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Item 2. Student Leadership Awards
Item 2a Horace Mann Elementary
Item 2b Mark Twain Elementary
Throgmorton: So I'd like to ask Greta Boerner, Leila Barzola, Juan Martinez, and Julissa Paz to
come up please. (unable to hear, away from mic) All right, so we have four
terrific students here with us tonight, the first of whom is from Horace Mann
Elementary. Can you hang on to those, Kingsley, the bottom ones?
Botchway: Yep!
Throgmorton: And.... her name is Greta Boerner and ... and, you know, I have four Leadership
Awards to hand out and all of `em say exactly the same thing. So what I'm gonna
do is read this for Greta and then ask her to read her statement and then ask each
of you to read your statements, and I'll give you your awards as well. Okay?
Okay, it says Student Leadership Award. (reads award) So, let me hand this to
you, Greta. We could clap, be a good thing! (applause) So, could you read your
statement please?
Boerner: I want to thank my class for voting for me and my teachers for always being
there. I believe that I won this honor because I have incredible role models whom
I would like to acknowledge. Special thank yous to Lulu, Aaron, Ada, and Zoey,
who taught me do my best and always be kind. When the going gets tough, just
get tougher. Remember, you can shine too. Shoot for the moon! Even if you
miss you'll land among the stars, and always be kind to absolutely everyone. I'd
also like to thank the City Council for this honor and for acknowledging student
leaders in Iowa City. (applause)
Throgmorton: Well done! I know you have a terrific role model, or two terrific role models in
your mom and dad, and your mom's sittin' right over here. Where are you, Nora?
Yeah, and there's your dad right over there. How you doin'? Good to see ya!
Okay. So, we have others. All right and.... these others all say the same thing
except the kids are from Mark Twain Elementary. So, the first is Juan Martinez.
Juan, could you read your statement please?
Martinez: Hi, my name is Juan Martinez, which you guys already know (laughter) I think I
was chosen for this because I am a good, hard-working child who will do good
things. I'm in the ELP, safety patrol, and a star student. I'm nice to my
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classmates and all my teachers. I'm kind to the staff and parents. I help in school
fundraisers like the chip shop we just did. When I get out of school I go to my
room and color, take my dogs for a walk, and practice my violin. On Fridays and
Wednesdays, I go home, take my dogs out, and take a nap before church. When I
get up I get dressed to go to church, and when church is finished I go home, have
supper, and go to bed. And sometimes when I get up late and miss the bus, but
my sister won't let that happen. She makes.... she takes me to school for another
beautiful day.
Throgmorton: All right! (applause) Excellent! (applause continues) So how many dogs do ya
have? Two?
Martinez: Uh huh.
Throgmorton: All right! And, uh, you do occasionally miss a bus, is that what you said?
(laughter) Yeah, then your sister gets mad at you or something? (laughter) Okay!
All right, and the next is Julissa Paz. Are you Julissa? Thank you. Okay, and
again, said ... the award says the same thing, except it's for you. So, could you
read your statement?
Paz: Good evening, my name is Julissa Paz and I'm a sixth grader at Mark Twain
Elementary. I was chosen for the Citizenship Award because of the good
examples I set for others and for the way I give back to my school. I set a good
example by always getting homework in on time, getting started on work right
away, and staying focused on learning. I give back to my school by being a
responsible safety patrol, taking on the role of conflict manager at younger
students' recess, and providing baked goods for our school carnival. I want to
thank the school council for providing this honor. These are the reasons why I
was chosen for this award.
Throgmorton: All right! (applause) Excellent! (applause continues) So, conflict manager — that
sounds like a pretty important role. You should be very proud of yourself for
learnin' how to do that. All right, and the last one is for Leila Barzola. Yes! So,
would you read your statement?
Barzola: Um ... okay. Hi, I'm Leila and I think I got picked for student council for being a
hard worker, not the best student in the world because I make mistakes. Everyone
makes mistakes. I'm going to read a list of things I do to help my class and other
people. Reading assignments, I try to get all my reading assignments done in
time. I just recently finished my historical fiction book. Math, I'm not the best
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mathematician in the class, but I ulay... usually it depends on what math problem it
is. If it's easy I help other people at my table. If it's harder I ask for help from
students at my table. Bad decisions, sometimes I get carried away with making
bad decisions, which I should be able to control, and of course I have to face the
consequences. You even get good consequences sometimes. Reading contest, I
really want the whole sixth grade to reach 400 books .... by the first day of April.
So, I'm trying to read a lot of books. Friends, I have a lot of friends. Not
everyone in my, um.... not everyone is my friend, but I'm fine with the friends I
have because they make me feel ... feel fod.... full. Um.... I learn different things
from all of them. How I feel about school, I feel safe at school. All the teachers
are so cheerful at school. Sometimes I don't believe that anything like a school
shooting could happen at Mark Twain.
Throgmorton: Beautiful! (applause) That was great, great speech! Thanks! So I know there are
really proud parents out here, so I'm kinda.... I'm lookin' at folks who are proud
parents. You're doin' a great job bringin' up these terrific kids! Congratulations
to all of you. Okay, so here's your award. Thanks! And, I don't know, what did
Matt always say, you know.....I don't know, somethin' about you can stay here
and watch the rest of the Council meeting or .... go home and do your homework
or somethin' like that (laughter) Anyhow, thanks for coming. It's really... really a
treat to give you your awards. (applause) Wow, we just lost half the crowd!
(laughter)
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Item 3. Proclamations
Item 3a National Native American Heritage Month
Throgmorton: (reads proclamation) I think, Joe, you're gonna come up and accept this
proclamation, right? (applause)
Coulter: On behalf of our Native community here in Iowa City, uh, and in the state of
Iowa, I want to thank you, Mayor and Council Members, and the City of Iowa
City, for recognizing, uh, National, uh.... uh, this National Native American
Heritage Month. I also want to thank you, uh, for the establishment of Iowa City
and subsequently Johnson County, uh.... as, uh, recognizing that the second
Monday of October is Indigenous Peoples Day. Uh, our students here are others
in the Native community and across the state. Thank you, Iowa City, and uh, the
Council. (unable to understand) Thank you. (applause)
Throgmorton: Thank you, Joe. (applause continues)
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Item 4. Consider adoption of the Consent Calendar as presented or amended
Throgmorton:... and what I would like to receive is a motion to approve as amended, deferring
Item 4d(5) to November the 21st.
Botchway: So moved.
Thomas: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Thomas. Discussion? Susan?
Mims: Yeah, I just wanted to make a couple of comments. Um, there's a couple of
pieces in here I think that are, um, I of course can't find `em at the moment
now .... urn ...... with a lot of information. One is our annual TIF certification
filing, and that's something that gets a lot of comment about in the community, in
terms of what we do and don't do and how that works, and if somebody happens
to want to look at the packet and find it very quickly, it's page 147 of our agenda
packet, and just talks about, um, the many different projects, um, across the
community that we have done, and I think the earliest start date in here is 2000.
Uh, lots of different projects and extreme increases in, um, taxable valuation that
we have gotten in these projects, which means increased tax revenue for the City.
So I would encourage folks to look at that, um, in .... in light of what we do in
terms of tax increment financing in the community. So it's a lot of, I think,
important information that oftentimes gets overlooked.
Throgmorton: Thought there were two things you were gonna do.
Mims: That's okay. (both talking) That's okay.
Throgmorton: Okay. I'd also like to note that Item 4e(1) sets a November 21 public hearing on a
proposed rezoning of about 22 acres, adjacent to the east side of the intersection
of McCollister, South Gilbert, and I know there are several people who are
interested in that particular rezoning. All right. So we have a motion. An ... any
other discussion? Hearing none, roll call please. Motion carries 6-0.
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Item 5. Community Comment (items not on the agenda)
Throgmorton: So if anybody would like to address us about any topic that's not on the formal
meeting agenda, please come forward, state your name, and take not more than
five minutes to, uh.... tell us what's on your mind! Good evening, Martha!
Norbeck: Good evening, Mr. Throgmorton! Um ... so, uh, last Thursday night, a hundred
community members at least showed up to talk about climate action, so I'm here
tonight, uh, Martha Norbeck. I'm a member of the Climate Action Steering
Committee, and I saw many of our Council Members, uh, in attendance that
evening, and uh, it felt really great. We got lots of great comments from .... from
the public. We had, uh, posters up, with, uh, suggested strategies, about energy
and transportation and waste management, uh, other categories such as, um,
issues around food and land use, and the public stated their comments through
putting dots in support, and also through expressing that they felt that they could
actually.... that they could make a difference in contributing to support those
strategies, and so we were really pleased, uh, with that turnout. All the Climate
Action Steering Committee members were there and, um, we're gonna take that
information and process it and then start to distill this down, uh, to move forward
on having a really .... a robust climate action plan. So thank you for your support
on that and, uh, and thanks to the community for showing up in such great
numbers.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Martha, and thanks to you and all the other, uh, committee members — I
guess there're a total of 13 — for serving on that committee. I see Ryan's out in
the audience and .... maybe somebody else. Anyone else? Good evening,
Thomas!
Agran: Hi. So my name's Thomas Agran. I'm a Northside resident. Uh, I also ... I'm a
representative for the Northside Neighborhood Association, and I'm also the
Northside representative for the Historic Preservation Commission, although I
only speak tonight in the capacity as a resident of the Northside. Um, I wanted to
talk to you about, uh, the memo that you discussed, um, during the work session
tonight, and I thought the conversation was really great. I think all those topics
are really, um.... intertwined and related to each other so I, uh, I kind of have a lot
of thoughts on each one and I'm gonna run through these as quickly as I can. I
marked up my docket.... document to try and reduce as many redundancies based
on what I listened to, uh, at 5:00 tonight. So, um, in response to the first item,
which was about the Jefferson and Linn, and Market and Linn intersections. I just
want to say that short of restoring, which would be another solution, a two-way
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traffic flow pattern and an all -way stop at this intersection, which would definitely
be the safest thing that you could implement and maybe even the least costly.
Um, I think a bump -out is a really great solution. I cross this intersection all the
time and I'm really enthusiastic about your support for that. I would, uh, ask that
you do not look closely at the Market, uh, bump -out as an example since the
Market bump -out is just a large path .... patch of concrete. You might consider,
uh, what that bump -out could look like if it was a landscaped bump -out, um, in
terms of the overall other ancillary benefits that it could give to the neighborhood.
Uh, in terms of the bike master plan conversation and the buffered bike lanes,
there was some conversation including later on, uh, all about, uh, bike arterials
and bi... or sorry, bike, uh, boulevards. Uh, there's a grid system in this part of
town and I think that there's a lot of possibility for separating and making there be
automobile arterials and bike arterials, on that grid system. So as an example of
that, would be making Ronald's an arterial for bikes and Church an arterial for,
uh, cars. So a kind of separate system that encourages people to go their own way
so there's less conflict, especially since as the transportation planner pointed out,
it doesn't necessarily do anything to reduce traffic speeds, which is ultimately
what makes people feel safe .... as a cyclist. Uh, sight lines at the intersections,
um, I would say that, especially anywhere where there is static parking, which
theoretically could include all of the Northside if we change the parking
requirements there. I hope that you might consider, uh, landscaped bump -outs at
all those intersections. You know, a big cost of the park ... you know, maintaining
the parking system in the Northside is patrolling the parking system and bump -
outs are self -enforcing. You cannot park within the sight lines if there's a bump -
out there. So, uh, that might be a strategy to consider there that would also, again,
have those ancillary benefits. Uh, in regards to the traffic circles and this was
touched on a little bit as well, but I would say that the feeling as a resident based
on the current traffic calming system is that we have to wait for a tragedy, or
enough tragedies statistically, to make the neighborhood feel safer as a pedestrian,
and just because I don't get hit by a car doesn't mean I don't feel uncomfortable,
you know, crossing streets or riding my bike, or I might not want my child to ride
a bike on the street. So, uh, I hope that if you do implement traffic circles in the
Northside, which I would be a big supporter of, that you implement them in a
comprehensive way and not just as a band-aid solution to one bad intersection, but
think about how this could change the feeling of the entire neighborhood and how
traffic behaves in the entire neighborhood. Uh, lastly, uh, just in .... I would
second tonight's comments. This was in ... about the whole parking system in the
Northside. I think that giving, uh, parking to ICCSD employees at Horace Mann
along Church Street is an excellent idea. I really hope that you work with the
School District for that, and that the, uh, it will also provide traffic calming effects
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on Church, which'd be great since it's a bad school zone situation. Um, and I
would just say that I think there's another dynamic to the parking capacity on the
Northside, which is that, uh, you know, the alley that I am on right now, uh, has
only two remaining back yards, um, for that whole stretch, and one of them,
which currently has four parking spots, four paved hard -surface parking spots,
they're paving over the remaining back yard right now to increase parking supply
for that property. So, right now there's parking capacity on the streets and we're
losing parking capacity in the .... by, or sorry! Losing back yards, so I hope that
you come up with a policy that encourages the traffic to stay on the street and not
be housed in the back yards of the houses in the Northside. Um, and last, the last,
last thing I'll say is that I was just in Montreal, uh, and I was really floored by
their forward -thinking and comprehensive traffic calming measures that they
were ... were either installed or under way. Uh, one of the biggest things was
bump -outs at every single intersection, uh, and also four-way stops at every single
intersection in these residential areas, uh, as well. ... rather than a basket -weave
system, which is what we have. Ultimately it felt like a very, very safe place to
walk, and I hope that .... I look forward, especially based on the conversation I
heard tonight, of the Council really having a strong hand to forge policy that, you
know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel on these things and I'm excited to see,
uh, what you guys can implement for our whole, the whole street system in Iowa
City. So .... thank you very much.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Thomas. Good evening, Anna!
Buss: Good evening, Sir! How are you? Haven't seen ya in a while! I know, aren't ya
glad? (laughs)
Throgmorton: No! It's great to see you!
Buss: Well I'm Anna Buss. I live at 525 W. Benton Street, and I have to tell you all it's
been a wonderfully interesting year this year! Getting home has been a challenge
many times, uh, between Miller being closed, Benton being closed. It's sort of
how do you get there from here. Um, I do have one issue with the fact that when
construction's going on that, um, when the driveways are gonna be blocked, it
would really be nice, had we been notified. We've had to drive through yards to
get out of some driveways, which is never fun. Um, it's been, I mean I have to
say I am glad that Benton Street is finally done. It's, um, even though they totally
ripped up my front yard. They did hit a gas line twice. That was exciting. Um,
the neighborhood, having someone (makes a knocking sound) on your door,
dressed like that, say, `You have to get out of here because we have a gas leak.'
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Um, they handled it beautifully. Nothing happened. Um, Mid America came out,
fixed everything. That was taken care of. But I do have a complaint. I invite all
of you to drive down Miller Avenue, and as you're driving from Benton to
Highway 1, I'd like to have you drive slow and look to the right where your
lovely City Park is growing an abundance of weeds that are five and six -feet tall.
Now if those weeds were in my yard, the City would be all over me. In fact next
year maybe I'll let my yard go natural just to .... because I don't have to do
anything with it. We've called, all .... my tenants have called repeatedly about
getting something done about it, and nothing has been done about it. So I am in
hopes that you will all go and look at it, see what it looks like, and see how you'd
like to live across the street from that. I try really hard to keep my stuff pretty
well cleaned up and with that across the street, I have a couple tenants that have
allergy issues and it's been a problem for them. So anything that you could do,
you know, I .... again it's roll the dice on when Miller Avenue is closed and open.
It's been a real challenge, but I'm sure that when that project is done it'll be okay.
So .... I thank you. I invite you to come down Miller Avenue, stop by at my house
any time! I can complain about lots of things! (laughter) So, thanks again!
Throgmorton: Thanks for bringin' it to our attention, Anna. Geoff, could you make sure
someone, uh, goes out (both talking)
Fruin: It's already in the works.
Throgmorton: Okay. Anyone else? Good evening, Caroline.
