HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-04-15 Transcription April 15, 2002 Special Work Session Page 1
April 15, 2002 Special Work Session 5:10 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn, Pfab, (Kanner arrived
6:15 PM)
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, O'Malley, Miklo, Nasby, Dulek, Sloan, O'Neil,
Spoule, Franklin
TAPES: 02-32, SIDE TWO; 02-38, BOTH SIDES; 02-39, SIDE ONE
Joint Meeting with Airport Commission
Commission Members: Rick Mascari, Michelle Robnett, Mark Anderson, Alan Ellis
Lehman/Because it's about 10 after.
Mascari/Yea John won't be here so.
Lehman/Okay so to start everybody introduce themselves so that Marian can identify the
voices on the tape starting with Connie.
Champion/Connie Champion.
O'Donnell/I'm Mike O'Donnell.
Pfab/Irvin Pfab.
Rick Mascari/Rick Mascari.
Alan Ellis/Alan Ellis.
Michelle Robnett/Michelle Robnett.
Mark Anderson/Mark Anderson.
Wilburn/Ross Wilburn.
Vanderhoef/Dee Vanderhoef.
Lehman/And I'm Emie Lehman. We're here to discuss I think some of the concerns that
I guess and perhaps part of this is just information, obviously the City received a
request from the Airport Commission for funding this year that was significantly
greater than we had expected and I think Steve you've done some analysis and if
you'd like to share some of those things we'll just kind of discuss this.
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Atkins/Okay, first of all to Council Members of the Commission I have to be candid with
you, this is a little difficult because I'm about to be critical and that is not my
intent particularly I believe that we have a strong community tradition of citizen
involvement to the Boards and Commissions and I honestly believe there's a
sincere effort on everyone's part but I'm afraid the spending side of the airport is
getting away from us. In my responsibilities as your manager and yours policy
makers I have to bring these to your attention. Council's aware that during the
budget process we had an extraordinary increase about $100,000 in general fund
subsidy request for operations of the airport, proportionally speaking that's
substantial. It was anticipated to the best of my knowledge and I'm dealing right
now with the revenue side. Council will recall that during your budget
discussions and debate it couldn't have been a worse time to see a dramatic
increase on the expense side particularly when we have generally been pretty good
about our revenue projections. There are certain policy positions that you have
taken over time that I think you have taken over time that I think are very clear,
I'm not gong to spend a lot of time on those, an example would be the airport
hangers that we have constructed through internal loans were clearly to pay for
themselves by the rental income generated. There were to be no other subsidies
for the operations of those hangers. My concern also goes to certain business
practices that occur, specifically those that are "off the books", that is whereby an
airport user may in lieu of paying portions of their rent perform certain capital
improvements at the airport, this is harsh but virtues bridges closely to me as with
respect to bartering, that is not permitted by any of our city organizations.
Another concern that I have is that there is no measurement of your public policy
successes as it relates to or failures as it relates to the airport. The City Council
has not to my knowledge in all the years that I've been here set a formal policy
with respect to the operations of the airport. It brought to me to the question of
what's it going to take to allow the airport to be fully funded and I have to say to
you "I don't know" because I don't have enough information. I can assure you
that we can not afford the substantial increases in the subsidies for operating the
airport over the long pull. In the simplest of terms I believe the airport needs a
business plan, an operational plan and the Council needs to adopt a policy to
support that plan. I speak from that from example on our other enterprise funds
such as water, sewer and parking as examples, you have clearly historically said
there will be no tax support for the operations of those enterprise funds. In other
instances you've set specific policies historically, for example transit, at one time
you had a revenue policy whereby 40 percent of the revenue to operate the transit
system must come from the fair box, over the years the Council changed
dramatically, the transit operation, it did change that particular policy. We also
must have some policy with respect to debt, that is the amount of money that we
are placing at this particular facility at the airport, water, sewer, parking, the
operational policies for those enterprise funds also include the debt. What we're
looking at is the primary concern that I have is the general fund contributing cash
to the operations, but please keep in mind you also sell debt whereby your debt
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service levy which is a general revenue goes to support the airport. Again I
understand I may be sounding overly critical but I really believe that we need to
address this issue and it must be addressed quickly, we can not afford these
unanticipated expenses to our general fund, that's all I have Ernie.
Lehman/Okay. Comments.
Anderson/Well I guess the as Steve said he was addressing the revenue'side of the issue
and I don't think it's any new news to this group that we had a, I guess I'd call it a
catastrophe when we lost our main tenant on the site due to the option of them
filing for bankruptcy or leaving the site pursuing some kind of legal action against
that group for recovering of assets, or recovering of revenue and on the advice of
City's Council we decided it probably would, we probably wouldn't have gone
ahead and done that anyway so the result of that, so as a result of that we lost a
substantial amount of revenue that would have it would and was paying the debt
on the services of the new building that were built for that client. You know the
question that sure can be asked is why well isn't this something we could have
foreseen? No not really, how do you project or see some business that's going to
be going out of business, for all, for what we could tell by investigating the group
they've been in business in the Cedar Rapids area, and just done some very good
things up in Cedar Rapids, they had some major clients of there's, at that time
McLeod was pretty cash plush, but the as you know all things kind of hit hard
times and that kind of went down. And so as a result of that we went out in the
process of looking for a new FBO to replace that person and it went through quite
a process, along comes 9q 1 and business basically came to a grinding halt.
Airplanes weren't flying, people weren't buying gas, and the FBO's that we were
looking at said we don't even know if we're going to be in business yet alone start
a new business someplace. So I think we had really two major things that really
threw us for a loop, you know there's no way we could have anticipated those
things and so you know that's our biggest problem with our revenue flow. We've
since got a new FBO on the site who is, we've got a contract in place with them,
it's starting to generate that cash flow, it will not be what it was in the past simply
because they're looking at the business model they couldn't see a way to have a
similar revenue cash flow out to the airport. So you know we were faced with
some difficult decisions as a Commission as to, you know do we not accept this
proposal and look for somebody else who can meet that or and at the time we had
only two proposals and you know do we take nothing and keep looking and have
no revenue and so those are kind of the things that we've been struggling with as a
group, to try and keep the thing solvent if we can. The positive, the other positive
side you know we've got the north commercial area, we've got one tenant there
now, it's a process that's just starting to get rolling. You know our old (can't
hear) has been that as those lots get filled up, the debt to the city is paid off for the
infrastructure and then that becomes the cash flow for the airport that makes that,
helps make that self sufficient. That process doesn't happen over night, we fully
expect a two, three, or maybe longer get all those property pieces leased.
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Champion/What have you done? I mean previously, I'm not going to give you another
$100,000 next year. What have you done to prevent that need from reappearing?
Anderson/From what?
Champion/ To prevent the need for that kind of money next year for (can't hear)?
Anderson/Well we as a group have not talked yet about you know what kind of things
can we do to cut back. At one time we had just one full time person, and hire a
bunch of part time people, we now have a full time maybe we need to get there,
like in most businesses labor is probably one of our most biggest cash (can't hear).
But obviously you know we have some building projects on the plan but those
have been put on the side because we can't afford those so if we need to look at
other ways to trim that budget back we certainly can. The expense side of our
budget has not been growing as much as other (can't hear) but there are very few
things, I mean I don't know the detail we'd have to look at the numbers because
you kind of catch me on guard of what we could cut but that would be the kind of
thing that we need to look at come back to you and say here are some things we
could trim.
O'Donnell/I've got a couple questions, I don't really know a lot about the airport, and I
don't think any of us claim to be experts on it. How many hangers do you have
down there that you rent out?
Anderson/64 1 believe.
O'Donnell/And these are all leased, is that how you?
Anderson/I believe so, every one of them.
O'Donnell/Okay and how much money, this Fixed Base Operator, the old one that left
you, how much did he account for yearly (can't hear).
Mascari/Mark I can answer that.
Anderson/Go ahead Rick.
O'Donnell/In terms of rent.
Mascari/I can answer that.
O'Donnell/Okay.
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Mascah/The old FBO was paying us a total of $9,862.43 per month, now out of that
$9,862.43, $3,000.00 a month was coming from the revenue generated from the
north three north T-hangers. Now we have since taken over that so we are still
collecting the $3,000.00 a month from those three north T-hanger buildings. So
that leaves us with a deficit with $6,862.43, that's how much we lost when Iowa
City Flying Service left.
O'Donnell/$6,800.00.
Mascari/$6,800.00 a month, now if you multiply that times 12 that tums out to be
$82,349.16 is how much we lost when Iowa City Flying Service left. Now
according to the, it says in the summery here, the shortage that we realized last
year was $78,200.00 so if you consider that we lost $82,000 and we're short
$72,000 1 think we did pretty good by saving the $10,000 in last year.
O'Donnell/Okay.
Pfab/I have a question. What types of services or items bring income to the airport?
Anderson/Well primarily the biggest thing that we get money from is the, of course the
rent of the hangers.
Pfab/Rent of the hangers and that was what $6,800 bucks?
Champion/No.
Vanderhoef/No.
O'Donnell/No, 64.
Anderson/Fuel flow from fuel that's sold to airplanes that land at the airport.
Pfab/Okay, is that, are you pricing this adequately or are you pricing (can't hear)?
Anderson/We don't set the price, what we get is a set number of cents per gallon, so it
doesn't matter what the FBO sets his price at we always get the same amount.
Pfab/Okay is that a fairly thriving gas business there?
Anderson/It's getting a lot better since the new FBO has been there, the number of flights
and landings at the airport has gone up substantially.
Pfab/And the price of the gas is competitive.
Anderson/Oh very much so, very much so.
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Pfab/Okay so you have the hangers and the gas, what else?
Anderson/The other thing we would have then is lease, or revenue from the leases of the
north commercial zone, and at this point starting July 1 we'll have our first
income stream starting on that.
(Can't hear).
Ellis/You get a business lease from Jet Air.
Anderson/Right.
Ellis/You also rent out some from (can't hear).
Pfab/So you have business leases which (can't hear).
Andersorff Yea the FBO lease.
Pfab/And that's how much now? It's public information I bet.
Mascari/It averages out over the 5 year period to be about $2,400 a month.
Pfab/$2,400 a month and does that start, does that increase or does it decrease?
Mascari/That's the average over the five years, in order to create some sort of incentive
we offered a three months lease free, after that it would go to, that number
escaped, $1,000 a month then it went up to $1,500 1 think it was.
Pfab/$1,500 how soon?
Mascari/The exact numbers escape me, I'd have to research that, and then it would end
up at something like $3,500 a month and so it evens out to be right around $2,400
a month over the five years.
Pfab/But it's pretty soft (can't hear).
Mascari/Excuse me.
Pfab/It's quite soft on the front end.
Mascari/Yes that was an incentive that we had to offer to attract them.
Pfab/Okay what about landing fees, are other airports similar to this have landing fee?
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Mascari/Can I answer that Mark or?
Anderson/Sure.
Mascari/I'm sorry.
Anderson/Well I was going to say we do not have landing fees, there really is no way to
keep track of you know how many landings and take off's there are. Most airports
that have landing fees are primarily commercial airports where they've got
scheduled airline traffic that comes in and out. And what we would, if you were
do, basically our landing fees are the price of the numbers of dollars that we get
off the gas sales, that's how we basically collect our landing fees is that way. That
way we're pretty much assured that anyone landing to buy gas we get money from
and most airports, general aviation airports do it that way.
Mascari/Can I add something to that too Mark? I'm sorry.
Anderson/Sure.
Mascari/Some of the State of Iowa that assurances that we have (can't hear) to the state
is one of the items is that we can not charge landing fees at the State of Iowa, it's,
I had to do some research.
Pfab/I'm just saying your not allowed to.
Mascari/That's correct.
Wilburn/I have just a couple of comments and maybe you all could respond. Now I'm
not a pilot, I am someone who does support having an airport in the community,
I've been up a few times, I've enjoyed the air shows and what that meant to the
town in terms of visitors from out of town and just the business it supports both
the University and different places around town. I'd ask you think in our shoes
for a minute, although I wouldn't want to wish that on you. You know you all and
the Library trustees have quite a bit more leeway than other city departments and
you know we are sitting here with practical and political decisions that we need to
make about the overall city budget and finances. And as someone who has
supported the airport, you know on one hand I feel like I've given you quite a bit
flexibility, the Economic Development Committee we, you know in terms of
Commerce Park there's certainly some more control or restricted type of things
we could have asked to be done for Council to make those decisions related to
that. But at the time I didn't feel that intricate a relationship was necessary but
then here especially in a tight budget year for the overall city budget and finances
to be handed quite a large bill and to have relatively you know say or influence
about decisions behind that bill compared to other city departments. It tells me
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perhaps we need more Council, on the Council level there should be more control
that. Can you respond to that.
Anderson/Yea, primarily our biggest cash outlay is outside of labor for the people that
we have working for the city have (can't hear) projects. OF course we really can't
do any projects unless we come to the Council and say you know hem's a (can't
hear) wants to do this or so or we at the Airport Commission would like to do
something. The money basically has to come from this group, from your group,
and the Council before we can really do anything so we try to present to the
Council the best information we have at the time is to you know how much will
this cost? How much money do we get from the State? Or the grant money, or
the Federal government or the grant money or those types of things, and then
typically it's the Council that says yea it makes sense or no it doesn't make sense.
Again our biggest problem has been (can't hear) revenue that offset the expenses
so we're finding ourselves. You know one real, I think one real big success of
where that's worked for us as a group is with the, as we've gone through the
master plan purchase of properties and things to make the airport safe over the last
four years, five year's we've brought on the basically into the hold of city property
about (can't hear) mai estate for and (can't hear) to the city about $520,000 and
so that's not really cash in hand but it is value to the City of Iowa City so.
Wilbum/Well information do you think, initial information or oversight needs to be
provided by, in your opinion if any, by Council and/or the City Manager in order
that we can lessen the likelihood of being handed such a large bill? I mean as a
policy maker I rely on staff as a, or you rely on your staff and I'm looking at our
staff and saying help educate me in making decision about providing these funds
and how did this happen? And my staff is, this is my best Steve Atkins imitation
fight now, like this okay. So what additional oversight do you?
Robnett/I was going to, I'm brand new to the Council, I've been here a month and a half
and typically new people don't say anything but those are the people that don't
know me. If I'm correct, typically the shortfall would have only been $18,000 if
we weren't short $82,000 because the request was for $100,000 is that correct
gentleman?
Mascari/Well.
Anderson/That's projecting into the future year, and that's because the whole 12 months
we won't be generating revenue.
Robnett/Right, and none of you could have foreseen somebody going bankrupt that's
running one of your companies right now. For instance if sewer's was nm by a
public company fight now and they went bankrupt and left, you would be asking,
somebody would be asking the city for another $100,000 to take care of that issue
as well. So in a one time event you can't, there are probably things that could
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have put in some contract and this is something that I know the group is looking
at.
Anderson/Well we had, contractually we had, we could have taken them to the courts to
try to recover the money that was in the contract but legal advice was don't do it.
Robnett/And one other thing, the, any of the improvement that are made, I know
because I've spent the last couple months reading through past meeting minutes,
have been co-funded or jointly funded through matching funds through federal
and state applications and grants so that is a form of revenue that they aren't
taking credit for here and this group has made significant improvements to the
airport, the revenue in the city than has or economic viability and the city has
increased as well and I know that.
Champion/Well we've all supported those improvements, and I think this Council has
been very supportive of the airport.
Robnett/Sure.
Champion/And the whole basis of our support was to get you self sufficient and I mean I
think Ross put it very well all of a sudden when we don't have the money you
want it and you know there are a lot of people, we've taken a lot of heat from
people in town for being so supportive of the airport and now it's like they're in
the face. So what we're hoping is that either somehow we've got to change the
management of the airport or you guys have got to find some way to come up with
enough money so that you don't ask us next year for another $100,000 because
it's not going to happen.
Robnett/And I was bringing those points up because as a new person I saw those points
and they're glaring, you know months worth of reading those are things that are
obvious, and there are other sources of funding, but those are things that weren't
mentioned and that deficit is a huge deficit and it's something that (can't hear).
Anderson/There basically isn't anything that we do out there that isn't you know (can't
hear) you know our budget comes to you for review, our salary staff comes for
review, any improvements we want to make comes to you for approval. In spite,
you know what I think we need to do as a group is to start looking for areas to cut
on the spending side, that's what we need to start doing. You know we're doing
everything we can to get the revenue side up, we've got some good prospectives
that are looking at the north commercial area. I'd like to, I just remembered one
thing I wanted to comment to Steve's comments at the opening about the
improvements on the 1-A project that we did for (can't hear) exchange it for
hanger. We did as a fact go out and get multiple prices for the work that's going
to be done, it turned out that the people that were in the hanger had the lowest
price for that work so it wasn't like we just gave that to them for in-kind, I think
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in the interim too I think we kind of went back and said we can't do that and we'll
pay you for the service and we asked for the rent and I think we got that all
straightened out after that issue was brought up to our attention.
