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ITEM 2. Student Leadership Awards
Item 2a Irving Weber Elementary
Throgmorton: So, Lucy Schmid and Patrick Selby, could you come on up, please? All right, this
is one of the most enjoyable things the mayor has to do. So, it's a real treat to be
able to do it. I'm gonna give two awards here — one to Lucy Schmid and the other
Patrick Selby, right? And they're Student Leadership Awards. So what I'd like
to do is ask .... I think this time ask you to, urn .... Patrick, to read your statement
for us and then I'll ask Lucy to read yours, and then I'll just read the award for
both of you, okay? All right! Patrick, here! I'll hold it!
Selby: Okay. Hello, my name is Patrick Selby. Thank you for inviting me here today
and presenting me with this award. I'm currently a sixth -grade student at Weber
Elementary School. Our motto at Weber is be respectful, responsible, and safe. I
try to follow this model every day in everything I do, including my work as a
safety patrol captain, my participation in the extended learning program, and
band. I enjoy working before and after school to make sure all students at Weber
are safe. I also enjoy helping other kids in (mumbled) my class, whether it be
with homework or a project involving technology. I would like to thank my
teachers, Mrs. Williams and Miss Goodheart, for nominating me to receive this
award. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents for always encouraging me to be
the best that I can be.
Throgmorton: Excellent, well done! (applause) Are you...... are you going to be an IT guy?
(laughter) No? Okay, never mind! (laughter) All right, Lucy, your tum!
Schmid: My name is Lucy and I am a sixth grade.....I am in sixth grade at Weber
Elementary. I want to thank my teachers at Weber, Miss Goodheart and Miss
Williams, and my principal, Miss Pam McNulty. I was surprised to hear that I
had won this award. I really appreciate my teachers thinking of me and
nominating me. At Weber I'm a captain for safety patrol. I try to have fun with
the younger kids, but also help them be safe. In my free time I play basketball,
volleyball, and golf. I also play the flute. I enjoy all these activities. I also try to
be respectful of my teachers and coaches, and my parents. I think I got this award
because I'm respectful, responsible, and safe. It is an honor to be here tonight.
Thank you. (applause)
Throgmorton: All right! (applause continues) Well done! So I want to read this award. It's
identical.... it is identical for both of ya, except for the name, right? So, I'll just
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regular formal meeting of November 21, 2017.
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read it, uh, as it is! (reads Student Leadership Award) All right, here's yours,
Lucy.
Schmid: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Patrick, here's yours. Congratulations to both of you. I had the pleasure of
meeting your parents, both of your parents. Uh, I don't know where you're
sitting.....uh, back there? Yeah, anyhow, good job! You got great kids!
Anyhow, congratulations to both of you. Now it's time to get on with the evening
and do your homework, whatever you have to do (laughter) We got our stuff to
do too so .... all right, thanks for comin' up. It's great to see both of you.
Congratulations (applause)
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Item 3. Proclamations
Item 3a Small Business Saturday: November 25
Throgmorton: We have one proclamation to read tonight. And... Kellie, have you see the person
who's gonna accept this proclamation?
Fruehling: I haven't, unless they're out in the hallway.
Throgmorton: Well, what the heck, I'll read it and we'll see what happens. (reads proclamation)
Is there someone to accept this proclamation? All right, I thought there would be,
but there isn't.
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Item 4. Consider adoption of the Consent Calendar as presented or amended
Throgmorton: And before anybody makes a motion, I want ... want, what I need is a motion to
approve, excluding Item 4d(9).
Mims: So moved.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: And .... and amending Item 4e(1) by setting a public hearing date, uh, of
December the 19th.
Mims: So moved.
Botchway: Second.
Item 4d(9) Data Driven Justice Agreement - Resolution authorizing the
Mayor to sign and City Clerk to attest a Data Driven Justice Agreement with
the Arnold Foundation
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. All .... no ... all in favor say aye.
(several talking) Roll call, I knew I blew it! (laughs) Yeah, when I said except
Item 4d(9), that means we're gonna have separate consideration of Item 4d(9).
This concerns data -driven ... a data driven justice agreement. It's a resolution
authorizing the Mayor to sign and the City Clerk to attest a Data Driven Justice
Agreement with the Arnold Foundation, and we want to draw attention to this
because it's, uh, it's... it's somethin' we're pretty proud of, especially the officer
that's involved in ... um, enabling this work. So, how we gonna do this, Geoff?
Fruin: Chief, did you want to come up and, uh... say a few things about this, or Officer
Schwindt?
Throgmorton: Yeah ... (several talking) While Dave's getting, uh, coming up maybe I should get
a motion on the floor.
Mims: So moved.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. Hi, Dave!
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Schwindt: Hello! Um, so this.....this grant opportunity is one of three the Arnold
Foundation is giving out nationwide. They chosen three jurisdictions who were,
uh, considered leaders in this data driven justice initiative. Um, they broke that
down by size of the community — large, medium, and smalls. We are the small
community. Uh, and there's two others that are getting proposals similar to this
and so this is just an opportunity for us to, um, let me work full time on this. To
this point I've just been doing it part time as I can squeeze it in and we've kind of
made some pretty good accomplishments in the area, and working full time really
to kind of see how we can accelerate this, and the Arnold Foundation has a ... a big
interest in seeing this move forward and .... they're willing to, uh, kind of provide
this grant so I can work on this full time and can see what we can make out of it
over the next two years. So I'm excited at the opportunity and hope you guys are
too!
Botchway: Before you leave, can you just say what this is, just for.... since you're on TV and
(laughter)
Schwindt: Sure! (laughter) Data driven justice is how can we use data better and in a
responsible manner. So taking data from.....(mumbled) traditionally SILO'd
systems. The Police Department has their data system. Housing and, um, shelters
have their data. Substance abuse providers have their data. How can we
responsibly merge that data, identify how utilizers in the systems were just
cycling in and out of the emergency room, in and out of the jail, and then .... kind
of focus services better on them to address the core problem, with the goal being a
pre -arrest jail diversion option and solving those core problems ahead of time
or .... and minimizing their impact with those other services, like jail and the ER
that just aren't providing the long-term results that we're looking for. (several
talking)
Throgmorton: Does that answer your question?
Botchway: Yeah (both talking)
Mims: I mean I would just piggyback on that, because of Officer Schwindt's work, along
with Jessica Peckover from Jail Diversion Initiatives and Crissy Canganelli from
Shelter House, Iowa City, Johnson County area, has really gotten its name on the
map nationally. Um, I don't know if you really heard what Dave just said.
There's three cities, one large, one medium, one small. We're small. We are the
only one in the nation. The only one in the nation in terms of a small city who's
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been selected to do this. And really, um.....the bulk of the credit goes right there.
Um, Dave has done an incredible amount of work on his own time to pull data
together and start a lot of this work, and hopefully one of the results of that, um,
we are moving forward and .... and making some real progress just recently on
developing an access center which will be that place, as Dave mentioned, that
officers can take somebody who doesn't need to be in jail, doesn't need to be in
the emergency room, but needs some sort of assistance and some sort of access
into other services and medical care to hopefully keep them out of the jail and out
of the emergency rooms. So it's .... it's a bigger pattern going on nationally and
we're finally gonna.... gonna be joining that, but Officer Schwindt is a .... a big....
big part of that, so congratulations on, uh.... getting the assignment.
Schwindt: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Good job, Dave.
Schwindt: Thanks! (applause)
Fruin: Mayor, if I could just add one thing.
Throgmorton: Sure!
Fruin: I think you .... you know me well enough to .... to know I tend not to overstate
things, um, but I really ..... I really think that .... that, uh, Officer Schwindt's work
and the Iowa City Police Department's work in this area, um, can have a
revolutionary, um ...... uh, impact on policing matters nationwide. I think, I mean,
that's really how important I think this is and the fact that we're at center stage
and Dave's at center stage is .... a ..... a tremendous opportunity and so, um, you
know, this is a strong recommendation. I .... I know you'll support it tonight, but,
um, I just can't tell ya how excited we are. There's a practical piece to this that
will come later that I'll talk to Council about, as we're pullin' an officer off the
street into this role and, uh, I will come back to you at some point and ask for an
over -hire, uh.....uh, to compensate for, urn .... Officer Schwindt's, uh, removal
from the street to the.....to this position, but that'll come at a later date.