Dietetic: Hi. Hm, I think somebody nabbed .... oh, here. Uh, Caroline Dieterle, uh, Walnut
Street. Urn ..... and I know I've talked to the Council before but it's been a while
and it fell on totally deaf ears. So I'11.....I'll try again. Uh, especially since we're
now, um, encouraged to compost by putting, you know, uh, kitchen waste in with
yard waste. Um.....and I'm thinking that while we .... you're rethinking what to
do about yard waste and pickups and, you know, all of that, that I'm wondering
whether there's any possibility that you would consider getting smaller refuse
cans, um, for people who don't, you know, generate very much refuse, because
those great big green things are ridiculous. I could leave it .... I could not emty...
empty the thing in the entire winter and it still probably wouldn't be full, because
about all I put out there is, uh... waste from the cat, um .... and that's about it,
because most everything .... I try to buy things that will recycle, the containers will
recycle, and I have my own compost pile in the back yard for my garden, and so
it's a big pain to try to find a place to put this huge behemoth and I think there
probably are other people like me who really don't need the really big thing, and I
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am still mystified as to what people are using to do the waste that is yard waste
plus compost, just out of curiosity, because are you using ...... are.....are people
using regular waste cans that they then put stickers on, um .... uh, because it seems
to me that, uh, why can't we put a sticker on, uh, these great big green things and
(mumbled) you know make them into what people are supposed to put yard waste
into, because the, um, size of a can that you can buy at Paul's or Menard's or
somewhere and stick a sticker on is really not very adequate for somebody that
has serious amounts of yard waste, and um .... it just seems to me that the
proportions are wrong, that there ought to be something for the absolute junk and
an easier way to recycle. And the other thing is .... is that I have become very
conscious of, um, hazardous waste, toxic waste. And try as one might you still
are going to have batteries that .... that.....no longer function, and if it isn't an
alkaline battery, you aren't supposed to put those into the landfill, and um, things
like, um ..... uh, cans of stuff for the garden, even if it's an organic pesticide, it still
is a lot to dump into the waste stream, um, because ... the reason that is, you know,
a pesticide is .... even if it's an organically based one like pyrethrin, uh, you know
you really don't want to be dumping that in your .... waste can. And it seems to
me that it would be nice if, um ..... you could designate even one day a week at the
Eastside Recycling and the Landfill where people could just drive in on that
particular day and get rid of their toxic waste, rather than having to call in and
make an appointment to come and get rid of it. I think it...it makes it harder for
people to do it, and I think only the most conscientious people are careful about
that. The other ones are going to be lazy and just pitch it in the trash can and, you
know, the devil take the (mumbled) you know, considering that even with a liner
in the, uh, in the landfill, you're .... it's not 100% leak proof and when we're
talking about water quality in Iowa, and the burgeoning population of this area,
there's an awful lot of toxic waste I think that shouldn't go into the landfill. It
finds its way in there and it should be made easier for people to dispose of it .... in
a responsible way. Thanks!
Throgmorton: Thank you, Caroline. Geoff, I hope you or Ashley took note of that. I think I'd
be curious to hear a response, or read a response later on. Anyone else? All right,
uh, seeing no one else we'll move on to Item 6, Planning and Zoning Matters.
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Item 6. Planning and Zoning Matters
Item 6a Riverfront Crossing stepbacks and minimum building height—
Ordinance amending Title 14, Chapter 2, Article G., Riverfront Crossings
Form -based Development Standards, to allow minor adjustments to upper
floor stepback requirements and the minimum building height standard
a) Public Hearing
Throgmorton: I'm gonna open a public hearing. (bangs gavel) Good evening, John!
Yapp: Uh, good evening. John Yapp, Development Services. Uh, what this proposal
will do is, uh, would be a code amendment to the form -based code to allow for
minor adjustments for facade stepbacks, which is when a building in the upper
floors steps back 10 feet, uh, so the remaining building is .... is stepped back. Uh,
it would add language to make it clear that if a waiver of the stepback requirement
is granted there must be an alternative design solution proposed that visually
breaks up the vertical plane of the building, which is the intent of the stepback.
Uh, it would add language to the approval criteria for building a parking
placement that .... allows for requests in unique .... in situations where there are
unique characteristics of the site or neighboring properties that lend to an
alternative design approach. In other words, it allows for a little more flexibility,
in when and how that stepback is administered. The project that instigated, uh,
this.... this code, uh, amendment request is the Hieronymus Square project, uh,
which Council, uh, reviewed, uh, it was either at the last meeting or two .... two
meetings ago. Uh, seven story building, uh, with a courtyard in between and then
another seven story building. Uh.....under the current code, above the fifth story,
there would be a stepback required, along both the Burlington Street and Clinton
Street facades. What the applicant has .... has proposed as a design alternative,
which is .... I don't have an image of it yet, but is to.....uh, add more glass above
the fifth story.
Fruin: John, canI....can I interrupt you just for a second? Do you have a light dimmer
up there, the little white.... switch.... is that....
Yapp: Oh! I do.
Throgmorton: Look at that!
Fruin: Thank you!
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Yapp: It's usually with the Clerk. Uh, can everyone see that better? Okay. Uh, so it's a
seven story building separated.... two seven story structures separated by a
courtyard. Uh, normally there would be a stepback required both along the
Burlington Street and the Clinton Street facades. Uh, in this case, and I .... and
again I don't have an image of it yet, but what the .... the applicant has proposed is
to add a lot more glass to those top two stories to minimize the appearance of the
height .... in lieu of stepping back those floors. Uh, just some other images. This
one compared to the Music School, across the street. Uh, the other part of this
code amendment, uh... in this district there is a two-story minimum height. Uh,
what the other part of this code amendment would do would be .... would be to
allow for a two-story facade, which is depicted here. This would be fronting on
Clinton Street. Uh, behind this facade is .... is a courtyard, not a two-story
building, but it does give the appearance, the experience of a two-story, uh,
building walking across the street. And just another image of that with, again,
with the separation, uh, between those two buildings.
Throgmorton: John, the building on the right would have to have.... ordinarily would have to
have a .... a stepback also, uh....
Yapp: That's correct!
Throgmorton:... above the fifth floor.
Yapp: On the .... on the Clinton Street facade. Yeah, that's correct. Uh, both Planning
and Zoning Commission and staff recommend approval. Be glad to take any
questions.
Throgmorton: Can...can you briefly summarize the, uh.... the way the Commission processed
this. I know they deferred their first vote on it and asked questions and got
information back and so forth.
Yapp: Think the, yeah, the Commission.... and the minutes are in your packet, but the
Commission's concern was that .... there be a bona fide, uh, alternative proposed
to what the stepback is trying to accomplish. Uh, what the stepback is trying to
accomplish is a more pedestrian -oriented facade along the street by stepping back
the upper stories so that as a pedestrian, you do not experience the .... the tall
buildings, walking.... walking down the street. You might have a three or four-
story facade, uh, that you're experiencing. The .... the taller part of the building
would be stepped back. Uh, I think the concern of the Commission was that....
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uh, stepbacks not be, uh, waived indiscriminately and that there be a bona fide
alternative solution proposed, depending on the context of the site.
Throgmorton: Okay, and they .... they, uh, recommended approval unanimously, right?
Yapp: Yes.
Throgmorton: Okay. Any questions for John?
Yapp: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, John. Would anybody else like to address this topic? All right, I
don't see anyone else. So, uh, are you folks inclined to vote in accord with the
Commission? Yeah, okay. I'm gonna close the public hearing. (bangs gavel)
b) Consider an Ordinance (First Consideration)
Botchway: First consideration,
Thomas: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Thomas. Discussion?
Thomas: (both talking) This .... this seems like a reasonable, um, response and it was
triggered by a project that we reviewed and approved, and I .... I certainly think in
this instance it wasn't necessary and in some respects I would say architecturally
even counterproductive to have had the stepback. So I .... I think the notion of
articulating the building wall is a, um, more flexible approach to the .... to the
problem.
Throgmorton: Especially given the height of the building.
Thomas: Yeah.
Throgmorton: I mean if it was, you know, a 12 -story building it would make a big difference,
but... yeah. Anything else? Okay, uh, hearing no further discussion, roll call
please. Motion carries 6-0.
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Item 6. Planning and Zoning Matters
Item 6b Regulation of sale of fireworks — Ordinance amending Title 14,
Zoning, Chapter 4, Use Regulations and Article 14-21), Industrial and
Research Zones, to restrict sales of consumer fireworks to Industrial Zones
a) Public Hearing
Throgmorton: I'll open the public hearing. (bangs gavel) John!
Yapp: Uh, State legislation, uh, enacted earlier this year allows for the sale of consumer
fireworks, uh, at certain rimes of the year, both in June through July 4`b, and then
in December through, uh, New Year's Eve. While local jurisdictions are still
allowed to restrict the use of fireworks in communities, jurisdictions are not
allowed to prohibit the sales of such fireworks. Uh, this year Iowa City treated
fireworks like any other retail item. Uh, allowed for their sale within brick and
mortar stores, and allowed for their sale within, uh, tents, temporary -use tents,
similar to garden.... garden supplies tents that .... that are approved every spring.
Um, the Council has discussed this item, uh.... uh, earlier the.....this summer and
one of the issues that.—that the city experienced I think is the impulse purchase
of fireworks. Uh, at the grocery store, at the lumber yard, they were .... they were
very available, which led to a high amount of illegal use within the city. Uh, so
what is proposed, as has been done in some other cities in Iowa, is to restrict
firework sales to industrial zones. I don't.....I don't have any images for you, but
there are two main industrial zones in Iowa City. One on the north side of
Highway 6, on the .... on the east side of the city, and the other on the, uh, along
Highway 218 on the south side of the city, south of the Airport. Those are the
two main industrial zones in Iowa City. Uh, what this ordinance would do is
restrict sales of consumer fireworks to those industrial zones. Be glad to take any
questions.
Throgmorton: Okay. Good deal! Any questions for John?
Yapp: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Anybody else like to address this topic? Don't be shy! Okay, seeing no one else,
uh, any discussion? Oh, I have to close the public hearing. I'm sorry, and I have
to ask a question. So are you inclined to support, uh, the Commission's
recommendation? Yep. Okay. So, uh, I'll close the public hearing. (bangs
gavel)
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b) Consider an Ordinance (First Consideration)
Botchway: Move first consideration.
Mims: Second.
Throgmorton: I'm tryin' to close this (mumbled) So, moved by Botchway, seconded by Mims.
Discussion?
Mims: I'm just glad to see us tightening this up. I think, uh, of what happened last year
was just too many problems within the community, too easily accessible, um,
some people certainly not knowing that they were illegal in town since they could
buy them, and I think this limitation, hopefully, will help us considerably.
Botchway: I would agree. I'll be interested in the feedback we get back from folks as far as
that change, but yeah, I would agree. I think this is a nice step.
Taylor: I agree too. And I was, uh, glad to see information in there about the signage
and .... and requiring larger signs, bigger signs, because what we heard was, "Well
we didn't know that!" But, uh, even though the information was out there,
so .... I'm very much in favor of this change.
Throgmorton: Right.
Botchway: I guess I did have a question cause, uh, Chief Matherly's here. Does that change
your enforcement, cause I know we were looking at it kind of from a warning
standpoint this last year, because it was relatively new in conjunction with the law
passing, but now .... I feel pretty confident that people are aware or upset, so.....
Matherly: Yeah, our .... our phones, uh, really blew up, no pun intended on the fireworks
(laughs) We certainly have to get a better approach. So, directed patrols,
increased enforcement, but also more education, better signage, um, you know,
relocation of the .... the sales itself. We take a holistic approach at this. I'm
certain that we'll get a better grasp on it. Uh, we try to find a good balance with
the new State law. We weren't alone. Statewide there was issues. Statewide
there's jurisdictions that allowed fireworks and now they're saying, "No more!"
Um, so it's a learning phase for everybody, including the consumers and .... and
law enforcement and ... and the communities. Um, but you'll see improvements.
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Botchway: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Any other discussion? Hearing none, roll call please. Motion carries 6-0.
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Item 6. Planning and Zoning Matters
Item 6c Cardinal Pointe West Part 2 — Ordinance conditionally rezoning
28.03 acres from Interim Development - Research Park (ID -RP) zone to High
Density Single -Family Residential (RS -12) zone for 5.35 acres, Low Density
Multifamily (RM -12) zone for 3.3 acres and Rural Residential (RR -1) zone
for 19.38 acres for property located west of Camp Cardinal Road and south
of Kennedy Parkway (REZ17-00014/SUB17-00015). (Second Consideration)
Throgmorton: Are .... is there any need for ex parte disclosures? Yeah, me neither. Okay.
Mims: Move second consideration.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. Discussion? I .... I want to say I went
out to the intersection (mumbled) has only peripheral connection to the rezoning
itself, but .... I went out to the intersection of Kennedy and .... and Camp Cardinal,
uh, I don't know, after our last meeting .... and, uh, went to the west side of
Kennedy, on the west side of Camp Cardinal Road, and then came back to the
intersection and realized that trying to .... enter onto Kennedy, enter onto Camp
Cardinal Road was very dangerous, and it was because the traffic was moving
well above the speed limit and because when I looked to the north, that is to the
left from where I was, uh, par .... uh, waiting, I couldn't see high-speed vehicles
coming up the hill, and there was some other cars across the street at the stop sign
on the other side, waiting. I think there's a stop sign there anyhow. But they
were waiting, and .... it all seemed very dicey .... tryin' to get out onto that road. So
there are some things wrong out there. The traffic's too fast, going too fast, and,
uh.... the fact that there's no controlled intersection makes it even doubly
dangerous. So I read .... the memo in our packet and frankly it doesn't go far
enough from my point of view. I .... I think that needs to be rethought. As far as
the rezoning is concerned, I don't have any problem with the rezoning.
Thomas: I .... I looked at the.....I didn't go out to the intersection but I looked at it online
and, uh, it's a massive intersection. Um .... really promotes, uh, through traffic
along Camp Cardinal as you approach .... at the intersection, whether you're north
or south bound, you have turn lane options in both directions, so it .... even though
it's only a two-lane road, there's lots of lanes there that widen the intersection.
And you combine that with the thirtyfil.... 35 m.p.h. speed limit, uh, and also there
are wide radii, uh, I think they're 50 -feet, um .... so we talk a lot about sort of the
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travel experience on the roadway itself. This is an intersection design issue and
yeah, I would have to agree with Jim. It .... it .... I'm.....I'm wondering if perhaps
it was designed more in alignment with the previous zone of industrial research. I
don't know. Um, you know, without the anticipation of residential on the west
side, but now that it's going residential I .... I think we do need to look at it more
carefully.
Taylor: I'm pleased with the rezoning and the fact that it'll be a nice mix of types of
housing. That ... that's something that we really need, rather than so many
apartments or so many expensive single-family, but I drive that road a lot and
people do go too fast, and all of a sudden they get to the Coralville section and it's
25, uh, there was mention in ... in this material about the school zone and a
possibility of...of adding a zone on Camp Cardinal, uh, cause I had a question for
the Chief. I don't know if he can answer that. Uh, how close to the school does
the school zone need to be? Up near Borlaug is a school zone, 20 miles, but
continuing on Camp Cardinal just a block away is the 35 and .... and there're going
to be children crossing there, and there's only a sidewalk on ... on the, uh, east side
of Camp Cardinal, not on the west side. (unable to hear response from audience)
Throgmorton: Chief, could you come up, please?
Matherly: I don't know of any specific, um, feet that we have to be within the schools. Uh, I
think the City can, I believe, can set that school zone according to what area needs
to be slowed down. So, um, this shouldn't be a problem. If it needs to be moved
fixrther out (both talking) your question?
Taylor: Okay. Yeah, thank you.
Throgmorton: I'll tell ya what it felt like to me when I was out there. It felt like, uh, people are
using that .... using Camp Cardinal as an alternative interstate highway. They
were driving way too fast and many of the vehicles were large construction trucks
and the whole thing just struck me as pretty darn dangerous.
Matherly: Yeah, that design seems conducive to that and we need probably to get some
speed trailers out there and do some enforcement as well.
Taylor: Also not to mention the fact that (clears throat) uh, a lot of deer. I've seen deer
alongside the road many times.
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Botchway: Geoff, I mean .... Jim talked about and I think numerous Councilors have talked
about it as well. What's the process by which we look at, you know, a little bit
more, I mean obviously we don't expect to have something back by third
consideration but, I mean this is separate from the rezoning, but....
Fruin: Well we have to look at what we can control. Um, this intersection's a little bit
unique in that it's a joint jurisdiction with the City of Coralville. So, um, we'll
need to sit down and have some discussions with them and see what their interest
is, um, but also look at what we can control in the short-term, and that's
enforcement. That's signage, um, we have a, um .... um, a street tree planting
project in this corridor, uh, in the Iowa City portion come spring. Our staff is
designing that right now. So we're gonna try to make some improvements to
the .... the built environment to .... to give some visual cues to slow down, as well.
But.... ultimately if we want to signalize the intersection or put some .... some
control measures in, we'll need to coordinate that with the City of Coralville, and
I would expect that there'd be a cost -share in that type of improvement.
Cole: I just want to echo what Pauline had said. I think once again we see an example
of I think the developer, our staff, and our plan, really getting a nice mix of
density, and we're just continually see that. Uh, so that really means we have a
great plan in place that I think our staff is getting it right and the developers are
getting it right. Nine single-family lots, six duplex lots, and one multi -family.
That's a nice mix of housing. So I think once again kudos to the staff and the
developer for getting that right.
Throgmorton: Any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call please. Motion carries 6-0.
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Item 7. Burlington Clinton Street Intersection Improvements — Resolution approving
plans, specifications, form of agreement, and estimate of cost for the
construction of the Burlington Clinton Street Intersection Improvements
Project, establishing amount of bid security to accompany each bid, directing
City Clerk to post notice to bidders, and fixing time and place for receipt of
bids
a) Public Hearing
Throgmorton: I'll open the public hearing. (bangs gavel) Good evening, Ron!
Knoche: Ron Knoche, Public Works Director. Uh, this .... this project is, uh, rebidding a
project that we tried to bid earlier this year that we had no bids on. Uh, so this
will be the, um, four -lane to three -lane conversion from Court Street to Market
Street on Clinton, and then also bike lanes from Benton Street, uh, up to Church.