Champion/Good.
Anderson/I think everything's copasetic now with that.
Ellis/I think the thing that what we're missing here is what the actual cost to run an
airport, this really, it's like any other piece of infrastructure that you have in the
city, you have roads in the city, parks, sewers, all of those things have operational
costs, maintenance costs, and improvement costs. The Iowa City Airport is part
of the infrastructure of the municipality of Iowa City since 1928 or 1929 and you
have put into it operational maintenance and improvement costs just like you
would any other infrastructure. What happened when this last year was, well a
few years back the commission came to the Council and got the money to build
that large hanger out there. All the other hangers are turning over enough money
to pay for themselves. All of our operational costs, virtually all of our operational
costs are paid for by money's generated within the air, operational costs, the
lights, the water, the sewer. So if you add those just take the, what it actually
takes to run the airport those are almost all paid for by moneys generated within
the airport. The money we can not pay back where we ran into the problems with
is the debt resurface, and we did send our airport manager to the city finance to
ask if we could take that 20 year loan and stretch it to a 30 year loan just to reduce
the monthly amount in order to draw this out because we wanted to try to make
this payback. And that really only revolves around one hanger's payment, now
when we got the competitive bids to take over the FBO that big hanger, that large
hanger really is a part of parcel with any business it's going to be out there, there
is no other facility out there for the Fixed Base Operator to do the things that he
needs to do to be successful so he needed to occupy that building, he was not
going to bid for and occupy that at the same amount that we had negotiated for a
20 year payback by Iowa City Flying Service before we went through the process
of evicting. So we're not going to get back the $5,400 a month from the FBO,
they're not renting it for that amount, that's not the competitive price and maybe it
will be five years from now when we redo the next, renegotiate leases but for now
we're going on what the market is and the market didn't get is the $5,400 a month
we needed.
Lehman/That lease you have with the FBO is renewable I presume. Are the terms of that
renewal specified in the lease?
Anderson/Yes and that's one think I wanted to add to that you know, and for those who
have been around town a long time, we had a lease many years that (can't hear).
Lehman/Right.
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Anderson/(Can't hear) and we've made sure that lately the leases we've been doing have
been trying to be on a shorter term basis so that if we do have something that's not
clicking out there we aren't stuck with it for 20 years so this first lease is a five
year with options.
Lehman/Well but they do have the option so if they want to exercise their, how long a
lease did you sign with them?
Anderson/20 years.
Ellis/We can go to 25 years.
Lehman/Okay so basically you have a lease that if they exemise their options it can go to
25 years.
Anderson/Practically the, we as a Commission have an out too, we don't necessarily
have to.
Ellis/They can be the occupiers of that and conduct a business there but the actual cost is
not in that 25 year lease.
Vanderhoef/What's the escalation and the cost?
Ellis/We've only got that to the five year mark.
Anderson/Right, at the end of five years that's.
Ellis/And that's where it starts off with them as they ramp up and it gradually gets bigger
until about, I think it becomes $3,000 a month at the end of five years they're
paying $3,000 a month rent but like Rick said if you average it out over the five
year period it works out to be about $2,400 because of the way it rounds up and
that's just for five years.
Anderson/We're trying to structure the leases so we have more flexibility and setting
those prices as those options come up, get the most money we can for the (can't
hear).
Pfab/You talked about, there's two things and I'm trying to see if there's a connection,
maybe there is, maybe there isn't. You talk about renting the building in a
competitive way I mean that's what you get out of it. Now you say all of your
hangers are rented.
Anderson/I believe so.
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Mascari/Yes.
Pfab/How long has the occupancy been 100 percent?
Anderson/Ron you've got any help there is it?
Ellis/Virtually all the time, we have a list.
Anderson/Pretty much, we've got a waiting list.
Ellis/A waiting list of people to get in to occupy those hangers. Let's get distinct, there
are two different kinds of hanger buildings out there, the one's called T-hanger are
the ones that an owner of an aircraft parks and rents that space to use to put his
own aircraft. And that's what we have 64 separate T-hangers there in those long
row building. And then we have the large hanger that's used by FBO.
Anderson/Corporate hangers.
Ellis/The corporate hangers that are slightly different, they are larger, they accept more
than one aircraft, and they're the ones used by the businesses to perform business.
Pfab/So, bm when an owner, a plane owner uses that hanger, that money doesn't go to
you.
Mascari/Sure.
Ellis/Yes, we're the ones renting the hanger.
Pfab/Well my question is you had to take a cut because the price that you had been
getting previously wasn't high enough, now you've got 64 hangers there full all
the time, are those prices competitive?
Anderson/They are actually higher than most airports in the area, we did do market
survey.
Pfab/Well when you get something like that and people that have rental property
generally look for a certain percentage of vacancies or they're not their rents aren't
high enough. So maybe what my constituems are asking me they're saying, are
the services that your providing for plane owners, are they worth is so that plane
owners will pay for them? Now maybe the services aren't compared or good
enough you can charge more or what I don't know. Is there something in that
mix?
Anderson/We've looked at that and we've actually increased the rems just last year I
mean for the first time, gosh.
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O'Donnell/But you are higher.
Ellis/Oh we do annual survey, all the airports for the same reason we do, we're looking
to make sure that we're not.
Anderson/We're not Iow, in fact we're probably in the top end of the (can't hear).
Pfab/But if you have no vacancies maybe you aren't (can't hear).
man/T-hangers.
Pfab/Well maybe you should price them more so you can get, so you can afford to get
more T-hangers.
Champion/No.
Mascah/Not to rebut what Steve said earlier too another issue is that Steve mentioned
that the hangers are to be paid by themselves and in fact they are with the
exception of the large one. In 1997 or 1998 1 think it was the Iowa City Flying
Service approached the Airport Commission with the idea of building this hanger
and they in fact wanted to build one larger than the one that was actually built, we
trimmed it down to this size and then we approached the City Council to get their
okay to have this done. City Council saw the signed contract by Iowa City Flying
Service and they gave us their approval, and so with the approval was that they
would build this building for $700,000 to be paid for in 20 years at the cost of
about $55,000, 54 in change. Now it fooled all of us, now when I say all of us I
mean both the Airport Commission and the Council when all of a sudden they
left. Now what are we short? We're short the revenue generated by that large
hanger, not the other ones, the other ones are all paid for themselves. In fact we
have one T-hanger building that's going to be completely paid for next year that
was built 8 years ago and we have another one that's going to be paid for in three
more years I believe, no they are generating their own revenue, and they are
paying for themselves, the only one we're having problems with, this is what
we're trying to stress so strongly to the Council is the large one that we all thought
was going to be fluid.
Pfab/But it looks to me like the people who are actually using the hangers pay you two
ways, one is they buy gas from you and the other is they pay a hanger fees.
Mascari/That's correct.
Pfab/And it looks like they got a good deal.
Lehman/How do you figure that?
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Mascari/How's that?
Pfab/Well I mean, it's, what does it cost for them? Oh you can't make it work, they're
lined up because they like what your doing, it must be a good location. Are you
price (can't hear).
Anderson/It is a good location, that's why they're lining up (can't hear).
Pfab/Is there, do you have pricing power and are you using it?
Lehman/All right Dee do you have any comments?
Vanderhoef/Well I'm just trying to get a picture of this budget and your capital
improvement plans and what do you have in a five year plan that puts us in the
know of expected requests or changes or needs from the general fund?
Anderson/I think we submitted a five year plan that had the different requests for capital
improvement on it whether it was either (can't hear) taxi ways, resurface, those
kinds of things, I believe some of that has had to be pushed back so we have pretty
much laid out what the long term needs are based upon (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/So how were you anticipating paying for those things without asking for
more dollars from the city?
Anderson/Well without the loss of the FBO it wouldn't have been as big a hole we're in
now, and (can't hear) comes from the 90/10 grant from the federal government
(can't hear) 10 percent of the way and tremendous amount of asset (can't hear).
You know we would have had to come to (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/But the 10percent. How were you planning to paythe 10pement?
Ellis/But that was always going to come from the city.
Lehman/Right.
Ellis/And that's not a surprise, I mean we wouldn't have gone forward even requesting
these projects without some sort of approval from City Council that they back this
request for runway extension, taxi business.
Anderson/Basically putting capital back in your asset.
Vanderhoef/I guess I'm not stating this very well, I'm sorry.
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Lehman/Well I think you should leave the master plan improvement out of the equation
for the time being because I don't think they're really.
Anderson/That's (cant' hear) any request for capital improvements.
Lehman/Yea.
Anderson/So I'11.
Lehman/Operational it seems to be where we have the.
Anderson/Yea operational is where we're servicing the debt on that big hanger. There
are a number of things that we did as a city to the airport after we lost, after the
original FBO went out of business things that were less than easy to deal with. It
had gotten into a pretty good state of disrepair. In fact there are still a lot of things
that are sadly state of disrepair and need to be done and so we did play a little bit
of catch up there a couple years after so, that's where some of our capital spike
from. Earlier and the money that we received from the Fed's (can't hear). I would
say if anything historical return Fed's to (can't hear).
Lehman/I think that part has always gone well.
Vanderhoeff That part is not.
Lehman/We, obviously, and your an enterprise fund for the city because you do take in
some cash. In almost every situation where, I shouldn't say, back up, in every
situation where we have an enterprise fund, there isn't a question that we've asked
you that we couldn't have gotten the answer from Mr. Atkins or department head
in other words that kind of information because we're using take transit for
example where we do subsidize transit, we can get any answer we need almost on
the spot because the records are here, they're kept, they're supervised by the City
Manager or department head and in some respects I think it's very unfair for the
Airport Commission with five of you folks, basically volunteering to run an
incredibly huge asset for the city. You've got obviously an airport manager that
you work with but from a, from a governmental standpoint we answer for one way
or another every request from the general fund and this si the one area over which
the City Manager and/or staff folks have no say whatsoever, we come and you
answer our questions for us. The hanger, and frankly the deal with the big hanger
probably should have been up before these two groups a long, long time ago, Rick
had told me about it. But as far as the City being on notice that we had an
incredible loss of revenue, I'm not sure that anybody at least fully realized that
until we get the budget request. You know we have a number of departments,
there are, and obviously we have Boards and Commissions throughout the City, in
most Boards and Commissions are advisory to a department head who then is
responsible directly to the City Manager and we get back, well and then of course
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enjoys all the expertise of all of the departrnent~ within the city, whether it's the
finance department, the legal department, and our attorney does work with you
folks.
Anderson/ Oh yea.
Lehman/From our perspective, from my perspective, don't let me use the word "our" I'm
sorry, but from my perspective it's much easier for me to have a person
responsible who needs to answer the questions, who needs to be responsible an
operation than it is I think very unfair to ask five lay folks to be responsible for
something that I think really requires a professional manager, I think from an
advisory standpoint you guys are absolutely invaluable. Should you be for
responsible for the everyday operation of the airport? I really don't think so. Now
I don't, the financial information for the airport is that? Do we have that
information Steve?
Atkins/You have to give me a specific question Emie.
Lehman/Well just the general financial operation of the airport, do we know the number
of signed leases on the hangers?
Atkins/No I don't know those things.
Lehman/I guess what I would like and it's getting late and we have another meeting with
the Planning & Zoning Commission, I would like for and you Council you guys
jump in but what I would like is for the City Manager to do, or the finance
department to do the evaluation of the leases, all of the sorts of things that have
been happening at the airport so we can get a little more clear understanding of
exactly where you guys are. But I think we need your.
Mascari/Those records have always been available to you at all time.
Anderson/The city finance department is our finance department.
Mascari/We don't have any money.
Ellis/It all comes right into the city, all the records are in the city.
Atkins/That's not completely correct.
Ellis/And we do have an Airport Manager that is always available and he comes to the
city staff meeting.
Lehman/What don't we have?
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Atkins/The accounts receivable are directed to the airport.
Lehman/They don't go through our finance department.
Atkins/No, Ron is obligated to bring them down to us, we can do the billing system.
Now folks my biggest concern about this whole thing is that I have no
measurement of whether this is successful public policy or not because these
decisions are made outside of my purview. I'm being very selfish now and being
selfish in the sense that ifI can't measure the public policy I don't know whether
the $100,000 additional subsidy is a good idea or a bad idea. As far as
negotiations with Jet Air and the difference between that FBO and this FBO and
the amount of money that's coming in I have no knowledge of those.
Anderson/What types of measures would you think about Steve I guess?
Atkins/The public policy we have to decide just exactly what is the level of financial
support that the City Council wishes to apply to the airport. Not unlike your
income must generate X pementage, it must do that and that particular number
then can drive your negotiations with respect to all the sorts of arrangements that
you have.
Anderson/Economic Development for a second, how would you put a value on the things
we don't receive income on like Organ procurement coming in using this thing at
3:00 in the morning?
Atkins/No, I'm not, no, I'm only dealing with the financial and the operational, I'm not
being the least critical of the value of the asset to the community, but I can't
decide whether it's a success or a failure ifI don't have no measurements, and the
City Council can ask me how many gallons of water are pumped, what's it cost
for gallon? I mean I can tell them, I can answer those things for them, when it
comes to the operations of the airport folks, I don't know. We don't have a
business plan that tells me exactly where you spend your money. I mean we can
account for it.
Anderson/Doesn't every dime we spend have an account number fixed to it that you can
get from finance and say?
Atkins/If that was the case then we should have been aware of the shortcoming, you
negotiated an arrangement with Jet Air, that's okay, I have no knowledge of it.
Other than pay the bill.
Mascari/It seems to me Steve that our costs haven't gone up.
Atkins/No, your budget, no I said your expense side is okay.
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Mascari/Exactly our expenses have not gone up, the thing that has changed is our amount
of revenue and we tried to be as specific about that as possible, and yes I thought
that we were, as a matter of fact I sat in the other room there in front of the public
and explained to everybody why there was a lack of FBO services for a week.
Everybody knew that there was an issue regarding the current FBO, it's not a
surprise.
Vanderhoef/I guess what was missing for me in all of this was the fact that we don't get a
regular report to say how your doing on your budget, what your income, what your
expenses are, if your expenses have gone up for some reason we need that heads
up to know. We need to have more communication, we need a manager at the
airport that comes and reports regularly like you know Parks and Recreation
comes to us and say whoops this project is going to run over this amount, now we
have two choices either go ahead with the project and pay the overage or we have
to cut back the project. Those kinds of regular reporting.
Anderson/Yea what if we we're to do something like this on a quarterly basis.
Lehman/Yea you know what I'd really rather though, I don't really feel, I think that this,
your talking to folks who are primarily policy folks, and I don't know that we're, I
know that I'm not qualified to tell you that this is a good lease or a bad lease or
you that's, or you should be getting $.12 cents a gallon or $.3 cents a gallon or I
don't know those things. But I do think that the City Manager should be on top of
what's going on, he should have a business plan, he should know, so that when we
have a question we don't have to come to you as lay folks and believe me when it
comes to the airport we are lay folks.
Champion/Totally.
Lehman/We are totally, but we need I think to rely on some level of expertise which I
think Steve and Ron obviously have, but they need, I would like Steve Atkins to
answer to me when I ask him an airport question.
Anderson/Maybe what we need to do is get together with Steve and find out what kinds
of things he'd like to see and work with Ron and the finance group and figure out
what it should look like.
Champion/Well is it that simple?
Lehman/Ultimately we're responsible.
Champion/Right.
Lehman/We pay the money out but we don't, we write the checks but we don't have any.
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Ellis/I think all the information is there that we're looking for we just need to figure out
a way to get the information to the people who want to see it.
Atkins/Okay I do not doubt the information is there, I don't doubt that all, it's just not
available.
Lehman/How do we do this?
Champion/We need to put, do we need to put the airport under the city control? Because
I think that's what we're talking about here.
Anderson/It is under the city's control.
Champion/The commission has a tremendous amount of power, you are independent of
the City Manager.
Anderson/That's.
Champion/What?
Anderson/That's a state law that mandates that.
(Can't hear).
Atkins/Yea.
Ellis/And as you've already pointed out there are things that the Commission because of,
our desire to be on the Airport Commission we've got some background
knowledge we bring to this.
Lehman/No question.
Ellis/We can work with these things and we do spend a lot of time just like you do on
things that are new to us but we at least have the background.
(END OF 02-32 SIDE TWO)
Ellis/Give us the information that you feel you need to have and we'll generate a monthly
report.