Throgmorton: Okay. Thank you, Dave.
Schwindt: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Okay, we have a motion on the floor. Roll call please. Motion carries 7-0.
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Item 5. Community Comment (items not on the agenda) [until S pm]
Throgmorton: This is the time, uh.... when anyone should feel free to come up and speak to us
about any item that's not on the formal meeting agenda. I'd like to ask ya to state
your name and take not more than five minutes.....to say whatever is on your
mind. So ... who would like to go first? Everybody's leaving! (laughter) Good
evening, Adil!
Adams: Hello, my name is Adil Adams. I have, uh, live in Iowa City for 20 years, and
one of the founders of the Sudanese community in Iowa City. I have been a
member of the Democratic Party in Iowa City since 2003. I have been a delegate
member for the past, uh, three consecutive, uh, elections. Because of this I know
every Sudanese member in Iowa City. We have a great Muslim Sudanese
community. Among this community there are doctors, engineering, lawyers, and
many other roles. I would like to congratulate the new member of the City
Council and also especially, uh, Mazahir Salih as a Sudanese City Council
member. While she did get elected, I would estimate that.....only 10% of the
Sudanese community supported her. The .... uh..... the low support was due to her
lack of qualification. Regardless, she was still elected due to her affirmative
stance and her activities in the community. I would like to suggest that in the
future before the Democratic party in Iowa City fully back a candidate from such
(unable to understand) community, we spend time with the (unable to understand)
community and to develop a case for why the candidate is the best option to
represent their community. Uh, from my experience, uh.... the new member
(unable to understand) image, while she's speaking about herself all the time,
especially on the social media here in the U.S. and outside and back home. The
person (unable to understand) two members of the City Council who supported
Mazahir Salih, while using the funds from the Democratic party, I believe or
might be, and the Worker Justice also. Uh, he or she also .... the Democratic
(unable to understand) volunteers and the facilities and, uh.... fliers and
everything, they use all the workers (unable to understand) for the City Council
to .... to elected her. Uh, also they misleading the students in Iowa City (unable to
understand) as well as the whole Iowa City community by standing behind a
candidate who hasn't displayed the skill important to being a leader within the
community. As many aren't even aware of who she really is. It is situation like
this and new ... new standard like taking a donation and (unable to understand)
packet from pocket (unable to understand) for donation. For future election I
want to ensure that we look closely at each candidate and ensure that the election
official are well versed on each candidate. Furthermore, I would like to stress
how important it is for this organization to adopt a practice for gathering (unable
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to understand) techniques. Just as making also ... to make the (unable to
understand) before the election so that everyone can know the candidate well and
the population in Iowa City is around 75,000 people.
Throgmorton: Adil, could you please wrap it up. You've gone over five minutes (both talking)
Adams: ...almost done. And the people who vote only 20%, so 80% of the people staying
home because they don't like to go to vote. So we try to encourage people to go
to vote and exercise their rights. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you. Who else would like to speak? Good evening, Brandon!
Ross: Good evening, Mayor.....and Council. Um ...... I would like to mention, uh.... to
the Council and the people of Iowa City, um, about an important issue that may
seem a little removed, but it's not. Um.....and that is the, uh, the tax cut proposal,
uh, nationally which will affect us. Uh, that which is spoken and proposed by
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, who I believe are either.....uninfonned and
unprepared or they are just working directly for Charles Koch and the corporate
wealthy. So I bring up these things, and that's for those, uh, those here, why....
why this tax cut is .... is a bad thing. Uh, from 1945 to 1975, considered the
`golden age of capitalism,' um.....taxes were comparatively high. They were
between 70 and 91 % on the, uh, on the upper bracket of the rich. And, uh, real
wage went up in that 30 -year period of 1945 to 1975 at 75%. Or about 2 %a% per
year. It's the highest growth period in our country's history. 1945 to 1975. In
1981, President Reagan cut taxes from 70% to 30%. On the upper bracket of the
rich and also cut taxes on the corporations, and he said .... that the wealth will
trickle down. But from 1985 to 2015, growth of the U.S. economy is slower.
And worse, real wages over this time grew ..... by minus 6%. So .... you'd have to
be pretty skeptical of an argument that cutting taxes for the rich is going to infuse
our economy with growth, that there'll be more jobs. It just doesn't work. And I
would say that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are putting forth lies, and .... that
what will happen for Iowa City and Iowa .... as well as other places in the country,
are classroom sizes in public schools will go up, our colleges will become even
more expensive as there are fewer funds in the state to support, programs will
....will diminish, we'll lose state and local funding, transportation could be cut,
healthcare would be diminished, the rich will buy more land so naturally rents
will go up. That's a dynamic that works. Job security will go down, drug
addiction rises, suicide rates go up, violence goes up, air and water quality go
down, foreclosures increase. These are trends that are greater in the past 35 years
than they were in the 30 year .... the 30 years that I mentioned. So I don't support
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this tax cut for the rich, this tax program I think.....I believe is criminal, and I
think that everybody, everyone in Iowa City, everybody in Iowa, I don't care if
you're Republican or Democrat. I don't care if you're Green Party or Tea Party, I
don't care what parry you're at. I don't care if it's your birthday party. These
things don't help. They hurt. And they will further diminish our society and so I
encourage people who have the power to be loud, to meet, to picket, to protest, to
call Senators Grassley and Ernst, representatives and state senators and protest
this. What if. ... what if. ... what if we all stopped paying our student loans all at
once. I don't mean one or two. What would happen? What would happen if we
all stopped paying rent? The people. What would happen if we stopped paying
credit cards? In 2009 the banks were bailed out by hundreds of billions of dollars.
That would be our bailout, our little private bailouts. The rich own everything,
including the politics. And now we're no longer represented. So I strongly urge,
uh, people in Iowa City to consider this matter and to take action and be bold, and
if it seems like I'm talking about class warfare, yes, it has been .... waged by the
wealthy against the rest of us. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Brandon. Anyone else? All right, I don't see anybody else. We'll
move on to Item 6.
Fruehling: (unable to hear) ...motion for Adil's correspondence.
Botchway: So moved.
Dickens: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Dickens. All in favor say aye. Opposed.
Motion carnes. So we're gonna have a little transfer here for just a second as our
City Attorney and Assistant City Attorney exchange places.
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Item 6. Planning and Zoning Matters
Item 6a S. Gilbert Street and McCollister Boulevard (Preserve at Sandhill) —
Ordinance conditionally rezoning approximately 21.79 acre of property from
Interim Development Multifamily (ID -RM) zone to Low Density Multifamily
Residential (RM -12) zone located north and south of the intersection of
South Gilbert Street and McCollister Boulevard. (REZ17-00001)
a) Public Hearing
Throgmorton: So first I need to know .... well, I guess we need to get a motion on the floor first.
No! (several talking) Yeah, so.....but, uh, I need to know whether anybody
needs to make ex parte disclosures. Right? Okay. Nobody does, uh, so I'm
gonna open the public hearing. (bangs gavel) Good evening, Bob (both talking)
Miklo: Bob Miklo, Department of Neighborhood and Development Services. Like to
start off showing the, uh, the property. It's located on the east side of Gilbert
Street (noises on mic, difficult to hear speaker) both sides of McCollister
Boulevard. Um, Terry Trueblood Recreational Area is just to the...to the
southwest. The, uh, area currently is zoned Interim Development, um .... uh, or
ID. Uh, the surrounding area is zoned, uh, RS -5, or OPD -5. Uh, the area to the
west is zoned P, Public, because it's owned by the, uh, the City of Iowa City. Uh,
there is a .... a small area of Community Commercial on the, uh, opposite corner,
and then, uh, Terry Trueblood, uh, is also zoned P for, uh.... uh, Public. This
shows the, uh, area in a larger context to the neighborhood, again, Gilbert Street,
McCollister Boulevard. Uh, the Sand Hill development. Here are some photos of
the property, looking from, uh, Gilbert Street to the east and, uh, you can see the
property in the foreground and then the Sand Hill development in the background.