So we'll have some water main work that'll go in with this, but uh, it, uh, will
help a lot at the Clinton and Burlington intersection by adding a dedicated turn
lane there, uh, left turns. Um, clean up some of the confusion that goes on at that
intersection.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Ron. Uh... I'm guessin' no one wanted to ask Ron questions. No?
Anyone else? All right, seeing no one else I'll close the public hearing. (bangs
gavel)
b) Consider a Resolution
Botchway: Move the resolution.
Thomas: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Thomas. Discussion? I'm lookin' forward to
seeing this being done!
Cole: This'll be our first four to three downtown, correct? Or am I wrong on that?
(several talking) So I'm really excited to see this project happen.
Throgmorton: Yep!
Botchway: So I've already expressed my concerns. Um, I haven't, I mean outside of us
talking about it, I haven't necessarily heard positive feedback. So .... we'll see!
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Mims: I'm concerned with this one, Kingsley, more than some of the others because of
all the bus traffic on Clinton. So.....
Throgmorton: Further discussion? Hearing none, roll call. Motion carries 6-0.
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Item 8. Revised TIF Policies - Resolution adopting City of Iowa City Tax Increment
Financing (TIF) Policies
a) Public Input
Throgmorton: Uh, there's no requirement to hold a public hearing, uh, but we, uh, do solicit
public input on this topic. We're gonna begin with Wendy Ford from our staff,
providing some background and ... and substance about, uh, what's being proposed
and the process by which we got here. Good evening, Wendy!
Ford: Good evening, Council. Thank you. I'm Wendy Ford, Economic Development
Coordinator and um ... uh, I want to go over the, uh, proposed tax increment
financing policies that you all have been working on, or at least the Economic
Development Committee has been working on for what has been almost two
years. Um, early in 2016, um, you set out to review the policies with the goal of
establishing, um, a set of policies that, um, provide both a balance of specificity
and flexibility for our development community, and to back up for just a moment.
We're talking about, um, the, uh, use of tax increment financing or, uh, those
property taxes generated by a development that you have the option of, uh, using
towards furthering that development or furthering other public projects. Um
(clears throat) so your, uh, your review of those policies, um, then was an effort
to, uh, make it clear for the entire community, um, what you expect of developers
and, um, what your values are. So, uh.... we started, uh, early on in 2016 with a
series of. ... I think we ended up having nine focus groups, uh, different groups of
people with different, uh, types of expertise and interests. We had, uh, obviously
we had developers, architects, engineers, uh, people with a strong interest and
expertise in, uh, sustainability, historic preservation, uh, arts organizations, and
social organizations. We really, uh, spent a long time getting input from these
various groups, uh, before, uh, the Economic Development Committee set forth to
really refine the policies. So I'd like to go over the policies. There are eight of
them (clears throat) um, I'd like to go over those policies with you and then, uh,
perhaps answer any questions. I did bring, uh, the desired heights map that will
come up in conversation in the downtown building heights and character section
of this, but first we'll start with sustainability. The proposed policy is that any
TIF project in any urban renewal area in Iowa City be required to be LEED silver
certified. Additionally, that project should achieve eight energy efficiency
credits, um, and that would be for any new residential, office, or mixed-use
building. If you have questions I suppose you could jump in too at our point like
you had done, uh, earlier, but otherwise I'll just move on to the second point, and
that is building, uh, downtown building heights and character. Uh, the
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recommended policy is that any TIF development should adhere to the and fulfill
the vision of the Riverfront Crosstin.... Crossings master plan, which was adopted
into the Comp Plan for Iowa City. I believe that was in 2011 or 2012. Um, and in
that plan there was a .... a set of desired heights that were, um, published as well
and.... and you also, um, desired TIF projects adhere to the recommended heights
in that desired heights map. And that if a project wanted to deviate from that, that
is be higher or I suppose an alternav ... alternative would be be lower, um, they
would need a .... the developer would need to show why, what additional public
benefit would they be bringing to the project to merit deviating from the building
heights, uh, desired building heights map, and if I may, um, Mayor Throgmorton
and the, uh, Economic Development Committee, um, agreed that, um, there were
five ideas for exceeding public benefits that could work. So, to give you an idea,
and this is not an, uh, exclusive list of, um, the kinds of additional or exceedingly
good public benefits a project could bring to merit, urn ..... uh, having a building
be taller than the desired height.... height map. Um, one would be a very invo...
innovative building design that, uh, would produce affordable housing and/or
affordable retail spaces for Iowa businesses. Or for local businesses I should say.
Secondly, would be to, um, create an attractive public space that was accessible to
all. Thirdly, an idea was that if the project, um, would provide good job
opportunities for low-income youth it might be, uh, it might merit exceeding that
desired heights. Uh, if the project could be carbon neutral or achieve a higher yet
LEED certification, there is gold and platinum above the silver that would already
be required, that too could merit consideration of a higher building. And then
finally on the list of ideas for ways you could, uh.... uh, achieve a higher building
would be to, um, somehow work in a public display of paintings, photographs,
sculptures, some sort of cultural exhibit, um, that would express how the diverse
groups of, uh, people who live and have helped Iowa City become Iowa City have
done that. Um, something to celebrate the unique character of Iowa City. So, um,
the Committee spent a long time talking about the additional public benefits that
would be, uh, required to, uh, merit, uh, exceeding that desired height map. So
I'll just move on if there's no questions. The third component to the new, uh,
policy, um, revolves around historic preservation. Um, and .... and, uh, I might
say at this point that our policies to date actually, um, in the downtown area have,
uh, have protected historic preservation and this policy essentially, um, restates
that and clarifies that some. So, um, new construction, uh, that would require
demolition of a registered, a key property, or a property that was eligible to be
registered on the National Register of Historic Places would not be eligible for
TIF in these proposed policies. And it wasn't eligible.... wouldn't have been
eligible either before. Uh, if there is to be rehab done on a, uh, building, then it
must be, um, done to preserve or restore, uh, historic structure to productive use.
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And that would be a building that, uh... would be registered, uh, key, or eligible to
be registered as well. Additions to buildings that are in one of those three same
categories, registered, key, or eligible to be registered, um, would need to be
architecturally compatible with the existing building, not only the building but the
entire block. Uh, fourthly, historic preservation projects may be eligible for TIF
via a district -wide TIF, and that is an important component to this because to date
we have, uh, used project -based tax increment financing. That is the project
would have to .... has had to create enough of its own increase in value, its own
self by the improvements, to pay for the improvements to that building. Because
often that is not possible with a historic preservation type of project, and that's
because the cost of historic preservation are, uh..... uh, don't merit the increase in
value as, um, as new buildings do. Um, we would look to the entire district's
increment to be able to help with a project, because of the importance of historic
preservation. And I can maybe say that a little clearer if you need me to. Um,
and then, uh, lastly with regards to historic preservation, there are several, uh,
categories of historic buildings. We mentioned the, uh, registered on the National
Historic, a key building is a special designation in Iowa City, um, that can't be
touched here, and the, um, eligible to be registered on Historic PI .... uh, and the
Register of Historic Places is the third. A fourth is (clears throat) contributing...
excuse me! Contributing properties. And those are ... are projects that, uh, may be
eligible for TIF, um, but, um .... any project involving a contributing property
would have to somehow enhance the historic preservation of the rest of, um, the
block, the rest of the neighborhood downtown. And there is a definition for
contributing property, and we had a lot of discussion around this, just trying to
learn the definition of contributing and I'll share that with you. It is property that
adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make a local or a
national historic district significant. So, um, there are a number of contributing
buildings downtown. Moving along, um, we've had an affordable housing
component to the proposed TIF policy since, uh, May of 2016 and I'll just go over
that. Um, it is that TIF projects in any urban renewal area, and we have 12 of
those in Iowa City, uh, with a res ... with a residential component must provide a
minimum of 15% of the units that are built as part of the development as
affordable to tenants at or below 60% of the area median income. The City can
also require that that .... that that threshold be lower, but the ... the policy as it is
stated has 60%. If those affordable units are built for sale, in other words if a
developer is coming in and going to be putting, uh, building condos that will be
for sale and they're affordable, uh, and ... and in meeting their affordability
requirement, are going to be selling them, they must sell them to people who are
at no higher than, uh, or who are at or above 110% of. ... sorry! At or below 110%
of the area median income. Um, there are a couple of alternatives as well to
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providing affordable housing if you are receiving tax increment financing, and
one is, uh, to pay a fee in lieu of providing those 15% on site, and that may be, uh,
a necessity due to perhaps the size of the property or other constraints there might
be. Another might be to profor... to provide the affordable housing in, um, a site
that is elsewhere, off site, and either of those alternatives would be at the sole
discretion of the City. So there would be a lot of discussion around why a
developer would not be able to provide those on site. And I thought I would just
review that in Riverfront Crossings District you know there is already a
requirement that 10% of the residential units in a development be, uh, be provided
as affordable, just for being in that district. That was a, uh.... that was a
requirement that was put on when, um, Riverfront Crossings allowed for an
increase in density. Well if a residential project in Riverfront Crossings is also
re ... receiving TIF, then their requirement is to provide 15% of the resident ... uh,
the residential units as affordable and .... and above that, the, uh, part of the
financial gap that would be covered by TIF, or considered by TIF, is only the part
above that first required 10% by zoning. Moving on to social justice, um, we, uh,
the Committee discussed that there would be absolutely no incentives to any
entity that was involved in wage theft. And that also had been a policy since
some time in 2016 I bet. Uh.....and then, uh.....agreements for any incentives,
um, must include the construction con... contract for the construction of the
building, and there are several components that would be required to be proven in
that contract, and I won't read those over. It's getting a little late. Uh, but I'm
sure Eleanor might be able to help answer questions with regards to the, uh,
construction contract aspects of the, uh, TIF policy there. Um, we have a quality
jobs section and, um, this, uh, part of the TIF policy is actually, uh, reflective of
the State of Iowa's High Quality Jobs Act where, um, if the State is considering
helping a project that says `we need help with this project because we're bringing
a lot of great jobs to the community,' they must meet a certain threshold, and uh,
that is a, uh, wage rate, uh, to be considered eligible for those State funds. Well,
the same would go for, um, the TIF policy in Iowa City, that if you are saying
`because I'm bringing 50 fantastic jobs to Iowa City, I, uh, and my company
deserve TIF,' then we're going to hold you .... one of the things we're going to
hold you to would be that .... that wage threshold. For TIF, uh, moving on to
number seven, other public interests, um, TIF .... it was deemed that, um, TIF
could be a good tool to help us build what is so special and unique about Iowa
City, and in part that has to do with our arts and cultural activities and the
facilities that ... that house those. Uh.... uh, we wanted to, uh, the Committee
wanted to make sure that, urn .... because TIF is, uh, generated by the projects that
have high value, um, and there's much benefit to the community to be had from
those, that the arts and cultural organizations, um, might find a way to benefit
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from that as well. So the Committee, uh, wrote this in. Likewise historic
preservation, we mentioned that before in the historic preservation section. Um,
and also public improvements that serve as a catalyst for economic development
of an area. And the one I can think of, um, would be, uh, the Riverfront Crossings
Park and the new value that is being created right now around the, um, the edges
of Riverfront Crossings Park, uh, could be if the City were to decide to use it, um,
that new value could be used to help pay for some of the improvements in that
park. And thus serving as a catalyst or, um, generating further and more interest
in developing that area. And then lastly, um, to, uh, be considered for, uh, tax
increment financing, um, we have a ..... we have an underwriting policy, um, that
includes submitting a complete application from the very beginning and within
that application substantiating why, uh... you as a developer would not be able to
do this project if it weren't for TIF, and we've often called that the `but for'
clause. Gotta come up with a better name for that, but, um, it essentially says
that, uh, but for the .... the City's assistance with public financing, we would not
be able to go forward with this project, um, and that also requires (clears throat)
that all other financial pieces of that project be in place for us to, uh, consider that.
Also, uh, another feature of this is that the developer equity be at least as much or
more than the request of TIF. So, we're asking for at least as much skin in the
game as you might be getting back from your city to do your project. Um, and in
general that our tax increment financing projects be project -based and I had talked
about the difference a few minutes ago about, uh, project -based TIF where the
new improvement of the one building be built, uh, the new value I should say,
um, generate.... generates enough, uh, property tax increase to help with the City's
partitio .... participation in that. That's a project -based TIF as opposed to a
district -wide TIF where we might say, for instance, let's talk about all the
increment in say downtown and use that for some public project. That would be a
district -wide TIF, as opposed to a project -based TIF. So those are the eight
points, uh, and the recommended policies that the Economic Development
Committee approved 2-1 on October 19a' and I would, uh, be happy to answer any
questions or if you wanted to skip to the desired height map, I would be happy to
do that as well.
Throgmorton: Are ... are there any questions for Wendy about what she's discussed so far? You
want to jump to the map?
Ford: Questions or .... discussion?
Throgmorton: You're just pointing it out to us, right? This is the desired height map that
appears in the downtown and Riverfront Crossings, uh.....plan, right?
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Ford: Yep!
Throgmorton: Page 106, if I remember correctly.
Ford: Exactly!
Throgmorton: Okay. Thank you, Wendy. Would anybody else like to address this topic?
Mims: Before we do that, Jim, just as a .... a point of reference. This is not a regular...
this is not a public hearing. Normally we get the motion on the floor first and I
think it's important to let people know that at our .... work session tonight, while
we did not vote, I believe the consensus at the work session is that we are in fact
going to defer this. I think it's important for people to know that. Um, that may
impact what people want to say tonight versus what they might want to say at our
next meeting. (both talking)
Throgmorton: Yeah. Fair enough, sure! So, yeah, during the work session I recommended that
we defer a vote on this particular topic to our November 21 .... 215 meeting. Uh,
but we want to solicit.... input tonight, hear what y'all have to say, then we'll have
discussion, but we're not gonna vote. We're gonna defer action to the November
21 ` meeting.
Mims: And we will take input on the 21st as well, correct?
Throgmorton: Sure, correct! Good evening, Bill.
Gerhard: Good evening (clears throat) (both talking)
Throgmorton: Yeah we can't talk about this stuff you and I talked about before! (laughs)
Gerhard: That's right! (laughs) I'm Bill Gerhard. I live in Iowa City. I'm the President of
the Iowa State Building Trades and I think I was part of at least one focus group
and I know a lot of work went into this, uh, this TIF proposal, but I think, uh,
deferring it until the next meeting's a great idea. It gives a lot of the stakeholders
one more chance to look things over and .... and, uh, I appreciate you considering
that. So thank you.
Tbrogmorton: Thanks, Bill.
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Casko: Good evening, Council Members, I'm Kim Casko, uh, President and CEO of the
Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, uh, and I second Bill's comments. Um,
we definitely support a delay of the vote until the next meeting on November 2151.
Again, it'll allow the key stakeholder groups more time to review this lat... latest
draft, uh, present concerns, alternate proposals and hopefully work toward
consensus. Uh, thank you.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Kim. Martha again!
Norbeck: Uh, hi, my name is Martha Norbeck and I'm speaking to you now as a, uh, a
architect who has facilitated, uh, certi.... LEED certification on, uh, 29 projects as
of today. Uh, the Dental Science Building, phase two, just go gold certification
today! So that's exciting. Um, so I'm very familiar with the ins and outs of
LEED and um, I am pleased to see LEED on the table as a discussion item. I
want to address some, uh, comments I have heard (mumbled) some
directly... some indirectly, um, about some confusion about LEED. So one thing
that came up with the approval of the Hieronymus Square project, for that TIF,
was, `Oh, well they're doing Green Seal, uh, gold certification for hotels.' That is
fantastic. But I will tell you that it is not the same as LEED. It does not get you
the same value as LEED. The Green Seal standard for hotels was established to
help existing hotels primarily develop operation standards that are more green.
And if you read through the details of that, which of course I did because I'm
obsessed about these things, and so I read through the whole shebang and the
nuance is is that they applaud you getting LEED certification, they applaud higher
energy efficiency standards, but you can actually get Green Seal gold with meek
energy performance. All they really require is that you have to measure it and
keep track of it and at least strive to improve it, which means you could build a
building that just barely meets the energy code and still get Green Seal gold! So
although that is a fantastic program, especially for a hotel, and ... and there's all
sorts of merits to pursuing that, it's not the same as LEED. The value of LEED is
that it is comprehensive in multiple categories of green performance. So you're
not just looking at energy, because carbon isn't only through a .... a ..... an issue
through how we actually operate our buildings. It has to do with where they are.
