas ordinance, we went over that the last time. F. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO VACATE THE NORTH 182 FEET OF THE 20- FOOT WIDE ALLEY RIGHT-OF-WAY LOCATED SOUTH OF BURLINGTON STREET AND WEST OF DUBUQUE STREET. (VAC01- 00004) (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Item F a first consideration on the vacation of the north/south alley and block 102, this is in conjunction of the Near Southside Transportation Center. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #10 G. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE TO VACATE A PORTION OF NORTHGATE DRiVE. (VAC01-00006) (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Item G is first consideration on the vacation of a portion of Northgate Dhve, up around the Highlander. Pfab/Karin, what, in a simple sentence what does this do? Franklin/This area is being resubdivided such that Northgate Drive now as you go in it's completed to a certain point and then the pavement stops. The plat that has already been approved allows that road to continue and then go north. With the resubdivision the lots are slightly reconfigured such that northerly leg of it moves a little bit east. What that means is they have to vacate the old right of way before they plat the new because it had already gone through a plat and so this vacation is just a process to enable that new plat to be completed and there not to be any discrepancies in where the road is. Pfab/And so basically it's a bookkeeping entry. Franklin/Yes it is. H. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ANNEXING 4.01 ACRES LOCATED SOUTH OF HERBERT HOOVER HIGHWAY EAST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD. (ANN01- 0000S) Franklin/Item H is the annexation of the Iowa City Care Center resolution. I. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING 4.01 ACRES LOCATED SOUTH OF HERBERT HOOVER HIGHWAY EAST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD FROM COUNTY LOCAL COMMERCIAL, C-l, TO COMMERCIAL OFFICE, CO-l, (REZ01-00025) (FIRST CONSDERATION) Franklin/Item is I is first consideration of rczoning for that. J. CONSDER AN ORDINANCE TO VACATE WEST BENTON COURT NORTH OF BENTON STREET. (VAC01-00003) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/Item J I'll ask you to do an indefinite deferral, we are waiting for an offer from Oaknoll on this property. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #11 K. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APROV1NG THE FINAL PLAT OF OAKES SIXTH ADDITION, A 30.11 ACRES, 18-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED AT THE WESTERN TERM1NUS OF BRISTOL AVENUE. (SUB01-00033) Franklin/And Item K is the final plat of Oakes Six which we've been over before, it was not ready because of drawings and legal papers, it is now ready to go. And I'm done. Lehman/Well very good. Lehman/Agenda Items. Robert, Robert, would you speak into the microphone. If your going to talk about that I'm going to sit down because I (can't hear). Bob Downer/I don't think that chair would be very comfortable for me. Karin I just wanted to mention that that offer will be in tomorrow morning, I'm waiting for a check for the earnest money, we have the appraisal and I don't know if that affects anything on the agenda but you'll have it tomorrow morning. Franklin/I think we still want to defer, what we'll do is we'll get the disposition process started and we'll have the final reading on the ordinance to vacate concurrently with the resolution to convey. Downer/Okay. Wilbum/Earnest money, is there something you want to tell us Emie? Kanner/ Yea. Lehman/That's a little much there guys. Okay now Agenda Items. Agenda Items ITEM NO. 9. ASSESSING $300.00 CIVIL PENALTY FOR QUINTON'S BAR & DELI, 215 E. WASHINGTON STREET. O'Donnell/Boy it's not much is there? Lehman/No it's pretty straight forward. Kart/Mr. Mayor I'd just like to note that Agenda Item number 9 which was a hearing and a resolution assessing the penalty, the establishment has paid the civil penalty and a heating will not be necessary and it will be a resolution accepting payment. Champion/Okay. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #12 ITEM NO. 12. CONSDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE SCOTT BOULEVARD EXTENSION - ACT TO ROCHESTER AVENUE, F/K/A SCOTT BOULEVARD EXTENSION PHASE 1V PROJECT. O'Donnell/Number 12 we should comment on we got an outstanding bid. Champion/ Oh right. O'Donnell/Scott Boulevard Extension, a million one under. Lehman/Did you see where those three bids are within $54,000 of each other on a $3.5 million dollar job? O'Donnell/That's incredible. Champion/Can I just ask a simple question and it's, when we accept these $300.00 civil penalties why can't we just list all those places, why do we have to have a resolution for each one, if they've already paid them? Lehman/This one hadn't paid. Dilkes/They come in separately at different times. Kanner/We did accept the other ones by consent calendar. Champion/Okay thanks. Dilkes/Normally right we put them on the consent calendar this one wasn't paid at the time the agenda was done. Vanderhoeff And so we still have one to have a hearing on? Kart/At this point, now they could still pay up through tomorrow. Vanderhoef/Okay. Lehman/Rick. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #13 Planning & Zoning ITEM NO. 7D. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE TO REZONE APPROXIMATELY 0.63 ACRES LOCATED AT 707 N. DUBUQUE STREET FORM HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY, RM-44, TO HIGH DENSITY MULTI-FAMiLY SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY, OSA/RM-44 (REZ01- 00010) Kanner/Before you go Karin, a quick question, what change would this new 7D about the rezoning. Franklin/Oh there was an erroneous reference to a conditional zoning agreement which we deleted and we also added a number 2 under the "Now therefore be ordained" that just clearly refers to the site plan, after the legal description. Kanner/So it's clerical type of stuff. Franklin/Yes. Agenda Items (Cont.) ITEM NO. 12. (cont.) Rick Fosse/Emie I was just going to mention that the DOT did us a big favor on the bids on Scott Boulevard in that they issued a memo to all the pavers in the state telling them that the DOT has no significant projects to bid until this fall. That made the bid climate very different than what we normally face right now. We can thank them for that. O'Donnell/Tremendous. Pfab/Is there any wetland involved in any of that, any wetland areas? Fosse/Yes there is. Pfab/And how is that (can't hearing)? Fosse/We are mitigating the losses in a site that is east, excuse me west of the project and south of Ralston Creek. Pfab/And so we're following the same rules that were in order prior tot he changes at the national level? Fosse/Right, we're following the Feds. regulations. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4~ 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #14 Pfab/Previous regulations, I don't think those regulations are in affect anymore. Franklin/This particular wetland comes under the new Fed. regulations as well as the old because it's connected to a blue line stream, no change. Pfab/There's no change, okay. Lehman/Thank you Rick. Other agenda items. Board and Commission Child Care (CDBG) Lehman/The next item Board and Commission member Child Care we're going to defer that one until a later discussion. BDI TIF Proposal (1P2) Lehman/BDI TIF Proposal (TIP) Schoon/I'm going to use old fashioned (can't hear). Champion/In pencil. Schoon/Oh okay, sign language. Lehman/Probably something we understand. Schoon/The Council Economic Development Committee has briefly discussed the idea of preparing areas for development, or redevelopment or expansion projects by having TIF mechanisms in place in the event we ever need to use Tax Increment Financing for a project. As you may recall from previous projects that the process to establish an urban renewal plan and a TIF district can take up to approximately three months. Given the timing for some projects that could be an issue, well that could be an issue, so to have the mechanism in place to allow us to use TIF financing is something the Council may want to do. Again this is just having the mechanism in place, we may use it or we may not use it, but it would be to have the mechanism in place. Before I talk about that I just want to briefly remind the Council that the Council has a number of different tools that you have identified that you'd like to use to assist economic development project. Those on the left hand side occur more in the form of direct loans and grants while those on the right hand side deal mainly with property tax relief of some sort and Tax Increment Financing fits within that category and it also can be used in the form of a grant. In the past the Council has talked about using TIF financing for debt financing a public infrastructure projects, debt financing for private improvements, and the last category is a property tax rebate over a period of time. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #15 That last tool is the only one we have used so far for Economic Development projects up to this point. We have used debt financing for private improvements for Villa Garden which was a low income housing project. At this point in time we have four Tax Increment Financing districts, Northgate Corporate Park, Scott Six Industrial Park, Sycamore and First Avenue and then University project, City University project one, or the downtown urban renewal area we just recently designated a TIF district. There's also been discussion in the future of potentially designating the aviation commeme park as a tax increment financing district and when the Council has discussed and Economic Development Committee I guess more specifically has discussed the extension of Mormon Trek Boulevard, there's been some discussion as we try to encourage commercial and industrial development in that area that we have tax increment financing as a tool, as an available tool for projects that may need it down in that area. I point this all out as we talk about BDI, to give you a background on how we use tax increment financing and thoughts we may use it in the future so you keep a bigger picture on this tool and how it fits into our Economic Development program. Kanner/Wait before you take that down where's the Villa? Vanderhoef/It's been paid off. Schoon/Villa Garden is in a commercial industrial TIF, that's why I didn't list it but Villa Garden is basically just a Villa Garden, it is the Villa Garden project behind Pepperwood Plaza. So just the parcel that was or that is Villa Garden was designated as a TIF district. Kanner/It was industrial, industrial tax pavement, partial industrial redemption is that what it was under? Schoon/Pardon. Karmer/What program was that under? Schoon/Tax Increment Financing, and it was designated for low income housing. Kanner/And so it was headed the district just for that one place. Schoon/Correct. Karmer/That was the only other place that we had a TIF district besides those that you listed. Schoon/That the City has established correct. Kanner/It's still in existence. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #16 Schoon/Yes we've never repealed that TIF district. Again just a quick summary of how we've used tax increment financing up to this point, the three projects that we have used the tool for have all been in the form of TIF rebate, Owens-Brockway, Seabury and Smith, and then Sycamore Mall, the last project that is listed there is Plaza Towers which will be is under consideration by the city in that project would be TIF bonds or in the form ora direct grant so the project to go forward. Vanderhoef/We also have the Whiteway. Champion/Yea the Whiteway building. Schoon/That's not tax increment financing. Vanderhoef/That's, it's abatement but it's another one of the tools that we are using. Schoon/CoIrect, but it's not tax increment financing but it is one of the other tools that we have listed. Karmer/It comes out essentially to be the same thing in many ways in terms of money that the owner does not pay. Champion/No, no. Karmer/For the increased taxes. Champion/It doesn't have to be the same though. Karmer/No, no, but I'm saying the Whiteway compared to the other one. Vanderhoef/The rebate. Schoon/Compared to a rebate. Kanner/Essentially the same, just another name. Schoon/Basically the same, how it happens is different but basically the same sort of tax savings that goes to the developer. Pfab/Is this a time to ask a question? We know our good neighbors to the west have created a little bit of an oh political activity. Can we anticipate that the school district and the County will wave their rights like they did previously to collect their share of the tax? Kanner/They have review rights, I don't know if they have rights to deny it. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #17 Schoon/Yea, they, that's correct. Pfab/They do not have the right. Schoon/To deny it, there is a process in which a consultation can be held, a consultation is held and then their able to provide formal written comment on the proposed use of tax increment financing and then the Council, or the City has to respond in seven days to those comments, after the City receives those comments and so many days before the public hearing. Pfab/And so, so in essence they were smart not to contest it because it's a waste of their time and effort. Lehman/Irvin we're just talking about setting up a district, we're not talking about anything. Pfab/I know, I'm talking about the whole thing, the next thing is at what point when the City takes on the risk do we get a percent of ownership? Okay, that's all right. Schoon/So up to this point giving you a background on tax increment financing and how it's been used in the community, as we go and start to talk about establishing a TIF district for BDI staff strongly encourages that we would establish specific goals for why we would want to use tax increment financing in this area and specific guidelines for projects that in order, specific guidelines that a project would have to meet in order to qualify for tax increment financing. And staffs recommendation in that point then is as we designate more and more of the commercial and industrial area of the community as TH districts, we think we need to be a little more specific and have more guidance in when we're going to say yes or no in providing assistance through tax increment financing for a project. And so just we want to state that, have you keep that in mind. Tax increment financing in BDI I guess the question banks why would we need to use it? It's pretty much developed, that we look at the expansion of the Industrial Park Area through the extension of, or expansion of Scott Six Industrial Park and the point is that there are a few small parcels still left that could be developed, there are some existing parcels that there is the potential in some form for expansion to occur on those and there's even which those are in the green, the vacant parcels are those in the red and then there's one example we could give and maybe there are others depending on the property owners is the potential for the redevelopment of this site, that the building on that site may not be the best use of that land and redevelopment of that site may be a potential. So tax increment financing may be a tool that we could use to facilitate and encourage a project to occur in this area that may not occur if we didn't provide them some sort of assistance through tax increment financing. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #18 Karmer/Did Brownfield, the brown spot? Schoon/It's not a brownfield, it's RM Bogg's, and it's a building that, it's a building that's been for sale or lease for some time. The configuration o£the building doesn't make it reusable very well so that the potential may be there to redevelop the site. Kanner/ So you put it there in terms of just a maybe? Schoon/Correct. Kanner/And where is Blooming Prairie at? Schoon/Blooming Prairie is this green here. Lehman/David you pointed out the various lots on that, but if we do the district it will apply to the entire district is that not correct? Schoon/The entire area, well that's something I'm going to talk about next. Lehman/Okay, I'm sorry. Schoon/There are four approaches and these are approaches we could use in many different areas but looking at BDI, there are four approaches we could use to designate TIF districts in the entire BDI area. One approach would be to designate each individual parcel as a TIF district, develop an urban renewal plan for that parcel, adopt a TIF district for it. Example in the past would be the Village Garden Project in which there's a project specific, we designated the parcel of land for that project and we establish tax increment financing for that. A second approach would be to designate the entire area, BDI area as one TIF district so that those are the two just extreme examples of how we could establish TIF districts. Then in between there are two more examples that we have listed, one is at this point in time we only designate a portion of BDI as a TIF district. That the Council finds for