Uh, this photo is taken from the intersection of Gilbert Street and McCollister
Boulevard, looking east, so the ... the property is on the north side, as well as the
south side, of, um, McCollister Boulevard. Uh, here's a photo of the, uh, the east
side of the property. There's a, uh, an existing trail on the property, uh, so the
area under consideration is to the west. The, uh, Sand Hill development is to the
east. The, uh, Comprehensive Plan, uh, for this, uh, portion of the city is the
South District Plan. Uh, that plan shows, uh, appropriate land uses, including
multi -family at the intersection, so portions of this property are designated for
multi -family, and then moving away, uh, transitioning to, um, the lower density,
uh, single-family of the neighborhood, uh, the plan shows low to medium density,
mixed residential, um, for the remainder of the property. The, uh, Comprehensive
Plan describes mixed residential, um, as medium, uh, to high density single -
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family dwellings, duplexes, and, uh, townhouses. The plan further goes on to
state that, uh, low density multi -family in the form of three, six .... to six dwelling
units may be considered if the buildings are designed to be compatible in scale
and design to the lower scale, uh, buildings in the neighborhood. And then the
plan goes on to say that higher density housing should be located on the edges of
the neighborhood and, uh, the South District Plan stresses for the higher density
housing exceptional design quality should be required. The property is currently
zoned Interim Development, which is basically a holding zone, uh, until
permanent, uh, zoning designation is .... is granted. The Interim, uh, zone only
allows one dwelling unit per acre. So for any, uh, significant development to
occur here, there will need to be a rezoning. The, uh, application as stated is to
rezone the property to RM -12 or Lower -Density Multi -Family. The, uh, RM -12
zone is intended to provide a high density of single-family dwellings and a low-
density of multi -family development. Uh, the zoning code notes that in the RM -
12 zone, uh, careful attention to site and building design is necess...necessary, um,
so that the various housing types allowed, uh, are compatible with one another.
The, uh, applicant has agreed to a Conditional Zoning Agreement, um, that would
subject the future development of this property to, uh, a general adherence to a
concept plan, which is ... would be part of the zoning agreement, and also, um,
impose some design standards above and beyond those normally, uh, required in
the RM -12 zone. A, uh, future plan development over.... overlay zone is also
anticipated or contemplated for this property, um, if this plan is, uh, is to be
implemented. And the reason for that is the, uh, the plan seeks to reduce the, uh,
normally required 40 -foot setback on McCollister Boulevard to, uh, 25 -feet and
that the normal 20 -foot setback on the other streets, um, to, uh, 15 -feet. Uh, the
actual plan development is not on the table tonight, but the thought is that it would
come back if this plan is to be implemented ...... and reviewed again by the
Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council.. Um, as noted there is a
concept plan that the applicant has submitted with this proposal. It is, uh,
proposes a total of 196 multi -family dwelling units, uh, and they're in the form of
four, six, eight, and 12-plex, uh, buildings, um ...... and you can, if you examine
the plan closely you'll see where the four -unit buildings are, uh, six -unit
buildings, uh, eight -unit buildings, uh, 12 -unit buildings, uh, spread throughout,
uh, out the development with the .... the larger buildings being located on the
southern, uh, portion of the property. Uh, this, uh, design is based, uh, partially
on discussions with the applicant, uh, the applicant's architect, uh, staff, and uh,
Opticos, uh, Opticos is a, uh, consulting firm that the City has hired to help us
with, uh.... uh, form based zoning code. The, uh, the proposed density of the
northern portion, the area north of, uh, McCollister Boulevard is, uh, nine units
per acre, nine dwelling units per acre. The density south of McCollister
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Boulevard would be 11 dwelling units per acre. Uh, parking for some of the units
is .... is, would be located in garages, detached garages, uh.... uh, near the units.
Um, there are other areas where, uh, detached garages are ... or gang garages would
be provided, uh, for the units, and then there are other units that, uh, do not have
covered parking, uh, but their parking would be provided in, uh, common parking
lots. The plan also con .... uh, includes open space, um, along the east side of the
development between the Sand Hill, um, subdivision and the proposed multi-
family housing. Uh, this open space would serve for storm water management, as
well as a, uh, a playground area. Uh, and it also would include an existing trail,
uh, that was put in when the Sand Hill, um, subdivision was .... was first built.
The plan also includes a pedestrian street, which would break up this fairly, uh,
otherwise large block between, um ..... uh, Preserve Way or Preserve Drive and
McCollister Boulevard, uh, and this is necessary to meet our.....our subdivision
standards that, uh.... uh, propose blocks of no more than, um, three to 600 feet
in .... in length. In the, um, October, uh, 19 staff report, staff recommended
approval of this rezoning, subject to a Conditional Zoning Agreement to require
general conformance, uh, with this plan and also, um, it....it contains conditions
to address the design, uh, details to make the development more compatible with
the policies of the, uh, South District Plan. At its October 19 meeting, the
Planning and Zoning Commission voted 3-3 with one abste .... abstention, um,
they voted against this .... this rezoning. Um, a rezoning requires a .... a minimum
of four members of the Planning and Zoning Commission for a positive, uh,
recommendation. We, or you have received a protest petition representing 20%
of the property owners, uh, within 200 feet of the rezoning, and by state law and
our zoning code, uh, that will require a super -majority of six out of seven, uh,
Council Members, uh, if this is to be approved. Um, I would also, uh, note that
our zoning code requires that the Council offer a consultation or a joint meeting to
the Planning and Zoning Commission if there is an indication that, uh, the
Council is .... would be likely to approve the rezoning request. Uh, be happy to
answer any questions.
Mims: Can you tell me, uh (mumbled) back here .... you said 196 units?
Miklo: That's correct.
Mims: How many bedrooms total?
Miklo: Um, I don't know that off the top of my head but the, uh, all of the units are a
combination of one or two-bedroom units. I don't believe any three-bedroom
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units are proposed. And I think that the applicant's, uh, architect can probably
give you the specific number of bedrooms.
Mims: And .... based on the configuration, how many parking spots have been required
per unit or .... can you give me an idea (both talking)
Miklo: For ... for one bedroom unit, one parking space is required, for a two-bedroom unit,
two parking spaces are required, and this does meet those standards.
Mims: Okay.
Throgmorton: If I understood correctly the .... the applicant, uh, intends to provide significantly
more parking spaces than is required by code. Is that right?
Miklo: Um, I would have to check that and I, uh.... not familiar with that detail.
Thomas: So, Bob, the ... visitor parking would be along, um, Preserve Drive, is that....
Miklo: Yeah, uh, parking would be allowed on Preserve Drive. It's .... of course is not
allowed on Gilbert Street or McCollister Boulevard. And, uh, depending on
number of occ .... (coughing) residents who have cars, there may be also, um,
parking available in the, uh, the open lots in the center of the development.
Throgmorton: Bob, the buildings that line south Gilbert Street, what are they .... what are those?
Are they eight-plexes or what, I can't tell.
Miklo: These are, uh, I believe six to eight -unit townhouse style developments. They're,
by zoning they're a multi -family building, but they're in the form of. ... of attached
townhouses. Uh, so those would be here and then at this corner, this would be an
eight-plex and then this I believe is an eight. I believe these are eight-plexes as
well and then 12-plexes.
Throgmorton: How about the ones that line McCollister on the south side?
Miklo: Uh, these are again that .... that townhouse style, and I believe there are some
illustrations of those, uh.... in your.....in your packet.
Throgmorton: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Bob?
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Mims: Yeah. Why the change in setback on McCollister from 40 -feet to 25? I ... I mean I
guess that concerns me in the major arterial like that, reducing that setback.
Miklo: Um, that would be a, I guess a question for the applicant. Uh, my, um,
assumption, uh, is to create more of a .... a tight pedestrian environment.
Taylor: Were there .... I believe in our notes there was, uh, talk about the storm water
management and can you kind of expel on that?