Champion/It doesn't involve me.
Ellis/We've had a business plan on our agenda for the past 12 months, well 10 months
anyway that we've had to keep pushing back because we seem to run from
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monetary crisis to monetary crisis so we have not done what, but it's been on our
list, we've been wanting to talk about this for a long time.
Lehman/But do you know how much easier it would have been at budget time if the City
Manager stood up there and said folks we've been busting our buns down at the
airport, we've got a problem with the lease, we've had this and this, it's a
wonderful airport, it's a great asset to the community but we've got a rough spot
in here and I've been working, I know what they're doing down there because I
work with them everyday and we're going to have to bite the bullet on a little
bigger allocation this year but instead I don't think that we really do know, and I
think we do need to know and I think however we do that.
Ellis/I think your right sir and I think our problem was we failed to really send a letter to
the Council telling you specifically, we're doing things on an informal basis
without perhaps formalizing.
Anderson/Maybe we're counting too much on our monthly meeting minutes because
that.
Lehman/Well yea I think that's right but I also think that maybe your Ron and Steve need
to develop a sort of relationship or Steve needs information and Run goes to the
staff meetings or whatever. We need information so that, actually Steve needs
information because when we get asked the questions and we don't have the
answer and it's a lot simpler if Steve has that information. I would suggest at
least at this point Steve that you do an analysis.
Atkins/Okay.
Lehman/Of the financial analysis and then come back to us with some sort of report
which obviously you guys will be privy to as well. But there's going to have to be
I believe some chain of command between the City Manager and the Airport
Manager I mean that's where the commanication needs to take place, not between
us. I mean you have a professional down there that you need to use and (can't
hear) professional that can deal with Ron, I mean it just seems to me that we lose
it in the, it just doesn't get transmitted.
Champion/If the city.
Anderson/(Can't hear) because they do meet every week, I'm a little, I'm a little upset
that the City Manager doesn't think he's getting all the information he wants, and
I'll be honest with you he's got plenty of opportunity I really believe that if he was
asking the questions he'd get the information. The City Attorney's office is.
Lehman/Yea but you also don't think we've ever given.
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Anderson/The finance office is our finance, everything goes through the city.
Lehman/Yea but see I'm not sure that we've ever, I don't feel comfortable asking the
City Manager to go dipping into your finances and whatever, your an independent
sort of, that's why we're meeting.
Mascari/It's your finances, it's your money.
Lehman/It is except that I think it needs to be with your blessing and whatever that you
perceived in looking at these.
Mascari/I don't know Emie, I'm sorry I have to speak out, I'm out of line here but, ! said
earlier a couple years ago a couple of times that we're all on the same team, this is
all, they're all in the same.
Lehman/We wouldn't be here if we weren't.
Mascari/Exactly, if there's information that we have that you'd like to have by all means
it's available, at the same token the opposite is true if there's something that we
think that maybe we're not clear on we come to you and ask you and that's why
you and I have talked many times, I thought that was our link, maybe I was wrong
but.
Lehman/Well I don't think, you obviously did tell me about the lease with Jet Air.
Mascari/Oh yea.
Lehman/But as far as from a public's perspective, from the Council's perspective there's
never been, I mean the request came for the budget, never.
Anderson/But we didn't document that (can't hear).
Lehman/Never was you know it should have been prepared for but at this point.
Dilkes/But I just need to, given that the City Attomey's office was mentioned I think we
need to make it really clear for the record that our job is to provide legal advice
and we try very hard to not get into the management issues or the finance issues.
We can not serve as the link for management and finance issues, that needs to be
very clear.
Anderson/Yea, no, that's (can't hear).
Pfab/I'd like to make a comment here and maybe suggest an action by here real simple
type of thing. I think maybe what we have to stand back and look at what went on,
you know was the biggest problem within the last year or two?
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Mascari/I'm sorry.
Pfab/Has your biggest financial problem been within the last?
Mascari/It's the only time there's been a (can't hear).
Pfab/ Okay so maybe when all these things were going on and like this comments says
when your up to your waist in alligators maybe you forget to (can't hear) and
maybe when you were trying to solve those problems you were the
communication that was necessary between the two entities here your manager
and the City Manager or us as City Council and you as members of the board
there, maybe we, that got set aside, maybe we have to look at that again and say
let's take a look at those interactions and maybe we can figure out something as
how we can make this work.
Wilburn/As this is hashed out and worked through other city departments when they
come to us with a budget request we say yes or no or the City Manager says we
can do this much. You should have the expectation that you may not be getting
the revenue that you think for the city.
Anderson/Oh and that's happened (can't hear).
Mascari/We do, I do the project (can't hear).
Wilburn/I'm just saying.
Anderson/All of our capital improvement projects were scrubbed this year, all of them.
Lehman/Well let me suggest because we do need to wrap this up, with the concurrence
of the Commission I would like your permission for the City Manager to go
through and analyze the financial information and practices whatever for the last
year, and come back with a report to the Council which obviously you'll get a
report on and so will Ron and then we'll go from there.
Champion/I just have to say one thing, we've never, your our Commission, your not
Steve Atkins Commission, and we've never asked him to become to look into
your going's on where other departments are really here, he's in charge, we're in
charge of you and we're all to (can't hear) what we're doing with this airport,
that's the way it is so we need help from everybody because.
Mascari/Absolutely.
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Champion/Your right this is an emergency situation that came up because it's not been a
problem in the other times that I looked at it, but it just floored us, it's just so
much money to us right now that's what happened.
Mascari/Sure, we understand.
Champion/So we're not angry at you.
Lehman/We'll leave it right there for the time being and get back and report and then
we'll.
Vanderhoef/There is a question of trust and that we got blind sided which gives me an
uncomfortable feeling when I can't answer to the public of what happened and
why it happened. Your doing the best that you can do I understand that. For my
thinking I guess maybe I'd go a little bit along Emie's lines that maybe this is
more or has grown into a bigger job than what it was 25 years ago in managing a
little general aviation airport and in that it takes more professional management
perhaps than volunteers can do and that's no reflection on you folks it's just a
huge demand for you.
Mascari/Dee ifI might interrupt, Cedar Rapids airport is run by 5 volunteers.
Champion/Is it?
Lehman/Well let's get.
Anderson/We've asked Ron O'Neil to get his American Airport Executive Certification,
he's working towards that, he's got a lot of inside knowledge already, we're
working towards all the same thing.
Champion/We are.
Lehman/Well let's get this report and we'll get back to you.
O'Donnell/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you very much.
Mascari/Thank you.
Lehman/Appreciate it.
BREAK
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Joint Meeting with Planning & Zoning Commission
Ann Bovbjerg, Ben Chair, Jerry Hanscn, Dean Shannon, Don Anciaux, Jr., Elizabeth
Koppes, Ann Freerks
Lehman/We're meeting with the Planning, Marian do you need introductions again?
Kart/Please.
Lehman/Okay it'we do introductions again starting with you.
Jerry Hansen/Jerry Hansen.
Beth Koppes/Beth Koppes.
Don Anciaux/Don Anciaux.
Dean Shannon/Dean Shannon.
Ann Freerks/Ann Freerks.
Wilburn/Ross Wilbum.
Ann Bovbjerg/Ann Bovbjerg.
Benjamin Chait/Benjamin Chait.
Vanderhoef/Dee Vanderhoef.
Lehman/Emie Lehman.
Champion/Connie Champion.
O'Donnell/Mike O'Donnell.
Pfab/Irvin Pfab.
man/Is there a test?
Vanderhoef/No.
Lehman/Repeat, leave the room and write the names down in the order they were
spoken.
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Ann Bovbjerg/Yes the Planning & Zoning and Council ordinarily will get together if
there's a possible likelihood of the Council voting of very differently from the
way Planning & Zoning did and if that particular item is seen by Council and/or
Planning & Zoning as a very important item sometimes we differ and it's P & Z
says no it's no not really worth meeting about and this one is. And as we have
said to the Council in public meeting and also in our minutes this is a very
important and a very foundation way of thinking and what's at stake here is a
change in the whole way of thinking about Iowa City and that is why it's
important. The comprehensive plan is, it's not set in stone as everyone has always
agreed, it is changeable for various very important reason and one reason that the
majority of Planning & Zoning was reluctant to change is that the people of Iowa
City in the comp. plan and also in the district plans had said that large apartment
complexes were not the way to build neighborhoods and they were interested in
having Iowa City be a city where people could live with each other large, small,
single family, multi-family, and so it's that way of thinking and those words in the
comp. plan as well as in the smaller district plan that is foundation for the
Planning & Zoning Commission saying that no the comprehensive plan should
not be changed. The change request of course came from a particular application,
that's not the point, the point is do we want large apartment complexes and from
the people from their experience the comp. plan and the individual comp. plans
have said no. That to us is foundation.
Lehman/Okay before we get into any discussion, are there four people on the Council
who at least at this point are feeling a need to change the comprehensive plan to
allow large apartment complexes? Because if we don't, if we're not inclined to
change the plan then we don't need the discussion. Are there four folks who
would be willing to change the plan?
O'Donnell/I'm (can't hear).
Champion/I'm not willing to.
Pfab/I'm not willing.
Kanner/Possibly talk about it, yea, change it, define what large might be.
Lehman/Well I think the large that we're talking about basically if we decide that we are
interested in changing the comprehensive plan we have before us the first
application and we know what that is.
Kanner/Well as they say politics is (can't hear) compromise Emie so we should really
talk about possible compromise.
Vanderhoef/And I think excluding as Ann did, whether the comp. plan needs to be
changed or not I have some large questions about comp. plan and the direction it
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April 15, 2002 Special Work Session Page 26
seems to be heading so I want a conversation about comp. plan whether it's in line
with this particular proposal or not and I don't know whether this is the time
you'd like to hear what my concerns are with the comp. plan or what do you want
to do?
Lehman/Well I don't know that the City Attorney will let us get into a general discussion
of the comp. plan.
Vanderhoef/But it has to do with this in how it, everything can happen.
Champion/Well why don't we see how Emie feels and how Ross feels about changing
the comp. plan for this particular project that's really what we're talking about.
Wilburn/I'm not interested at this time, you know Dee has raised some questions about
the tension, well, in what your saying the tension between some developers and
neighborhoods in terms of what may happen on the fringes of neighborhoods but
the reason I'm not willing to change the plan at this time is, other than the
applicant for this particular case I've heard no resounding cry from the
community. In fact it's just been reaffirmed by many people that there should not
be such large complexes put in so this time I'm not willing to (can't hear).
Lehman/Well let's talk about it for a few minutes, one of the things that, and a couple
things that concern me, if we're interested in seeing developments in this
community that have accouterments like swimming pools, clubhouses and this
sort of thing that necessarily requires that it be a large enough complex to support
those kinds of things. As we presently have the comprehensive plan constituted
that is not going to happen because no developer can afford to put in the kinds of
amenities that very nice apartment complexes have with unless they have a
sufficient number of units. My problem with this whole thing is I wish it were not
associated with a particular project because I think we start mixing apples and
oranges. The trend I think around the country is apartment living, certainly home
ownership is a dream everybody has but the fact of the matter is more and more
people live in apartments. We have the University of Iowa here who's raw
material are students, I think some of the actions that we've taken in the
downtown area and the east and north side we've made it more difficult to build
for students to live. The question is really one of size, I mean it is, I mean there's
no question that we can do adequate housing in smaller four-plex, six-plex, eight-
plex, 12-plex, but the larger issue is are we, is it desirable for us to have
complexes that are large enough to support the kind of amenities that this project
or one similar to it would provide.
Wilburn/In my mind the message that, paired with the message reaffirming note to that
answer I look at some of the infrastructure that we have in terms of our parks and
recreation facilities, I know the Parks and Rec. Commission they tend to look at,
in fact we just built an addition onto Mercer, there's the Rec. Center downtown
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and at least conceptually wise they look at the Coralville Rec. Center as a portion.
And then just with the University itself there's a lot of, there's a lot of pollination
between community and University facilities and so at least with that aspect of it
and just the parks and multi purpose trail system trying to link those parts
together, it' s (can't hear).
O'Donnell/You know something is going to happen down in this area eventually, I don't
know where the zoning will end up, be RS-8, if this project goes through I
understand it's about the density of an RS-8. You know in my mind I'm looking
at a downtown where I'm seeing more and more apartments and less and less
retail. I really think there is a benefit to a large nice building with amenities, a
swimming pool, a computer room, security, shuttle service, I like the philosophy
of leasing to, or having the parents sign the lease instead of the kid.
Champion/Well that's going to happen anywhere.
O'Donnell/Well I don't think it does, well it didn't happen in my apartment. I think this
is beneficial, the concern has been how much fire and police protection we'd need
down in that area. If we were to divide this up into small parcels and put a bunch
of 12-plexes, I wonder how many units we could get down there so it's kind of a
tradeoff. It's how you want to move the town, we've down zoned older
neighborhoods to preserve the character of Iowa City and this may perhaps allow
four or five kids living in a larger four bedroom house, you know maybe we can
recirculate that property back into the city as non rental.
Champion/Well I think that's one of the things that I don't like about the project is I
think we're building a getto of students, I mean we're talking about this specific
project, and that's what brought this whole thing up. I have nothing against the
project, it's nice, I don't like ghetto's no matter who's living there whether it's
students, or wealthy people or whoever it is. I think the idea if this is going to be
an apartment complex that people just moved into I could probably be more
supportive of it. I have problems with putting, how many students it is across the
street from a park where girls ride their bikes, my kids rode their bikes to play
softball there. I look at the safety issues of that many youth and one isolated place
with no control from the University or the city, it's not like it's a dorm where you
have the University control. My whole objection is not to allow a large apartment
complex with a swimming pool, yea I'd like to have one. But I don't think I want
a large apartment complex that's geared to one particular group of people in that
end of town, I think you make it on safer, people should ride their bikes to
Napoleon Park, I do have problems with the project for that reason. I think
students should be mixed in the community, I live in an older neighborhood, we
have lots of students living there, I like the students living there, I think they, I just
like it, it's more of a personal thing I guess. I don't think that's a place where to
put the complex if it was out somewhere else or in somewhere else I could
probably even support it but I think it's going to absolutely drive the development
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of that end of town and that bothers me about it, we're going to allow this huge
apartment complex, it's going to totally drive the development, not the
comprehensive plan, not the district plan will be totally driven by what goes out
there by this particular development. And I find that alarming and I think, my son
that lives in College Station, there's 120 police and fire emergency calls, well I
don't know if they were all emergency calls in the first quarter of this year. Now
that's a lot of emergency calls and I think we have to look, managers come and
go, you might have a really good manager there, you might not, and do we want to
have that kind of neighborhood out there, I don't think I want it, I can't support it.
O'Donnell/To follow up a question that I have if we subdivide that and make five parcels
and put apartment buildings on each parcel how do we eliminate your concern, I
mean I'm just seeing.
Champion/I don't have any objections to apartment buildings Mike.
O'Dormell/Yea, I know you don't.
Champion/I think they should be, I have no objections to apartment buildings, good
heavens all my kids all live in apartment buildings, most of them don't own
houses at this stage of their life and maybe they never will but I think apartments
should be nice and it's nice to have nice apartments but this is not a nice
apartment complex this is a student housing is what this is, this is student housing
and that's what it is and it's not an apartment complex that students can move into
or that you can move into, or that you can move into, this is student housing and I
guess I strongly object to that.
Lehman/Steven do you have?
Kanner/Well Irvin has something to say.
Pfab/Okay, Mike, this is kind of a response to you. I made, I took the position that your
taking and I tried to sell it to the people in the neighborhood and the people who
developed and put the comprehensive plan together and it just failed and I had to
buy their argument. It wasn't that I, it doesn't make any difference to me, it's not
in my neighborhood but the people who are most affected by it and put the work
in to develop the comprehensive plan they said no way, that's it.
O'Donnell/Well you know what, this won't be the first time that somebody has not
agreed with me and I can live with that.
Pfab/So now's a good time okay Mike.
Vanderhoeff I want to get back to the comprehensive plan, because everybody moves
toward a project. I was on Council when we set up the comprehensive plan and
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then staffbrought forward the idea of doing district plans, I had concems about
them at the time but I wasn't sure what was going to happen with them so !
thought all right let's listen, let's sit back, let's wait. But in defining
neighborhoods whether it be with our parks and recreation and our neighborhood
open space the way we have defined neighborhoods is bounded by barriers, it's
real plain, it's bounded by barriers and the barriers could be the river but more
often than not they are barriers of high arterial streets. Okay then we move on into
designing within the barriers and we call it my neighborhood, the first thing we do
is we have zoning laws that we want the fronts of the buildings to face the streets
so that we don't have back yard and lots offences along our arterials. Okay if we
want that to happen and we don't allow driveways to happen on those arterial
streets for very good reasons and you ask anyone of us sitting around the table
here do you want to live in a house that faces the arterial that you have to go into
it from behind somehow or another? And everybody will say well no I don't want
to live up by the arterial.