whatever reasons the public good that only a portion of the area should be designated at this point and maybe in the future we'll designate the rest but that's to be seen in the future. The last approach is to designate more than one TIF district, to designate more than one TIF district in BDI, that we would have several TIF districts. We looked at a set of criteria or issues to try to decide which approach may be the most appropriate in this circumstance. And we looked at issues of what may be proactive versus reactive to development projects. There's a 20 year time limit for TIF district if you designate it for economic development purposes. How does using these different approaches impact that? The third issue was the comprehensiveness at establishing goals for the area, you know if your just designating each parcel your not looking very comprehensively at the whole area or part of the area but you start to focus parcel by parcel or the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #19 opposite of designating the entire area your establishing goals for the entire ama. The next category is the ability to manage and project future TIF revenues which is a critical component in terms of a establishing a T1F district, we want to ensure that there's adequate incremental tax revenue in the district to pay for what we have in mind, whether it's a project specific, funding issue, or whether it's an area wide issue such as infrastructure improvement. So we looked at that issue, we also looked at the TIF revenue generated by a parcel, where can it be used? You know if we just designate a parcel it could only be used on that parcel, but if we designate a larger district we may be able to use T1F revenue fi.om one project or one parcel in another area in the TIF district. So those were issues that we looked at in trying to decide which of the approaches we would recommend using. I have listed here that staff is recommending designating more than one T1F district in the BDI area and it's again one of those middle approaches, in terms of proactive or reactive it could be proactive, we'd have the tools in place but we'd have two or more, we recommended three TIF districts but we'd have those in place and we could establish those in the beginning. Secondly the 20 year time limit issue, that's for the district, and once we issue debt that starts the clock, well if we do the entire district or the entire area we start the clock. Well we may not have a project in one part of the area for a number of years, well once we start the clock we start to limit our flexibility in using tax increment financing so if we divide the area into districts we would then to three districts in essence we would have three different clocks depending upon when each of them started. Comprehensiveness criteria we feel it's important that we at least try to approach revitalization or development in a comprehensive fashion so that doing it parcel by parcel designation of TIF districts doesn't allow us to do that. But if we establish three TIF districts we can look at a comprehensive approach at goals within each of those areas. The ability to manage and project future T1F revenues again the smaller the area, the fewer parcels you have to worry about within that area, the better able it is to manage what may be the future incremental revenues in each of those districts. Okay so the smaller the better but at the same time to address some of these other issues of being more proactive or the 20 year time limit we don't want to make it to be just one parcel so if we make a few smaller districts which allows us to better manage what may be those incremental revenues within each district versus the whole 375 acres at one time. And then the last issue is again in each of those districts we would be able to use TIF revenue from one parcel if needed for another parcel within that district so that gives us some flexibility in terms of that issue, it's not the total flexibility but as we get with the entire area being a TI]7 district but it still allows us some flexibility in that regard so I was trying to balance some of these issues and one might be the best approach when looking at all of them for this area. So that is why staff recommended designating more than one TIF district in the area and then in the memo we've shown three TIF districts, and at this point we're recommending that focusing on infrastructure issues for each of them and mainly focused on street access issues in that there's Industrial Park Road, Heinz Road, kind of also the development over time went from west to east and those areas kind of developed in those segments This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #20 based on that street infrastructure. So that's why we've recommended the three TIF districts as illustrated in your packet. Pfab/I want to step back and take a broader approach on this, I don't think it's any secret that I have great difficulty seeing where TIF is a viable way to do business, that's pretty, that's, and so every time I bring this up everybody tells me that TIF is great. Well if that's the case why don't we just TIF the whole city and that way we'd take politics out, everybody would have a level playing field and we'd get our development, everything up as fast as we could? And I'm serious about that because it's you know, and it looks like there's a lot much to do about nothing and it looks like there's a lot of potential for politics and deal making going on here and this way it would be out in the open. You come here, you get a TIF, that's it. Schoon/Again staff recommends that Council establishes a set of criteria in which they wil look at and follow to decide what type of project they will provide tax increment financing for. Pfab/Well maybe the Council ought to take a look at it, if it's good, why if some is good, why is it more better? Champion/Irvin that's wasting our time, I mean that's. Pfab/No, no, no. O'Donnell/This is a specific area for development lrvin. Champion/For different kinds of (can't hear). Pfab/Well we want to develop every place in the city that there's. O'Donnell/Where are you coming up with that? Pfab/Well we do, just look at the, look at our development maps that we went through our budget. Kanner/Well to create a level playing field, could you just answer that, why wouldn't there be a philosophical reason to do the whole city if we're not basing it necessarily on blighted areas? Why not TIF the whole city and then take, people would just come to the Council and ask for whatever the guidelines we set down regards to a TIF? Why go through each little spot and keep adding more and more? Lehman/I'm not sure that's a fair question for you. I think that's a political question. Pfab/No, no. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #21 Vanderhoef/But not a staff question. Pfab/But the politics of it is a method it works. Schoon/It's a mechanism you could do. Kanner/What would be the benefits of it? I mean Ernie we get staff recommendations for TIF's and how we do development, I think it's a legitimate question to hear. Lehman/Staff is doing what Economic Development Committee asked staff to do. Kanner/And also there's recommendations that have come from staff in terms of development and staff including our City Manager and so we're, I'm just trying to get a feel for why not, what are the advantages or disadvantages to doing the whole city? I have other questions too but this is one I'm just following on what lrvin said. Schoon/A disadvantage may be that you want to designate a certain type of development in a certain type area so you'd develop a plan that focuses on that type of development in that particular area. You may have specific goals you wish to achieve within that area that you want to focus those TIF dollars towards so it would be much more difficult to do a city wide urban renewal plan and T1F district to then start to focus specific efforts within that. Also there's the, TIF, the managing, the ability to manage it and project the future TIF revenue that would become I think nightmarish, difficult, to do on a community wide basis. Would it be possible? I would say yes but I think that issue starts to become more difficult, the larger the area the more parcels you have. Vanderhoef/ Okay. Pfab/Well address that, why is it? What is the management of those revenues? Schoon/You, the T1F increment is the increase in value between a base year and a future year. Pfab/Right, Schoon/Okay and that increment in value. (END OF 02-20, SDE ONE) Schoon/In that area. Pfab/Okay. This represents only a reasonable accurate