It has to do with how we treat the landscape. It has to do with how we manage our
water. Ub, water usage, 75% of the .... of the cost of our water actually is paying
for the pumps to move it around. So saving water actually saves energy. How we
get our materials and make our materials, what they're made out of. Those have
carbon impacts. So all these things have climate impacts, and then there's the
people in the buildings and so LEED is addressing the welfare of the people
actually in the buildings, because if we're not happy and healthy and productive,
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how we gonna go out there and address climate action, because we won't have the
energy to do it cause we're too tired from the crappy air in our spaces. So better
indoor air quality is gonna yield better results for the people at large, and that's
why LEED is valuable, is because that comprehensive view. And the reason why
the eight energy efficiency points came on the table is because, um, if you look at
the average energy performance of buildings that go through the Mid American
energy efficiency program for commercial new construction, the average
performance over time has been 30% for all projects. And so the eight energy
efficiency points.... credits are for 20%. So we're not even saying you have to be
average. We just want you to get, you know, kind of in the direction of average.
So by setting that threshold, we're sending a signal that it's important to care
about the performance of the building. That the City is committed to climate
action, and that's the purpose, and then I want to address, uh, cost because cost
is.....people throw out crazy numbers. There's all sorts of rumors. But study
after study after study has been done, and you should be able to get a LEED
certified building for the same construction cost as a non-LEED certified building.
There are some additional soft costs, so they're lookin' at half a percent to I%
premium on average for buildings. Anybody can screw up a budget and balloon
costs and then you've got these outliers that make things sound crazy. We've all
got exceptional stories, but I've done project after project where we have drilled
down and taken opportunities to get savings to basically pay for some of these
extra things, like commissioning, which is basically having a third -party person
come in and check out and make sure your building's operating the way you
intended it to operate. So LEED is a really valuable thing and one part of LEED
that I think really gets to this map that I think is important is that we do want
density downtown. We want people downtown, living and working and playing.
We want that diversity. I'm not convinced that this map is the right tool .... to
convey that. I don't know what the problem we've all been having in these
discussions is, `Well what isT I don't know! One of the options that's been
thrown on the table is pursuing discussions about form -based code being adopted
downtown. And that may be good direction to go. But what I'm excited about is
these conversations that have been going.....on between stakeholders in the last
few weeks, trying to hash out amongst ourselves. Like how can we come to a
happy resolution, um, and move forward on this. So I'm very enthusiastic about
those conversations that are happening, and I know that you guys have struggled a
great deal with how to express this, and how to make the building heights
conveyed in a way that satisfies many people and I would hate to see all these
other seven principles be sidelined as a result of this map. So I'm hoping in these
next few weeks we can come up with some great ideas. So thank you.
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Throgmorton: Thank you, Martha. Who's next? Good evening, Nancy.
Bird: Nancy Bird with the Iowa City Downtown District. I had some things prepared
but I'm just gorma go with what Martha just said and just leave it at that.
(laughter) So thank you very much.
Throgmorton: What she said! (laughs)
Cole: Ditto!
Throgmorton: Anyone else? Okay, seeing no one else, uh, I think we now will have a
discussion. Now remember, we're not voting (laughs) after this discussion.
We'll have a motion to defer.
b) Consider a Resolution
Mims: I'll move to defer.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: We gonna do it that way?
Mims: Yeah. That's the way we normally do it.
Throgmorton: All right, uh, moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. Well, defer, uh....
Mims: To the 2151(both talking)
Throgmorton: .... subsequently we will have discussion tonight.
Mims: That's fine.
Throgmorton: Yeah. Okay, uh.... motion, uh, motion's made by Botchway, seconded by .... no!
By Mims, seconded by Botchway. All in favor say aye. Or do we have to do roll
call? Yeah. Motion carries. Okay. So.....discussion? I'm gonna say a few
opening, uh, things and hear what the rest of you say about various elements. I
am tremendously proud about the process we followed in generating the proposed
amendments. Also curious to see what might come out of the discussions that
Martha and Nancy just alluded to. This may well be the most expensive,
not .... sorry! The most extensive and transparent effort at devising a policy that
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any Iowa City City Council has ever undertaken. First the Economic
Development Committee has been working on proposed revisions for about 15
months. Secondly, the staff conducted extensive focus group interviews with nine
different types of stakeholders, uh.... uh, totaling somewhere around 65
individuals. Some of whom are in the room. Third, influenced by the
information collected during these focus groups, the Economic Development
Committee, with terrific staff assistance, began crafting policy amendments
roughly eight months ago. Fourth, in seven meetings over that eight-month
period, the Committee proposed and refined amendments, considered written
commentary received from diverse stakeholders, debated various detailed
modifications, and finally on October the 19a' recommended approval of the
amendments before us. And last, all of the Committee's meetings were held in
these chambers, were televised live on Cable Channel 4, and were available for
streaming on our Cable, uh, on our, you know, web site, as well, later on .... by
anybody who wanted to view, uh, what was going on during these meetings. I'm
tremendously proud of that, uh, very visible, very transparent, and uh, we have
listened to a lot of people and read a lot of commentary and had a lot of extensive
consultation and debate. Uh, I'm.....I'm not gonna say anything about the
substance at the moment, maybe other people want to weigh in on particular
elements, and then we can continue having our discussion. So.....
Thomas: Well I would like to .... second, Jim, uh, your comments, you know, the .... the
process was as extensive as anything certainly I've seen since I've been in Iowa
City, uh, and I appreciate all the involvement in the community as well. I mean
this was really trying to capture the complexity of questions of, um, how do we
move forward in the downtown, um, so I really appreciate that and I think, you
know, we as Council are now faced with trying to make sense out of all of these
points of view, um, that are diverse, that weigh things differently, uh, so I .... I
think it's a good example of what may end up being kind of. ... you know, politics
is about finding compromise, finding a middle ground. Some piece of ground that
everyone can feel some level of ownership with, at least that's the way I'm
looking at it at this point.
Cole: Well I'm gonna echo Jim's comments. Um .... before we talk about some of the
disagreements that we had on the Committee, I think the one thing that I really
wanna identify is the agreement that we have. Um, we essentially had eight
different areas and seven of the eight we really had broad consensus on. So I'm
very pleased with that. Um, and then we have a difference over heights, and I
think ... I know that that's been a big issue for the community. I think the key issue
we have to really understand though is that it's not only downtown stakeholders
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that should have input. It really needs to be the community as a whole. This is a
place that we all really love, the whole state of Iowa loves our downtown, and I
think we need to proceed very carefully before we make significant changes, and I
think what this map does is is this really identifies a point of shared consensus to
start with. Um, I think one of the things that came up in our meetings during
Economic Development Committee is to say that this map can never be changed,
um, I don't think certainly was my intention, but this is a starting point for
consensus. The last time the community has really weighed in in a
comprehensive fashion was in generating this map, um, and as I look at it, there
are .... there are parts of it maybe that could be tweaked here and there, and the
other thing to keep in mind is this is not a regulatory code. This is a starting point
which can be deviated if there are extraordinary public benefits. So I'm hoping
that from this point, uh, to the 21" of November that we can come through and
identify, you know, some.... some, if there are some improvements that you can
come up with, let us know, engage us, um, we're here to serve you and to listen to
you. So I hope that you'll do that over these next two weeks and give any one of
the Councilors a call and give us feedback directly, um, because that's what our
role and that's what our responsibility is.
Botchway: So I'll say two things before I guess we go into deeper discussion, and I'm not I
guess sure on that from a process standpoint, but so I would agree. I appreciate
you kind of starting with that, Jim, cause I think that, you know, I would agree
from a deliberative process standpoint there's been an extensive amount of time
with the discussions and such, um, and also just appreciate the articulation kind of
going through, you know, the months and the meetings, cause I think that's
important for .... as we move forward. Uh, I would just say in general from, you
know, uh, Miss Ford's kind of, urn .... uh, just discussion and analysis, I .... I do
think it helps with some clarity, cause I know that some of the concerns that I've
received and just been thinking about how we've deliberated over projects when
they've involved TIF financing, um, it's been tough because I think that, you
know, I have my own kind of, uh, you know, metrics or decision-making that I go
through and process, and I think this provides some greater clarity to all our
developers or, um, in regards to, um, what exactly Council will be looking for as
we move forward in regards to TIF, and so, um, I guess those are two comments I
want to make, but I just think it's .... it's helpful from that standpoint to just have a
clear message and I think that has been the resounding feedback that I've gotten,
um, at least that we've kind of come to this point that we can articulate a better
message from that standpoint.
Throgmorton: Anyone else?
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Mims: I'll just reserve my comments for two weeks from now.
Throgmorton: Okay. Uh, I'd like to say .... make one substantive comment. With regard, I
mean .... Rockne correctly stated that, uh, of the eight elements, the Economic
Development Committee unanimously supported seven of them, with one mi...
one detail havin' to do with LEED silver. There was, uh, you voted for... against
the idea of having LEED silver with eight energy efficiency points?
Mims: Right.
Throgmorton: Right. Uh, but other than that (both talking)
Mims: And the height!
Throgmorton: Yeah, right, I was gettin' to that. So, other than that there was no disagreement.
There is clearly with regard to the height. So, uh, this is what I want to be clear
about from my point of view on this. The proposed policy says, this is almost
verbatim, but it's.... it's close enough. Except under extraordinary circumstances,
applicants seeding.... seeking TIF downtown must ensure that their projects fall
within the desired height ranges shown in the Downtown, Riverfront Crossings
master plan, that map, but .... it also provides a pathway for considering deviations
from the map in that plan if the applicant demonstrates, one, that the proposed
building and uses will help fulfill the overall vision of the plan by facilitating
architecturally, material, and financially the preservation and enhancement of
adjacent or nearby historic structures, if applicable, and second, that the proposed
building will provide exceptional public benefits. And the policy provides as, uh,
Wendy said clear examples of what might count as exceptional public benefits,
but it also leaves creative developers with the ability to propose other exceptional
public benefits that clearly help foster an inclusive, just, and sustainable city. So
there's no ban, you know, on height and all that. There are pathways that could
be followed, but there's steps that a .... a developer would have to go through, to
make it through that pathway. So, uh.... uh.....I don't think there's any need to go
into other detail about this. I look forward to hearing what, uh, what you folks,
uh, possibly come up with in these consultations you're having, uh, on, you know,
sidebar consultations. Could be a great benefit! So, uh.... with that I think we
can, uh.... end our conversation about this and we've already made the motion and
deferred, right? Okay.
Botchway: One second! Media, in the back, write about it. Let's get that out there!
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Throgmorton: All right, uh, could I have a motion to accept correspondence please?
Botchway: So moved.
Mims: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Mims. All in favor say aye. Opposed.
Motion carries.
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Item 9.
Botchway:
Thomas:
Rental Permit Requirements - Ordinance amending Title 17, entitled
"Building And Housing," Chapter 5, entitled "Housing Code," to establish a
rental permit cap and to strengthen the minimum requirements for rental
housing. (First Consideration)
Move first consideration.
Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Thomas. Uh, discussion? So we'll start with
Stan Laverman. Good evening, Stan.
Laverman: Good evening, Council! Uh, Stan Laverman, Senior Housing Inspector. So I'll
walk you through this a little bit. So as you all know, uh, this spring the State
removed our ability to regulate occupancy in our neighborhoods based on familial
status. Uh, through, uh, much discussion and much research, uh, this is the plan
that we are putting forward, uh, at this time. Um .... do you want to wait for
questions to the end or do you want to ask questions at the different sections or...
Throgmorton: Oh .... I don't know (both talking)
Mims: Let's do it by sections.
Laverman: Okay! So the first thing that we're proposing is....
Botchway: Can you click close? I just feel weird about it. Sorry!
Laverman: (laughs) There we go! That's a little bit better! Uh, we're talking about
establishing a rental permit cap, um, in this area, in the delineated area, the green
area. Urn .... so we're looking at any time that, uh, there are more than 40%, uh, of
the properties in this area above, um, that have a rental permit, that no more rental
permits would be permitted. Uh, currently.....(mumbled) go to the other map
here .... there are six, uh, districts that exceed the 40%, which is, uh, on the west
side, Brooklyn, Roosevelt, uh, River Crossings West, River Crossings East,
Bowery, College Green, and the Northside. Uh, there are certain exceptions, uh,
to that cap, such as duplexes where one side is owner -occupied and the other side
is rental. Approved bed and breakfast homes, stays, and inns, which'd also be
Airbnb type uses, and accessory dwelling units. Um, the boundaries were based
on the open space district, uh, which were .... those districts were created in 1993
and updated in .... um, 2006. There was some, urn .... discussion earlier on about,
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uh, different neighborhoods and the fringe neighborhoods of where they fall on
this map, uh, specifically Goosetown, uh, finds itself, uh, on the edge, and
included into, um, the Hickory Hill neighborhood, and in turn, uh, while, um, the
Northside is at 58%, Goosetown would be at 30.8%. So, um, I know there was
some discussion there, and there was also some discussion, um, on, um, Bur ... or
on Governor Street, uh... and how that falls in the Longfellow neighborhood.
So ..... (both talking)
Dilkes: Just to clarify, staff didn't have those discussions. Those are things that have
come up since this came out.
Throgmorton: Yeah, why don't you .... why don't you keep on going (both talking)
Laverman: Uh.... after, urn .... we've also looked at creating a temporary rental permit under
limited circumstances. Uh, you know, if you've owned the property for more
than two years, or excuse me, we didn't put that in there. Sorry! Uh, that we
would issue a temporary rental permit for two years, uh, in situations where you
were on sabbatical, military leave, or some other substantial similar reason. Uh,
essentially just creating a safety valve, um, for situations that, uh, we could
foresee where, uh, people may have to move out of a neighborhood and were
having trouble selling their property, or didn't want to sell a property. This would
be a safety valve that would allow them to keep the property and rent it on a
temporary basis. Uh, additionally we're looking at, uh.....creating a maximum
percentage of bedroom space that could be created within a dwelling. Um, this
number was derived from a study done by the National Association of
Homebuilders, uh, that showed that bedrooms in total account for roughly 27% of
floor space, irrespective of home size. So, small homes, medium-sized homes,
large homes, typically the bedroom size is 29%. We put a cap at 35% to give us
some wiggle room since that's an average. Um, again, urn .... uh, this was to ... uh,
prevent defacto rooming houses from being, um, created in our single household
neighborhoods. In addition there was a .... a minimum requirement of shared
living space, uh, that would be required in each dwelling unit. Uh, for each
hundred square foot of bedroom there'd be a hundred square feet of. ... of shared
living space. Additionally, we're looking at establishing a minimum bedroom
size for rental units, and this is to discourage, uh, properties from being chopped
up into very small bedrooms, eliminating living rooms, uh, dining rooms. Um,
we felt that a hundred square foot bedroom was a more manageable, livable
bedroom size. Um, additionally there's some changes that will come forward in
the zoning code, uh, that will partner with this, uh, that will assess with this .... this
part of it. Uh, requiring interconnected smoke alarms, uh, currently if you build a
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property, uh, residential property, all the smoke alarms are required to be
interconnected. Uh, we're proposing that if you're adding bedrooms to existing,
um, rental properties, that all the smoke alarms in the dwelling are interconnected.
Uh, this is just an enhanced safety feature as you increase occupancy. Um,
looking at requiring deadbolt locks on all dwelling unit doors, uh, this was
requested by the University of Iowa Student Government. Uh, this is also just
a .... a opportunity to increase safety in our dwelling units. Um, moving on, uh,
requiring a rental permit for owner -occupied dwellings with more than one tenant.
Um .... moving forward, uh, the occupancies are changing. So currently if you had
an owner -occupied property, um, one person living there, you could have two
roomers. Um, moving forward there's gonna be a possibility that you're gonna
have higher occupancies in some of these properties. Uh, this is just a tool that
allows us to verify that these properties are being maintained in a safe manner and
according to our housing code, and will allow us to, um, verify compliance with
the housing code. Uh, and then another component of it is enhance rental permit
sanctions. Currently we look at a 12 -month window for nuance violations, uh,
disorderly house, disorderly conduct type charges, alcohol-related charges at a
property. We're looking at, uh, expanding that out to 24 months. Additionally, in
our code, we had a provision that said we would look at other nuisance
complaints related to a property, related to parking on the grass, um ... not
shoveling the walk, um, not mowing the grass, uh, we're going to be looking at
the property for a 24 -month period now, as opposed to a 12 -month period. Um,
so again, where you have properties that they're not well managed, they will
come into, uh, our purview a little bit closer and give us a little more authority to,
uh, require our property maintenance program or some sort to ... help them fit into
the neighborhood. Uh, at one time we had a .... a spacing requirement, or we were
looking at recommending a spacing requirement between, uh, rental properties,
um, both the Council and the HCDC Committee, uh, expressed concern about the
effect it'd have on affordable housing. Uh, HCDC did not support the minimum
spacing requirement, um .... it just would impose another layer of restriction on
where affordable rening... rental housing could be located. Uh, the affordable
housing location model, adopted by City Council, currently limits where the City
will financially support additional rental opportunities. Due to those concerns,
staff is not recommending the spacing requirement. I would answer any questions
you might have!
Throgmorton: I'd like to start with one. The ... the staff is recommending a 40%, uh, rental cap?
Laverman: Yes!
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Throgmorton: Uh, for the neighborhoods. Why 40% instead of 30, 35, 45?