Champion/(can't hear).
Vanderhoef/So what has happened and what has been coming forward in the plans is that
we have said high density development belongs on the arterial. All right we're
looking at two arterials in this south central plan, or central plan, excuse me not
south. This has what a mile and a half one way up arterial and when the new east
west goes in we're going to have another two miles of arterial going all the way
over to Scott Boulevard. What are we going to build along that area? How is it
going to look? What's gding to be there? If you and I don't want to build our
house along the edge of the arterial and everyone said well we don't want big
neighborhood complexes, multi-family complexes in our neighborhood, we want
all small ones. Okay all along these two arterials how are we going to put in 4-
plexes, 8-plexes, 12-plexes with multiple ownership's going up and down the line
because no one else wants to build there unless we allow commercial (can't hear)?
It's a problem and when I hear and read in the neighborhood plans, the district
plans, it's like we want to integrate. Well I live in a neighborhood which has two
large apartment houses and I've lived in this home for 30 years and those
apartment houses have been there. And unless I have met one person outside of
the neighborhood and they say oh and I live at Montclair or I live at the Rochester
Apartments they are not part of the neighborhood, they just don't. The apartment
dweller has a different action or interaction within a neighborhood. So if I'm
looking for needing more housing and density because we constantly get
bombarded with urban sprawl because we don't have density then the first place
I'm going to look to put it is on an arterial and design it where we can have
covenants on it and overlays so that we can be sure of what's going to happen
there. I don't know how we get past, but the neighborhood says they want
knowing full well that at some point they're going to be at this arterial and that is
part of their neighborhood that never happens.
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Pfab/Dee you brought up something that's kind of interesting, you stated that your
apartment units in your neighborhood you do not know who they are. Now how
large apartment? How many units are in those apartments?
Vanderhoef/The Montclair's, what is there four big buildings?
Pfab/How many?
Vanderhoef/Maybe 14 in a building.
Pfab/Okay and what's the other one?
Vanderhoef/The other one is the Rochester and it has five buildings I believe.
Pfab/ Okay I think that this is the point that Ann was making, she said the spirit of the
Planning & Zoning Commission is we want those people to feel part of the
neighborhood and that's even a smaller unit than this one down here and they're
really not part of your neighborhood.
Vanderhoef/And the point is they don't come out to be part of the neighborhood, you
can have all sorts of people out in the neighborhood in the summer time and you
don't see those people coming out into the neighborhood.
Pfab/But if they were 4-plexes or 6-plexes or 8-plexes they'd be part of the
neighborhood.
Vanderhoef/Not necessarily.
Pfab/I think that's the point, that's what.
O'Donnell/But the turnover Irvin is much, there's a larger turnover of people living in
house for like.
Pfab/I would guess that the people in those apartments, there's as long of leases as there
are homeowners that surround them.
0'Dormell/Well that would be a guess, yea.
Pfab/Yea but I mean, they're folks, in those apartments I would imagine that the turnover
is very minor.
Champion/Well if the neighborhoods are mixed, I think we have a good example of
putting apartment complexes around neighborhoods and I think Scott Boulevard is
a good example, there are a lot of apartments along Scott Boulevard and they fit
into the city quite well and they're not harmful to the neighborhood, they fit into
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the neighborhood. And they didn't drive the construction of that neighborhood,
the neighborhood was there, they were the afterthought but they did not drive
what happened in that development, this development would drive that
development at that end of town, and I'm not sure that that's what I want to drive
that development.
Vanderhoef/And I will contend that an arterial street drives the development.
Champion/I'm not saying it shouldn't be apartments.
Wilburn/I'd like to hear from some of the commission members.
Lehman/Yes I was going to say.
Wilburn/Of questions that Dee brought up related to development along arterials and the
fringes of(can't hear). The fundamental question of the comprehensive plan.
Freerks/Well I'm new here I guess, I have to say I wasn't part of the commission to vote
on any of this, I was at the meeting where it was voted on until 11:00 at night after
it was all over and listened carefully, I did read through everything. And I think
that the comp. plan, and ifI can get to your point, jump in here and say a few
things first. I agree that the comp. plan shouldn't change for a particular
development, I think we're here to talk about the comp. plan in general. And I
might encourage the uncopling of the southwest district changing for that and then
just changing the comp. plan in general because to me I feel that the comp. plan
should change but to cope with changing circumstances and traditions and trends.
I think the Council, City Council has made it clear that they've chosen to embrace
protecting the historic neighborhoods that are existing and inner city here and the
comp. plan says that this will require ongoing efforts, I mean it states that they're
in the central planning district. I think that as a response to that we have to at
least look at the fact that maybe we need to make a change to the comp. plan in
response to that. Now I don't know that this particular development which I'm
not going to really talk about because I don't think I know enough about the
development itself is the right thing necessarily. But I do think it's time to look at
the comp. plan as a whole. I think that the comp. plans changes seem to be made
after we've looked at planning districts, we go around and we're on what number
7 or 8 maybe, we haven't looked at the central district yet and I think when that
happens this will come up because I think the people who live in the central
business would like to maybe see the pressure relieved on the valve a little bit and
would like to have some of these complexes in other areas perhaps and ! don't
think it's necessarily a bad thing. And I think maybe your point is a little bit true,
living in a mixed neighborhood that I do it's difficult to have those people come
into the neighborhood and get to know them. If they want to they can, the
Longfellow Neighborhood often has many things that we invite people to, we get
a trickling of people from apartment complexes but really often times they just
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choose to not be part of that community. I think another important part of it for
me is affordable housing, I know down our street it's a struggle in mixed
neighborhoods to maintain the integrity there. There was just a house that a
particular landlord purchased it, he hiked the rem, he was rented by a family, it's
now no longer rented by a family, they can't afford to live there, now it's loaded
full of students, over occupied, something that's very hard, it's a whole other
issue, hard to try to prove. A few doors down from that on Governor Street there
was a house with the new assessment was assessed in the $130,000 range which
seemed like a lot of money for the house maybe to me and I just read in the paper
that it sold for $198,000, that's that much over assessment value and to me that's
not creating an environment for affordable living near downtown, we are
squeezing families for rental and for ownership out of the central district and I
think that's something that we really need to look at. And I don't think it's
necessarily that we need to look at this complex, but I really, really, really think
we need to look at the change in the comp. plan and for the right reasons not for a
particular development driving it. You know I think I heard too that if the comp.
plan changes that someone had a fear that these apartment complexes will creep
up everywhere, I don't think that that's a case, I think it's market driven and I
think that they're a huge investment for these people whoever, whatever the
complex would be and I think that it's a chance for Planning & Zoning and the
city to put the proper restrictions on the complexes and maybe create an
environment that is a little bit more like a community, maybe. My sister and
brother-in-law he just graduated with his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois
Champagne-Urbana and they lived in a number of apartment complexes, large
complexes that were outside of the central area and they were well done I think
and it was a community for the people who lived in the townhouses along that
area, there were playgrounds, little tiny yards for people. I mean I think there are
ways that we could approach this and make it work, I don't think we should just
say no to it, I think it needs to be investigated, so maybe you say no at this time
because it includes the southwest district changing that plan and makes that's
politically too difficult to think about hut I do think it needs to be changed and I
don't think we should wait until we look at the central planning district, I think we
should do it before that point really.
O'Donnell/Good.
Hansen/Well I guess I'll jump in here, the comprehensive plan, the method of plarming is
that you drive this plan so it's not in the heat of the moment, okay it's not driven
by a project. And here we're looking at a project driving the change to the
comprehensive plan, and I don't think that's good planning. The large apartment
complexes in my experience they generate their own weather, they're kind of like
the crowd mentality, if you have a smaller building and only a few people in it
they pretty much go about their business and suddenly start tacking a whole lot of
people in a spot and suddenly there's this crowd mentality to things where they
think that they can do things that are really not quite what people are looking for.
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To address Dee a little bit on here what do we do and why is it like this? I
struggled a long time on this one, this one really hurt because basically I think that
the concept in of itself is good but we keep trying to do things to draw people to
this town to give them a good living, to get people to accept things here and yet
we do nothing to bring up city services. And city services is what generated my
vote on this because we don't have a larger housing staff to deal with this thing.
We don't have the control in the landlords in this town to help deal with the
problems that rental property creates. I look at like the Greater Iowa City Housing
Authority and they have a lot of rental property in town, their rental property is
scattered all over this town in small pieces and they don't have near the kind of
problems that some of these larger complexes around town have and I just think
until we get a handle on our city services, our police, our fire and our housing to
deal with this and get a handle on the landlords and we're just fooling ourselves
that this is a good idea, I think this is going to end up costing us more and we're
not providing the kind of atmosphere to a neighborhood that they're looking for.
Lehman/Jerry don't you think it would be a lot easier to provide city services for 640
units at one place rather than having to go all over town? More efficient.
Hansen/It boils down, in my mind it boils down to the fact that it's still time on the
clock.
Lehman/I realize that but if you don't build 640 units in this particular, and believe me
I'm not advocating this project but I'm just saying that there may be a 1,000 units
built in Iowa City next year, they are going to be inspected and whatever just like
whether you put 640 in one spot is far more efficient to inspect and take care of
rather than have them scattered in 40 spots around town.
Hansen/That may be true but it's been my experience in people talking to me that the
larger complexes and the problems that they've generated in the neighborhoods
are the reasons that they're very unwilling to accept them.
Lehman/No that point I'm not arguing, but I think the city services point isn't a valid
point because I think it would be cheaper to service one complex than to spread it
all over. I know what your saying.
Hansen/Well that may be true but when I have to wait an hour to get an officer out on a
call in a neighborhood I think that we're stretched to the point that we can't even
handle the 624 units.
Lehman/But we still are going to service the 1,000 or so that are built elsewhere so I
mean that argument will be (can't hear).
Hansen/Yea we're barely servicing what we have.
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Lehman/Right.
Hansen/And I think that when this town gets a handle on a landlord tenant relationship
and the city chooses to openly back landlords in their request to have a better
relation with their tenants and to be able to deal with the tenants that are really
unruly I think at that point then the neighborhoods will accept those larger
complexes.
Freerks/But we don't have anything on the table right now to stop develop and it
continues on Dodge Street, right now they're starting work on a number of things
and there are people who live directly across the street that are affected by that,
they know they're going to have to live with that. I mean I don't think we can
pretend that it doesn't occur and that it doesn't continue to happen it's just a
matter of where it occurs and to what degree.
Hansen/No but right now we're being asked to change the comp. plan.
Champion/For a particular project.
Hansen/For a particular project and what I said.
Freerks/And I don't necessarily agree with that yea.'
Hansen/And what I said is that the comp. plan should be developed when cooler heads
prevail, okay, it's not designed to handle things when suddenly there's an
application in front of you, I think that the time to do it is sit back, get a meeting
on the comp. plan and then talk about what's happening, it shouldn't be
development driven, that's not good planning.
Champion/And it was developed by citizens and now I don't think, I think you need to
get the citizens back and tell them this is what we need in town (can't hear).
Freerks/But not everyone's been surveyed you know, I mean we haven't done the whole
district and you have to keep that in mind.
Champion/No, right.
Lehman/Right.
Anciaux/Again I echo the fact that the comp. plan was developed over months, and
months, and months and even a year, it's not something that was sat down and the
people sat down and hammered out in one night and said this is what we're going
to have. Meetings were held, people were surveyed, this is what they want, I
don't think there's a district plan city that calls for large apartment complexes
right now and I'll (can't hear) to staff on that, and I don't think it's in overall
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comp. plan for large apartment complexes. Emie mentioned that your not going
to build a large apartment complex and have the amenities that you want unless
you have economies of scale. I don't consider putting a small swimming pool like
at Lakeside which is right now the largest complex in town, small pool, it's when
I drive by it's under utilized but it's sort of anecdotal type thing, it's an
observation but this thing is going to be again 600 and some apartments with.
Champion/Beds.
Hansen/What was that?
Anciaux/640 beds yea, and they're all supposedly going to be college students so again
you have, again a getto, they're going to have a little swinuning pool that isn't
going to service them, they're not going to be there, a lot of them won't be there
in the summer anyway to use it. I just don't see the advantage to having a large
thing. You have a lot of smaller apartment complexes, have little postage stamp
size pool that would better serve there the needs of the people, a small pool in a
huge complex. We also, like Ross said we have the Rec. Center, we have the
Field House for recreational activities, on Keokuk Street that apartment complex
down there, there's a meeting room, I don't see in the plans that were presented in
this thing and I don't want to look at the individual plan presented but it's not that
big of a meeting area. I think a smaller complex can provide amenities that are
going to be used like I said a swimming pool is probably the most useless thing in
the world here in Iowa especially if it's outdoors. If it's indoors that's a different
story so again what I've seen of all the comprehensive plans and the district plans
nobody wants large apartment complexes, they want smaller complexes and
avoiding the mob mentality that might be associated with the getto of one type of
housing they don't want it.
Shannon/I guess I have a question that I hear all of the debate back and forth about we're
not going to change the comprehensive plan for one project and we don't want to
have a development driven change but the other side of it why would we ever
change anything if we didn't have anything driving? I always use the example of
South English, Iowa, everyone who wants quite nothing going on, that's what
you've got in South English, it's a wonderful little town, there's nothing
happening there, nothing, no one builds anything hardly and it's very peaceful.
But that's why where not we're living there, we're living here, and so my question
is how are we going to put the cart in front of the horse or the horse in back of the
cart? If you have a desire, if someone has a desire to build something there within
maybe the time it's time to decide if it should be built, but if no one wants to build
anything then we're not going to make the streets four lane, we're not going to do
anything so I guess that's the question I still have.
Hansen/I guess you know just thinking about that then you know if we're going to amend
the comprehensive plan to deal with the proposal then we heard an awful lot of
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people at the last City Council meeting said that they weren't willing to change
the comprehensive plan.
Vanderhoef/Well Dean brings up a good point which I've thought about also in this
whole piece, the old part of the city has it's problems as far as transportation
routes go, we even have gone so far in the comp. plan to say that when a new
development is put out at the east end of Court Street we're suppose to look at the
impact on the inner part of Court Street so the people that built the houses there at
that time never envisioned a growth, so I like.
(END OF 02-38 SIDE ONE)
Vanderhoef/Into time where when we have open land that we have a vision for it and the
district plan is a piece of that vision but the folks who sit there envisioned their
own little neighborhood and they basically are saying we don't want large
apartment complex in our neighborhood, spread them around, make them small,
well that comes into a zoning problem again if we're going to go in and say these
two acres out of this RS-5 is going to be some sort of multi-family. And that's the
kind of thing that we get in other areas when it's fairly well built out and then
somebody wants to bring in an apartment. I think our Weeber Harlocke area is a
prime example in that we had development coming from two directions and when
they finally met is where the big conflict came. We've got single family right up
with high densities so the expectation that I see from single family home owners
who are making district plans is that your not going to build anything than an
eight to 12 plex anywhere in my neighborhood.
Champion/I don't think that's true Dee.
Vanderhoef/This is driving the whole plan out there so then I look at the big picture and I
look at two arterials and what I said earlier about what we plan to put on arterials
then I look at the area that will be annexed from this particular location and yes
I'll talk about the project at this point. We've got two sand pits, not much land on
either sand of it, we've put the road alignment in there, and we have a public
works area and we have a small commercial area on the south end of the public
works. So we have already created a plan right there with two arterials crossing
and can pretty well guess what's going to be on the other three comers and all
along the Gilbert Street. If we are building the barriers that I was talking about,
two arterials, then where is the best place to put a multi-family housing area? In
my mind it is right out there on that comer.
Champion/I think if it were multi-family housing it would be great.
Vanderhoef/That meets the need of keeping traffic from going through the neighborhood,
it keeps, when you have multi-family apartments or whether it happens to be a
University setting you have a group of people that frequently do not have school
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April 15, 2002 Special Work Session Page 37
age children. The University one I would presume we wouldn't but if it were just
regular apartment houses, we're not going to have very many school age children,
and it's the school age children in my mind that drive the family that disperses
through the neighborhood for traffic. If we plan this comer for our high density
on arterials that get them to where they want to go which is town straight north, I
don't think the integrity of that neighborhood as the single family dwellers see
their neighborhood, I don't think their integrity will be compromised.