transerlption of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #22 Schoon/Okay so when you have made it community wide it becomes much more difficult to project what may be that incremental value than if you have a small very defined area in terms of what may be the incremental value in that small defined area. Pfab/That, I was going to say all the time, anyway you made an attempt to answer my question, I appreciate that. Lehman/What do you want from us, I mean obviously your asking whether or not we're interested in TIFing part or all of BDI or doing what the staffrecommends putting in three parcels or, and your asking us for some indication as to whether we'd like you to proceed with this. Schoon/Correct. Champion/Is the Economic Development Committee going to get together some criteria as of what we want built on that area or would you leave that up to staff?. Vanderhoef/We'd work together. Lehman/My suspicion is that would be a combination, we already have some pretty good. Vanderhoef/Criteria going, I've got a couple of questions because I brought this up looking at time sensitive and as I recall it takes us about 8-10 weeks to put together a site specific by the time we go through all the various readings and so forth and public hearings and what have you and that was what spurred my original question about this. And the other piece of it was that part of this park is getting very old and revitalization was a possibility in their particularly with changes and equipment and machinery taxing and so forth that this may well be before us before we know it. Site specific doesn't get us into this bind of trying to make the long range projections but it does make a time line that may not be appealing to someone looking at the BOGGS property, you say it's been sitting there about a year and revitalization. Would you recommend going with site specific for revitalization instead of making three different "areas" is there anything that we could look at for tmdeveloped property or something to do with revitalization of property and/or expansion? I don't know whether that's a possible thing to carve it up in that way because obviously it has taken, it's still not quite built out and we're like close to 40 years into the life of that park so the infrastructure is quite different at different locations. Schoon/Well you think, I don't know if I fully understand your question but the task that was given to the staff and the Economic Development Committee was that or as I This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #23 heard it was that the Committee wanted to have a tool in place for when we may want to use tax increment financing. Vanderhoef/And you've done that, I'm just asking some more "what if's" so no there's nothing wrong with the presentation that you brought to us and it wasn't that this information was asked for before but we asked for the pros and cons because we were not set one way or another we just wanted information and things to think about and these are a couple of things that have crossed my mind now as I've read through your stuff and thought about it some more. Lehman/Wouldn't that be really difficult though to be site specific on where someone might want to renovate or expand, I mean we have no idea if someone would come in they could want (can't hear). Schoon/To be proactive it would be difficult. Lehman/Yea I mean (can't hear). Schoon/You'd want to work with the owner to establish a specific plan for that parcel which means you would wait until that parcel owner was ready to develop, or redevelop or onto the property. I think it would become difficult to come up with rationale in order to designate a parcel but leave it very general I believe that would be stretching the intent of the urban renewal. Champion/You could be reacted to it. Schoon/Correct you could be reacted to it. Vanderhoef/Do you think new projects coming in for totally undeveloped land, do you think the 10 weeks is an orbinant amount of time to make this process happen if the Council gives a preliminary yes we're very interested in making this happen? Schoon/That 10 to 12 week time period is based on a normal Council. Vanderhoeff Schedule.. Schoon/Meeting. (All laughing) Schoon/That too, but no a normal. Champion/You mean a normal Council or a normal Council time? Schoon/Time schedule, meeting schedule. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #24 Kanner/You didn't mention what Council could have (can't hear). Vanderhoeff But there are public hearing, there are some time things that are required by the law, right for publishing of?. Schoon/Correct there are things but there are abilities to wave readings, the are abilities to combine, resolutions on agendas with public hearings, we have a history of having the public hearing and the resolution at a separate meeting. I mean there are ways to shrink that time. Vanderhoef/Okay give us the time line if we shrunk it. Pfab/Today. Vanderhoef/No there's some time published notice and so forth. Schoon/It would probably be 60 days. I mean because, I believe we have to give 30 days notice, no I would have to look again, I think 60 days would be about as brief as we could get it. Lehman/But if we had. Schoon/From the beginning of designing the plan, sending out the notices, that would probably be the briefest. Lehman/Are you talking about the time it would take to set it up at the TIF districts? Schoon/Correct. Vanderhoef/Yea to go through, because I see some real advantages to site specific in there and I don't think we've ever been asked for anything out of the BDI and that was one of the things that spurred the original discussion. Lehman/What's the advantage of site specific as to opposed to having that BDI carved into three districts? If you have three districts. Vanderhoef/Because of the time line. Lehman/No, no, but if you have them all and you go through the TIF, we designate three TIF districts out there, how does a site specific project, what makes that better than already having the district designated? Vanderhoef/Well there's a couple things that crossed my mind on it as I started thinking about it and one of the thing David just said was one of the things ! was looking at This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #25 so you have the district therefore this project comes in and it stays in thc district for 20 years because 5 years later another district comes in but there isn't a use for that dollar perhaps for adjoining and to get it back on the tax rolls and if we do site specific we would have a project when thc infrastructure or whatever the rebate schedule was if we set it up if five years why it would then come back onto the tax rolls sooner rather than later. Lehman/How would you select the sites? O'Donnell/Exactly. Vanderhoef/By request. Lehman/Well in other words then we don't. Vanderhoef/That's exactly right, that's what I'm saying, I'm weighing this. Lehman/Then what your saying is we don't do anything. Vanderhoef/I'm weighing it both ways, at this point. Lehman/So if your going to go site specific then we don't do any of what we suggested? Vanderhoef/Well I think that's what he was pointing out that site specific meant wait for the request to come in and then that was why I was talking about how fast can we turn around and create a site district like we did for Villa Gardens. Champion/Well maybe we won't have to wait 40 years for (can't hear) to be ready. Kanner/I have a couple questions though. Do you have an overhead of the three carved up districts? On our CD it's hard to see. Champion/Yea it's impossible to see. Schoon/I'm sorry. Vanderhoef/Well the line's go different ways if you really sit here and look at it but yes it is difficult. There you go. Can you put the empty parcel thing sort of on the edge them, put the two of them up there together? Schoon/This one. Vanderhoef/Yea, so it's the reds are the empties so those are all in the green area which was probably the later area to develop if we truly develop from the west to the east. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #26 Schoon/Correct. Vanderhoef/And most, well there's some in the middle section that has room to expand. Schoon/Limited room but potential. Lehman/But if you set up a TIF district the clock doesn't start until somebody takes advantage of the TIF so you could set it up and it wouldn't even conceivably it wouldn't it could wait 20 years before you had the first one. Vanderhoef/Yea that's Northgate because that has been sitting there for a long time. O'Donnelt/That's what I think is so good about this plan. Lehman/But I mean it appears to me that the whole idea of creating three TIF districts is to have this tool available to us if there is a project that we feel is worth encouraging and it meets the guidelines and if there isn't we don't do anything but the advantage of having it designated is that we don't have to go through this long time frame if someone wants to come in and wants to act in a more expeditious fashion we're prepared to do it time wise and second I think it perhaps sends a message to those folks that they do have a sympathetic ear from the city that the city is interested in seeing development to occur and perhaps it might encourage development to occur. I mean isn't that the whole idea? Vanderhoef/Yea. Lehman/Then what are we talking about? Schoon/, can't hear). Pfab/Ernie. Vanderhoef/I wanted both sides out here, I really wanted to talk about this tonight. Pfab/I think I made my point on why we should designate the whole city as a TIF district. O'Donnell/Oh Irvin. Lehman/No, no. Pfab/No, no, no, because until somebody comes it just sits there. O'Donnell/How would you pick an area then would you get a big hat? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #27 Pfab/We're waiting, we're reactive so that way. Lehman/No, in this case we aren't reactive, we are reacting, no one has asked us for anything in this place, we look at this and we perceive that something may occur, we've already done this across the street. Pfab/Yea but now we're backing off and say well maybe there's pros and cons, my point is why don't you just TIF the whole city and when somebody, no, no, I'm serious. Champion/ (can't hear). Pfab/Because if somebody comes in with a good plan, you've got it (can't hear). O'Donnell/But then (can't hear) well. Pfab/Pardon. O'Donnell/That theory is not accepted well. Pfab/Well this other theory I haven't accepted very well either. O'Donnell/But I think the majority of people will. Lehman/All right folks, Steven. Kanner/Yea I don't think speed is such a good thing if we're looking at major projects I think it's okay to have 60 to 90 days to set up a district and then consider it so that's one issue. The other thing is your asking for guidelines, my understanding is we have guidelines, we have guidelines for financial assistance which actually were thrown out in part for one project and also we have guidelines that you put here right here in the from the comprehensive plan, "consider financial incentives and programs to facilitate achieving economic development goals," more specifically it states "a strategy to achieve these goals is to focus incentives on infrastructure development, worker training and retraining and an efficient timely and fair development review process." And so we're working on the review process in terms of redoing our code, that's one thing but it doesn't seem that we ever are focusing on these other specifics for the strategic plan, I'm told time and time again that staff uses strategic plan, comprehensive plan to make these proposals as far as tax abatements that is part of the strategic plan but here we have that the specifics are something totally different so I just don't quite understand where this is all coming from from Economic Development Commission and/or the staff, it seems we're ignoring our goals that we already have there and I don't see what new goals it will just be ignored anyhow down the road. Is there any kind of response to that? Don't we have these specific goals already? I don't, what kind of goals are you asking for? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #28 Schoon/We would be asking for what particular types of projects within each district, if there's any additional criteria above and beyond what we already have and those are things that are going to need to come from the Council in terms of the goals they wish to achieve. Kanner/So your saying these goals that we have kind of are moot? Vanderhoef/No. Champion/No. Schoon/They're general. Kanner/But we don't seem to play by them, if they're in here have we been talking about infrastructure development and worker training and retraining? I've never heard that talk. Lehman/Well I don't think those are the only two goals are they? Kanner/These are specific things that are in here from our comprehensive plan, but yet I'm told comprehensive plan is our bible, we're basing things on and so I don't see that. Lehman/Well any projects that come up if one ever does come up will require Council approval and at that time will determine whether or not it needs guidelines to be set out, all we're talking about tonight is whether or not we wish to designate that area as a TIF district. If we'd like to get that done so if anyone chooses to apply for a TIF at least that mechanism is through. Is that not what we're talking about? Schoon/Yes. Vanderhoef/Yes. O'Donnell/That's right. Kanner/Of course Emie I mean that's so much ingenious because we set a TIF district with the assumption that we're going to give TIF's in some form, and our history that we have is at least in the last couple of years that we give tax abatements as opposed to other possible methods so I would argue that we should stick with the goals that we have if we're going to do TIF's and that should be part of this. Lehman/Well and that could well be and I think that is project specific, but we're talking about whether or not we want to designate this area as a TIF district and whether This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #29 or not we want staff to go ahead and do that, I mean that's what we're talking about. Kanner/Aren't you asking for goals? Vanderhoef/I like the three districts and. Lehman/They will come later. Schoon/Correct, as we start to work on the plan we're going to have to get more specific, at this point it's do you want to proceed with designating? Lehman/How many would like to proceed with the TIF district? Vanderhoef/Proceed. O'Donnell/Good, let's go. Lehman/Good you've got a go. Vanderhoef/And I would like to see a strong look at the three districts. Lehman/Well I think we're saying go with three are we not? O'Dmmell/Yes. Vanderhoef/Well we had four possibilities up there and I'm just saying I'm looking at the three district possibility? Lehman/All right folks, how many would like to see us proceed from the recommendation from the staff to do the three that were just presented? O'Donnell/I'm not voting again Emie I just said yes. Lehman/You just said yes to the three? O'Dormell/Yes. Lehman/Thank you, David. Schoon/And we'll work with the Economic Development Committee on the specifics. Lehman/Thank you David. Vanderhoef/Break time. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #30 Lehman/Incidentally, it's a good. Pfab/Thank you David. Vanderhoef/Thank you. O'Dormell/Great job. Lehman/That really was a good presentation, I'd like to know where the staff recommendation come from? Schoon/Where did it come from? Lehman/Yea. Schoon/The City Manager. Lehman/Oh get it out here, I think you did a remarkable job on it. Vanderhoef/Very good job. Lehman/Very well presented, and we're going to take a quick break and it will be quick. Iowa River Power Dam Renovation and Ped. Bridge Lehman/Okay you can go ahead with the dam project. Rick Fosse/Thank you that's all I needed, as I understand you from the work session on the capital program you wanted more information about the dam project and the pedestrian bridge associated with that. As a whole the total project costs us about $2.5 million dollars, about $1.3 of that is for renovations to the dam, about $1.2 million of it is for the pedestrian bridge. I think specifically what you wanted me to focus on tonight is what are your getting for your $1.2 million dollars for the pedestrian bridge and why does it cost that? Just before we dive into that I thought I'd start some pictures around and take a look at some of the work we'll be doing on the dam, it shows a hole that we cut into the dam to look inside it, what we saw inside there the fact that it's hollow and we need to fill up that space and we'll be refinishing the down stream face of the dam and also there's a shot of the view that you'll be seeing of the pedestrian bridge there. Into the specifics on the bridge, the total bridge length is about 770 feet, it starts at the Iowa River Power Restaurant, it crosses the dam and then that's about 300 feet of it and then the next 470 feet is getting on across the spillway area, this is looking at it from This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #31 the side, this is looking down from the top here. What a lot of people don't realize exists is there's an old concrete