Miklo: Yeah, there.... there's currently a.....a basin for the Sand Hill development here,
uh, I believe there's a propo.... this proposal would include a .... a new basin in this
area, and urn .... the general flow of the water would be in this direction. Uh, the
actual storm water management plan would come with a, uh, a subdivision or a ... a
planned development at a later stage, but conceptually this is .... is the plan.
Throgmorton: Other questions for Bob?
Taylor: I assume those, uh, the smaller lines from the setback off the street are ... are
proposed sidewalks, there will be sidewalks. I'm thinking of the students that
would potentially be walking to Alexander.
Miklo: Yeah.
Taylor: Okay.
Throgmorton: Okay, Bob, thank you. We might ask you to come back up in a little bit, we'll
see! Who else would like to address us in the public hearing? Good evening,
Mark, how are ya?
Seabold: (speaking away from mic) Okay, Mayor, uh, Members of the City Council, um,
my name's Mark Seabold. I'm an architect with Shive-Hattery and the principal
in our Iowa City office. Um, and it's..... it's great to be here tonight. I,um, I want
to continue a conversation we've been having with City staff, um .... uh, in the
Planning Department. Uh, we've had two different neighborhood meetings over
the past year, um, and ... and then we had the recent, uh, meeting with the Planning
and Zoning Commission here last month. Um, I hope you had the opportunity to
read the meeting minutes from the Planning and Zoning meeting. There's some
really great discussion I thought at that meeting, from us, from the neighbors, um,
and from Commission members, which as Bob mentioned, uh, resulted in a 3-3
vote, or a denial, tie/denial, um, and initially we were a little disappointed in that,
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but .... but with the .... with the, um .... sorry (mumbled) Um, with that vote I think
it really showed there was some passion behind this scheme, uh, from Planning
and Zoning standpoint. I .... kind of on both ends, so I'm hoping to kind of further
that discussion, um, through this process. Um, we hope tonight to be able to
convince you that this development is something the Council can support and
that, you know, we can enter into that consultation with Planning and Zoning and
yourselves to help kind of further this discussion on, uh, on really what's I ... we
feel an important housing, um, opportunity for Iowa City. Uh, Bob did a pretty
good, uh, job of describing the project and the surrounding area in the South
District Plan, and really saying the .... the, that Planning is recommending or they
have a recommendation for this conditional zoning tonight. This isn't the final
zoning, but the conditional zoning. I'd just like to walk you through quickly kind
of the process that we went through, um, for this project. This was the site plan
we presented, um, December 7th, uh, 2016, so almost a year ago. This was our
first neighborhood meeting. Um, and this was the initial diagram, um, that we,
uh, had come up with. This was based on smaller scale, um, residential units,
smaller kind of entry-level, um, priced, uh, rental units, and uh, the idea here was
we were trying to preserve as much green space as possible for both on the public
side and on the private side, and again just looking for those, uh.... individuals that
wanted to live within a smaller footprint. Um, I guess, again, this first concept
was really compros .... comprised of row houses with parking located in between
them to, uh, to help preserve the green space wis... with views, both from the front
and back of the units. Uh, really every unit in here was hovering in that 1,000
square foot range, um, with open first floor plans, and in this initial scheme, it was
178 total units with 344 total bedrooms. I think, Susan, I'11.....I'll come back to
your question when ... when the new one is (both talking)
Mims: Thank you.
Seabold: Uh, the storm water detention is located, again, kind of along that eastern
boundary. Uh, we were looking at that as the separation between this and the, uh,
this development and the neighborhood beyond it. It really was, you know, at that
point designed more as a separation than as something that would unify the
development. Um, we did have backs of buildings, um, you know, kind of
backyards to backyards, and we were maintaining a minimum of 150 -feet
between those two structures. Uh, really because of the feedback at our initial
meeting and further discussions with staff, um, really the initial response was,
`Boy this looks way too complex like. There's not enough building variation.
You know, it seems like everything's kind of pulled back away from the street,'
um, and so when we went back to the drawing board and the City offered to have
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Opticos help, you know, kind of take a look at this, we had a couple very brief
meetings with them, um .... I thought it was a really nice way to kind of rethink the
whole, um, piece and look at some of their missing middle philosophy items.
This isn't a missing middle project cause it's not an in -fill project, but a lot of the
kind of walkable, um, the ideas awound.... around walkable developments and
walkable neighborhoods, as well as those smaller scale, multi -family houses were
really something that we were attracted to. Uh, actually included.... this was a....
an initial sketch that they had given us, and this is about the extent of their work,
so, uh, but we really did use this as.....as, um .... as a resource for us to kind of
further our .... our internal discussion, the discussion with Planning staff and really
to kind of move ourselves forward. Um, I do want to mention, uh, there was
and ... uh, and, Susan, you brought it up — why are we ... choosing to pull our
buildings closer and reduce some of the setbacks, and that was really part of that
discussion with Opticos and with City Planning where ...... by pulling these things
and reducing those front yards, it creates a more walkable neighborhood, and then
even along arterial streets, there was a discussion on trying to slow that traffic
down. They're having some real, uh, traffic problems currently, but trying to
make, um, the neighborhood feel a little bit closer. It gives the perception to
people driving through there that they should be slowing down and keeping it a
little bit, um, you know, their speeds a little bit lower. That's some .... that was the
only reason we were really looking at reducing those setbacks. Uh, we don't need
a for -formidable area where building below the, uh, you know, below the density
that, um, that we could be with this zoning. So, um, it was really just an
opportunity to create a more walkable neighborhood. So between neighborhood
comments, um, City staff input, and .... and the input that we got from Opticos, we
went back to the drawing board and really created a whole new development plan,
which you saw. This was the one, again, from .... last December and then this is
how that's morphed over the past, you know, almost year. Uh, in this new plan
we have a single -loaded street that's been located to the east and starts to tie into
that prairie buffer, and it's really designed as a linear area between the, um .... uh,
existing pedestrian path, uh, trail and the new neighborhood extension, and then
the park has been added. So before where we really had kind of backyards to
backyards, now we're kind of embracing that connection and trying to make....
make these things flow into one another a lit .... a little bit more. Uh, the minimum
dimension between buildings is now 230 square feet, although there is that street
in between there. And again as Bob mentioned, there's a pedestrian street
flowing through the center here to try and, again, just make that pedestrian and
that walkable connection. Uh, the streets are all designed to be 26 feet wide, and
again that's kind of a discussion we had with the City, trying to keep, um, a two-
way street with parking on one side, have it feel a little crowded, again to help
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reduce traffic speeds, and .... and it's .... and it's just a method of traffic calming.
All the street parking is for guests, um, to the area. Um, as each residence, again
as Bob said, will have the designated number of space located kind of in between
in ... in each one of those pods there. Uh, we did actually have more parking, uh,
shown initially, but this is right sized for the amount that we need for the
development. If there is a concern about parking we can always add that as we
get into the, uh, next part of the process. So the plan's been divided into five
areas, each with the required parking, surrounded by two-story multi -family
structures, and then there are four three-story buildings down along that southern
edge. Each one of those, uh, four buildings is a ..... is a three-story 12-plex. Uh,
there's four different residential units (mumbled) before there were only two. Uh,
we're looking at two-bedroom, two-story townhomes with garages, uh, very
similar to a lot of the units at the Peninsula, and those are all along Preserve Way
and along, um, McCollister. We've got two-bedroom, two-story row houses.
Those are occurring also, uh, at the .... at the beginning and, uh, and the Gilbert
Street entry to the pe .... pedestrian street, as well as up at the northern end. Then
we have two-bedroom flats and one -bedroom flats, and that's a total of 336
bedrooms. We do have more apartments, but we have less bedrooms because
we're using the one-story flats as an upper level unit to help scale the buildings
down to that more residential scale. So, instead of going up like a traditional, I
don't know, eight-plex, 12-plex, same footprint, same (mumbled) floor plan, that
upper level kind of reduces down so we can get a little more roofscape there. Uh,
looking at the parking areas, we do have garage structures located within each of
those blocks, and we're gonna incorporate the trash and recycling areas within
those so they're.... they're hidden from view for the, uh, for the development.