Laverman: So we looked at our neighborhoods.....um.....and we looked at those percentages
and we, uh, took an educated guess on what we consider healthy, vibrant
neighborhoods, and you know you've got that 30%, you look at Longfellow at
30%. I think there's no argument that that's a stable, healthy, you know, vibrant
neighborhood. Um .... Northside, I think you have a lot of pressures at 58%. So
looking in between there, urn ..... we chose 40%.
Dilkes: I think just to ... to add to that, if. ... I think your focus really needs to be on the heat
map and so.....it shows the .... the concentration of nuisance and noise complaints,
and if you look at the neighborhoods that..... are clearly affected by that, urn, kind
of the out.... outer... the upper number is 54% and then if you look at
neighborhoods that, um, seem to be healthy, like Longfellow, you've got a 30%.
So that's where we put .... that's why we came up to looking at between 30 and
54%. You know.....
Thomas: Do we know of any neighborhoods that are at 40%? I mean the .... the percentages
we have on our districts are .... in my mind there's quite a difference between....
you know, a district in the high twenties versus 58% in the Northside.
Laverman: No, I mean the map is up there. We don't have any that are right at 40%.
Thomas: Well I know that (mumbled) if you had done .... did you do any finer grain
analysis, say within .... you know, what .... what we've talked about is the, um....
you know where Goosetown is tied into .... to that larger district with subdivisions
to the east.
Laverman: Yep, we did some analysis (both talking)
Thomas: Do we know what the rental ... what the rental (both talking)
Laverman: ....got into that fine a detail or dividing out any neighborhoods smaller than that.
Botchway: So I have a question around.... around the, uh, creates a temporary rental permit.
Um, so I've been talkin' to some .... folks that, um, and Iowa City tend to leave for
the winter. Uh, wish I could do that myself. Um, but they were, you know
(mumbled) substantially similar reason. Would individuals fall under that
particular category when we're talking about folks that leave for the winter and
then come back?
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Laverman: Um, yes. I think we (both talking) I think we at one time even included that in the
memo, but it's not .... it's not in there, but that .... that would be a reason, yeah.
Botchway: Okay.
Throgmorton: Yep!
Mims: What about the issue somebody who's moving out, Stan, and hasn't got their
house sold, but wanted to keep it rented. Would we consider that .... (mumbled)
reason? (several talking) Well, I mean ..... (several talking)
Laverman: Yeah, and there's all sorts of different circumstances, you know, related to that.
Mims: I guess I would just throw (both talking)
Laverman: .....market conditions, yep (both talking)
Mims: .......possible one, yeah.
Dilkes: The controlling factor on that one is it can't be more than two years.
Mims: Okay!
Dilkes: I .... I think that's what's gonna.....(both talking)
Mims: Sure!
Dilkes: .....check.
Botchway: So, um, going to the (coughing, difficult to hear speaker) rental permit sanctions,
um, and increasing that to 24 months overall. You know, my questions I have
are, you know, what are the fines for, you know, rental permit use in this sense
and could this lead to the rejection of the rental permit, I mean, and so if. ... what's
that criteria as far as, you know.....if it gets to a certain sense, I mean we have our
heat map here from a nuisance standpoint. I think I asked this question before but
just kind of articulating it again.
Laverman: Sure! Yeah.
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Botchway: What is kind of the threshold?
Laverman: Right, so currently, uh, after two complaints you're required to come in for a
hearing, uh, where we spell out to the tenants and the landlord exactly what will
happen if there's a third. Uh, I envision that if there is a third, that we're going to
require like a .... a property maintenance plan that's put in place. So depending on
the severity of what has happened, the .... the nuisances that are taking place, you
know, is it, you know, the tenants aren't mowing the lawn. Is it the tenants not
shoveling the walk? That there.... there's ways to remedy that. That's pretty easy
for the landlord to take control of. Um, up .... and to including evicting the tenants
and putting a different group of tenants in there. Um, but it could be as simple as
they're providing lawn mowing service for this property because the tenants they
have in there aren't capable of performing that task. So, um, that will be spelled
out and that procedure will be spelled out between now and July. This provision
will go into effect July 151 and on July I" we're not looking back at the previous
12 months or any of that to see the complaints. Everybody will have a fresh start
July I" to move forward and, uh, make sure that everybody's on the same page as
far as what the expectations are for the management companies and for the
landlords. I kind of envision it if. ... if you're not managing your property, you're
probably going to fall victim to this, but .... good landlords aren't going to have a
problem with this.
Fruin: And if I could jump in there, if you recall when the .... when the, um, State
legislature was debating this item, um, what they frequently told cities who were
sayin', `Time out, this is not a smart move. Here's all the problems that we're
seein' and we're gonna continue to see,' they said, `You just .... you already have,
uh, the authority to deal with those, whether it's noise, trash, litter, parking.'
They told us, `You just need to enforce what's on the books. You don't need this
occupancy, uh, regulation, um, to be able to do that.' So .... I feel like if we're
gonna do anything in response to this, it has to be increased enforcement and this
is piece.....this is a piece of it. Uh, we've also talked to you about increasing
inspections and .... and actually increasing staff, um, to do more proactive
inspections. You're not considering that tonight, but that is still coming.
Cole: (both talking) Go ahead!
Throgmorton: I'd like to ask a clarifying question that might be of benefit to people watching
this on TV or in the audience. Uh, am I correct in understanding that for the sixth
districts that exceed the recommended rental cap, that people, landlords who
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currently have permits for their rental units will retain them un.....unless they do
somethin' wrong or (both talking)
Laverman: Right, as long as they remain in good standing they will retain their rental permit.
Throgmorton: Yeah, it's only new rental permits.....
Laverman: Correct!
Throgmorton: .... that would be affected by the (both talking)
Laverman: Correct!
Throgmorton:.....the cap, right? Okay.
Fruin: And that's (several talking) for single-family, duplexes.
Mims: And that would include upon the sale of a property?
Laverman: Correct.
Cole: Were you able to, um, calculate the percentage rentals in the Goosetown
neighborhood in terms of what, um, what that looked like?
Laverman: Uh, we were not. That came in to us late, but I think that's something we're
going to have to take into consideration.
Mims: You know, that's.... that's one concern I have with.....when you look at this, I
know when you're looking at this heat map that's where we're getting the most
complaints, but I guess.....a concern I have and I don't know if there's a good
way to address it. When you.....look at just across the boundaries from the areas
that are over the 40%, and so now you can no longer get any rental.....any new
rental permits in those areas, the increased pressure for rental permits immediately
outside of those areas. I .... I don't know if there's a good solution, but I .... before
we get done with this, it's something I want us to think about a little bit more, and
I ... and I (both talking)
Throgmorton: Yeah, I agree. You know, just.....just yesterday I was walking on Dewey Street
and North Summit Street....
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Mims: Uh huh.
Throginorton: .... and in fact I saw the Mayor of Dewey Street, uh, along the way, talked with
her a little bit. Uh, but what .... what I'm inclined to think, and we'll have to
debate this, is that instead of using 40% as the cap, we use 35% as a cap. That
would mean there could be some spillover of new rental units into adjacent
neighborhoods, but ... at least that .... the Hickory Hill neighborhood and whatever
the other one is, the 30.7%, would hit the 35% cap fairly quickly if there's a big
shift of rental units in their direction. And my sense is there's not any substantive
or legally meaningful difference between 40% and 35% in terms of the .... the
reasoning that you're using involving the heat maps in .... in relation to the, uh, the
rental caps.
Dilkes: You know what I would suggest is that you get public comment before you start
forming your conclusions. I....
Throgmorton: Just tossing out an idea.
Dilkes: (both talking) I understand that, but I think that, you know, some of these issues
(both talking) have arisen since staff had their deliberations and (both talking)
Throgmorton: Right.
Dilkes: ....you should let the people who have those concerns tell you why, cause some of
that may form the basis on which you make a change.
Tbrogmorton: Good point.
Mims: Okay.
Throgmorton: Any other questions for Stan?
Laverman: I think it's important to point out, um, that .... the cap is for single-family and
duplex units only. The .... multi -family units are not .... under that cap.
Botchway: Yeah .... I'll (both talking)
Throgmorton: Anything above three units in the structure (both talking)
Laverman: Correct! Yep!
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Throgmorton: Okay. All right, thank you, Stan! Good evenin'!
Warnock: Let me just see if I can get my PowerPoint up here. There we go!
Throgmorton: Chris, right?
Warnock: Yes, let me just, like I said, get the PowerPoint up and I'll be ready to go.
(mumbled) All right, my name is Christopher Warnock. I represent the
Goosetown Neighborhood Association and I, uh, with my wife own a house in
Goosetown. Um, so .... essentially as you can see from the map here, I've gone
ahead and used the map, you know, where is Goosetown? That's a little bit of a
vexed question, the exact boundaries, um, but essentially on this map you can see
east of Governor, north of Rochester, and then bounded by the, uh, cemetery in
the north and then Hickory Hill. Goosetown is a historic neighborhood, very
diverse, central city neighborhood, and close in to the University, with all the
positives and negatives that you get from that placement. Goosetown
Neighborhood Association strongly supports the rental permit cap. We think this
is an excellent way to protect the diversity of older, close -in neighborhoods like
Goosetown. This is exactly what it's for. We strongly support this innovative
effort, uh, we think it's a fair and reasonable balance. That's what we're looking
for is a balance of interest of stakeholders. What this cap does is maintain a
vibrant mix of rentals and owner -occupied properties. That's what we love about
Goosetown is it has everybody can live there. Now, here's what happened.
When the staff, um, came to do the boundaries, they used the open district
boundaries, and that's a focus on ..... not on neighborhoods, but again on open
district. So we got stuck in with Hickory Hill and so, um, there's no rental cap on
ours, we're below that 40%, uh, cap. If you look here now at the heat map, I
think that's your key map, you can see Goosetown again and we have a profile
that is very similar to Northside. We have older houses, we have this high level
of noise complaints, and other problems. If you look at the other adjoining
neighborhoods, they're further away in Hickory Hill, uh, these are newer
neighborhoods. They're suburban. They have nowhere near the level of rentals
and nowhere near the level of problems of Goosetown. Goosetown really is much
more like Northside, and its only inadvertent, this .... Us was, these boundaries
were selected not because they were looking at the rental cap issue, but just
because they're a completely different purpose. So it's really, um, the reaction
was almost like, `Oops,' when I brought this up. This was not something they
were thinking about. Goosetown is one of those neighborhoods that was .... that
they want to have under the cap. Now, we believe that rentals are already above
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40% in Goosetown. You can walk down a block, you can see every .... every
house on one block will be rentals. Um, with .... with Goosetown and Hickory
Hill, it's uncapped. So if you go west to Governor, frozen; east of Governor then
it's unchecked rentals exactly as, um, Susan was talking about. So that's gonna
put incredibly heavy pressure on Goosetown. If you're a developer or a landlord,
you can say, `Hey, where am I gonna go now? I'm gonna go right into
Goosetown, buy up those older houses, stuff in the rentals,' and we've got the
same problem getting even worse. So we're actually worse off with this rental
cap, if the boundary doesn't get moved. So rather than looking at the percentage,
I think that's a bigger issue. I think 40% makes sense to me politically. All we
need to do for Goosetown is to tweak the boundary. So I think the suggestion
would be to either put us in with Northside or set up a separate Goosetown, uh,
district and I think the thing for the Council to do is direct the staff to take a look
at that, at a granular level, look at Goosetown and say, `We need to make sure
these guys come under the cap. They need the protection of this to maintain that
vibrant neighborhood that they have.' So I think that, again, I .... I think that 40%
makes a lot of sense to me. Um, there's a certain amount of compromise that
goes on. We're gonna have problems with, uh landlords and developers, and I
think that the easiest thing to do is rather than change that for the entire, um,
impact zone, just tweak our district and make sure Goosetown doesn't fall
between the cracks. So I thank you very much for allowing us to speak. We have
a number of other people from Goosetown that, um, would like to speak on this
issue. Thank you very much.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Chris. Good evenin'.
Boyer: Good evening, Council. Um, my name is Christine Boyer. I am a resident in the
Goosetown neighborhood and I'm here also on behalf of the Goosetown
Neighborhood Association, and I just .... was a little alarmed when I saw the
overlay and what I think would be potentially an unintended consequence
of. ... hooking Goosetown in with the Hickory Hill, uh, district overlay. Um, I
think if you're looking at that 40% number, and I believe Hickory Hill district is
at 30.8, then .... that's a close, um, not quite 10%, um, number that would probably
inadvertently end up a lot in the Goosetown neighborhood. So I just wanted you
all to .... be thinking (laughs) about Goosetown and maybe re -discuss this further,
um, but we love our neighborhood and we li... like its diversity. It's a very unique
spot and it is small, but it is ours. So, please, um, you know, revisit this and, uh,
but we do think that the cap generally speaking is a.....is a good plan, so thank
you very much!
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Throgmorton: Thanks, Christine.
Carlson: Hi, I'm Nancy Carlson. I thought I lived in College Green .... until I saw the maps
and now I am told that I live in Hickory Hill! For years College Green included
my, that little section below Goosetown, from Governor to Clapp was part of
College Hill. Now suddenly it isn't! To the east of me, College Green went to
Parsons Street. That's how I've always known my neighborhood. Now it stops at
Muscatine and from Muscatine on, to Parsons, it becomes part of City High. So if
you're looking at this as a 40% cap on these areas, if I were in College Green
there would, which is where I always thought I lived, I would not .... there would
not be any more rentals in my area. But since you have switched the boundaries
around, I am now susceptible to more rental properties in my area. From this I
have come to the conclusion that.....when you deal with boundaries as a way of
determining your 40%, where the boundaries are are very, very important. Let us
look at Longfellow. Now, the Longfellow that I know, according to the
neighborhood, uh, associations of Iowa City is a small section of that. The
Longfellow thing in .... on this map includes Longfellow, part of Creekside, and
part of Eastside. So, if 40% of Longfellow close to downtown suddenly is capped
at 40%, and that's where the .... where it is most likely that the rental people are
going to go in, that means that the people who live out farther are not ever going
to have to worry about having rentals in their area! So the .... how you determine
the districts with the way we have it set up right now makes a really big
difference. It's also true as I said the east part of College Green, that is part of
College Green as I know it, is now in City High. So I would assume that the
rental .... the rentals will continue to Seventh Avenue. That area there are smaller
homes that are less expensive. It hits 50% after Seventh Avenue. The people on
the other side are never going to have to worry about being in ... uh, affected by
rental units. According to the City .... thing, uh, according to the memorandum
that was, uh, done for the, uh, in September.....and, uh, the, uh, study was to
(mumbled) mitigate the impacts of rental housing and increasing occupancy levels
on neighborhood stability, housing affordability, public and tenant safety, urban
congestion, blight, risk to public peace and order, conflicts between rental and
owner -occupied housing, and excessive demands upon public safety,
infrastructure and municipal purposes. I believe that this is our goal. Now does
this mean that this goal is only for certain neighborhoods? Or are we attempting
to have this goal for all neighborhoods? I believe with the 40%, uh, cap .... by
districts, this is going to impact some areas. It will be great for some areas, and it
will impact other areas in a very negative way. You say that you have picked the
40%, um .... yesterday and this morning I read the 582 pages for, uh, this .... for the
issue before, uh, you right now that I am speaking on. In that, uh, the major,
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um.....example was from Winona, Wisconsin....or Winona, Minnesota, I'm
sorry. In 2005, they dec.... they were dealing with this same problem. They
decided that they would put a cap on of 30%. They decided that they
would.... regulate that cap by block. Each block could only have 30% rental units.
There ha ... there were numerous, um, there were some .... uh, court decisions that
questioned this. It was upheld every time. In 2009, they looked over this again to
see if they felt that this was working and did they need to change it. They said no,
this is working very well. We are not going to change it.
Throgmorton: Nancy (both talking) Nancy, could you please wrap it up?
Carlson: My question is, what is the goal of the City ... of the City and the City Council, and
who do they want to protect? Some neighborhoods or do they want to protect all
neighborhoods? Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Nancy.
Wu: Um, hello, I'm Austin Wu. Um, I live on Burlington, Van Buren Street so that
technically put me inside the Bowery neighborhood which I believe on the map
with 82% rentals. Um, anyway I'm a student at the University and I have a
couple concerns with, uh, the proposed rental cap. Uh, the first concern I initially
had is in the long run it would place an artificial, um, cap on housing supply. So
it would effectively create a price floor on rents. So already we know that, um,
like rent is an issue for many students and that this would only further increase it
by restricting the housing supply, and um, my second concern I had was, um,
Mims actually brought this up with the whole entire overspill of. ... potential
overspill of rental properties into further outlying neighborhoods, is that it would
negatively impact, um, walkability in the Iowa City area, um, cause if we look
at .... if we go back to the heat map, if I can do that .... yeah! Um, the highest, the
areas with the highest percent of rental properties are also the ones close to the
downtown campus. So if we had overspill into the lower dens .... lower, um,
neighborhoods further east and west, um, that could potentially increase the
(mumbled) like proportion of students that drive to, uh, class, um, could, you
know, so that would create its own source of problems, and I think it would run
counter to the City's, um, goals of promoting sustainability and walkability in the
area. So, um, I would personally, um, ask that this rental cap not be put in place,
and I actually.... then I actually have one final point, um, many of the concerns
noted, such as, um, poor maintenance or weeds or failure for snow removal, um, I
think the.proposal for the rental cap un ... sometimes unnecessarily blames students
for things that are not necessarily their fault. Um, often times maintenance or
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snow removal or like lawn care, in the lease is, um, mentioned as the
responsibility of the property management company, not the tenants. So I think
you know like often times these complaints aren't, um .... the, like aren't to be
blamed on the tenants but to be blamed on the property management companies
themselves.