Lehman/I'm sorry, I really, obviously it isn't our job as a Council to try to change your
mind but we are here to take your input so I would really like if any of the other
P & Z folks have comments for us to hear what your thoughts are so please do.
Anciaux/Like Dee says there's two, an intersection of two arterials right there, these are
all college students supposedly that are going to be down there, and again we're
getting into the specific project, the only way they're going to go is straight
towards town right up the arterial on South Gilbert Street and we know the
problems we have at the stop signs there. The stop sign at the HyVee, where the
old HyVee, the Aero Rental is and Kirkwood and Gilbert and coming into town
we're going to have problems there. Again it may be on two arterials but they're
going to come up just one arterial.
Champion/That's right.
Anciaux/They're not going to take that (can't hear) I think to go out to Melrose and then
back.
Hansen/I disagree with that, you've got Sycamore Mall that is going to attract a lot of
people and they're not going to go up Highway 6, they're going to avoid that,
they're going to come across the new arterial. You've got the soccer park down at
the south end of Sycamore, they're going to go there. We've got neighborhood
commercial that's planned for the comer of that arterial and Sycamore Street
they're going to go them so you can't tell me that they're not going to go across
that area.
Lehman/So will any other development that occurs.
Hansen/So will any other development absolutely.
Anciaux/But this one's basically is going to send up everybody up Gilbert Street.
Lehman/Any other P & Z folks?
Bovbjerg/I would like Council to consider there's more than two ways symmetrically
opposed to developing along arterials and there are ways of doing (can't hear) but
don't come onto arterials or not strip malls. I would also want more input from
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staff from city staff onto what extent there is, there's lack of housing because of
protection of some of the older neighborhoods. Some of the apartments people
have pointed out or density that has happened in areas, this is Benton Street where
it is already zoned that way. So where it is already zoned you can build whatever
the zone is allowing, the basic thing of the comprehensive plan is not that people
stood in their districts and said we don't want them in my backyard, this was city
wide, the original comprehensive plan was city wide, people looking at
everything. And this was what the people had experienced themselves, there's
been a lot of apartment dwellers and single family or duplexes (can't hear) at these
district meetings and there has been a very conscious effort to recognize multi.
Any of whom will say my kids will live there, I'm going to move there soon so I
think the generalness of the general plan and the district plans comes from
generalness of the people who have gone and I think that's very important because
as you think about this as some people have said this should have, there should be
changes when they're needed for, general, large trend driven or annexation kinds
of things. And these should be done with cooler heads and when your looking at
the city as a whole and not feeling pressure from a neighborhood group or a
developer or a tax, budget or whatever the pressures could, and there are many.
Chait/This type of housing on this specific request does not now exist in this community,
(can't hear) does not, this type of housing doesn't exist, it's the equivalent of I
would say 150 apartments not 600 bedrooms. It's a relatively small percentage of
type of housing that students would inhabit and the comprehensive plan calls for
diversity of housing types. You know for us to say that this particular type of
housing is not you know ideal or whatever for students I mean the fact that it's not
in this community, it's across the country and I'm not passing judgment on it, it's
just a small thing. The biggest concern that I've heard is the concern that we
don't want another Lakeside, well my contention is that it's not fair for us to be
judge, jury and executioner of the future when it hasn't happened yet. And you
know what happened in the past doesn't mean that's going to happen in the future.
In terms of you know being wrong or making mistakes we created the urban
renewal whatever in the 70's and now we're either tearing or down or it's sitting
there unused so you know the fact is that things change and mistakes happen and
you know things get reinvented. And I'm just putting out some observations
around how I see this, I guess in terms of my personal position with regard to this
I completely agree with the assessments that Dee's making in temps of where it's
happening, how it's happening, and you know to talk about traffic going up
Gilbert Street or not going up Gilbert Street if this area is developed in a simple
RS-8 single family duplex area there probably will be a lot more traffic and a lot
less controlled manor in this. Again this is speculation.
man/Yea but if it's diversified throughout the area, it's going to go up Sycamore, it's
going to Kirkwood, it's going to go, you know it's not just all in one place.
Lehman/Any other commissioners?
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Freerks/ I guess I'd like to see too I guess just another point that maybe we can do a little
better job with our student housing, not that this particular development is it but I
think it's nice to look at other options. I think if you look at the density along
South Johnson if you see what's there, not any green space, I mean people are out
in the street throwing Frisbee's and things like that. I think you know we could try
to plan for something a little bit different and maybe something like this maybe
not here I don't know where you would put it but something like this might be
something to try because I think every population should have an opportunity to
have a good living environment and I don't think packing people into a tiny, tiny
space which I don't think probably this particular it sounds like it is an RS-8 by
the time you have 17 plus acres you know thinking of spreading out the kind of
student housing on 17 acres downtown is just you know, I wish it had been
planned that way on South Johnson maybe because people would live a little
differently perhaps.
Lehman/Any questions for the commissioners? Thank you, I don't sense that we have
solved anything but I do sense that we pointed out a lot of issues. Thank you.
Chait/I just have one question you were starting to count heads to see if there were four
of you who were interested in.
Lehman/In changing I don't know that, I don't know that we're.
Chait/I didn't count four of you.
Lehman/I don't know.
Freerks/I think you were reluctant (can't hear).
Pfab/I'd say it's 3-3 now.
Champion/I wasn't reluctant.
Lehman/No, I don't think.
O'Donnell/Neither was I.
Lehman/Connie and Mike and Irvin, Ross, I didn't hear Steven who wanted to hear the
comments, are you prepared to decide what you think we should do or do you
want and decide tomorrow night when it comes up on the agenda?
Kanner/Well I guess I would like to know if there's any possible compromise, I think
that with RS-8, with more spread out housing your going to have the same number
of drivers as other people have mentioned. I think on the other hand I agree a lot
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with what Ann was saying that we need to think in bigger terms of affordable and
livable neighborhoods and I've said this before I think we need to talk about
higher density in other areas in general and we haven't done that, we still keep
putting RS-5 on the far reaches. I'd like to know if there's any possible
compromise here with the developer for redefining large or saying medium, their
goal is to provide housing in order for them to make money. They have certain
goals in mind, perhaps they would make less money or a different development
that would still work for them. If that's a possibility I would like to look at, I think
that in some cities they' re working on public/private partnership in terms of things
like recreation. If they develop recreation let's see if we can go in on it with them
and develop a recreation center that's open to the rest of the community at little or
perhaps no cost. The same thing with transit, I think they've shown a willingness
to do some conditional agreements, perhaps it'll go further and that's what I'd like
to explore. I do think it's a little bit too large and concentrated but I do think we
need to look at the overall picture of increasing density farther out and I think we
also need to look at working with the University. Where I came from in
Columbus Ohio, Ohio State formed a non profit development corporation, it's
hard to develop, they have a different problem of detained housing but to work on
the housing but I think we need to enter into some kind of partnership with the
University, start working with them about how we're going to develop housing, I
think that's part of the answer. And I also think we need to look at perhaps if we
want livable neighborhoods and affordable neighborhoods look at putting
allowing some small businesses in some of the neighborhoods, some of the older
neighborhoods.
Lehman/Well this year on this one though is whether we're gong to change the
comprehensive plan, that's really what we're talking about. Your talking and I
don't disagree.
Kanner/And maybe that's what a lot of people have been saying is that we have to look
at that and overall, maybe this isn't the correct place to do that but maybe we have
to put that on our agenda.
Champion/And I think if we want to look at the comprehensive plan we can but I think it
needs to be done by a group of citizens and not the seven of us.
Bovbjerg/I would suggest Steven that I agree that compromises is sometimes at least
something good to think about but the vote on this particular thing has to be in
your mind what you think is large and what you think is not large because the
comprebensive plan as people have said no large ones and then it depends then
upon your definition so your going to have to make that judgment. If some time
as Connie says you want to revisit what is large that's then for another time but to
hang a definition or hang a vote on a plan on something that might or might not
occur in a particular development is I think a very chancy way to go.
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Lehman/Steven did I understand, when I understood you correctly when you were
speaking of compromise you were basically asking whether or not this proposed
plan could be modified in such a fashion that it would be acceptable on a different
scale. Is that what you were saying?
Kanner/Yea I think work out a different definition of what large is and Ann you make a
good point, maybe it is hard to do it in this sense, but we'll present it with this
possibility and we apparently, well staff has tried to negotiate with them and
we've heard that maybe they're not willing to change the size but maybe at this
date they are that I'd like and so maybe we can bring them into the conversation to
see if there is a willingness to change, I would say let's see what they're willing
tO.
Lehman/Well the only thing is we're never we're going to get to that point unless we as
chronologically the way we're set up to handle this tomorrow night we are going
to be asked to change the comprehensive plan, and that's we either vote that up or
down. If we vote a change in the plan then we could perhaps come to the point of
some sort of trying to negotiate with these folks. My understanding is they feel
this is the smallest number of units that they can affordably put in and that this is
as small as they're going to go and I think they started out with significantly more
or wanted to. But our question is going to be, are we interested in changing the
comprehensive plan to allow complexes of this size to occur anywhere in the city
and of course it would obviously apply to every, and it wouldn't just be the south
land so anyway, thank you Planning & Zoning.
Pfab/I'd like to make one quick comment here, I think after the work that the
neighborhood housing relationship task force come brings that to the Council and
I think some of the frustrations that are coming out in that. At that point it might
be a time to sit down and say how do we solve those problems and maybe if those
get solved then we can take a hard look at the comprehensive plan.
Vanderhoef/Well actually this whole thing is being driven by a project, we weren't
looking at changing the comprehensive plan at all, so if we choose to defer
changing the comprehensive plan and vote up or vote down the other project so be
it or we can defer and say let's come back and talk about what large is, what small
is and what we will allow, that question is still going to have to be answered.
O'Donnell/Or what the definition of"is" is.
Vanderhoeff Right, you've got it, thank you.
Lehman/All right thank you folks.
woman/Thank you very much Council.
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Vanderhoef/It's not an easy one.
BREAK
Lehman/Karin I think we're going to take the Near South Side Transportation Center
next.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Lehman/Irvin we're ready to start, go ahead.
Additions to Agenda
ITEM NO. 6j(1). (revised) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL
PLAT OF LINDEMANN SUBDIVISION, PART ONE.
ITEM NO. 6j(2). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF
LINDEMANN SUBDIVISION, PART TWO.
Kart/Excuse me, before we do it, I need to add an agenda item to your agenda for
tomorrow night just to clarify to get ahead of time, I'm sorry, just two issues.
Number one 6j(1) was a resolution considering, excuse me the Lindemann
subdivision part one and part two, that should be two separate votes, two separate
resolutions, they were in your packet. And also we have met, 6j (1) and (2).
Lehman/6j is.
Karr/We're creating 6j(1) and (2), it's one item on your agenda, we're going to make it
two items, both resolutions were included in your packet.
Lehman/Okay we've got two votes, okay.
ITEM NO. 4f(5). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING WAIVER OF RIGHT TO
HEARING AND SUSPENDING RETAIL CIGARETTE PERMIT OF OSCO
DRUG STORE, 201 SOUTH CLINTON STREET, FOR A PERIOD OF THIRTY
(30) DAYS, PURSUANT TO IOWA CODE SECTION 4531.22(2) (2001).
Kart/And then the other addition is to the consent calendar, page 4 we're adding a
number 5 resolution accepting payment and waiver of hearing for Osco Drug.
Champion/All right, okay.
Kart/Okay.
Lehman/Okay, Karin.
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Near South Side Transportation Center Art
Franklin/Thanks for reordering the agenda, David Dahlquist is here from Dahlquist
Clayworks and that is the company and he is the artist that we have commissioned
to work on the Near South Side Transportation Center. When we had the contract
come before you it was fairly vague in terms of exactly what this was going to
consist of and so I promised I would bring back this project to you at various steps
during the course of it so you could see where we're going with it. And so
David's going to present to you tonight the concept for the fence outside of the
daycare center, David.
David Dahlquist/Thank you. (can't hear) Council members.
Lehman/You need to speak in the mic because our City Clerk is very hard of hearing and
if you don't get close to it.
O'Dormell/Why would that be?
Dahlquist/Plus I don't have much of the voice so thank you and thank you for moving
me up in your schedule this evening. I think you already have most of the
background. The first part of the commission that I was asked to address was for
this part fence, part screen wall that would be part of the new parking facility and
daycare. You've probably seen this rendering from OPN Architects, I've been
working with Brad Lang who is the primary architect on this project. What we're
talking about are these spaces, I'll call them a bay because they're a traditional
kind of warehouse bay. These are approximately 20 feet by about 12 feet high and
this was just a rendering that was prepared a long time ago to give people some
idea about the closure, those were the ones that they drew. The first part of the
plan asked to address the mechanical, how would this feature actually attach?
And so I left these plans with Karin and with the Public Art Committee, what
we're proposing are a series of pieces of sheet steel and they would be
approximately 3 feet 10 inches wide by 8 feet high. There's going to be the
inclusion of a small six inch curb as a kind of banSer from the sidewalk into the
building, also will facilitate cleaning that interior area, keeping water from the
street. And so there's some mechanical attachments that are steel anchored into
the walk as well as this dotted line behind it is a piece of angle iron that will keep
the whole sheet from flexing. So this is 20 feet long, this would be repeated four
times. This is a concept of what will be either laser cut or plasma cut steel so
again these panels 8 feet high by approximately 3 feet 10. One of the panels will
actually function as a gate, it will have a locking device and it will have a wheel
and it will pivot so that you can get in and out of this facility from the outside.
One of the, of course requirements of any kind of a fence or screen wall of this
kind is the 3 ½ - 4 inch ball rule for children protecting people from getting a head
caught. All of these spaces are less than 3 ½ inches and there is safety in that
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because the next step would be to take this to a CAD program, computer aided
design program, and then you could scale each of those things prior to anything
being cut so that you'd know that it was within that 3 ½ - 4 inch range. All of my
work has always dealt with nature, relationship to the natural world. This is
intended as a 20 foot bay that will also be able to flip so that the pattern will
change. I also anticipate lighting it from both the inside and the outside so you'll
see a positive/negative change depending upon what time of day you look at it.
This is the view that you would see from Dubuque Street. If your familiar with
(can't hear) the paper cutting, the German paper cutting, very similar technique,
kind of positive and negative. And this is another sketch it just shows a few little
amendments prone to allow a little more light through in that space, otherwise it's
the same drawing but just reworking the design a little bit. There are some faces
in there that hopefully you don't see all at once but that you see gradually, there
are some animals and insects that I hope children will be able to find as well.
Lehman/Hope we can find them. What's, you say that's a steel.
Dahlquist/This is steel, 3/8 inch, I can actually have a drawing scanned and then a
computer in affect like a CNC router for wood will cut this pattern and then all the
edges will be ground and the entire piece will be painted with an tenomic epoxy
paint.
Lehman/Black.
Dahlquist/Black right, basically flat black.
Kanner/What is tenomic?
Dahlquist/It's just a type of resin as I understand it, it might even be a brand name. It's a
self healing paint system, it's almost like powder coating but if you take it and you
scratch it, it seals over quickly, prevents the piece from rusting, it's also very easy
touch up, a spray can basically, in the case of graffiti or whatever.
Lehman/Has the Public Art Committee seen this?
Dahlquist/Today I presented this to the committee and I'm pleased to say that they
forwarded a recommendation tot he Council of their approval.
Lehman/Go for it.
Champion/I love it.
O'Donnell/I would like to see one of the animals.
Pfab/Oh I can see two or three.
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Champion/I can see a spider web.
Dahlquist/Here's a face, here's a face, here's a butterfly, a few insects, another face,
another face, it's even a little easier here, eyes, eye, nose, they're in there.
O'Donnell/I still don't see it.
(Can't hear).
Lehman/Mike ask if his name is Jim and that would be the only thing.
O'Donnell/No it's just very nice.
Lehman/It's great.
Kanner/Is it going to flip? You flip them over.
Dahlquist/Right.
Kanner/It will be pivot on the middle.
Dahlquist/No these will all be rigid when they're locked in place, however this entire
pattern which would start at the left bay would then.
Lehman/Repeat itself.
Dahlquist/Flip to this pattern, flip to this pattern so that in affect your cutting each piece
four times. (can't hear) each one of these pieces of steel four time and then like a
playing card your moving it across that space in those four bays.
Pfab/And your also saying your looking at the back side.
Dahlquist/Right.
Lehman/Twice.
Pfab/Every other time.
Lehman/It's four identical patterns, your making.
Dahlquist/Correct.
Lehman/One, two, three, five different patterns.
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Dahlquist/Times four cups 20 seats.
Lehman/(Can't hear) Five different panels, four will be.
Champion/That is going to be really neat.