(mumbled) just going through this, talking about the setbacks .... um ..... you know,
density, uh, density came up during the Planning and Zoning meeting and we
thought we'd compare the density of this to the density of the Peninsula, just
because I think people are pretty familiar with the Peninsula design and what it
feels like to be driving through there. Uh, the Peninsula, you know, has much less
green space than we do in this area. The buildings are very tightly, um, you
know, they're really utilizing their lots very, very closely. They're using
minimum setbacks, and where we're doing minimum setbacks to the street to
create that walkable neighborhood, we're trying to open the, uh, areas up inside
the development to more green spaces, and you can see, uh, in through here
(mumbled) down south between some of these buildings, and then of course that
kind of, uh, green parkway in between. We actually have 57% of the site will be
......will, um.....will stay as a green space; 17% is building area, and then 26%
would be, uh, the different roads and paving and things like that. Uh, from a
design imager's standpoint, uh, you know, we have been looking at very simple,
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uh, residential forms, kind of a modern farmhouse approach, uh, simple gabled
roofs with punched windows. Um, you can see the interiors are full of natural
light. We're trying to keep very, very simple floor plans, very open, again, very
small but ... but to feel as open as possible. And then natural amenities, um, for the
playground and other areas there down below. Uh, these were just some rough
concepts, you know, again we're .... we're asking to be able to continue in the
design process on this with the, uh.... um, with the conditional zoning. So these
are just trying to show the scale of, you know, buildings with simple roof forms
and kind of a .... a decreased, um.....uh, decreased scale and trying to seem as ... as
residential as possible. I think the next step would of course be to work with the
City and .... and look at the attached single-family housing standards and the types
of materials that are allowed through the form based code, which is something
that we've all agreed to. So, um ... you know, overall I mean it's been a great
process. We've been working on this for over a year, you know, with City staff,
with, um, a couple different neighborhood meetings, and .... and with Opticos and
we really think that, you know, this is a design that'll add to the diversity of this
area, from a residential standpoint, and really provide those smaller more entry-
level pricing, uh, more entry-level priced housing units for the South District in
Iowa City, and I guess we're also, uh, we're just excited about this area. I mean
everything that's going on at the corner of Gilbert and Highway 6, Terry
Trueblood is such a wonderful thing to be able to tie into and we're taking
influence from that for our, um, prairie, urn ..... prairie areas and, uh, and different
natural features. Uh, we really feel that this'll be a nice addition to Iowa City at
that entry price. Um, at that entry-level pricing model. Can I answer any other
questions?
Mims: Yeah, just one clarification. Are the only three-story buildings, are those the four
that are at the very south?
Seabold: Right. These are 12, uh, units (both talking) down in here, and again it's two -
stories of two -bedrooms, and then the top story is one -bedroom, so that's like a
half (both talking)
Mims: Okay, so it's .... you've got setbacks (both talking)
Seabold: Setbacks up at the top.
Mims: Top, okay.
Dickens: What is the average price that you're looking at for this?
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Seabold: Uh, you would have to talk with Jerry (mumbled) don't know if they've come up
with that.
Dickens: All right.
Thomas: Mar .... (clears throat) Mark, is the .... that green area between .... the existing
homes and the proposed development (both talking)
Seabold: The dark, or the .... this one?
Thomas: Uh, no, the ... within the project area. Uh.... that portion where .... where you have
the cursor, that .... that's part of the storm water detention. What .... what about on
the other side of the park?
Seabold: Yeah, this .... this whole area will be both a, uh, a storm water way to help, um,
have water, storm water flow through the site like it does now, as well as
accommodate the storm water on the site, and we've got so much area that we're
hoping it's a very shallow basin. It's not like a wet bottomed type of thing, it's
more of a prairie situation like you have across the street.
Thomas: But it....it could be reduced in size if....it....it doesn't need to be as wide as .... as
you're showing.
Seabold: It could be deeper, yeah, I mean .... but the intent is it doesn't look like a storm
water basin. The intent is it's more of a naturalized feature.
Thomas: Right. Thanks!
Seabold: Any other questions (both talking)
Throgmorton: ... questions for Mark? Thank you, Mark. Again, we might ask you to come back
UP.
Seabold: Yeah, please!
Throgmorton:.... seeing how .... after we start talkin' a little bit.
Waddilove: Good evening, uh, Mayor Throgmorton (both talking) and, uh, City Council
Members. I'm Jerry Waddilove of, uh, with Southgate Companies, um,
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representing the applicant. Uh, both Bob and Mark did a good job of explaining
the project. I just wanted to share a few high points with you. Um.....since 1952
Southgate companies has been a family-owned local business in our community.
Our mission is to provide quality homes and work places in our community. Our
vision is to build community pride one project at a time. Uh, we believe that the
Preserve at Sand Hill will provide more entry-level priced housing that is very
much needed in Iowa City, uh, to retain and attract our residents, uh, as I
mentioned at the Planning and Zoning Committee, our nurses, our teachers, our
......our retired professors and so on, um.....and, uh, provide an approachable and
obtainable housing stock, uh, for both.....for rent and for sale. We believe the
proposed site plan for Preserve at Sand Hill utilizes more clustered housing, uh, as
Bob mentioned, at about nine dwelling units per acre and 11 dwelling units per
acre, promoting more green space and a sense of community and a sense of place.
We believe that this type of development is appropriate at, uh, Gilbert and
McCollister Boulevard. This is an arterial and an arterial, uh, very similar to First
Avenue and Rochester, Scott and Court, Dodge and Prairie du Chien, where you
have a lot of commercial, community commercial, uh, high density multi -family
type of, uh, development. Uh, the last thing that is probably, um, somewhat, uh,
of a different viewpoint is that, uh, we believe that.....well, our plan would be is
to manage this, uh, subdivision or site as a.....an owners' association, uh, and we
feel that, uh, that process could benefit, uh, the entire neighborhood and .... and
help retain the long-term aesthetics of the site, uh, contrast that with, uh, 40
duplex owners who each own their own lot and, uh, can let maintenance go
deferred for, uh, whichever unit they want. So, uh, we think that having an
owners' association would help for, uh, the long-term aesthetics. That's all I
have. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Jerry, uh, excuse me, could .... could you elaborate a little bit more on what you
mean by affordable and then secondly, describe the home .... the homeowners'
association more.....specifically please.
Waddilove: Sure! Uh, and, you know, I guess I'm referring to it as entry-level priced housing,
um .... and.....you know, the.....the homes are roughly in the range of 1,000 square
feet, uh, per unit, uh, the units that would be in a.....uh, multi -family type of
building, I guess the flat's more of your apartment style, uh, you know, those are
probably gonna be on the lower end of the price point. Um, you know, cause
you're probably sharin', uh, unless you're a top floor or a bottom floor, you're
sharin' several walls as opposed to a townhome style where you're really sharing
one wall, uh, and then you have maybe your sleeping area and your eating area in
different areas, whereas in some of the more apartment styles, they'd be, um...
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you know, the same floor. Urn .... but you know we're talkin' about something
hopefully.... we haven't really, um, narrowed in our price point per se, uh, but you
know, we'd be .... um ..... I guess comparatively of other two-bedroom, two -bath
condominiums in the Johnson County market. Those'd probably be in the
125,000 to $150,000 range, uh, and then it would go up from there for the
townhouses and the row house style. Uh, the homeowners' association, um....
you know, that's something where .... you know we are looking for the market to
help us determine how much of this would be for rent and how much of it would
be for sale. Um, and we think that, uh, by having a group and a board, um, and
voting members of that committee, then they can make sure that, uh, you know
the snow is removed and the landscaping looks nice, uh, and that the roof is
maintained and those .... those types of things.
Throgmorton: So if you have a mix of rental units and owned units, this means only the ones, the
people who own units would be members of...or eligible to be members of the
homeowners' association?
Waddilove: Uh, well there would be, um, each unit would be, uh, its own vote, and so if...say
somebody, um, owned the rentals, they would have the vote for how many ever
units they owned. So it would be all...... all part of one owners' association.