Throgmorton: Thank you. Did you say your first name is Austin?
Wu: Uh huh.
Throgmorton: Thanks (both talking)
Wu: And then Wu, W -u.
Throgmorton: Yeah. (several talking in background)
Legel: My name is Emily Legel. I'm a student and I currently live at the comer of
Burlington and Dodge. I'm approaching this from an affordable housing
background. I'm studying urban and regional planning for a master's degree, but
I lived in Iowa City for two years prior as an undergraduate. I'm concerned, like
Austin is, about the effects of the rental cap on the student and the affordable
housing co .... situation. While I'm currently on a half-time assist... teaching
assistantship, and I'm not cost burdened like I was last year when I wasn't on an
assistantship. I was an undergrad working for basically min... University
minimum wage which was lower than Iowa City's unfortunately. I'm worried
that this new cap on rental units will not only create the spillover effects that
people were talking about into other neighborhoods, but just basically make
housing affordability a bigger issue in the downtown area neighborhoods, um,
where is the map here? Um .... I recently did, I've done some neighborhood
studies as part of Jerry Anthony's class, but....we know that .... Iowa City's als
...already facing an affordable housing crisis with nearly 57% of renters in the city
being cost burdened according to research released last year from the Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago, and I think by limiting the number of permits you're
just gonna push what single -families... renters we have in the neighborhoods, like
College Green, like Northside, and Bowery Street, which is .... I guess .... I guess
where I live currently, um, and they're just gonna push `em into different parts of
the city. Also I oppose.....I'm just really opposed to the boundaries of the map in
general. Urn .... uh.....I think it covers basically everywhere where students live
and it's not addressing the fact that the University can only provide 28% of the
housing needs, according to the packet that I read this afternoon. Um, your own
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City planners know that the University while in the 1960s and 50s they provided
all of student housing needs, they currently can only provide 28%. I just think
there's a huge need and I think .... not only from the student side, from the cost
burden side, but also for the families that we want to integrate into these
neighborhoods, like the neighborhood surrounding Horace Mann Elementary for
example. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Emily.
Nelson: Good evening, uh, Benjamin Nelson, City Liaison for the University of Iowa
Student Government. 816 N. Dubuque Street. Um .... so first I just want to
commend the City and the staff for considering, um, these zoning ..... or housing
code changes that improve the quality of life, um, for student housing, notably the
deadlocks. As was mentioned, that was a request from UISG and so we're happy
to see that go through. Um, but then also, uh, the minimum bedroom size at 35%.
That's key, um, we don't need students living in bedrooms as if they're Harry
Potter or something, underneath the staircase. Um, and I .... but I also want to like
kind of make a quick point before I get into my talking points about, um, the ... the
rental permit cap is that this is all being considered in one single block, and so I
would hope.....I would urge any City Councilor who is, um, wanting to kind of
vote yes one way for one initiative but then vote no for another, um, that they
break up the item into multiple items, because it doesn't seem necessary that, um,
while .... while related to housing that they're kind of, uh, joined together in, um,
one item. Uh, so then what that said when we're talking about the rental permit
caps, I think it's important to kind of take a step back and ask like why are we
having.... wanting these rental permit caps? Um, if the answer to that is to, um,
decrease those neighborhoods so that only like X amount, uh, of rental permits in
the neighborhoods are occupied. So if we truly want to get down the Northside
neighborhood to 35% single-family rental units, um, this certainly isn't the way to
go about it. The reason being because all these units are being grandfathered in,
um, and so with that said, I myself will likely be a grandfather before the
Northside neighborhood becomes 35% under this, um, rental code. Uh.... so then
the only logical conclusion for this is that it provides an incentive for landlords to
kind of maintain their properties, and as we're talking about these heat maps, a lot
of them come from noise and nuisance complaints, and those oftentimes can't be
delineated, um, at least to my knowledge. When the map is .... was made, they....
those two things were not delineated, um, that kind of brings up what Austin Wu
was saying earlier in that, you know, if it's a nuisance complaint, if it's something
about snow removal, it's something about grass, that's not really a ......that's not
really what the tenant can.....is expected to handle at least legally speaking, at
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least that's not what their leases, uh, make them do. That would be a landlord
thing. Um, and so with that said, if we have a .... a rental cap period, to a point
where it incentivized landlords to maintain their properties, then I think we will
achieve kind of the goal that we're looking for, that we have livable
neighborhoods that, you know, don't have grass growing six feet tall, um, but
with that said, I don't think it's necessary that we have a rental permit cap as
drastically low as 40 or even 35%. Um, to me as long as we have a binding rental
cap, that is to say if it's below, uh, you know 58% for the Northside
neighborhood, 82% for Bowery, as long as that .... that cap is binding in that the,
uh, the landlords have an opportunity to permanently lose their rental permits,
they will pay attention and as Stan said, if they don't pay attention, then they're
SOL, um, and that's on them. Urn .... so just kind of, just to wrap up, it is getting
late, uh.... or also, I mean, I guess one more point is that the rental permit is also
kind of an inaccurate solution to the problem. I think housing for students are
substitute goods in terms of like where they live. Students look for a proximity to
campus and then price. They don't live in Goosetown or Northside for the same
reasons long-term residents do for their historic nature. They live out there
because it's, uh, affordable, and I think we can like as a community reach an
agreement in that if we promote housing density in say Riverfront Crossings, if
we allow high-rise buildings to be built there, students will flock to those because,
one, it increases supply; two, it allows students to be where they want to be, and
that's close to campus; but then that's a win for the long -tern residents of
Goosetown, Northside, because students are no longer living in their
neighborhoods. They're no longer dealing with the noise complaints. They're no
longer dealing with these issues that are otherwise concentrated with our
demographic, and so I think we can reach a consensus to promote development on
the supply side for students to live, um, and then allowing, uh, rental prices to
subsequently come down. So, uh, that's my two -cents. Thank you very much for
your consideration.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Ben! Good evenin'!
Khalastchi: Hi, guys, I'm Danny Khalastchi. I'm a resident of Goosetown. I live on Reno
Street. Uh, first I just want to thank you guys for all the work you do. Um, I'm
here as has been said before by Chris and Christine that we're concerned as
Goosetown residents, um, about the ways in which the districting has been set up,
such that if, um, this cap moves forward the way that you guys have described it,
and Goosetown is lumped into Hickory Hill, um, will have a 10% room roughly,
um, in which we would increase our, um, rentals, and I think that if we did, as
Ben said, a more granual .... granular I should say, um, look at what was going on
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in Goosetown, you would see it's likely already over, um, 40% of rentals, um, and
I don't want to see the neighborhood that I live and love, um, be disrupted, um,
from the bounce that it has. Um, I've owned my home now for over two years,
um, but I also rented in Goosetown when I first moved back to take my job at
University because I wanted a space, um, that was close enough to walk to
campus, but that I could also participate in that little community and that beautiful
neighborhood. I purchased my home in Goosetown because I love that and I
would not like to see it be overrun with the spillover that, Susan, you were talking
about, and it's something I really hope you take seriously as you consider moving
forward. Thank you very much.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Ben. Not Ben, Chris. Danny! (talking in background)
Buss: Well, as often happens with some of these things there will be unintended
consequences as I'm sure all of you have probably thought about. Um, course
I'm on the other end of town, and before I started buying property over in the
Miller Orchard neighborhood, I can tell you that many of those houses were really
run down. And maybe another concern that you should bring into some of this is
how bout some of the owner -occupied properties? I can drive around and I can
tell ya some of the owner -occupied properties are .... really bad. There's stuff in
the yards. There's.....shingles that are bad, paint jobs that are bad, but there are a
lot of good landlords, and this kind of affects the small person, the person who
has just a couple of houses, um, couple duplexes possibly, and we're not trying to
invade the area, but some of us are trying to actually improve the area. And my
question comes in is if you've got an area that is over your, whatever your
percentage is going to be, and you've got some run down houses but they don't
have a permit on `em. Is there gonna be anything in place where..... for example,
I can come in and buy a property and clean it up and put a rental permit on it.
Because oftentimes if something like this happens, now you buy it but you can't
do anything with it, and in an effort to keep .... in Iowa City's there's never gonna
be affordable rent. You're all kiddin' yourself. That's not gonna happen.
Because of all of the other expenses. And every time you add another layer onto
the landlords, it filters down and affects the tenants. If you have to hire more
housing inspectors, which we can see that all coming, then the rental permits'll go
up and that money's gotta come from somewhere and it's gonna come from the
tenants. So maybe you kinda need to rethink it in reverse, because the City
actually has the tools in place to handle most of these problems. If you gotta
snow removal issue, go out, remove it, bill the owner. A lot of the problems are
on out-of-town owners and the management companies. They gotta management
company, the owners don't even know what's going on. And maybe if you go
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one step over to the owners, maybe that'll help you a little bit. But for the noise
and a lot of these other issues, you've already got those codes in place. You don't
need to add something else. Just get `em out there and get `em to enforce it.
Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Anna. (laughter)
Audia: Good evening, Council Men.... Members. My name is Dominick Audia and I live
on Fairchild Street. Uh, we .... my wife and I Mary, um, just moved into the area,
um, and so we're in .... we are in one of those areas that is a heat zone, and
probably the first week we got the pleasure of meeting Stan. Um, we have a
boarding house right beside our house with six, maybe more, students that live in
it. Um, and I think that enforcement, um, we are for the rental cap, by the way,
um, I'm a strong advocate of enforcement. Um, I really think that we need to
beef that up if we are going to, uh, impose rental caps. Um, parking is an issue.
Um, the fines, $15 parking tickets. That's all they are. For the Hawkeye game,
which was a great victory this weekend, the whole street, Fairchild Street was
packed, all the way from Dubuque Street, all the way to Gilbert. Everybody was
parking on the wrong side and (clears throat) they all just .... first of all it wasn't
enforced. They didn't get tickets. And, um.....um...... you know, I think there's
people parking and .... in the wrong spots, but, um, in terms of the .... the rental
problem in our area, um, I think that there is, it's very hard to enforce. It's very
hard to tell exactly how many .... how many people are in a unit, um, and .... and,
urn .... where exactly or how exactly we can enforce that. So I .... I'd just like to
reiterate that we are definitely in favor of having a rental cap and strong ... or stiffer
enforcements. Thanks.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Dominick. It's nice to see a new neighbor.
Dieterle: Well I, uh, listened to the discussion with great interest and I am in favor of the
rental cap. I think it's too high. I think it oughta be 30%. And, uh, then just see
after a few years how that's working out, and not look at this as a thing if we do it
now and it's that way forever. If you make it 40%, it'll be very difficult to do
anything less. If you make it 40, if you make it 30, um, and you find that that's
not enough, you can always raise the cap. Uh, the other thing is is that I think a
very sensible suggestion was to do this by block, and that gets away from arguing
about these boundaries, and you know, I've lived in the same place, you know, for
a very, very long time, and I .... my precinct has changed and, you know, my
designation of what area I'm living in has changed, and essentially all because of
a bureaucratic reason of some sort, and I think that basically the block -by -block
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makes an awful lot more sense. And I have a lot of sympathy about the students'
problems, but you know I also remember in the days before the parietal rule was
gotten rid of, and we did not have a housing problem then.....because the students
had to live in University housing. And, you know, the real.....the real villain in
this is the State legislature and the University, who have inadequately funded
university housing and expected Iowa City to pick it up. And of course,
entrepreneurs have made money on the students and basically I think the .... the
lady who said that we would never have affordable housing in this town is
probably correct, and as it is you're having people coming in from Williamsburg
and god only knows where to .... to, uh, take jobs here because they simply can't
afford, you know, to live here. And, urn ..... I don't know what the problem there
is, aside from maybe birth control, but uh.... in any event, I'd say go for the more
conservative 30% cap and do it block -by -block and.....and stop the arguing about
where the boundaries go, because I think that that just leads to dissatisfaction.
Nobody's gonna really be happy.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Caroline.
Eastham: My name's Charlie Eastham. 953 Canton Street in Iowa City. I'm here because
I'm a member of the Housing and Community Development Commission, and uh,
you, uh, may have noticed in the staff memo that the, uh, HCDC, uh, considered
this propo.... this proposed, uh, set of policies and ordinances at their meeting on
October 30d. Our meeting for October was, uh, delayed so (clears throat) you
haven't had a chance to see the minutes for that meeting or, uh, to see our
discussion, uh, and our recommendations about, uh, about these proposals. So I
would just ask that the Council, uh.... uh, you may go ahead and take a first
consideration tonight, but at least for your second consider..... consideration that
you, uh, look at the minutes for the HCDC meeting.... meeting, uh, because we
did have some interesting discussions, I think, particularly about the percentage,
uh, cap, uh, proposals. Um, and of course the Commission would be, uh, willing
to do anything else that the Council asked us to do in consideration of these, uh,
these measures. Thanks!
Throgmorton: Thanks, Charlie.
Bailey: Evening .... Regenia Bailey. I'm a.... (both talking)
Throgmorton: Good evening, Regenia.
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Bailey: ...resident of Goosetown and that's why I was originally... came here, but I want to
go back to something that Susan said. I can all .... I can only imagine those, um,
neighbors and neighborhoods that are on the edge that will face that spillover
effect. So as you consider this, really think hard about that because it's .... it's
going to effect ... a lot of places, I mean, Goosetown is about a mile from
downtown. So is Parsons. So .... so are areas on Glendale. Those are attractive
areas. That's an easy .... easy walk, and certainly a ... an easy bike ride to
downtown. And so as you cap those rental, um, permits in those core areas that
you're looking at, that spillover is inevitably going to happen. The reason I live
in Goosetown is because I co ... I could afford to buy a house there. If I were
fighting with developers to purchase that house, there's no way I could have
gotten a house there. So that's also going to be an effect of that spillover. So I
like the idea of the 30%, what Caroline said, is ... is yeah, you can always raise it,
but you're not gonna be able to go down from 40. So instead of fighting about the
neighborhoods, look .... look more broadly, maybe at the districts you've got and
look at a 30% cap. 'Thanks!
Throgmorton: Thank you, Regenia.
Oliveira: (speaking away from mic) ....can't have a meeting without one of the developers
(laughter and several responding) ....large landlords, uh, coming up to talk to you.
My name's Mike Oliveira. I own Prestige Properties. I think we've heard a lot
that would.....warrant the Council to consider tabling this measure for further
review. The things in this, uh, measure that I think need some clarification. I
wish I had an opportunity to ask Stan a few more questions about some of the
clauses in there. Cause there is certain things on the table, on the books,
that .... can cause enforcement to (mumbled) houses. They're very expensive for
the tenants. Believe me, I heard that from, if we get `em (mumbled) couple of
`em last couple years, but the parents are concerned and, uh, rightly so, um,
but ..... having those fines and fees, it's a deterrent and I think when you look at
the map, one of the big issues I have with the .... the map and the noise complaints,
cause I live in the area. I'm three blocks away from campus. You know, I .... I
come back they say, well, you know what the police need to enforce maybe some
more patrols in our neighborhood at night, rather than waiting for calls to come in.