Lehman/Yea I think it's cool.
Pfab/I (can't hear) I think you addressed it, it looks like a lot of little places for fingers
and hand (can't hear).
Dahlquist/I work as a design team member for the Department of Transportation a great
deal, your own Johnson County rest area if you've stopped there all based on
education for the Department of Transportation. One of the engineers that I work
with takes his finger to every surface, I'm very conscious that your not going to
catch a bur.
Champion/Wow.
O'Donnell/Very nice.
Lehman/Okay.
Dahlquist/Thank you very much.
Champion/Thank you for showing that.
Lehman/Sorry we made you wait.
Dahlquist/Oh not at all, I'll look.
Lehman/It was worth waiting for from our perspective.
Dahlquist/I'll look forward to showing you some more as it develops. One other thing I
would add the second part of my charter for this, excuse me, the second part of my
charter for this commission is to participate in the "way finding" system as part of
that parking facility, and I can see a number of different visual devices working
with that parking planner that might be other signage throughout the building.
Champion/Wow, where is the Johnson County rest stop or what did you call it?
Dahlquist/Over by Tiffin.
Lehman/Tiffin.
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Champion/Oh.
O'Donnell/So in Johnson County.
Pfab/It's down by Johnson County.
Lehman/Your not usually tired when you get them Connie.
Champion/Well I love, I got there last night and I almost stopped and I can't stop 30
miles from home that would.
Lehman/It's only 7 miles, she was more tired than she thought.
Franklin/It's the west bound as you go before you get to Tiffin, you go under the 380
bridge, it's worth getting off even though you just got on.
Champion/Oh okay.
Franklin/To take a look at it.
Kanner/And to see your design or you have some.
Dahlquist/We, I did the comprehensive site plan for that and it's all based on your tag
line on your web site that your one of the smartest counties in the United States,
highest ACT scores, highest SAT scores, most college grads per capita, most high
school grads per capita, and so it's all about education and there are clay books
that hold up the roof of the building.
Champion/Wow.
Lehman/Where's Tom Walsh when we want this?
Pfab/He's into education, but that brings up a good point. I would certainly like to see us
not talk about a child care place but an early childhood education and I think your
really good at what your doing and I think that as far as the city's concerned I
would certainly like to see that shift over from a, we're not baby-sitting it's an
early childhood education center.
Lehman/Okay, thank you sir.
Dahlquist/Thank you very much.
Champion/Thank you.
Pfab/And you would have a great part in promoting that.
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Dahlquist/Thank you.
O'Donnell/Goodness.
Lehman/Okay Karin.
Planning & Zoning Items
A. CONSiDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR MAY 7 ON AN
ORDINANCE TO AMEND SECTION 14-6K-2 OF THE ZONING
ORDINANCE, FLOOD PLAIN MANAGEMENT, IN ORDER TO REMOVE
THE REQUIREMENT FOR FiLL BEYOND THE AREA OF A STRUCTURE,
UPDATE VARIOUS DEFINITIONS AND REFERENCES, AND TO
ACKNOWLEDGE THE NEW FLOOD INSURANCE RATE MAP (FIRM).
Karin Franklin/Okay the first item is setting a public heating for May 7 on an ordinance
to amend the flood plain management ordinance, we'll get into the detail of that
on the May 6 work session. There's a lot of housekeeping changes in this as well
as one substantive change.
B. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE COMPREHENSWE PLAN,
SOUTH DISTRICT MAP TO SHOW THE GENERAL ALIGNMENT OF A
FUTURE EAST-WEST ARTERIAL STREET AND NTO AMEND THE TEXT
OF THE PLAN TO REFER TO THE ALIGNMENT.
Franklin/Item B is to consider a resolution amending the comp. plan, this is for the future
east west arterial street that you had the public hearing on last time. One thing I
will point out there is a revised resolution in your packet which is to clarify the
position regarding the very long term plan in terms of an arterial street that would
connect with the 218 interchange. There was some concern on the part of some of
the commission members that it wasn't clear that this route would not be just
immediately south of the one that was being considered with this amendment and
so the resolution points out that it's likely that that alignment will be south of the
south district. It probably would be around Napoleon Street south of the sewage
treatment plant but still has it in there as a future option.
C. CONS1DER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO
PROViDE FOR THE LOCATION OF LARGE APARTMENT IN NEW
NEIGHBORHOODS AND TO AMEND THE SOUTH DISTRICT PLAN LAND
USE MAP TO DEPICT MULTI-FAMILY DEVELOPMENT ON THE EAST
SiDE OF SOUTH GiLBERT STREET EAST AND SOUTH OF NAPOLEON
PARK.
Franklin/And then Item C I think you discussed quite a bit all ready.
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D. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE REZONING 17.64 ACRES FROM
INTERIM DEVELOPMENT SINGLE FAMILY (ID-RS) AND INTERIM
DEVELOPMENT MULTI-FAMILY (ID-RM) TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT
HOUSING OVERLAY-12 (OPDH-12) TO ALLOW 168 DWELLiNGS IN 18
BUILDiNGS LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF GILBERT STREET SOUTH
OF NAPOLEON LANE. (REZ01-00024).
Franklin/And D I'm also assuming there doesn't need to be any further discussion on that
this evening.
E. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE REZONING 5.45 ACRES FROM RURAL
RESIDENTIAL (RR-1) AND INTERIM DEVELOPMENT SINGLE FAMILY
RESIDENTIAL (ID-RS) TO LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(RS-5) LOCATED AT THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF ROHRET ROAD
AND PHOENIX DRIVE. (REZ02-00001) (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Item E is the first consideration on the rezoning on Rohret Road and you do
have a request for expedited consideration in your packet.
F. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE NEIGHBORHOOD
COMMERCIAL, CN-1, ZONE TO BROADEN THE USES ALLOWED AND
TO REVISE THE DIMENSIONAL REQUIREMENTS AND DESIGN
PROVISIONS. (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Item F is first consideration on the CN-1 zone amendments that you had the
public hearing on last week.
G. CONSIDER AN ORDiNANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE, ARTICLE O,
SIGN REGULATIONS, TO PERMIT PORTABLE SIGNS IN THE CENTRAL
BUSINESS SERVICE, CB-2, CENTRAL BUSINESS SUPPORT, CB-5, AND
CENTRAL BUSINESS, CB-10, ZONES. (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
Franklin/Likewise Item G is first consideration on the amendment for portable signs in
the downtown which you had your hearing on last week or last meeting.
H. CONSIDER AN ORDiNANCE REZONING 18.2 ACRES FROM LOW DENSITY
SINGLE-FAMILY (RS-5) TO SENSITiVE AREAS OVERLAY LOW DENSITY
SINGLE-FAMILY (OSA-5) AND A PRELIMINARY SENSITiVE AREAS
DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR HICKORY HEIGHTS, A 20-LOT
RESIDENTIAL SUBDWISION LOCATED WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD
NEAR ITS INTERSECTION WITH DODGE STREET. (REZ01-00028/SUB01-
00031) (SECOND CONSIDERATION)
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I. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF
HICKORY HEIGHTS.
Franklin/Item H is second consideration on Hickory Heights and then there has been a
request also for expedited consideration on this item which takes you to Item I
which is the preliminary plat for Hickory Heights.
Lehman/H they want expedited.
Franklin/H is requested expedited consideration, that is the sensitive areas ordinance
zoning and Item I is the preliminary plat.
Lehman/Okay.
J. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF LINDEMANN
SUBDIVISION PART ONE, A 15.05 ACRE, 33-LOT RESIDENTIAL
SUBDIVISION, AND LINDEMANN SUBDIVISION PART TWO, A 16.97
ACRE, 29-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH ON
COURT STREET, EAST OF SCOTT PARK DRIVE. (SUB02-00002)
Franklin/Item J as Marian pointed out you have two plats part one and part two here so
you have two actions. We still have some work on legal papers which may or
may not be resolved by tomorrow evening, it has to do with the timing on
dedication of open space.
Lehman/If we don't we'll just defer it.
Franklin/Just defer right.
K. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROViNG THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF
NAPOLEON HEIGHTS, A 146.68 ACRE, 4-LOT SUBDIVISION LOCATED
ON THE EAST SIDE OF GILBERT STREET NORTH OF THE SOUTHERN
CITY LIMITS. (SUB01-00024)
Franklin/Item K is a resolution on a preliminary plat of Napoleon Heights, and this is the
4-lot subdivision on Gilbert Street which is dependent upon you passing the
comprehensive plan amendment regarding the east west arterial.
Lehman/This is on the arterial, it has nothing to do with.
Franklin/What this does is it designates four lots, it does not change the zoning, it shows
where the arterial would go through and creates the lot that is the subject of the
Dinerstein rezoning and outlot for some future development south of the road and
a lot north of the road for future development.
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Karmer/Kafin does this include the sand prairie?
Franklin/Yes it does.
Kanner/And can you explain once again to me what the status of that is, where it is in
regard to DNR with us and what's happening.
Franklin/Okay the DNR is working with Southgate Development regarding both the sand
prairie issue, well regarding the ornate box turtle, I'm sorry just regarding the
ornate box turtle issue. The sand prairie issue is one that will be considered as
well as the ornate box turtle issue when we get a rezoning request for this
property. This is now zoned IDRS the whole area is IDRS or IDRM so we need
to do rezonings of this ground that is the subject of the plat before any
development can take place. When we are considering those rezonings is the time
to look at the issues of the sand prairie, the issues of the ornate box turtles. Okay,
in terms of the designation of a sand prairie there we have not received anything
to date that is a petition to request designation of the sand prairie. However on the
Planning & Zoning Commission's agenda this week is a motion that the Planning
& Zoning Commission considered last week but because it was not given proper
notice it was not valid, it's on the agenda, proper notice has been given this week
and they will consider a motion to direct staff to look at the delineation of a sand
prairie in this area on the sensitive areas map. Did everybody follow that? It was
kind of a long sentence.
Lehman/Yea.
Pfab/Question. Is it right to do the plotting before you?
Franklin/Yea, the plotting, all the plotting does Irvin, well first of all the plotting, this
particular plat, the only land disturbing activity that would be part of it is the road,
and we have done an analysis of the road in terms of the sensitive areas ordinance
and have found there's no conflict between the road and any sensitive feature.
Pfab/Either the sand prairie or the potential turtle.
Franklin/Right, right, the land is being divided up with lines on a map that legally divide
it but there are no development rights given to it other than what it has right now
which would be like one single family house. So it will be rezoning for
development to happen.
Pfab/So when the rezoning came would, okay let's suppose that there's part of it is sand
prairie and part of it is the turtle habitation whatever. Will we zone around that or
will we plot will they overlay the plot (can't hear) the lot?
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Franklin/What we will do is when we get a request for rezoning any one of these pieces
of land that is created by the plat is that we will look at it then for applicability of
the sensitive areas ordinance which would pull in the ornate, no I'm sorry, no, we
will look at it for compliance with the sensitive areas ordinance, we will also look
at it for compliance with the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan
references the ornate box turtles and the sand prairie. The sensitive areas
ordinance does not specifically reference the ornate box turtles or any particular
species, it references prairie remnants but only those shown on the sensitive areas
map and this one is not shown on the map which is why the Planning & Zoning
Commission is asking the staff to look at delineation and whether it's appropriate
or not.
Pfab/Would it be wrong to wait until? It sounds like your expecting some resolution of
the ornate box turtle and the sand prairie remnants coming up relatively soon
(can't hear) right?
Franklin/Yea.
Pfab/Is there any reason it would make sense to wait until that is done before you start
leaving (can't hear)?
Franklin/On the plat?
Pfab/Yes.
Franklin/I don't think it really matters, this is a preliminary plat for one thing not that the
final won't follow but there really isn't much that can happen with this until those
bigger pieces that are part of this plat are divided up into other pieces and are
rezoned. Because what we're talking about is big pieces for this lots.
Pfab/Wouldn't it make a difference how you divide those up by what you find, wouldn't
it make more?
Franklin/No.
Kanner/Well that's what I was concerned about, wouldn't you want to possibly make
five one that would encircle the whole sand prairie, define that we want to protect
that so that would be one.
Franklin/But you wouldn't have to, you don't have to hold up the plat to do that.
Kanner/Well right now we're possibly dividing up that sand prairie into four different
lots it could go, each one could go to a different one.
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Franklin/Most of it is in one and a little bit is, may be in the area which is the subject of
the Dinerstein I think you've, there's a request before you, and I mean all of this is
like a house of cards, the preliminary plat creates the lot that allows the request to
rezone the property for the Dinerstein project. So if you don't do the plat then
there is no lot that (can't hear).
(All talking)
Franklin/And so the zone may be much of a muchness and have no relevance by the end
of tomorrow night.
Lehman/(Can't hear) ado about nothing.
Franklin/As usual.
Lehman/It seems to me, if this, as usual right, if this were.
(All talking)
Lehman/Wetlands Karin, the wetlands regardless if they're in one lot, two lots or 12 lots
would still be delineated and that portion would be regulated.
Franklin/Okay there was a concern that was raised at Planning & Zoning about well what
if you divide, if the regulation, if the regulation pertains to acreage and you divide
up the land such that the acreage on this lot comes under the threshold for the
regulation or the acreage on this land comes under the threshold, in the final plat
papers for this subdivision there will be language that will indicate that that can't
happen.
Lehman/Okay.
Franklin/And I don't know exactly what the words will say but that's the final plat
whereas when they talk about a preliminary plat here.
Pfab/So your saying that once, it looks like we go ahead and back up and take another
look at it and change the rule.
Franklin/Well not as far as the plat's concerned, the plat lines will be the same, we're not
going to change the plat lines.
Dilkes/And the plat complies with all our regulations and all the state code provisions.
Franklin/Yea, I mean yes thank you and that's another issue to just say we're not going to
approve it would be, we'd have to have a hard time finding a reason.
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Pfab/But wouldn't it be a lot less work and.
Franklin/No, none of this time will have been wasted because these are just legal lines of
land demarcation.
Pfab/I'm having difficulty but I understand it but (can't hear).
Kanner/Well I also have some difficulties it seems that it takes us down the road, it
seems that we need to change an ordinance that says those things in the
preliminary plat process that says we're not going to divide up potentially
sensitive areas if we decide to include this, I think when.we do platting why not
put it in from the very beginning. Why go through this process and leave people
out of that say that maybe you can divide it up down the road, I think let's be clear
from the start and say we're not going to divide up sensitive areas, let's put it in
that part of our planning process.
Franklin/I don't know why you would want to be opposed necessarily to dividing up
sensitive areas as long as you still protect them.
Kanner/I think they're apt to be less protected when they're divided up and it's a way to
get around it (can't hear).
Franklin/But you won't be able to get around it.
Dilkes/I think what we know as pretty much is stacked here is that the purpose of this
division is to sell offa piece.
Pfab/ And it's so dam hard to do any to protect.
Franklin/No it's not because then you get it through the sensitive areas ordinance as
development comes in.
Dilkes/And frankly your at the stage at this property where you have the greatest latitude
down the road because you've not, a rezoning is going to be required.
Franklin/Yea, I mean if this property was already zoned and had rights on it I would
advise you differently but the fact that it's zoned ID means that in order to do
anything you've got to rezone it, you've got to come through this body again.
Pfab/But right you have to.
Franklin/And so the protection there are insured through that process.
Pfab/Well I'm a doubting Thomas on that one but that's okay.
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Franklin/ Okay.
Agenda Items
Lehman/Karin before you, maybe your not the right person but the next item on the
agenda is.
Franklin/Agenda Item.
ITEM NO. 7. PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE
OF COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST AVENUE CORRIDOR
IMPROVEMENT PROJECT - ROCHESTER AVENUE TO D STREET,
ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY EACH
BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR
BIDS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Lehman/Specifications for the First Avenue improvements, I assume these are turn lanes
at First Avenue and Court.
Franklin/And at Rochester and First.
Lehman/That the Council has any interest in seeing on this or is this pretty straight
forward?
Vanderhoeff We've not seen it at all.
Champion/We've not seen it.
Atkins/Well you had it last time.
Lehman/No.
Atkins/Rick was here last time wasn't he?
Lehman/We haven't seen any drawings or.
Pfab/No, I've never seen it.
Vanderhoef/Not of this.
Champion/We don't know about that we just know about the (can't hear).
Lehman/I think we've got a lot better chance (can't hear).
Pfab/Cormie you've got a lot of.
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(All talking).
Atkins/I will see that a sketch is delivered to you.
Lehman/For tomorrow night.
Atkins/For tomorrow night yes, and then if you wish to continue you certainly can.
Karr/But just a note on that one there is a zero missing in the estimated cost it's pretty
obvious but under the comment $588,000.