Throgmorton: Yeah, I guess may .... maybe my brain's working a little more slowly than I'd like.
So I just want to know if I were a renter out there, would I have a vote in what the
homeowners' association does.
Waddilove: Um, you would have I guess a vested interest, but you likely would not have a
vote. Your landlord would have that vote, and it would be up to you to talk to
them about (both talking)
Throgmorton: Yeah, okay. Okay. That's clear. Thank you.
Waddilove: Yep!
Throgmorton: Other questions for Jerry? Thank you (both talking) Who would like to speak
next? Uh, Sara, hi!
Barron: I'm Sara Barron from the Johnson County Affordable Housing Coalition. Um, as
a coalition we'd like to speak in support of the proposed conditional rezoning, uh,
for a couple of reasons. Uh, one is that as we continue to do this development of
the edges of our community, uh, it's important for us to include a mix of housing
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in those neighborhoods as they go up. We want for every neighborhood in Iowa
City to be accessible to people of all income levels, and while this housing may
not be, um, technically affordable under some of the more strict definitions, it
certainly provides a mix of housing, multi -family housing is an important
investment in affordability across many different income levels in our
community. Um, we are also, um, pleased to see, uh, local developers like
Southgate who have a good reputin.... reputation of, um, keeping well-maintained
properties, investing in this type of development in the area. Um, and,
uh.....there's one other thing, oh, yes! Uh, I regret to say that some of the
community members are neighbors of this development have been speaking out,
um, about this proposal, um, with some really, um.....easy to spot, not in my
backyard, um, standards, such as, um, concerns about, um, parking and traffic and
that kind of thing, but also, um, as one, um, resident sent in a ... an email to a staff
member recently, um.....the townhouse concept will be cheap homes that attract
neighbors we don't want, and when they don't sell they will be rented, attracting
the same. Um, that's simply not a way of addressing our community members in
Iowa City, that the Affordable Housing Coalition, um, can go along with, and we
want to stand and firmly say that people of all income levels are great neighbors, a
great investment in our community, and we want to just really openly reject the
idea that people who have, uh, less money to spend on their housing are, um, less
of a neighbor and less of a part of our community. So, thank you!
Throgmorton: Thank you, Sara. Wait a minute! Might be questions for ya, Sara!
Barron: Oh, oh!
Throgmorton: I don't know, could be. Anybody have any questions for Sara? I guess not.
Thanks. I think you might be Charlie. Hi, Charlie!
Eastham: (laughs) Yeah, hi, Mayor Throgmorton, it's good to see you, sir! Um, my name
is Charlie Eastham. I live at 953 Canton Street in Iowa City, which is in the
Peninsula neighborhood. Uh, I'm also a member of the Affordable Housing
Coalition, although (mumbled) speaking to you tonight just for myself. Uh, the
Peninsula neighborhood, as most of you know, is a .... uh.... compact mix of
housing types — apartment buildings, townhomes, duplexes, single-family homes.
I live on a street, Canton Street, that, uh, has two townhome buildings, one of
which, uh, my wife and I own a unit in one of those townhome buildings.
Someone built five single-family homes just down the street from us. I don't
know why they did that, but they did! Just down at the end of our block there are
two apartment buildings. Uh, everyone gets along just fine, as far as I can tell
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anyway. Uh, the units are close to the street. Uh, in terms of front setback I could
almost broad jump from our front porch to the sidewalk, if I could broad jump any
more, which I cannot. Uh, so it's a very compact place. There, uh, different
family types, lots of kids. It's a very enjoyable neighborhood. We used to live at
the .... in the, uh, Idyllwild subdivision, which was much more people like me,
seniors, um, and many less kids. We moved from there because of the flooding,
and we lived on Court Street before that, a very mixed neighborhood in the
Longfellow area. So in terms of my, uh, experience (clears throat) this kind of
development itself would work very, very well. Uh, I also was a member of the
Planning and Zoning Commission for two terms, and actually was on the
Commission when the Comprehensive Plan for this area was adopted. Uh, and
remember very well, uh, looking at this particular, uh.... uh, parcel or .... or area as
being very, uh, well suited for multi -family development to, uh (clears throat) to
provide a better housing mix of types, uh, from the, uh, RS -5 and RS -8 areas that
are predominant in this, uh, this general part of the city. Um (clears throat) I also
noticed when I was on the Commission that it's often times very difficult as a
commission member to go from the Comprehensive Plan, uh, designated densities
and building types to actual zoning where those densities and building types
eventually get built, uh, because of a variety of reasons, uh, none of which are
particularly good. So I hope you will, um, look at the Comp Plan, follow it, and
go ahead and vote in favor of this rezoning request. Thanks.
Throgmorton: Thanks, Charlie. Others?
Rushton: I'm John Rushton. I live at 1614 Dickinson Lane, and there's a very important
matter that hasn't been brought up, and in fact has been masked. If you notice on
the maps, this development, which is within a mile of the Airport, does not show
the Airport. Runway 30 .... goes right down the center of this development. A
mile away. And if you look at the approach overlap...... you can see here ..... that
we are risking...... federal funding, uh, we'd have to zoom out and then it would
go about the fourth tree, and then.....it would go through the middle part and go
fiuther.....it goes over Alexander at, uh, 10,000 feet. And the federal government
has made it clear that we must keep our runways clear. We'd be back to 1992
when we muddled up the north/south runway and had to buy out.....uh, mobile
home court on Highway 1. And then we had to get a special exemption from the
State of Iowa because planes couldn't go 15 feet over Highway 1, so that they
could go less than 15 feet. The approach overlay is a 34 to 1, this is a 3%. This
isn't much. This runway is only allowed to be used during the daytime. It's not
supposed to be used at night. It was used at 6:30 this morning. I'm not sure if
there was an emergency or what. Um, it is our secondary runway. Runway 25's
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our primary, and we had to put a lot of money into building that, and we rely on
grants. Our Airport is not self-sufficient. It is the third busiest airport in the state
of Iowa. The state of Iowa loves us, and it's only 16 nautical miles from Cedar
Rapids, but it's important to the Hospital and businesses. It, uh, generates $12
million is what, uh, the Airport, um.....uh...... group, uh, says, at $12 million a
year. And that's a nice chunk of change. And if we build this development, we
could risk federal funding and state funding, and I don't know if we can afford
this Airport on its own. Uh, that's all I have to say. Uh, we just can't build
anything here.
Throgmorton: Thank you, John (both talking) Go ahead!
Taylor: So you're talking nothing, no matter how high, one-story, two-story versus three
stories? You're.... you're talking there shouldn't be anything there?
Rushton: Well that's.... that's the safest approach, urn .... you know certainly three stories,
uh, I have a, uh, vertical.....there's a vertical thing, and this is in, um, the Council
web site, and uh, you know, it's about 40 feet at the 5,000 foot zone, which is
when it's going over the three stories. Um, this isn't much, and this is gonna be
very loud. I can hear airplanes from my house, and I live about 10,000 feet from
the house and about 5,000 feet from this development.
Throgmorton: Just to be clear, folks, we don't wanna get into back and forth with the speaker,
but if there's a specific question you'd like to have answered (mumbled) okay to
ask about that.
Taylor: (both talking) wanted him to clarify that.
Throgmorton: Thank you, John.
Rushton: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Good evening, Caroline!