Lot of times they'll say well where's the noise complaint? And I've called `em in
several times! I said well I don't know. I can hear it a block away (laughs) it's so
loud! So I .... I think there're more issues here than just having a cap. I like the
idea, you know, we hadn't had enough time to digest all the things this proposal
because it was laid on the Apartment Association; members only had a few days
to really digest what was coming out of this. You know as far as the City
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Council's concerned, I think that's.... really a challenge. You say you're open,
but we haven't had enough time to get our members to come back here and start
really talking about this. Some things in those Minnesota proposals, I started
goin' through it. My attorneys were goin' through it today. We were jammin'
tryin' to get prepared for this meeting. I gotta tell ya, there hasn't been enough
time. Some things about the block -by -block makes sense, districting .... I .... I'm
not so sure. But I .... I can tell you that some of the proposals here that were
thrown out, they sound good, don't make sense. For example the duplexes, of
telling the duplex owners that they have to partition the .... the.....the units, uh,
that they can't be adjoining. There's some duplexes that are up and downstairs,
that they share a common hallway! They may share a common laundry. Those
things.... this.... this ordinance doesn't make sense! I think that needs to be back
and reviewed and talked about, try to figure out what the ultimate goals are. The
lock issue, on some of my older homes, where I have families in those units, they
want deadbolts on `em? I understand where some of the students in those bigger
houses want that, but my historic houses, some on the Northside, I gotta tell ya,
I'm gonna be cryin' puttin' a .... a deadbolt in some of those doors! I think we
gotta consider the cost! Now it's about a hundred dollars to put that deadbolt in,
on all these rental units. Now where's that cost gonna go? Everybody's talkin'
about affordability! There ya go, it's gonna go up! Stan's talkin' about more
inspectors. More rental inspections! Per year! Then we're gonna go down from
two years to one year? Well I gotta tell ya, I can .... I know what the cost is! It's
gonna add $10 per person in that rental unit per month. Because I gotta put in
staff, I gotta go through those units, I gotta have staff there. I .... I don't know
what it's buyin' us. Now .... I can ..... I think a good balance is, and I think the City
Council should know this! I have five projects we're converting student housing
or housing back to single-family.....in the Northside. Goin,' on right now. The
trend is.....to have that ..... the housing to go back to single-family if they're .... if
they're well constructed, um, units and the money's put in by the developer, the
people are willing to pay the price. Just sold on on Ronalds. We were at $220 a
square foot. Well, some people say, well, the price is drivin' up. Well, people
came in and bought it because the quality was there. We sold one on
Bloomington Street over there, um, in the 1300 block .... um, same thing. We got
a good price for the unit. We totally remodeled the unit. Single-family person
came in and bought the unit. I gotta tell ya, we see a demand, but we still have to
balance this out, and I think the City Council needs to go back and tell the
Housing Department to work with the Apartment Association (mumbled) maybe
some more input from the community members, to take a look (mumbled) study
in Minnesota, let's take a look at this block -by -block, to try to figure out where
the balance is. My goal in my neighborhood is, I have problem houses where I
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live! And, you know what, I already don't want to talk to the owners! My
solution was just to buy `em. (mumbled) the landlady that came up here, I got a
problem in my neighborhood, I'm financially secure enough I can buy those
houses and fix `em up.
Throgmorton: Mike, could you wrap it up please?
Oliveira: Yeah! I will. So I think the City.... Council should really take a look at tabling
this measure (mumbled) further discussion. Get better input from the community
members and from the property owners. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Mike. Anyone else? All right, well no more further public comment
tonight. Uh.... discussion among Council Members?
Mims: I am generally supportive, however, I think as we always say the devil's in the
details. Um, and I think there's a number of details that we need to work out.
Another however, we have a January 1 deadline.... that I think is critically
important. Our moratorium is up on January 1'. We already know how many
applicants or applications for permits had been put in as soon as the State law
went into effect.....to enlarge houses, add bedrooms, that sort of thing. I want to
make sure we have something on the books by January l' that will allow us to
control that. What we have on the books on January I" may not be perfect. I
don't expect it will be. But I think we do need.....to try to move forward so that
by our last meeting in December we're able to pass something. Okay? I am very
concerned about the boundaries. Um, I do think .... there will be this spillover. I
think we will have areas just over the boundaries that will end up being very, very
high density of rental permits, maybe 40, 50, 60, 70% because the rest of the
district will be a much lower percent. Um, so that's very concerning to me.
(mumbled) Goosetown has been well represented here tonight and has .... has
talked about their issues. So I have concerns, urn .... about the way the boundaries
are drawn, and I say that not meaning any criticism to staff. You had to start
somewhere, and I get that. Um, I'm not necessarily convinced that block -by -
block, that we want to take it down to that minuscule a level. Um ..... I'm open to
ideas and suggestions with where we are tonight. I'm gonna vote yes on this first
reading. I realize we may have to ... depending on the changes we make, we may
have to start over a new first reading if our changes are significant enough. But I
think that gives the public.... enough information and foresight about the direction
that we're headed, that I know I will be able to feel comfortable with collapsing
readings if we have to in December, to get something at least a reasonable start on
the books before the end of the year.
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Thomas: I, um (clears throat) agree, Susan. I .... I think if. ... the, one of the key issues I
think that we're facing here is this question of, uh, you know one district
bordering another with a significant difference in the, uh, percentages. I .... the
original proposal by staff I think began to try to address that with the distance
requirements, because that in a way provided the same kind of, uh.... as we've
been sort of speaking of it, granular level to the .... the application, and I .... I
understand the concerns of the, um ..... where .... where am I here, you know, the
Housing, uh, and Community Development Commission regarding affordable
housing. However, my.....my sense is.....my observations have been that the
market forces, uh, are such that as we've been essentially saying, if we have these
disparities in percentages that that edge is going to move with the higher
percentages because of the economics that.....that drive, um, student housing,
which is basically, you know, students getting together, combining their rents
and .... and renting the entire structure, whereas a conventional household is ... is
occupying the structure as one household, and in most instances, uh, the student
rental or long .... you know, short-term rental of, uh, unrelateds will out -compete a
family, a conventional family. So that's.... that's why over time, over the last 50
years, this area impacted by the student housing has continued to increase in size.
So I think the .... the cap, you know, I live in the Northside. It's 58%. Our
concerns was .... if this were to continue, especially with the lifting of the
unrelated cap, in 10 years there wouldn't be anyone left, I mean it would just all
eventually go to .... to student rental, um, and this is not meant to be, you know
(laughs) I understand that on the other side of the equation that's more affordable
housing for the students, but I think we're trying to find a balance here, uh,
and .... and so my feeling is ..... we don't even know what the impact of lifting the
cap is going to be. That's an uncertainty, that we have no understanding of. We
don't know how the increase in house size will play out, uh, geographically. So
I .... like Caroline, um, and Regenia, I feel we ... this .... this is something that's
gonna develop over time. Whatever we decide now we can always change the
percentages. I'm very concerned with going from, urn ... you know, a situation
where it seems things are relatively stable at 30% and allow 40% when we know
that's going to .... generally take place in areas where we're either at 30 or over 30,
and .... and I don't think that's what we want the outcome to be. So .... I would
be .... my.....my, I think what I would be most comfortable with would be looking
at 35 and re .... revisiting the question of whether we could introduce the .... the,
um, distance requirements, because I think the idea there is it still opens up the
opportunity for increased rental in that district, but it means they have to be
dispersed, which I ... I sense is really what this is all about is trying to, uh, avoid
concentrations, um, where we do allow additional rental to take .... to take place.
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Throgmorton: Eleanor, I'd like to ask you a .... a legal question about how we could proceed, if
we want to make substantive changes at some point in this ordinance....might it
be best to approve the ordinance as is and then amend it later so we can get it on
the books and .... and then, you know, make, uh, substantive amendments later?
Or would it be better to .... make changes, start over, start the process over again,
and then, uh, collapse some readings like .... I think Susan recommended, cause
we are under a time pressure here.
Dilkes: Right. (mumbled) I think that's really more of a political issue, how you choose
to .... whether you want to, as Susan says, vote for it to signal that you're
interested in .... in some approach and, um, then make amendments that might
have to back you up to first reading. Um, or you can simply not, you know, defer
it and give some direction to staff and we'll come back to you with new
recommendations and you can vote on that or not vote on that. So, it really just
depends on how you want to approach it.....knowing that if you vote tonight and
we make a substantive change, um, based on some direction you've given us or
something that we've heard and we think needs to be recommended to you, we
have to give whatever you adopt three readings, so we'll have to back up
and .... and do it, but we have, I mean, we have some time. It has to be in place by
January 151, but we've got some time here.
Throgmorton: Yeah.
Cole: I guess I would really like to defer it to allow for substantive changes would be
my .... my view. I think this question of the spillover effect, as Susan mentions, is
absolutely critical. Um .... that is gonna be a real challenge to figure out if you're
on the other side of the looking glass so to speak, what happens in that scenario,
and I definitely do not think that we want a situation where an effort to stabilize
and make the neighborhoods have a greater diversity of. ... of renters and .... and
single-family housing, that that then results in a destabilizing impact and people
on the on .... outside of those boundaries. Um, is it .... did ..... did staff consider the
possibility of a block -based structure or was that not feasible, are there legal
concerns, I mean because it's one of those things that, you know, we get to make
the easy decision in terms of critiquing the boundaries but I'm sure it was hard to
come up with the boundaries, so what was the process like (both talking)
Dilkes: Yeah, my recollection of the block -by -block, I mean, and we .... we thought about
it, uh, was the administrative hurdles of doing a block -by -block. Is that right,
Stan? Because as I think Nancy mentioned, that was, you know (both talking)
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Laverman: It becomes very staff -intensive and what we use as an example is you have the
affordable housing model, uh, with very few affordable housing providers, and
even the staff time that that requires for them calling to say `Is this property
eligible? Is this property eligible?' So then multiply that by the landlords and
developers in this town calling on every single property, um, and then mapping
wise, I mean it .... you put ... you end up with very few houses that would be
eligible for rental, um .... based off of the .... the distance requirement between the
rentals. So.....
Throgmorton: Maybe you could restate the question and ... and (both talking)
Laverman: He was asking if Bob Miklo... but those map .... he was asking if Bob Miklo has
those maps, and we have one version of it, but this is something that changes as
rental permits come on, rental permits come off. It .... It just becomes very
cumbersome, as you move forward.
Throgmorton: Okay (both talking)
Cole: .....because I guess related to that I think the other thing is if there's any way
from .... cause it seems like the numbers are like this and they .... like a steep cliff,
and I'm just wonderin' if there's a way we can address that in a way that makes
sense, so I guess I would like to table it. If we have the time we can dig deep into
some of the proposals, urn ...... is what I would like to do, cause I think that's
gonna be a huge problem, and I also would like to see a lower, uh, percentage, at
least to start, and I think if that proves inadequate, it seems like to me it's less
problematic to increase it over time.
Throgmorton: Yeah, I have a few thoughts I want to express and ... and they won't be, uh,
thorough but I don't know, I want to mention `em. I think any boundary -based
map we use is gonna have spillover problems (mumbled) it is unavoidable. So,
there's that fact. I don't think the block approach makes sense for the logistic
reasons that Stan just articulated. With regard to the spillover effect, my pretty
strong sense is that if we have a low cap, relatively speaking, like 35% instead of
40, then adjacent neighborhoods would hit that spillover effect, I mean the 35%,
pretty quickly and suddenly they'd be affected by a rental cap. So it's not as if
they .... they'd see an explosion in, uh, rental units within their neighborhoods.
Another thing I think about has to do with, uh, concerns about affordable housing,
which clearly are very important and we pay a lot of attention to that, but what's
not been mentioned or at least not emphasized is that there are at least two major
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activities underway that are in ... increasing the supply of housing in the area close
to downtown, and that increase in supply is going to accelerate, I believe, and I'm
referring to multi -unit structures, especially in the ... in the Riverfront Crossings
District, but uh.... (mumbled) Linn and Court Street being the prime example of
that with 700 units, I don't know, somethin...... somethin' like that. Or beds!
(several responding) Uh, and I know there's other .... other stuff in process, and
uh, I think I saw in a recent report something like 5,000 units are under
construction or planned for construction of the type that I just described. Am I
saying units or beds, I don't remember which it is, so..... Anyhow, so there is this
increase in supply that is underway and it's gonna have a significant effect in
terms of ....converting what right now is clearly a landlords' market into
something that's much more like a renters' market.....and that will have, I don't
know if it's gonna effect rents because frankly I don't see any evidence that
landlords are willing to decrease rents, even when things like property taxes get
decreased. So .... that's a concern. Uh.... but I think all.....all those factors come
together to make me think we should adopt.....that I'll vote for the ordinance as
presented to us tonight. I believe we should amend it to reduce the ... the cap to
35%, uh, and if y'all have other specific substantive changes, really think we need
to make, they should be clear. That's what I'm gonna do tonight.
Botchway: (both talking)
Taylor: (both talking) I would agree with you, Jim, on, uh, overall generally supportive
of...of the entire thing, um, but lowering it to 35 from the 40, and ..... looking at
maybe the boundary thing though to it at some time in the future, uh, again like
Susan said, going block -by -block is kind of minuscule but, uh, there's gotta be a
different way that equalizes things, such as the Goosetown situation. And I agree,
I think .... I think maybe we're thinking down the line that there's going to be
more and more rentals encroaching on the neighborhoods when perhaps as these,
uh... uh, multi -units go up, the rentals'll go to those units rather than in the
neighborhoods.
Throgmorton: There's a lot of unknowns for sure, I mean there's a lot of uncertainty about this,
there's a lot of moving parts. We have to recognize there's a lot of uncertainty ab
out that, and there will be unintended consequences as Anna, if she .... no, she left,
didn't she? Uh, there will be unintended consequences, uh, but .... we must do the
best we can do on this.
Mims: I have a question. This maybe becomes legal or....is it, can we justify setting
different caps in different areas? My.....my point being that the basis for that,
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we're talking about spillover, okay? Because we don't.... because some areas are
already over what we're talking about for a cap. Can we set different caps on
different areas to try to mitigate that spillover effect? In other words, I look at
this and people are talking about 35%, okay? Well the City High area is only at
16.9% right now. A 35% for that area still could have drastic ramifications,
potentially, for that area. Can we justify legally I guess that we would set caps...
that are say only a certain amount above where they are right now to try .... at least
temporarily, to try to mitigate that spillover as we kind of see what's happening.
So let's say for the City High area it's at 16.9 right now. We said the cap there is
25. Maybe we say the Hickory Hill, which is 30.8, we set at 35. So we're giving
some room.
Dilkes: In terms of boundaries and spillover, I'm not gonna ..... I mean I think you need to
give staff some time to look at the boundaries and the .... that issue. There may be
discrete things that can be .... addressed that will take care of, you know, some of
those problems and we need to talk about (both talking)
Mims: Okay.
Dilkes: ....area again and that kind of thing. I have less concern about you changing the
percentage because I frankly think between 30 and 54%, um, if you .... I think
there's a .... there's a rational basis to set it at 35, just like there is to set it at 40.
Mims: Sure!
Dilkes: So I'm not.....I'm less concerned about that, but I'm not .... you know, the whole
analysis was done not only based on the literature that we've reviewed, but also
based on what .... this heat map is showing us, and so in terms of starting to make
different percentages for different areas, that ... that causes me some (both talking)
Mims: Okay.
Botchway: So I want to go back to something Rockne said, cause I'm .... I would say that I'm
generally supportive as well. I do think that there are some concerns that we do
need to table, uh, I mean I'm interested in a boundary conversation, um, you
know that .... some of the comments at public comment, I appreciate Eleanor kind
of waiting to say, you know, let's hear from the public first to kind of hear what
some of the concerns are from that perspective. I would say that a lot of the
comments kinda moved me as far as, you know, what are the boundary
considerations, um, how does that look from that standpoint, not only from a
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Goosetown standpoint, but just....just in general. Um, cause for me even looking
at it, going back from the spillover standpoint, that could substantially change the
percentage and so I feel.....little problematic up here making a decision that
ultimately could change, you know, at the next meeting, and so .... um, in respect
to those, those are my kind of big issues as to why we should table the
conversation. Uh, I will point out, this is just a general comment, that I do have a
problem with the, kind of this cost analysis and how, you know, ultimately we've
now heard unequivocally from some folks that the cost burden of a lot of these
changes will fall back on the tenants, urn, which is unaffordable and, you know,
I'm not .... don't have a problem with speaking the truth, but I think that's a
problem that, you know, in our affordable housing conversation needs to be
thought about in some way, shape, or form. Uh, the other point that I would just
mention, um, you know, kind of giving kudos to the students in talking about kind
of the rental caps, as far as, you know, a .... not necessarily the best way of
handling this, but you know I go back to Susan's point, um, discussing this from a
timetable perspective, I think we're up against a .... a timeline and, you know, this
is kind of.....I would feel like a really good, um, proposal that staff is preparing
and so I .... I, from that standpoint, going back to sort of generally supportive, I
have no problem with that. I would also agree with lowering the percentage
overall. Um, maybe looking .... I was actually moved by some of the comments
30%, 35% sounds good as well, but you know if we're gonna look at it again,
tabling the discussion to spend more time kind of deliberating. There's one more
point that I was going to mention and I lost it on my notes .... (mumbled) Yeah, I
think it's mainly mine was looking at that, um, the boundary conversation
because, you know, there was some concerns that were brought up tonight, um,
and then even before that when we talked about, and in Stan's presentation, it was
you know staff wants to look back at some of the comments that happened over
email as well. I want to give staff the opportunity to do that. I think we signaled
it as far as having this conversation in general from a public perspective, and so I,
I mean, like I said, I feel generally supportive. Um, but I .... I, for me, I really feel
comfortable tabling the discussion and waiting till the next reading, or for the first
reading next time.
Thomas: I .... I have no preference in terms of whether we approve it tonight or table it. It's
more in my mind making sure we get something in place by the end of the year.
Uh, one other comment I would make is on the question of affordable housing,
and I .... I think when we had this at a previous work session, we talked about....
uh, one strategy might be to allow say a, uh.....you know, affordable housing
organization such as the Fellow .... uh, Housing Fellowship purchasing homes, uh,
which would then be rented and that that wouldn't fall under the cap. You know,
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that would be something where an exception would be made. That .... that seems
to me the viable, certainly a viable way of addressing preserving affordability,
um, for long-term residents because as I said, I think we have to .... affordability
for long-term residents has to somehow pull itself out of the market because the
market forces are so powerful that, uh.....you know, a .... a family with low
incomes is just never going to find affordable housing in these areas because
they're competing, you know, with .... with something that will always out -bid
them.