spillway offin the woods there and a few times a year that the water gets so deep flowing over the dam, it also flows over the spillway and offthrough this area here. The original plan was to simply put in a pedestrian bridge across the dam and allow them to get off and walk on across that spillway. The two downsides to that is first of all water flowing, when it's flowing over the spillway it creates a significant hazard for pedestrians and it is in a remote area and so we were worried about the safety there. Also if you've been on that spillway although most of us can walk it, it doesn't come close to meet ADA requirements and so the only way to cover both of those things is to look at the whole works there. We had three criteria that we looked at when we designed this, we had functionality, durability and cost, certainly the functionality, I talked about that a little bit and we wanted to expand the entire area there and in addition to that like we talked about it at budget time is the rescue operation aspects of it and here you can see on a view from above that we put some staging platforms in there so they can work. What they have is an inflatable boat that they pull back and forth into the ropes there, to stage, they being the Sheriff's office, the stage rescues and people to get in around this dam, and we also wanted something that was going to create good views and have some opportunity for fishing. This is what the bump outs will look like, the bridge will come through here, this is will be on the down stream face and this will be on the up stream face, and as far as durability we wanted to put something out here that's going to require a minimum amount of maintenance because it is over a dam, we don't want to be out there repainting it, or patching repairs so we selected something out of galvanized steel, which is a self weathering steel, which should be very well at that location. And as far as cost we looked at building this thing as much as possible with off the shelf items and that is that these bridges, all these spans that you see here are prefabricated trusses including those bow trusses that you see there and this will be stock railing all across here, and we're putting in, we've got stock railing on the bow trusses as well with a rub rail built into that. And the railing going out around the front of the dam there will be made out of stainless steel for primarily because if we use the galvanized steel out around there, because that will be on concrete, it will run stains down the face of the dam and. Lehman/Make it look like the dental building. Fosse/Yes, concrete does stain. Here's a couple drawings that Neumann Monson did for us, one is just another view of that bump out and how you might expect it to look, and this is also a view that you would expect to see as your crossing the bridge and I'll pass these around as well. Lehman/That bridge does sit directly on top of the dam. Fosse/Almost, when we started the, the way it started to be designed was to put it exactly on top of the dam and the frustrating aspect there is to see the water go over. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #32 Lehman/You need to be offto the side. Fosse/Yea you have to hang over the railing and so we thought that wasn't a good situation. Lehman/Right. Fosse/So we shifted the dam, or the bridge a little bit up stream so that when your on the south side of the bridge and look over the railing you see the water going down below you there. Champion/So you are building a new structure basically. Fosse/The old bridge, if you call it that comes off, it's rusted out (can't hear) and gone. Kanner/We have bicycle trails where we go through areas where we pay (can't hear) weekend floods and so under bridge and stuff, and so I wonder what would, it doesn't seem that much of a danger to me if we do have an exit there, I guess we would have to have a ramp to make it accessible for disabilities and also for bicyclists to get up there, what would be the saving as opposed before as a possible cut in the cross, what would be the saving if we eliminated it? (can't hear) over there and just came out down here. Fosse/We would need to rebuild the spillway to flatten it out, and Steve do you have any of those numbers with you this evening if we were to rebuild the spillway? This is Steve Jacobsen, he's our designer with NNW that's been working on it. Kanner/Could you come on up here? Fosse/One of the differences I'd like to point out between this and where we have our other I'd call low water crossings is the velocity, but the velocity of the water going over the spillway is significantly higher than we experience in some of those other locations. Lehman/You mean like 93. Steve Jacobsen/Well it can run over that spillway every year for like a month at a time as opposed to small creeks where it might come up at night for a few hours. O'Donnell/Fairly deep and fairly quick. Jacobson/Yea. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #33 Vanderhoef/Well part of my question was because we're looking at tight budget was whether there was any way to just do the bridge the dan~ right now and dead it at that point. What would the cost be? Fosse/(can't hear) calculator. Vanderhoef/Good engineer. Kanner/How about a slide rule? Jacobson/Yea it would probably result in the same as close to $500,000. Lehman/What would it cost at some future time to either level out the spillway which it doesn't sound like that would be a feasible way of doing it if we have water running that deep and that fast but if you wanted to add that $500,000 savings three years from now how much would that $500,000 cost us? Fosse/Part of, well I was going to say one of the economies of doing the dam and the bridge and all the bridge at the same time is the mobilization, what we're estimating is mobilization costs of about $100,000 to bring in all the equipment that you need to do this and get it done. The Iowa River Corridor Trail for example, the similar project along the river, the mobilization expenses on that were $140,000. We're estimating these at $100,000 because it's a little more localized, that's a repeat cost if you break this up into more than one project. O'Donnell/What's the cost, these areas that we're seeing being hollowed out. Now your telling us your going to fill those in? Fosse/Yes. O'Donnell/What's the cost of just the (can't hear)? Fosse/That's the $1.3 million dollars. O'Donnell/That's $1.3 million. Fosse/Yep. Champion/That's not this project. Fosse/Well that's a part of the project. Champion/But this is the $1.2. O'Donnell/That's $2.5. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #34 Fosse/The bridge is the $1.2, the dam is the $1.3. Champion/Right, the $1.2 is. Fosse/We do really three things for that money, we fill the voids in the dam, we put a new downstream face on it, and we rebuild some of the piers along there and cut others off so that the debris goes over the dam rather than get hung up on it. Karmer/But I thought the dam was $2 million. Fosse/The estimate that you see in the program there has been refined because we're working on the design of this right now and the cost estimate we have in front of us now is newer than what was used during the budget so it's down a little bit. Kanner/So this is a new savings we're adding to the budget is another million dollars? Atkins/Ask Rick he's working on it all the time. Fosse/We hope it's going to. Atkins/Those numbers that you have in this budget are at least six months old, so I can see why it might have changed and Rick can tell you that. Fosse/And one of the reasons we're not going back to Kevin and saying let's cut this out of the budget now we've got some surplus there is this is not something we do everyday, estimating costs could come in either direction of that by a significant amount and so we want to be sure that that's money there. Pfab/If you would get the go ahead to go with this, when would construction start? Fosse/We would want to begin this summer and finish up this year hopefully. Pfab/And this would be a (can't hear) end of the construction season (can't hear)? Jacobson/That really depends on the water, on the river, if water, if we get a lot of water this spring and the water stays up, it's difficult to do this work, it might have to go into the next year. Pfab/Okay now, one thing, why was the dam built hollow? Why (can't hear)? Fosse/It wasn't built hollow to begin with, it was built with wood crims that were filled with rock and then concrete was coated on the outside of that, and what is missing now is all the wood, it has deteriorated, it's gone