Dieterle: Good evening, Mr. Throgmorton. Um... A.....I'm......I don't, I'm not declaring
what I have to say is a fact. I'm .... I'm just asking you to look into it a little
further. I've attended some recent Airport Commission meetings and um, they
are in the process of, um, changing the flight plath.... Right path on one of their
runways, um, to accommodate larger planes. And this involves removing, um,
trees that are in the way so that they can dip down sooner.....uh, and therefore
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allow something bigger to come in. Right now the .... the slope is too steep to let
things come in that are much bigger. So that means that things are going to be
flying lower. Another, and I .... I don't know whether that data has come to you or
not. I think that you probably have seen their .... the Airport master plan and are,
you know, aware of what they're doing, but I just think it would be good to ch...
to check with that and see if this is even gonna fly lower. The other thing is that I
found a little disturbing is, and I don't know that you have any control over it
because the Airport is semi-independent in a way, but'(clears throat) at....at last,
uh, when -I last heard, the Airport fixed -base operator is selling fuel and under-
selling the Cedar Rapids' Airport. So this makes it preferential for people to
come in and fuel at the, um, at our Airport, to save some money on gas. Well this
of course, uh, increases the traffic a good deal. And it may have been
strategically managed that way in order to increase the traffic so that they could
get the funding, you know, to do whatever they were doing. Um, I don't know
this for a fact but I think you should try to look into it and find out how many
planes that come in come in simply to get fuel and then whip back out again,
cause that might change your view of how busy the Airport is, and how desirable
it is to be under -selling the, uh, operators in Cedar Rapids on gas.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Caroline. Good evening.
Arthur: Good evening. Okay, um, my name is Richard Arthur (mumbled) Yeah, and
there on McCollister Boulevard, when you get to Covered Wagon, my wife and I
live on the house on the corner. So that's where.... that's where, that's where I'm
coming from. Okay? Um.....just gonna read through my notes really quick,
okay? Um, I don't find that the construction contemplated by S&G for the land
related to the rezoning fulfills either the goals of the City or acknowledges the
viewpoints and concerns of the.... existing neighbors. Their plan doesn't fulfill
the goals of the City as presented in the South District Plan, adopted in 2015. Part
of that plan describes a concept coined `middle housing.' Um, page 19 of that
plan it states that multi -family buildings should be designed to be similar in scale
— width, depth, height — to single-family homes (mumbled) unit sizes may need to
be smaller but should be designed with similar attention to detail and quality
construction. That was mentioned earlier, but they did not say that it was in
reference to single-family homes. Lastly it states concentrations of one housing
type in any one area should be avoided as this may create an obstacle to
connectivity and con... can upset the balance of long and short -tern residents. I
have concerns that the buildings described in the proposals from S&G do not
fulfill the similar in scale to single-family home requirement. The row houses,
the block style apartment buildings, and especially the three-story apartment
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structures do not blend with the existing neighborhood. Nor do they appear as
existing single-family homes. We've had meetings with S&G. We've always
said if anything is going to be built, make it look like our neighborhood, make it
single-family, and we've repeated that message over and over, okay? That's my
first point. Second point, I don't.....I don't find that the construction
contemplated by S&G for this land acknowledges any of the sentiments of the
existing property owners. My wife and 1, and most of our neighbors, feel like we
were mislead, both verbally by our realtors, visually by a sign that the realtors
erected at the entrance of Sand Hill Estates, stating `live where the bass are
jumping,' and lastly, through the written covenants that S&G representatives
authored in their restriction in covenants recorded by Kimberly Painter on Ju....
June 14, 2014. Prior to purchasing my lot, I was required to read through the
Declaration of Restrictions in Covenants, Sand Hill Estates Part 1. I'm just gonna
quote from that. It says: Sand Hill Estates takes its name from a prairie feature
around which the subdivisions and subsequent parts of the Sand Hill Estates are
platted and developed. Living in proximity to a prairie has unique aspects. The
presence of the prairie will likely encourage the presence of wildlife, which mi
....might not be present in areas without this feature, and residents need to be
respectful of and careful of such wildlife. The declarant, that's S&G, and
subsequent owners are bound by an agreement with the Iowa Department of
Natural Resources to safely capture and relocate any ornate box turtles found
upon property. Okay ..... so ...... I couldn't have been more excited to have a
protected prairie in my backyard. As a property owner on McCollister Court, I
was led to believe.....that there would be future housing developments, but that
construction would be occurring between our home and Wetherby Park. Okay.
Not between my home and Terry Trueblood .... Rec.... Recreational Area. The
prairie that we were told we were bound to respect and preserve is not being
developed into apartment buildings. Had S&G first constructed these
contemplated buildings, um, that they envision for this site and then tried to sell
their lots, they would have sold at a steep discount to what .... what I paid, and
they would have sat on the market for much more time. One of their best selling
points for Sand Hill Estates was the view, the natural rural feel to the property.
Like the restrictions and covenants state, living with a prairie ..... is a unique
experience. At night we hear coyotes. So that'll.....that'll be gone. I'm sure that
if I had known that 216 apartments were going to be built directly behind our
house, we would have passed on purchasing our lot and building our custom-built
home that we thought was going to be our forever home. How can S&G as
signatories to those restrictions and covenants develop a site plan that essentially
destroys the habitat prairie that houses the wildlife that they had us agree to be
bound to respect as members of the homeowners association?
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Tbrogmorton: Richard, excuse me, uh, wonder if you could wrap it up. You've gone over five
minutes already.
Arthur: You know what, this is gonna seriously affect my property value. Can I .... who
do I ask for an extension up to my time?
Throgmorton: Uh.... there are a lot of other people who want to speak, Richard.
Arthur: Okay!
Throgmorton: Lot of neighbors. I .... I think, I mean show your hands if you wanna speak, you
know. Well, at least three or four.
Arthur: Okay.
Tbrogmorton: Yeah.
Arthur: I'll wrap it up in a minute, okay?
Throgmorton: Yeah, well (both talking)
Arthur: ....thanks, Mayor!
Throgmorton: Be very quick, please!
Arthur: I don't believe the infrastructure exists. Archibald Alexander is already at full
capacity. The intersection of McCollister Boulevard and South Gilbert is
dangerous. Um, recently there was a bus jack-knifed in that intersection. Um, it's
the bus my kids ride. Um .... right now my neighborhood in the morning and the
evening has become a dangerous commuter thorough -way. People whip through.
They go from McCollister Boulevard, onto Covered W .... onto Covered Wagon,
and then they pick up Langenberg. Ura ...... and uh, spoke to the school bus driver
this morning. She says in her opinion it happens at least every two weeks that a
car will.....slow behind her bus and then proceed around, even though the lights
are flashing and her stop sign is out. Um ...... speed bumps, the City .... the City
allowed Langenberg to connect and then they discovered that they'd created a
dangerous situation so they put in six, um .... speed bumps. Um, I see that a lot in
Mexico — poor planning. So I really hope that the infrastructure for what they're
proposing is in first.
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Throgmorton: Ok.... uh.....(both talking)
Arthur: Thanks for your time!
Throgmorton:.....yeah, thank you. Who would like to speak next? Good evening and I need to
remind you and everybody else, please keep your comments to not more than five
minutes.
Stapleton: I'I1.....I'll be brief. Um, my name is, uh, Rich Stapleton and my wife and I live at
1153 Langenberg. Um, so .... I just want to piggyback on what was just said. Um,
you know, I .... I was disappointed when I heard from the Housing, uh..... um,
(someone responding from audience) Coalition, sorry, uh, the Housing Coalition,
the comments that were made by some of our neighbors. Um, it's .... this isn't
about what population is going to be attracted by this development. This is about,
um ....... being mislead. When my wife and I purchased our property, uh, just like
what was said — we were shown this big open space, uh, look at your backyard,
which in our case is a beautiful cornfield with a, uh, cattle pasture. Um .... we
enjoy sitting out on our back deck, enjoying the evenings. Um, but our front yard
is a disaster. Uh, cars speeding by. We live right by one of those, uh, speed
humps, which is a joke. Uh, people still go across it probably at 35,40 miles an
hour. Um .... there's been at least three times where I've almost been hit by cars
just trying to check my mail, uh, because of the way people speed around that
comer around Covered Wagon and Langenberg, and I see kids playing on that
corner. I mean the first row of three or four houses on that corner is filled with
kids that are just running across the road there, and people are speeding, and I've
seen..... one cop car in the six months that I've lived there.....catching people.