Botchway: That actually reminded me of my other point. Um, Stan, can you just answer the
question around, um, you know, came.... came across in the email and I think it
was brought up prior to the conversation, and we've moved it from the original 30
to 35% in regards to, uh, limiting bedroom area. But even still, I mean, in
particular this email reminded me of, you know, some families that I know have
large families and how that works out, I mean do we have a response to this
particular question around kind of the percentage in relation to just general
affordability as it relates to the affordable action plan?
Laverman: One more time on that one!
Botchway: Well, just looking at the percentages, you know....
Laverman: Sure!
Botchway: ....um, and I know we moved it up from 30 to 35%.
Laverman: Correct.
Botchway: But you know .... what I guess my question is is I know that you haven't had a
chance, but in general looking at, um, how do we respond to those questions
around affordability and looking at larger family sizes, what are our .... what's our
response? Like what .... (both talking) I'm sure we went through that process of
thinking about it.
Laverman: Right, and we also have safety valves built into that provision of the code, that if
you had, for example if you had an affordable housing provider coming in and
they said, look, we're building homes for larger families and .... and that bedroom
percentage was, um, different from that, but they're providing all the things that
you commonly see in a house with ade.... adequate space for communal living,
um, we have provisions in the code to approve that. Um, and then as far as, uh,
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you know, costs, uh, the affordable housing component of it, you know, the study
that was done by the National Associative .... Association of Homebuilders, I
mean those percentages, they stayed the same, you know, if they were in a .... a
modestly, you know, sized house versus a large house. So, um, we're pretty....
we're pretty comfortable with those numbers.
Hightshoe: I just want to add right now you can't have four bedrooms, uh, zoning code
doesn't allow four bedrooms in the, um, new construction. I also wanted to add,
when you talk about affordable housing, when you overlay this with the
affordable housing location model that's currently in force, you can't put new
rental housing for families south of Highway 6. This is a large area. So, typically
we assist even with housing choice vouchers about 10% or less of the market, so
90% of your renters — students, families, low-income families — that's 19,000
residents are competing for rental units. So when you lay that affordable housing
location model with this area, it's .... it's difficult to house everybody that needs
affordable housing, whether they're students, families. Um, typically when
you're looking at affordable housing providers, they're not going in your core
neighborhoods because you not only do you have to compete with students, you
have to compete with all those workers downtown. It's.... it's location. It's
expensive, and then if you do buy a house in those core neighborhoods, the
amount of money that it would take to rehab. So you've grown further out of the
downtown areas, like Hickory Hill, City High, Longfellow, Mark Twain, Willow
Creek. If you're gonna put boundaries or location, you know, like spacing
requirements, that gets less and less where people, I mean not just students, can
locate. Like I said, cause we only subsidize less than 10% of the rental market.
(mumbled) that helps.
Dilkes: I'm sorry, Tracy, what did you say about the four bedrooms?
Hightshoe: (several talking) Sorry, multi -family.
Dilkes: Multi ... that's multi -family though.
Mims: Okay. Yeah, thank you, cause L....
Dilkes: Yep! (several talking)
Throgmorton: All right, it seems to me that....there's clearly sentiment to make substantive
changes in what's been proposed. I think I hear clear support for reducing the
rental cap. There might be agreement, uh, among four Council Members or more
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for some other changes, but at least one (laughs) Uh, so the question then
becomes.... what's the best thing to do? It sounds ... we could table like, uh,
Rockne has suggested or I don't know whatever the right verb is to use, uh, so
that we have a new proposal before us next, at our next meeting. We could do
that.
Mims: I think that's probably the best. I mean I wanted to vote on it tonight, but I think
the more we've discussed it, we've got.... probably such significant changes that
are gonna come, and with Eleanor's comments about staff being able to look at
some of these boundary issues and take some of that input, we're probably going
to have to start over anyways. Certainly I think if anybody has watched and
listened to the discussion hopefully they do get the idea that we are very interested
in doing something and moving forward on this before the end of the year. So
that won't catch `em by surprise, so if we do have to collapse, um .... we'll be
comfortable doing that.
Throgmorton: So, uh, Geoff, can staff, uh, give us a revised.... proposal.... based on the
conversation you've heard, and that might involve some choice .... some choices
that we will need to make, so that we can find out whether there's four in support
of whatever the choice is?
Frain: Yeah, I think .... I think you've been pretty clear. One, you're not comfortable
with the 40% cap and you want to see that dialed back, and .... and that's simple
enough as .... as Eleanor mentioned. We .... we think there's a rational basis for
that. And then the larger message is you're concerned about the .... the, those
edges and those transitions, and we can get in and analyze those areas on a more
micro level. We can get in and say, okay, if the cap's at 35 and it's currently at
30, given the number of units in this district, you're lookin' at 20 new potential
rentals or 10 new potential.... and try to understand the magnitude of the problem
and whether boundary adjustments make sense or if we think that that number of
units can be absorbed into a neighborhood without, um, tipping the scales so to
speak. So that's the type of analysis we'll do. I think it's perfectly reasonable
that we'll be back at the .... at your meeting on the 21" with a recommendation or,
um, if we feel, uh.... we should, urn .... you know, give you some options and
describe the pros and cons of those options.
Throgmorton: Okay. That's what we need. So, but with regard to this, we have a motion on the
floor, uh, should we vote on it, vote it down, or defer action or (both talking)
Dilkes: ....make a motion to defer.
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Mims: I'll move to defer.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. All in favor say aye. Opposed.
Motion carries. So we'll defer until we get new material from the staff and
consider it at our November 21' meeting. Thanks for your patience, everyone!
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Item 10. Ped Mall -Commercial Use - Ordinance amending Title 10, entitled "Public
Ways And Property," Chapter 5, entitled "City Plaza," to allow an
association of downtown businesses to place a commercial structure on City
Plaza under limited circumstances. (First Consideration)
Mims: Move first consideration.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. Discussion? Simon!
Andrew: Ah, good evening. Simon Andrew, Assistant to the City Manager. Uh, the last
couple of years the Downtown District has planned a winter market in Black
Hawk Mini Park, um, been a successful market, but there have been some issues
with, uh, weather and the desire for, uh, better overnight security. Uh, so what
this proposal would be, uh, is really just an evolution in, uh, the winter market
downtown. Um, we believe that supporting the winter market and, uh, one of the
major benefits of it from the last, uh, couple of years was to, uh, support local
retailers and businesses at a really critical time of year for them, and a time of
year where we don't have very many, uh, events downtown or other things
driving foot traffic. Um, the.....there are provisions currently in City code for a
long-term non-commercial structure, uh, like you recently approved with the, uh,
Prairie Box that's on Black Hawk Mini Park. Uh, there are several provisions for,
uh, staff to approve, uh, commercial activity, whether it's, uh, mobile vendors or,
uh, a short-term event, but there isn't a provision for, uh, the approval of a long-
term structure that would be used for commercial purposes. Uh, so what this
would allow for is for, um, the Downtown District, or an association of downtown
businesses. I want to be clear on that, that it has to be, uh, it couldn't be a .... a
national retailer coming in requesting this. Uh, it could be approved for up to 45
days, uh, the structure would have to be approved by the building official, uh, for
life and safety, uh, and uh, insurance requirements set by the City's, uh, Risk
Manager. Uh, we do have an image that, uh, I'm sure has been, uh, updated some
since, but, uh, what the initial proposal was, what they were thinking, uh, so this
would allow for, uh, these structures to be used for holiday pop-up shops. They
could lock `em up overnight, not have to bring the merchandise in and out. Uh,
they would be better protected from weather, uh, merchandise not getting snowed,
rained on, um, and such .... and a better shopping experience for, uh, the customers
in those stores. Happy to take any questions. And Nancy Bird and Betsy Potter
are both here from the Downtown District, and of course can answer questions as
well.
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Throgmorton: The images remind me of A think his name's (can't hear) design for the, oh what
was it, uh, World Expo in Montreal back in 1967. Lot of boxes! (laughter)
Andrew: And these have been popular in many communities and often times you'll see, uh,
empty shipping containers used for `em. Um, it wasn't practical here on the ped
mall, but uh, it is something that's becoming more popular nationwide for, uh,
small scale pop-up shops.
Throgmorton: Yeah. So, any questions for Simon? Thanks!
Andrew: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Would anyone else like to address this topic? Good evening!
Potter: Good evening. Thanks for having us. Um, I can answer any questions, but um,
we're really excited about the evolution of this program. We, um, are hoping that
they are able to stay up in this space for four to five weeks, and that'll kind of
give an opportunity of a whole bunch of different retailers and makers in our
community to kind of have retail space, holiday retail space, in the ped mall. Um,
we have a lot of excitement around it from our retailers and the architect for it was
Sanjay Son.....(unable to hear person in audience) There you go, um, from a car,
so we had a great proposal put forth, um, and I can share that video with you too
that he put together but, um, there are three total pop-up shops, like Simon
mentioned. They are, um, fully heated, there's electrical, um, they have had all
considerations through ADA -accessibility and they should be really great during
the holiday season. Any questions?
Throgmorton: Great! Just for the record would you state your name, please.
Potter: Oh yes! Betsy Potter. Thank you!
Throgmorton: Yeah, okay! Uh.....
Botchway: Actually I do have a question, I just remembered. So ADA -accessibility, in
relation to the structures at the top, how does that work?
Potter: No we don't want people up there. (laughs)
Botchway: Okay.
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Potter:
Botchway:
Potter:
Botchway:
Those are just like an aesthetic...
Okay.
....and there won't be anything up there (both talking) except for maybe banners.
On this rendering you can't see it very well, maybe you can. Um, it's just a
display.
Gotcha!
Potter: It's just three pop-up shops that are kinda connected, and they're modular so we
can take them down and put them back up at a later date, and um, there's the
ability to use them singularly if we needed to.
Botchway: Cool! .
Throgmorton: Thanks, Betsy! Does.... Council discussion?
Thomas: I'm really pleased with how Black Hawk Mini Park has become kind of a .... uh,
its own sort of, um.....what's the word I'm looking for.
Botchway: Experimental?
Thomas: You know, the co -lab, this idea that it's where, you know, where it's tactical
urbanism at its best. It's exploring, you know, the use of the space in a .... in a
evolving and changing way and we're using local talent to do it. I think that's
really, really exciting to see.
Botchway: I'm excited as well. Looks a little funky but.....defmitely down for it. Uh, the
only thing, not the only thing, I just lost my train of thought again. Sorry, it's
gettin' late. Um (several talking) yeah, forget it! (laughter)
Throgmorton: Anybody else? I'm happy to support this. So....
Taylor: Can't wait to shop there!
Throgmorton: Roll call please. Motion carries 6-0. Thank you.
Fruehling: There was correspondence under Item #9.
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Throgmorton: You're right! Uh, could I have a motion to accept correspondence for Item 99?
Botchway: So moved.
Taylor: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Taylor. All in favor say aye. Opposed.
Motion carries. Sorry, Kellie. Thanks!
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Item 12. Community Comment [if necessary] (items not on the agenda)
Throgmorton: Ben, did you want to say somethin'?
Nelson: Yeah, I'll just be quick. Some UISG news. Um, last Tuesday, um, UISG Senate
passed a $20,000 initiative, I think it was $20,000 initiative to fund free shuttle
rides to the Cedar Rapids Airport, um, for the holidays. Uh, obviously students,
they find it hard to, you know, Iowa City's relatively isolated, um, from major
transportation hubs and so, you know, just a way to kind of help them out. It was
on the news tonight, I think ... what's the local news, TV news station, KCRG?
Um, there's a nice little clip of Jacob typing on this, uh, computer in the office,
but uh (laughter) uh, other than that, I don't have a whole lot. Um .... you know I
mentioned my fraternity's, uh, philanthropy, partnering with RVAP, uh, several
weeks ago. Um, I think that's the last time we saw each other. Uh, we raised
over $1,000 for them and so we're really excited to see where that can go in the
future. Um....
Mims: Was that your like one -foot race?
Nelson: It was .... it was a .IK, it was 100 meters (laughter) Um .... but yeah, it was a really
good time and so we're just excited to see how we can expand on that, so .... thank
you very much!
Throgmorton: Thank you, Ben!
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Item 13. City Council Information
Throgmorton: Why don't we start with, mmmm, John and move right.
Thomas: I have nothing tonight. (laughs)
Throgmorton: All right! Susan?
Mims: Um, enjoyed going to the Annual Human Rights breakfast, uh, lot of great
awardees and particularly our own officer David Schwendt, so shout out to them.
Um, went to the ped mall design meeting at the Sheraton. I think, Jim, you were
there for a bit. I know Geoff was there. So there's public input on, uh, it's.... it's
interesting cause there was not a whole lot of people there and you get some
really diverse opinions and very passionate opinions about what we should and
should not be doing. And then as was mentioned earlier, I think probably a
majority of us were in and out of the, uh, Climate Action Committee meeting last
week and that was great to see such a large turnout of the community there.
Throgmorton: Yep! Kingsley?
Botchway: So .... um, MSEI Second Annual Leadership Conference is, um, this Friday, from
8:00 to 4:00 P.M. I actually won't be attending because I have work, but I think
it's amazing.
Throgmorton: MSEI?
Botchway: Yeah, MSEI, yeah. I actually don't know the....
Throgmorton: Oh! Okay.
Botchway: ...perfect. Um ..... (unable to hear person speaking from audience) (several
talking) Mediation Services of Eastern Iowa. I was actually thinking it was like
some multi -cultural thing so I'm glad you stepped in there! Um, then on Saturday
there's a .... a Armistice Day observance, um, starting at 10:45 on the Pentacrest,
um, on Sunday there's, um, I don't know why Andre (mumbled) this thing but I
think it's pretty interesting — Creative Jellies open mic night.
Mims: It's fun, I've been there! (several talking and laughing)
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Botchway: (laughing) I think it's pretty funny! I like the name. From 7:00 to 10:00 P.M. at
Merge, and .... that's it! Just some fun activities, um, in early November.
Cole: Go Hawks! I'm going to the Wisconsin game next weekend. That's it for me!
(several talking)
Throgmorton: (laughing) Pauline?
Taylor: Uh, we have a listening post, uh, next Wednesday the 15", or I guess it's another
Wednesday after that, uh, out at Oaknoll this time, uh, 1:30 I'm .... Kingsley?
Botchway: Yeah, I think so.
Taylor: Kingsley's coming with me I believe at that one. That'll be interesting. That'll
be a fun one!
Botchway: I'll be there!
Taylor: Um, remind folks that, uh, I saw on the web page that the City is observing
Veterans Day on Friday as far as some office closures and some service....
services that won't be available, so, uh, folks should be sure to check the web site
and .... and see, uh, what's going on and what's not, uh, in celebration of Veterans
Day, and .... a reminder of the City employee lunch on the 16a' at 11:00 at Terry
Trueblood.
Throgmorton: Thanks, sorry, I got distracted by our colleague over here. Yeah, okay, so uh, on
the 18"i of October, Brenda Nations, three members of the Climate Action
Steering Committee and I met with a visitor from India who works for a climate
action organization called C40, and it was a very stimulating and interesting
conversation. He's been traveling all over the country, meaning with people,
talking about this stuff. Later in the day I participated in a really enlightening re-
entry parole simulation sponsored by Inside Out, and you know, so .... I can tell
ya, I didn't turn out .... it didn't turn out so well for me. At one point I was sent to
jail and I realized nobody was watching so I walked away (laughs) you know
(several talking) escaped from jail and kind of lived my life hoping nobody would
catch me, but it was really a .... really an enlightening, uh, exercise. On the 201',
Kevin Slutts gave me a tremendously in .... interesting tour of our water plant. I
highly recommend it. And I want to thank Kevin and the staff out there at the
water plant for showing me around. On the 4b, what was that, two days ago,
several staff members, including Ashley and I gave Congressman Dave Loebsack
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a walking tour of, uh, Riverfront Crossings Park, and Dave enjoyed that a lot. He
felt like he was learnin' a lot. He says.... whatever we can do to help! So .... I'm
sure Ashley was takin' notes (laughs) so that was a good thing. Uh, and for the
forthcoming two weeks, uh, I'm going to be gone twice. On Wednesday I,
what... yeah, two days from now I'm going to travel to Indianapolis to participate
in the Mayors Institute on City Designs, sort of regional endeavor. So I'll be
meeting with seven other mayors and the technical staff of the Mayor's Institute
on City Design, presenting them with a conceptual scheme havin' to do with the
Iowa River as it runs through Iowa City, and getting feedback. You know,
they're just gonna vet whatever it is I tell `em, and I've gotten great help from
Geoff and Karen Howard in particular for that, and uh, really want to thank
Karen. And, the following week on Wednesday of the following week I'm gonna
go the National League of Cities City Summit, uh, conference in Charlotte, North
Carolina. Yeah, so.....there's that! That's it for me!
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