completely, and if you look at This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #35 those pictures you'll see some o£the nails stick out, those used to go into wood but the wood's not there anymore, Pfab/Okay so what will you do go in and pump concrete in? Fosse/Yes. Pfab/Fill it up with concrete. Fosse/ Yes. Kanner/Well perhaps then if we're looking at I guess $700,000 or so less than what we originally thought four or five months ago when this budget came out, maybe we can do the bid without the extension here and do that as an. Lehman/Alternate. Kanner/Alternate and if we get good prices then we go fi.om there. Is that something that's possible to do? Fosse/We can do that with alternates yes. One thing that I want to point out in addition to this, the costs that I've given you today are estimated construction costs, what's in the budget includes design, construction, inspection, administration and easements. Now that doesn't fill that entire gap between this estimate and what's in the book but it eats up a portion of that so not that total amount is savings. Kanner/Not the total, but it's still significant. Fosse/There's some there. Kanner/And an add on isn't that hard to do in a bid. Fosse/No, sometimes it spoofs contractors a little bit where you may not get their best price if they don't know if, especially like a mobilization if they don't know if they're going to be there to do the whole thing or half of it. Champion/And this, is any of this (can't hear) necessary for the function of the dam and the water works? Or are we really just building a $1.2 million dollar trail? That's my question. Fosse/Well there's the safety component and that is for the helping with the rescues that occur along the dam. They average about one a year. Chanlpion/One rescue a year. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #36 Lehman/Well I think the question is, obviously this is a very attractive facility and it's intended I'm sure to be attractive for folks to walk out and watch the water run off the dam which is certainly far more sophisticated than you'd have to have just to have a walkway for rescues. Fosse/Well it is and it isn't in the sense that in order to allow them to work to do the rescue operations they need to be past the face of the dam a little bit in order to make that work well, that's what these bump outs do and then they serve the secondary function of just being a look out. Lehman/Which your really saying is once you get the major portion of that isn't tied up in railings and accoutrements, it's the basis, yea. Fosse/It's the structure, it's the concrete. Lehman/I can't imagine when you look at the cost of setting up and if that is in the neighborhood of $150,000 1 can't imagine the Council will tell us build only that portion over the dam when it would cost us an additional $150,000, well the $150,000 is just the cost of the mobilization I think is what term you use. But that second portion of that probably would not get nearly as good of bids as the entire project. Fosse/It won't be as big, you won't have the economy of scale. Lehman/No, fight. Pfab/All fight besides going, getting from one side of the fiver to the other or looking at the fiver from on top of it, what other functions does it provide? Lehman/Fishing. Fosse/Fishing and there's just more of crossing the river there, this is part of the Iowa River Corridor Trail System that's been in the works for decades. Pfab/Are the trails, are the other, do they hook onto trails inmaediately? Fosse/Yea the trails are built on our side of it. Pfab/So basically it completes the trail system, okay that's what I was pretty sure but because the bridge kind of looks like it comes to the end but I guess that's just the railing. Lehman/Rick on the east end of this where that bridge ends, now the spillway runs around, where does, so you walk across the dam and across the bridge and the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #37 water is running over thc spillway seven feet deep and you get to the east abutment, how do you get to thc trail? Fosse/There's a spill right in this area here. Lehman/Where docs thc water, oh I see in the middle there, the water comes. Fosse/It all goes underneath there. Lehman/I see, all right, fine, thank you. Fosse/Yea, this ties into the set of trails that are in on the peninsula. Lehman/But the way you show the spillway. Vanderhoef/Down to (can't hear). Lehman/Drop down to where it says spillway it looks to me like the spillway runs off the east end. Fosse/It all goes off through there. Lehman/Oh see but. Fosse/This is the crest of the spillway, not the. Lehman/Oh I'm sorry, that's the. Fosse/The water flows perpendicular to it now. Lehman/All right that's kind of the basin, all right. Fosse/It's a rim. Pfab/Two things, you said you were restructuring this to make it less likely to catch debris and that what is going to if?. Fosse/Right now if you 10ok at the dam there are seven. Pfab/Okay. Fosse/Seven piers every 50 feet it's coming up and they're all going to be cut off except either end and the one in the middle. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #38 Pfab/Okay that's a thing itself. Okay now is there any, will there be any possibility of in the spillway area of anything collecting (can't hear)? Fosse/In this area? Pfab/ Yea. Fosse/Oh yea, there's, it's kind of woods right now and it's. Pfab/But I mean as far as the structure you put in. Fosse/This structure already exists. Lehman/No the dam, the bridge. Pfab/No the bridge, will the bridge make it part difficult for debris to get through? Fosse/No worse than the structure that's already there. Pfab/Okay so it's at least as good as it, them is no downside for debris passing through by putting in a bridge? Fosse/Correct. Pfab/I'd say let's go for it. Lehman/Any other questions for Rick and company? Thank you very much. Fosse/Thank you. Vanderhoef/Thank you. Kanner/Are we going to make a decision on it tonight? Lehman/Well I think the decision is probably, well no, well I don't care, obviously we're not going to make a decision until a bid comes in anyway, we either leave it in the CIP or we don't. Kanner/Well I mean, that's what I mean, there was talk about taking it out. It seems that to do it now don't you think? Lehman/Fine with me, I mean is there? I don't sense. Pfab/I'm for it. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #39 Vanderhoef/I'll certainly take this project over the water works park budget. Lehman/Well I mean is there a consensus that we leave this is the CIP? O'Donnell/Yes. Pfab/But not with that consensus, not with Dee's idea. O'Donnell/A really important part of this is that rescue operation of there. Vanderhoef/That's why I ask about the splitting the project. O'Donnell/That's (can't hear). Vanderhoef/Well and we know we have to do the dam because if we don't keep the water level up and something happens to the dam we're in trouble with our water sources. Champion/How are (can't hear). Lehman/Okay folks. Vanderhoef/This one is a lot more. Lehman/It stays in. Kanner/And so we have, it stays in. Pfab/Yes as far as I'm concerned. Lehman/Well and the only thing, obviously if we get some hilarious bids that we couldn't live with, we don't ever have to take a bid. Vanderhoef/We can go out for second bids. SEATS Negotiation Team Lehman/Okay the next item is the folks to work on the SEATS Negotiation Team and I had suggested last time that perhaps Vanderhoef and O'Donnell. Discussion. Champion/Well I think it's a good idea, Dee works with the last committee and Mike's on the Advisory Committee so. Pfab/I'm sorry I was distracted, what did you say? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #40 Lehman/Talking about the SEATS Negotiation Committee, we have to negotiate a new contract with SEATS. My understanding, Steve the contract runs through the end of this year? Atkins/No in the next, next year we're a year ahead of time. Lehman/June of 2003, all right so the timing is such that. Atkins/The timing's allow us enough time to put together an agreement so we just very quickly blend into the next one. Lehman/This is a very difficult process. Atkins/Yes it's a very difficult process. Lehman/It was really one of the most difficult things that's happened since I've been on the Council last time, it was just. O'Donnell/Well it was made more difficult after news today. Champion/Right. Lehman/Well anyway this is not going to be easy and I think it's great that we start early. Kanner/Well I'd like to be on there, I think I have a respective of working at the Senior Dining at thc Senior Center and have familiarity with it, and new blood in there I think it might be good to have that, a mix with the new and the older. Champion/Who's old? Kanner/Not old in terms of age. Pfab/Experienced. Kanner/City Council experience. Champion/That's a better way to put it I guess. Vanderhoef/Yes certainly. Lehman/Well I certainly have no problem with new blood but I do think that because of the experience with Dee and Mike that they should do the job but that's a Council decision. Vanderhoef/We both are on the SEATS Committee so. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #41 Lehman/I know. Vanderhoef/We are familiar with the program. Lehman/Irvin quit playing with the mic. Lehman/How many would concur with Dee and Mike being on the committee? Vanderhoef/I would like to be. Lehman/All right that's done. Council Time. Going home time. Council Time Kanner/Oh yea I've got some things. One here I'll start offwith the easy stuff hopefully. Two years already we've been on Council, can we get a new picture out there on the front? Champion/Why? Lehman/I don't think anything's changed. Kanner/I've never like that picture. Vanderhoef/He has a new haircut. Kanner/New haircut, I'm matching (can't hear) here, I've got a little less hair, can we do a group photo again? Karr/If you want to do a photo we can do one, sure, do you want to do it before like a formal meeting some time? Lehman/Yea just let us know ahead of time. Vanderhoef/We'll comb our hair. Lehman/I don't want to get a buzz. Karr/Let me check on it m~d I'll put a note. Lehman/All right let us know. Pfab/Mohican. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #42 Vanderhoeff That I want to see. Champion/And I might get a perm. O'Donnell/(can't hear). Lehman/She'll let us know Mike. Pfab/All right we've got the easy part done, now what's the difficult part? Kanner/A week or two ago in the info. packet I put an article about municipal income tax that was from the National League of Cities magazine and I put it there with the idea that we could perhaps discuss the idea of a resolution in support of the State Legislature adopting a municipal income tax. One of the reasons is the State League of Cities is, one of their objectives this year in lobbying is looking at the diversity of revenue stream and I think this is a diversity of revenue stream that we need to have available to us especially in this time of rollbacks and other cuts from the state and it's a very progressive income tax and I don't want to do the whole discussion now about the, doing a resolution but I'd like to put this on a work session that we can talk some more about this. Pfab/I think it would be a good idea because I think there's a, some misconception about it and that is that you pay where you live and so everybody's going to move out, where the money's earned is where it is. Lehman/All right. Champion/Steven would it be a surtax on your income tax like the school district or would it be an actual tax on your income? Kanner/It would be most likely an actual tax on the income so in some cities like in Ohio has it, they have from anywhere from a half percent or a quarter up to two percent and they work it, sometimes they do it as a region, sometimes they do it as a region, they set up a regional taxing body to collect it and then distribute it. Sometimes you get credit for working and one city and living in another city, there's different ways of doing it. I think we need to get the talk in the State Legislature about this, they're afraid to mention this municipal income tax. It's a much more progressive tax than sales and property tax and I think it's one we need to have that option. Lehman/Well I guess we really can't discuss this other than is them, are there three folks who would be interested on putting it on a work session? O'Donnell/No. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #43 Vanderhoef/Let me just say this, until after this State Legislature meets and see whether they look at studying the entire tax situation in Iowa I think we're premature. If they set that up then I think League of Cities will move into all of the areas to see how it could be redesigned but this legislature isn't going to touch it at this point in time. Kanner/Well that's why I think we need to start now and to start get the ball rolling, this is not certainly something they're going to pass this year certainly but we need to. Vanderhoef/But you can't do that until you do the total study of the law in Iowa and look at different possibilities and so I would wait and see what legislature does. The other piece that I can tell you is right now at the National League of Cities we are in the middle of looking at total taxing and that could be more information to go with it when we have a talk about it and that will be coming out hopefully (can't hear). Lehman/Does that mean your not interested in putting it on a work session? Champion/Not now. Vanderhoef/That's why I would like to wait. Lehman/Okay. Pfab/Let me offer a little bit of a comment on your point. I think if we could get a relatively say, maybe a half hour presentation on it just somebody to say the pros and cons with no, just what is it, it would allow us to start looking into what is coming up and we're, we'd be loyaller than what is going on, and with no intention doing anything about except for information to us as a Council. Lehman/All fight who is interested in looking at income taxes and options? Pfab/Just looking at the idea of it, I would support that. Champion/Well it's not legal yet so I don't think it's even a possibility. Lehman/Well Steven at this point we don't have enough interest to put it a work session. Kanner/To answer Connie the point is not that it's not legal, of course it's not legal, the point is.just like with the bottle bill we're being proactive and we want, we want to push the legislature. Dee it's not going to get mentioned unless cities and individuals start pushing it. Vanderhoef/Oh it will get mentioned if we get a state committee of legislatures looking at the total tax situation. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #44 Kanner/Dee you have a league that's even afraid to mention it in their list of things to lobby. Vanderhoef/But they don't mention it because what they have to get done first is to have look at the total overhaul of the tax. Lehman/Okay we're done with that one, what's next? Kanner/Steve did you find anything out about the three readings in Coralville on one night how they did that? Atkins/We have the information and I'm not sure how they did it. Lehman/One, two, and three. Atkins/No there's certain requirements, in fact Eleanor and I were talking about it last week or so and no I don't know how they did it. Vanderhoef/Did they adjourn meeting and reconvene? Atkins/The information that we have, the packet of information that Marian got didn't show it that way at all and apparently their bond counsel was sitting in the audience and no one challenged. Pfab/I think there might be a way of looking at that. I think it was, several things were involved as far as I can tell and I'm not the absolutely authority on it. One was that it was a case of, it looked like a good time to go to the bond market and the second was it wasn't the, it was the basically the security for a good bond sale to have that TIF as it increased, guaranteed that it was going to get paid off. Atkins/That wasn't the issue. Dilkes/There are no exceptions in the ordinance, or the state code that requires three readings for good bond atmosphere and good, those kinds of things. Pfab/(Can't hear) it was because of the opportunity. Vanderhoef/But our question was how did they have three readings in one night? Atkins/One night. Lehman/And we don't know, that's what I say. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002. February 4, 2002 Special Work Session Page #45 Kanner/One of those mysteries, and the last thing is I've talked to managers of Ames and Muscatine municipal power plants about the possible tours and they said they were open to it, we can, they'll talk to us, they'll get us access to the administration and legislatures and so I'm seeing if anyone else is interested here, I figure some folks from PPI, maybe someone from the chamber. Anyone interested in going on a trip either to Muscatine and/or? Pfab/I'd like to go to both of them at some point in time. Lehman/Well I think we'll get into that discussion next month perhaps, schedule something. Champion/I think it would be good. Pfab/I mean if your just taking the temperature. Adjourned 8:35 PM This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of February 4, 2002.