(Can't hear, All talking)
Vanderhoef/Then likewise what is going to happen it talks about fixing the street there
also all the way from Rochester down to D street or something and then, is that an
overlay or what is that?
Atkins/I'm pretty sure that's an overlay Dee I'll confirm that for you tomorrow night.
Lehman/Do that tomorrow night as well.
Atkins/I'll take care of that.
Lehman/Okay.
(END OF 02-38 SIDE TWO)
Lehman/Thank you Karin, Agenda Items folks.
ITEM NO. 4e(2). CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTiNG A PUBLIC HEAR1NG ON
MAY 7 ON PLANS, SPECI/~ICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND
ESTiMATE OF COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NORTHSIDE
MARKETPLACE STREETSCAPE PROJECT, PHASE I, DIRECTiNG CITY
CLERK TO PUBLISH NOTICE OF SAID HEARING, AND DIRECTING THE
CITY ENGINEER TO PLACE SAID PLANS ON FILE FOR PUBLIC
iNSPECTION.
Atkins/Emie I have a couple things to bring to your attention. Number one is on the
consent calendar is North Marketplace to note.
(can't hear).
Atkins/We're on Agenda, North Marketplace, calling the folk, setting the public hearing
for May the 7th is on the agenda. I know there's a number of you that have
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contrary opinions to that, it's a lot of work to get prepped for the meeting on the
7th, the documents to get out, I'd like to ask you to pull that off separately during
your consent review and vote it up or vote it down, if you vote it down then
otherwise we would proceed.
Kanner/What number is that?
Atkins/I'm sorry.
Wilbum/ It's E on the consent calendar, E public (can't hear).
Pfab/Which one was he in?
Wilbum/Page three of your packet.
Lehman/First item (can't hear) two, number two on page three.
Champion/Ross will you pull that out so we know somebody's going to pull it out?
Wilburn/I'm sorry.
Champion/Will you pull that out so we know somebody's going to pull it out, so we
don't sit there and?
Wilburn/Sure.
Lehman/If nobody decides I'll ask somebody them to.
Atkins/Yea.
ITEM NO. 8. PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE FY03 ANNUAL ACTION
PLAN, THAT IS A SUB-PART OF IOWA CITY'S 2001-2006
CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS), AS AMENDED.
Atkins/The next item is the City Steps Public hearing, Steve Nasby's here if you have
questions for him.
Lehman/Did the rest of the Council get a letter from Elder Services Small Repair
program?
Wilbum/Let the record show that Wilburn is not participating in this discussion.
Lehman/Let the record show that Mr. Wilbum is leaving us. But did anybody else get
that letter?
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Champion/No.
Kanner/No I didn't.
Lehman/Elder Services had requested $50,000, apparently, Steve would you like to,
because I'd hate to speak for you, wouldn't even try but my understanding is the
night the allocations were made on this Elder Services was not present, they were
allocated $5,000 instead of the $50,000 they were asking for and as I remember
the project had fairly high ratings from all but one of the committee, in fact the
recommendations were from $30,000 to $50,000. One member recommended
zero and yet when the time came to make the allocation they were allocated
$5,000 and last year they got $30,000.
Steve Nasby/I believe they got $40,000 last year.
Lehman/$40,000 last year so they were cut from $40,000 to $5,000 and they had an
expectation from the ratings that the committee had done that they, my guess is
their expectation was they would have been funded in a similar fashion.
Nasby/Well the Commission when they did their preliminary rankings a lot of projects
were ranked fairly highly and commission members you know spent the money
that they had available, when they got to the allocation meetings one thing that
some of the commission members had a complete grasp of was that a large
number of the housing projects had to be funded with home money instead of
block grant money, they're two different programs. Elder Service Agency is not
eligible for the home program because they don't do comprehensive rehab., they
do mostly just small repair, grab bars, high rise toilets accessibility, thinks like
that, that' not a home type eligible project so they had to be just out of the CDBG
block grant fund and when the commission got to allocating they got towards the
end and they started running out of money and then so the Commission started
prioritizing projects that were left and they felt that a couple of the projects that
they had the board were higher priority so they reduced the funding for Elder
Service Agency at that point.
Kanner/And isn't one of the things the criteria that the HCDC looks at is how long
you've been receiving it and see if your getting other sources of aid that this is not
suppose to be an every year allocation theory, isn't that part of it?
Nasby/Part of it yea, that is part of it, that is mostly applicable to the Human Service
Agencies for the public service funding. The HUD regs. said they have to be a
new or an increased service so that's where that mostly comes into play the other
things public facilities, this is a housing project, it's not so much so prevalent but
they do like to see people bringing money in from other sources I mean that's they
want to see that from everybody.
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Vanderhoeff Could you just run through the list and tell us which of the projects were
eligible for home funds?
Nasby/Sure, the Greater Iowa City Housing Fellowship, they asked for $102,000 they got
$102,000. Garden Prairie which is affordable rental units, they asked for
$500,000 they were added $301,200. HACAP they asked for money for
transitional housing on one project that was $144,000 requested and they got
$144,000 and they asked for 34, HACAP asked for a second project of $34,000
and they received $34,000 so.
Vanderhoef/Does the planning sees their, or the Housing Rehab. for the City of Iowa
City?
Nasby/That one is half CDBG and half home, that half and halfi
Vanderhoef/Half and half.
Pfab/Which was that?
Nasby/The City's housing rehab, program is half and half and that commits those
$734,000 of home money if you add those up plus the $71,000 in admin, so.
Pfab/Something there was required to be part of the administration.
Nasby/Yea the feasibility study for the Emergency Housing Project, that's the category
that it's under, HUD puts planning and admin, together and so that feasibility
study is a planning activity as such that had to go into the planning and admin, and
then was subject to our maximum amount we could spend.
Kanner/And so the land acquisition though would be under for Emergency Housing that
would be under.
Nasby/That would have been a CDBG project.
Karmer/Not home.
Nasby/That would not be an eligible home project, Homeless shelters are not eligible for
home, transitional housing is but not Emergency Shelter.
Kanner/And they're not talking about any transitional housing as part of that shelter?
Nasby/They don't know that's part of the reason for the feasibility study is to determine
what types of needs they have and what were the gaps (can't hear).
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Pfab/Apparently the feasibility study that was done in Davenport was quite successful
(can't hear).
Nasby/I know they conducted one, I haven't seen it.
Lehman/Well does anybody else? The only reason I brought it up was I did get a letter
hand delivered from Elder Services and they were questioning the
recommendation preliminary recommendation from the board was for 72 percent
funding, the final recommended allocation was 10 percent funding, now
traditionally and I think appropriately so we have pretty much approved the
recommendations from this group, I mean we make the rules, they follow the
rules, they make the recommendations is there, and I don't have a particular
problem with accepting their recommendations, I do find it somewhat distressing
that the preliminary committee would recommend, their preliminary
recommendation was 72 percent and then the final allocation which happened,
was that last week?
Nasby/I think March 21 st.
Lehman/March 21 st that's two or three weeks ago.
Vanderhoef/Before the public hearing.
Nasby/Yea the public hearing's tomorrow night.
Lehman/Was at a level of $5,000 which is, they've been awarded $28,000 in the 2000,
$30,000 in 2001, and $40,000 last year and this year the recommendation is
$5,000.
Nasby/Yea it's very competitive.
Lehman/Well I, competitive is hardly the right word for it.
Nasby/Yea I think the conunission like I said when they did their preliminaries were
under the impression that they could spend some of their home dollars for that
activity and it's just not possible.
Lehman/But they did choose to recommend $23,400 for a study.
Pfab/Yea that was for the Emergency Housing.
Nasby/Emergency Housing.
Pfab/And I, at first it didn't make any sense but when I sat there and watched it, it made a
lot of sense to me that that was a good place for this kind of money because I
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think, I mean they're looking at a major project there and needs something that
works.
Champion/Well every project is.
Pfab/No, no, no, this is one is a major one.
Champion/(Can't hear).
Lehman/Well this money apparently is used for low income elderly folks for home
repairs.
Nasby/Yea it's home repair accessibility issues mostly, ramps, grab bars, high rise toilets,
things like that usually $500.00 to $600.00 a crack.
Lehman/Right it says the average had been from $26 to $1520.00 with a median of
$154.00 and a mean of $328.00.
(All talking)
Lehman/That means $140,000 but the mean is $328.00 they helped an awful lot of folks.
Nasby/Yea they do about 70 or so rehabs. I mean it's been a very good program, a very
effective program.
Pfab/Well what about other soumes, I know they put in an application for grants at St.
Mary's Parish I know that and other places so I don't know. I, that's a good
project but that's a tough call where's it going to come from?
Nasby/Well and that was the position the commission was in.
Pfab/Yea I mean when you watch and go through all of a sudden the gate was in their
face.
Champion/Well the only problem I have with it Irvin is this is a time of great need for
social services because their budgets have all been cut from the state level and
other things so I don't know if this is the time to do a study, I think putting some
of that study money in assuming that (can't hear) somebody right now might be
better to use that money.
Pfab/I disagree with you because the emergency housing is way over populated and they
need to find a place where they can expand it, it won't work until they, because
they have to go out to the public, we're not going to fund that whole thing and
they're not expecting us to so they have to find out you break this thing down and
how you make it work and develop private and public money.
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Champion/Well I understand but I do think that I don't know if anybody else feels the
way I do that this is the time to make money that actually helps somebody
immediately, this is a very bad time for social service agencies in the state not just
here in Iowa City and I don't, do we have any say in that Emie?
Lehman/Well yea we could (can't hear).
Pfab/How many, how much more or less dollars?
Champion/Bring that up.
Nasby/Between CDBG and home I think we got $22,000 less.
Pfab/Less but then we took four out for administration right or for Economic
Development.
Nasby/Well Economic Development was a set aside instead of through the competitive
process.
Pfab/And how much was that?
Nasby/$159,000.
Pfab/Well see that's.
Lehman/But last year we put $125,000 in Economic Development (can't hear).
Nasby/But yea $126, $127 that's right, yes, that's correct.
Pfab/So if somebody, if that's a good place to put the money.
(All talking)
Lehman/I don't.
Vanderhoef/I think we can talk about that one tomorrow night.
Champion/Yea I think we should talk about that one tomorrow night.
Lehman/All right, any other questions for Steve.
Vanderhoef/Yea I have one, I had made a request a couple weeks ago about mom
information about housing projects and the competitive and how much we were
spending on different projects whether it was in the private sector or whether it
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was in the public sector and when I look at the home funds and the way they're
being spent and we have a private project here and we don't have a policy within
the Council on what kind of interest rate we put on private versus public non
profit organizations and when I look at $300,000 at one percent for 30 years I find
that sort of out of place in today's age and I would entertain a policy of tying it
somehow to the market rate and talk about 2 percent below or something like that
because I truly think a private development ought to be paying more of their share
of the use of our home funds.
Pfab/Okay can I make a comment? Do you realize what other funds are going into that,
What funds they scrounged around and got?
Vanderhoef/Well and they're all public money's.
Pfab/No, okay public money's but this is, here your working with the very lowest
income, very fragile elderly has a place to retire.
Vanderhoef/That isn't going to make any difference there because.
Pfab/Because.
Vanderhoef/No, let me finish.
Kanner/For Garden Prairie.
Nasby/Garden Prairie's a family housing development.
Kanner/You're thinking of another project.
Vanderhoef/This is family housing and a private developer can certainly borrow money
on his own to pay three percent of five percent whatever it might be versus one
percent and I truly think the Council ought to have a policy that sets the percent
that we expect and we can even talk about the length of time on the loan so that
maybe one percent on 15 years or it might be four percent on 30 years.
Kanner/Well I agree I think your moving in the fight direction that we need to look at
something like that especially with larger loans for for-profits. When I was
talking to you before about this project Steve it looked like there was a large profit
return on this.
Nasby/Yea I think we were looking at the performa that was provided in the application.
Kanner/For Garden Prairie and again it's using public money to get a huge return and
you didn't fund the full amount but let's say we were cutted somewhat, did you
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give it this, did HCDC give it this much money because there's nowhere else to
give it, no other home projects that?
Nasby/There were no other home eligible projects now as their frame of mind I can't
attest to that but that was the last one funded.
Kanner/So if we didn't fund it even to 301 if we funded it less, how long could we hold
that those home funds to use for other possible projects?
Nasby/If you wanted to do that home money's have to be committed within two years so
you would have probably a two year window, so what you would do is say I want
to put so much in contingency and then decide how you wanted to do that, you
could entertain new projects immediately, you could wait for next years funding
cycles, you have several options.
Vanderhoef/For instance we could do an affordable dream home with one of these.
Nasby/Possible.
Vanderhoef/With those funds if.
Nasby/Yea, but your talking about folks who haven't applied for this and we have a
process.
Lehman/I think we need to remember that we give this group the rules, I have no
problem with changing rules, I have no problem with interest rates being tied to
something but I think those sorts of rules need to be in affect prior to the time they
give us their recommendation.
Champion/Right, your right.
Lehman/Than afterwards which is the wrong time.
Kanner/Ernie Council has pulled things out that have been strongly recommended by
HCDC in the past.
Lehman/Rarely.
Kanner/Right but it has happened.
Lehman/Right.
Kanner/And our job is to take this as a recommendation, to value that recommendation
and make changes if we believe strongly enough and I think so I hear what your
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saying and I think we should respect that process but we also have the
responsibility to say hey maybe we see things differently.
Lehman/Right, no question about that.
Kanner/And to make a change I think it's something within the realm of possibility.
Vanderhoef/Do you think the possibility is there to change the contract terms for the
dollars, the percent?
Pfab/(can't hear).
Kanner/I think it's worth discussing some more tomorrow and see if perhaps there is a
majority that wants to do that yes.
Vanderhoef/Was this discussed by the commission?
Nasby/The interest rate, not extensively, they looked at the financial's that were in the
application. The Housing and Development Commission did when they went into
their allocation cycle starting in November, set out some guidelines that they
would like to see the applicant's comply with. For Housing and Economic
Development projects they had recommended three percent loans for for-profits,
zero pement loans for non-profits and, but that was just, those were guidelines.
When the applications came in the non-profits either asked for differed payment
loans we'll pay you sometime in the future or a forgiven loan and the only for
profit ap. application that came in asked for one pement instead of three pement.
And the commission.
Vanderhoef/And did they talk to them about the one percent versus the three percent?
Nasby/They did not.
Vanderhoef/So they don't know whether the project could or couldn't go.
Nasby/Well the answer to the question was because they were asked if they could less
money could they borrow it from the private sector what not and the answer was if
we have to borrow the money from somewhere else at a higher rate the rents go up
that we need the subsidy to make the rents stable or where they're projected to be
and that was the answer and so they didn't get into specific one versus three but
they did talk about affordability of the units.
Pfab/And isn't that one of the highest need that he shows as low income?
Nasby/Very low income family housing is probably the highest need that we have.
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Pfab/That was in the City Steps.
Nasby/It was in City Steps but it was the Governor's Housing Task Fome head
Commissioner Heather McDonald to do a study of the whole state and that's what
she came back for from Johnson County so.
Kanner/This isn't very low income is it?
Nasby/People under 60 pement median.
Kanner/And how's he going to guarantee that?
Nasby/It's a home requirement to the home program.
Vanderhoef/And what's the?
Kanner/That all of it is under 60 percent, I thought some would go to 80 pement.
Nasby/90 percent of the units have to be 60 percent or less so nine of the ten have to be
the other one could go up to 80 but that rarely happens.
Champion/Good.
Lehman/Any other questions for Steve. Thank you Steve.
Nasby/Thank you.
Lehman/Agenda items.
Dilkes/I wanted to.
Wilburn/Excuse me I just want to say I was not participating due to a conflict of interest.
Lehman/Eleanor.
ITEM NO. 9. AMENDING TITLE 10, ENTITLED "USE OF PUBLIC WAYS AND
PROPERTY," BY ADDiNG CHAPTER 10, ENTITLED "CHUTES AND
VAULTS WITHIN THE PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY" TO ESTABLISH A
SYSTEM TO REGULATE THE USE OF CHUTES AND VAULTS IN THE
PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY.
Dilkes/I just want to talk about the Chutes and Vaults agenda item.
Pfab/What's.
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Dilkes/Briefly, the Chutes and Vaults.
Lehman/Does that mean we get to leave fight now?
Dilkes/Number 9, yea.
Lehman/Oh we get to leave.
Vanderhoef/Oh, Vanderhoef is leaving.
(All talking)
Dilkes/Chutes and Ladders.
Vanderhoef/Due to conflict of interest.
Champion/Oh do I really have to.
Lehman/Oh shoot.
Vanderhoef/Oh shoot.
Champion/Oh that's really.
O'Donnell/I think I want to go too.
Champion/(Can't hear) too bad.
Dilkes/Okay this is the item that deals with the regulation of what we call Chutes and
Vaults in the public right of way, you'll see a lot of them downtown but they
aren't only downtown, there are those, where you walk along the sidewalk and
there's those patches that go down into the sidewalk and some of chutes that chute
stuff down in there and vaults are the bigger things once you get under there. And
this ordinance has been drafted in consultation with the planning staff and the
public works staff, basically what it does is if the ordinance passes we will send a
draft or send a proposed agreement to each property owner who uses a chute or
vault in the public right of way that will contain the provisions that are required by
the ordinance and you will see in the ordinance that there are some, we haven't set
forth every provision that we will include in the agreement and we do the
department, or the director of the Department of Public Works the authority to
sign the agreements like we do currently with our use of temporary use of right-
of-way agreement. So we've not set forth every provision but we have set forth.
Pfab/May I ask a question?
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Dilkes/Sure.
Pfab/When you said temporary right-of-way (can't hear).
Dilkes/We call them temporary use of right-of-way agreements, somebody wants to put a
fence in our right-of-way or has a fence in our right-of-way, somebody wants to
put a retaining wall, we can not grant a permanent easement for use the right-of-
way so we call them temporary use of right of way agreements.
Pfab/So in other words it's not there permanently but unless something changes it's
okay.
Dilkes/Right, we reserve the right, the City reserves the right in these agreements to.
Pfab/Okay sorry for the interruption I just.
Kanner/(can't hear) I had a comment on.
Dilkes/I just, let me just finish these introductory remarks. So the ordinance requires
certain provisions to be in the agreement and we've highlighted the most
important, probably the most important are the indemnity provision which would
require the, well the insurance provision that requires the property owner to
maintain insurance that would cover and liability rising as a result of the use of the
chute or vault. You got a memo from Erin, and she's talked to our insurance
people and says that is not expensive insurance to purpose. And then the
indemnity agreement which provides that the property owner will indemnify the
city if somebody for instance is injured there's a door up somebody falls in that
would be the most obvious example. The third provision that we have included
and that we do not typically include in your use of right-of-way agreements right
now is what we call an assumption of risk provision. Several years ago and you
have this information detailed in the memo, in some detail in the memo's you got,
we ended up paying Iowa State Bank and Trust Company who as I understand it a
fairly large vault in our right-of-way we ended up paying them a substantially sum
of money due to a water main break that caused a lot of damage in the vault. With
water mains we have strict liability for breaks in our water mains which means
there's no requirement that negligence be shown, all you have to show that there
was a break in the water main, it caused damage and there's recovery. So we've
included an assumption of risk provision that says that they assume the risk of
being under ground in the right-of-way where there are other utilities located. The
way the process would work is that if the ordinance passes, again we'll send an
agreement to each of the property owners and if we can't reach agreement with
them and again we're only going to have a certain amount of flexibility given the
ordinance because those provisions will have to be in there but if we can't reach
agreement then we're going to have to, we may be forced to litigate this. Now
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there are arguments that, there are arguments that can be made by the property
owners that they have a continued right to be there because of how long they have
been there, we think we can, we think we have good arguments to resist those but
you need to be aware that we may end up having to litigate it. There was as I
understand it a letter sent out from Public Works, Sue Dulek is here and she really
gets the credit for finally getting this thing put together and before you. But there
was a letter sent out the end of last week to every property owner who has a chute
and vault informing them that this was going to be on the Council agenda.
Pfab/Any responses?
Dilkes/Well I think it's, I mean it just went out last week.
Kanner/I think overall it looks good, there's one concern I have and I want to see if
anyone wants any discussion on that, is definition of abandon means no use for
90 continuous days and I wonder if that's too short a period, that's under sealed,
under F. In ours it's 23, I guess you have something different.
Dilkes/Okay I see it just a minute.
Kanner/Ross do you see that?
Dilkes/Sue did you have discussion about the length of time for?
Wilburn/(can't hear).
Dilkes/Abandonment, I don't recall that.
Wilburn/(can't hear).
Karmer/Yea.
Sue Dulek~ I think Public Works want it, oh I'm sorry.
Karmer/Under F, temporary use and then it says seals.
Dulek/The Public Works, if anything I hate to speak for them but they would want even a
shorter period of time.
Kanner/It seems just that maybe the business might be such that they don't use it for
three months or they after six months or something they decide they want to use it
I don't think we want to call it abandoned so soon.
Dilkes/I think it's a practical matter, maybe this will help you, we are not going to be in a
position to simply declare that's something been abandoned and march in there
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and fill up their, seal offtheir chute and vault, we're probably going to, and Sue
I'm looking at you correct me if I'm wrong on this but I think we're going to have
to, we'd have to if those events arose where we'd want to seal it off we'd probably
have to seek a court order authorizing us to do that. One of the practical problems
is it's very hard to do that without getting on their property and we don't have
access with their property without a court order so that's going to lengthen the
time frame within which we're going to be able to seal it off. What Public Works
is interested in doing if these things are abandoned is just getting them sealed off
at the property line. But we certainly could increase the length of time for
abandonment.
Pfab/What would, could somebody give me an instance where this might be, I'm trying
to think of why somebody would abandon them.
O'Donnell/They're not using it.
Kanner/They just don't use it.
Pfab/In other words they're a business that doesn't require that it go from a product
business to a service business.
Dilkes/Yea.
Pfab/And then once it's abandoned is it gone forever?
Dulek/That's what Public Works would prefer.
Dilkes/Now I think Planning has a different perspective on that because they in terms of
how it would be sealed off, there's been discussion between Planning and Public
Works about exactly how it would be sealed, I think this provides for some
flexibility because Planning has some interest in seeing that that Chute or Vault if
it is an important part of the business that is there is maintained in the event a
future business wants to access it so it wouldn't be a permanent closing or sealing.
Pfab/So is the difference between a temporary and a permanent?
Dilkes/I'm sorry I can't hear.
Pfab/Okay is the difference, I can't talk in both at the same time. Is the difference
between once it's shut off and it's never opened again or is it where's the (can't
hear)?
Dilkes/Well I mean you could fill the whole thing worth of cement and that would be a
very, very permanent fix or there's methods by which you could just seal the
barrier and that could be unsealed in the future if somebody wanted to use it.
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Pfab/Is that what the questions about whether it's a temporary or permanent?
Dilkes/No.
Pfab/Okay, why, what if somebody just doesn't use it, it's shut off.
Dilkes/Then this ordinance provides that we should have the right to seal it off, and the
question becomes not for purposes of the ordinance but for purposes of how we
deal with that if that happens how it gets sealed.
Pfab/In other words.
O'Donnell/In other words permanent or temporary.
Dilkes/Permanent or temporary.
O'Donnell/And a lot of times this vault is the only way a business downtown has for
deliveries, I would think that would, if we decide to do it permanently we're going
to end up in court I would think.
Dilkes/Well if somebody is not using it or has no use for it presently they may not have
the incentive to challenge us on it and I think Planning's concern was that they
want to allow a future business that might be in that place to have access to the
chute or vault if they wanted it.
O'Donnell/Well that chute's a value to the building.
Dilkes/Yea and I think that's what they're thinking.
O'Donnell/(can't hear) if wants to sell it.
Pfab/I think just because somebody doesn't use it they shouldn't be forever if it's a
functioning place for another use.
Dilkes/Well and that's something that, I think what we arrived at is to give ourselves
some flexibility there, we didn't define seal.
Dulek/We did not define seal for that reason.
Pfab/You what?
Dulek/We did not define seal for that reason.
Pfab/Okay that was a question.
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Kanner/So there's two issues, there's the sealed issue which I personally am comfortable
with the way it is, and also the issue of how many days, I would like to increase
the days to at least six months because I can see some businesses not using it for
30 days and even I agree we probably won't go after people at the 90 day mark but
I think we might as well put in a longer amount, this is going to be the law.
Pfab/Well I would not worry about the amount of time, what is it 30 or 60 days.
Karmer/90 days.
Pfab/90 days, but if it was a permanent and irreversible then that's hardly enough time
but if it's something you can undo at a future time for a future owner for a future
business then I would the 90 days doesn't bother me at all.
Dilkes/One down side occurs to me of extending the abandonment period is that now I
know we've gone years and years and years with no agreements but if we get this
thing going and we have agreements in place that are protecting us from liability
and requiring insurance etc. and then let's say a new business moves in and we
can't get an agreement from them and we can't get any response from them and
they're still using it or they quit using it and we have then abandonment we're
going to wait a six month period without any agreement in place.
Pfab/If the city is exposed to liability even because of non use and non cooperation or no
insurance whatever agreement the city needs to protect itself I would say 90 days
is plenty long, maybe too long.
Dilkes/I think Public Works interest is just making sure their sealed off if they're not
being used and sealed off fairly promptly.
Pfab/But Eleanor I believe your saying not only not being used but no coverage for them
or.
Dilkes/Right.
Pfab/Right, okay.
Dilkes/I'm assuming no one will enter into an agreement with us if they are using it,
they won't have any incentive to do that.
Dulek/We don't care if they're not using it as long as they've signed an agreement
because that means they've waived liability, paid insurance.
Dilkes/Right.
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Dulek/And increased the city's risk.
Pfab/And then the city has no interest in, okay, but when they want to walk away from it
then the city wants to move, that's fine, I'd support that.
Dulek/Right.
O'Donnell/Good.
Dilkes/So are there three of you thinking 90 or do you want us to make a change?
O'Donnell/I think 90 is fine.
Wilburn/! think because you don't, I don't think you'd want to take a risk of a new
business coming in and not being able to hold them accountable to some type of
maintenance or I think for the safety reason that you'd want to have the 90 day
would be fine to make sure we get something in place to make sure it's been taken
care of.
Pfab/So your comfortable with the 90 day?
Wilbum/Yea.
Pfab/Fine here.
Kanner/Sounds good then.
Dilkes/Now remember we have this, this is going to be kind of an odd item because your
going to have to pick a.
Pfab/A Temporary.
Dilkes/Temporary chair for the item in accordance with the code so that's all set out in
your agenda.
Kanner/Okay thanks.
O'Donnell/Okay can we have Ernie please, you might as well Connie and Dee too.
Pfab/We need Dee, thanks Sue.
Dilkes/And it will take three out of the four of you to pass anything.
Vanderhoef, Lehman and Champion returned at 8:40 PM.
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Wilburn/Is that a super majority?
Dilkes/The majority in this case.
Pfab/One more than halfi
Kanner/Why don't we play something like Chutes and Vaults at the bars?
Pfab/I thought it was one of these games, what is it dragons and whatever, that's what I
was thinking.
Kanner/Dungeons and Dragons.
Pfab/Dungeons and Dragons kind of like that though, only thing, it wiggles.
Atkins/Chutes and Ladders, that's what you play.
Dilkes/Chutes and Ladders, yea it's a kid game.
Champion/Is that what you've been playing?
Karmer/I thought this was involved Boilermakers or something.
Atkins/Well maybe where you played.
Kanner/Cleveland we suffered when we were kids.
O'Donnell/Are we about done?
Champion/Yea we're almost done.
Lehman/Well is there, we're doing agenda items, does anybody have anything else for
agenda items?
O'Donnell/Okay.
Council Time
Lehman/That brings us to Council time, that brings us to the end of time.
Champion/Oh I do have something (can't hear).
Lehman/Oh Coimie's got something.
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(Can't hear).
Champion/Okay I was, we all got that letter from Atlas Grill about their sidewalk cafe
and I thought I don't understand why we make them (can't hear) as long as they
have someone out there so is anybody interested in looking at that ordinance
besides me?
Pfab/I see no problem with why they can't keep up but maybe there's things I don't
understand.
Champion/Well as I said looking at.
Kanner/I'd like to talk about it I don't know which way I'd go on it but I'd like to hear
more about it.
Pfab/I think if you can use it and it's maintained or policed or whatever, it's done right I
don't see.
Lehman/We can't talk about it.
Dilkes/You know what you don't need to talk about it.
Lehman/We need to put it on a work session item or not.
O'Donnell/Put it on the agenda.
Pfab/Put it on the agenda. Okay I've got one thing that I'm going to still keep working
on, I still want to see at what point we can call our childcare early childhood
development or early childhood education project.
Lehman/Okay anybody else?
Champion/I think we need to call what people intend it to be.
Pfab/Well.
Champion/All childcare is child education Irvin so your mixing, your using words that
have that really don't have any meaning.
Pfab/ Okay so your saying they're all education.
Champion/Child rearing is all education.
Pfab/Okay but I mean when you have a facility.
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Lehman/We can't discuss this either unless we want to put it on an agenda.
Pfab/Put it on the agenda.
Dilkes/Well actually I'm debating whether that's within our purview the meaning,
whether it's an open meeting.
Lehman/Your debating what?
Dilkes/Never mind.
Kanner/Well here's what I would propose is that we should get an update on the
childcare or child education center and as a part of that update I think that would
be some good discussion. I would like to hear what's going on with that and who
we've talked to I know Linda Severson in her report she talks about working on
that, helping the city with that. Would people be interested in that?
Lehman/Well is there anything yet to report yet on that? Your talking about the part of
the Transportation Center that will be child care.
Dilkes/I think there have been.
Pfab/Early childhood education.
Atkins/Early childhood education center.
Lehman/Is there anything to report on that?
Atkins/We have talked to I believe two maybe three providers.
Dilkes/I think it's moved forward so I think yea, I think you.
Atkins/Yea.
Lehman/Do a memo on it.
Atkins/Yea, I'll get an update for you.
Lehman/All right Mrs. Vanderhoef.
Vanderhoef/I know we are doing.
Kanner/Wait I'm sorry, Dee just to finish up on that, we had a report here on the gate,
can't we have a presentation and discussion because Irvin's I think has some
legitimate concerns there about the philosophy of what's going to go in there and I
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think a part of the decision making and so I could see us having a little bit of
discussion during that presentation of how we envision that.
Atkins/Why don't I write the summary memo, you decide what you want you want to put
it on for discussion, we'll take care of it.
Lehman/Yea I think that's the best way, get it at some time I think that's appropriate.
Atkins/Yea but I'll try to flush out that philosophical issue that your raising, I'll do that.
Vanderhoef/Yea because depending on what the philosophy is it may be taken care.
Atkins/Yea it may be taken care of.
Vanderhoef/And what we're thinking.
Pfab/And when you do write up the (can't hear) it will save a lot of changes, I think
that's where it's all headed, headed anywhere.
Champion/It's already been there Irvin I got news for you.
Pfab/Pardon.
Champion/It's already them.
Vanderhoef/And this may be for Eleanor and I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads up on it.
I'm still concerned about the placing of the cell towers before we get this study
and everything done. Is them a way that we can put a moratorium or having
agreement with the County that we aren't going to build anymore cell towers until
such time as we have completed our study and done our?
Champion/Coralville too, North Liberty, they're all involved.
Vanderhoef/Well the ones that bought into the whole idea.
Atkins/We've been approached anyway sort of informally, they're always looking for
large tracks of land and we~ve sat on ours but your right in the sense of someone
with a large track of land on private I guess can make their own deal.
Dilkes/Yea, I don't know the answer to that.
Pfab/Are you talking.
Vanderhoef/I guess I would be a matter of talking it over with the County and we're not
going to have a.
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Atkins/Not for a while.
Vanderhoef/JCCOG meeting now for another 6-7 weeks.
Lehman/Couldn't we write a letter to prepare the Board of Supervisors and ask them?
Atkins/Let me make a couple phone calls tomorrow, see what I can find out for you.
Vanderhoef/Yea if you'd track that one down.
Dilkes/Let us just take a, yea, see what is preliminary.
Pfab/What are we talking about now?
Atkins/Cell towers, microwaves.
Pfab/Oh on the Interstate and all this, oh but that doesn't take that big amount of land.
Lehman/It's all about visual (can't hear)
Champion/We're talking about visual pollution.
Pfab/Oh something like at Hickory Hill Park.
Kanner/JCCOG we discussed something about having an agreement and Dee is saying
that agreement is still far off and yet there are people that are.
Pfab/Quick run in before.
Kanner/And she wants it (can't hear).
Pfab/I would support that, I would suggest.
(All talking)
Karmer/So Steve is going to.
Atkins/I'll take care of it.
Kanner/Look into it and see what we can get.
Champion/Think we're all ready to go home guys.
(All talking)
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Kanner/Can we get Mike a nicotine patch?
Pfab/Not nicotine patch.
Adjourned 8:45 PM
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