They're all out on, um, Gilbert, but I've seen none in our neighborhood. That
intersection of McCollister and Gilbert is horrible! I've wrote City Council about
this. I've wrote the Zoning Commission about this. I've wrote, uh, several other
people about this, and trying to get across there in the morning is a disaster! It's
an accident waiting to happen! There's been a couple times where I've pulled
over to check my mail. I've almost got rear-ended. Because there's nowhere to
pull off. Um ..... having 300 more .... units on this corner, I .... I just don't
understand how it's gonna work, and I think before the City votes on this, uh,
rezoning. I really think they need to go back to the drawing board and look at
how are we going to preserve, um, the wildlife, how are we going to preserve the
looks of the neighborhood, how are we going to preserve the safety of the
neighborhood. So .... thank you.
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Throgmorton: Thank you, Rich. Good evening.
Domsic: I'm Robert Domsic. Um, I live at 860 McCollister Court and I just have to echo
everything my neighbors have said thus far. Uh, I think one of the biggest
concerns I have is the safety and security of the children and of the residents
throughout this neighborhood, the fact that the infrastructure that is currently there
would not support this adequately. Uh, there's documented evidence, uh, there's
been a traffic study of the, uh .... intersection at McCollister Boulevard and Gilbert
Street that shows that it is an unsafe intersection. Uh, you know, Richard here
talked about the school bus that, uh, his.....his kids ride, uh, being in accidents
there. I've seen other school buk.... buses in accidents there. I often see, uh,
collisions there and you know I .... I wonder how those people have fared. Um,
you look at this proposed plan and you look at the issue of the setback that you
had, um, had talked about earlier. And you look at the size and, um, span of this
given plot of land and I can't help but think that part of the reason that the setback
is needed is because this me ... mere shape of the property does not allow for the
proposed density. That what sh.... that if anything is going to happen, density
should be reduced in order to accommodate that, so that the safety of our citizens,
uh, is preserved and you have to think why were those setbacks defined in the first
place. Why was a 40 -foot setback there, and I .... particularly on main arterial
streets, I think it is a matter of public safety. One of the things that has not, uh,
also been addressed, uh, tonight is the fact that, uh, there's additional
development, um, of homes that is currently on-going, phase 2 and 3, uh, which
are an additional, I believe it was 260 -plus homes up there, and, uh.....slightly out
of view of where this map is. Now if you look at those homes, that level of, uh,
of property, you look at the number of units that are going in here, and you think
of the traffic that will be going through there without the, urn..... infrastructure
that's in place from a continuation of McCollister Boulevard, you have to think
that, uh, that traffic is going to be much higher and that the safety of our residents
is going to be jeopardized even more, and I know that many of our, um, my
neighbors do not allow their students to walk to the elementary school, and if you
think about the level of population that's going up, not only through this but the
also developed with the additional, uh, homes, uh, you are looking at potential
over -population of already nearly maxed elementary school. So without the
redistricting of this school, uh, you're.... we're going to potentially have capacity
issues, uh, even beyond what there already are. It should also be noted that at the
Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that happened, uh.....uh, earlier, um, it
was stated in regards to parking that part of the intent of the garages was actually
to, um, to be storage for people. Uh, to me this indicates that the properties
themselves are very small and do not have adequate storage for, uh, the units
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themselves, and this would, uh, further take, um, cars out of those garages and put
them along the streets or in the other intersections, or sorry, the other roadway
like Preserve Way, which would probably, um, increase the density of. ... of the
actual parking and be fewer allotted spots than, uh, I think are allocated for.
So .... (both talking)
Throgmorton: Okay, Robert. Thank you! Good evening!
Eckrich: This is a first for me to speak before the City Council, although I'm a life-long
member of Iowa City.
Throgmorton: Well ... welcome to your City Hall!
Eckrich: Thank you! I'm Dawn Eckrich and we live at 1109 Langenberg, uh, if you, uh,
take McCollister up Covered Wagon and turn right, we're up between two speed
bumps, which I must say are a joke because, uh, it doesn't, uh.....prevent any, I
mean rarely does anybody speed, uh, lower their speed, and.....we have someone
in a little red car that twice a day goes up and down there as fast as they can. I'm
surprised their car hasn't.....lost the bottom of it, but .... one of the unique areas in
Iowa City is the Sand Hill Estates. It ... to me is, uh.....a shame to develop this
particular area. It's nice to have a buffer between businesses and town.....uh, as
you go to your home and as you go through town, this is far too high of an
intensive development for this area. Uh, in looking at the photos that were, uh,
shown by, uh, Southgate and, uh..... the Zoning Commission, those ho .... it was
taken from Gilbert and McCollister corner. Those houses are not that far away
here. This is a small area. Um, it does .... a three-story building does not match
the, uh.....aesthetics or the intention of the Sand Hill Estates homes, and um....
living in our home I do notice the, um, traffic from the Airport is just south of us
over the Lehman farm. I, uh, have to question a three-story building being down
here, since it is, uh, in the flight path of the Iowa City Airport. I urge you to
reconsider this and just leave it off the tax rolls as a ..... preserve. This was under
water years ago. It's a unique, uh, it's a unique area and it's, uh, really, um, a
pretty spot in Iowa City that.... would.....be.....good to see retained. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Dawn.
Short: Good evening!
Throgmorton: Good evening.
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Short: Um, my name is Dan Short. Um, and I live .... at 960 Covered Wagon. Um, so if
you look at the picture, um, where the little cursor is, this once empty lot is now
our house there. Um, so we began the evening, um, recognizing a couple of
safety officers, um, so I'd like to continue with that theme here of safety. Um, I
know on the report it says typically along, uh, major arterials, um, there's higher
density housing. And I believe it quotes, you know, Rochester and First Avenue
there, um, but that speed limit in that area is 25 miles an hour. Um, as you go
down Gilbert, um, I know it's 35 in through this area, and as you get past
McCollister, um, it gets up to 45 miles an hour. Um, which clearly is comparing
apples and oranges here, um, and is not nearly as safe as the, um, school zones in
the other areas. Um, I'd also like to read from, um, the staff report, um, that was
at the Planning and Zoning, uh, Commission, stating that, um, a 2016 traffic study
determined that a traffic signal or roundabout is already warranted at the
intersection of South Gilbert and McCollister Boulevard, due to crash history and
peak hour delays. The City has also received numerous complaints from
pedestrians having difficulty crossing the intersection to access Trueblood
Recreational Area. An improved intersection will be included in the McCollister
Boulevard extension project. It also says that a planned eastward extension of
McCollister Boulevard to South Sycamore is scheduled in the 2018-19 capital
improvement programs, with construction to begin in 2019. So I guess my only
question is why now .... is this going to be approved? The infrastructure isn't in
place. We've determined that in 2016 that it wasn't a safe intersection there.
We're adding more residents, more vehicles, more traffic, and the construction
isn't set to begin until 2019. So .... why not wait until the infrastructure's in place
to not only make it safer for the current residents, but any future residents as well.
Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Dan!
Shaw: Good evening, Mayor (both talking)
Throgmorton: Good evening.
Shaw: Uh, my name is Joleah Shaw and I live at 785 McCollister Court. Um, so my
backyard would basically, um, be adjacent to the proposed park that they have
over there. So kind of where that walkway goes up into our development, um,
I'm to the left of that..... sidewalk. Um, I'm also the secretary for the
homeowners association for Sand Hill Estates, um, and.....several of our board
members are here this evening as well and we were at the Planning and Zoning
Committee. Uh, we did a lot of the leg work, um, door-to-door walking and so
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forth, talking to all the residents within our neighborhood, and in all honesty, I
have not spoke to one single household that.....was in favor of this new
development. Um, one of the things that, um, I think Richard talked about before
was the .... the middle housing. Um, where is the buffer between the multi-plex,
um, buildings that they were proposing on the corners, where is that buffer to go
from that multi-plex kind of meshing into our neighborhood? Um, I think the, uh,
they talked about the, um, proposal before this one, but there was actually, um, to
my understanding there was one even before that was before my time in this
neighborhood and they talked about, um, this development being, um, single-
family homes and possibly even zero lots, um, that would be more in tune with
what our homeowners association would be. Our homeowners association, very
strict on, uh, what you can have in your yard, how you can side your home, how
you can roof your home, um, what you can, um, put up for fencing, um, all
different kinds of restrictions that are on our, um, on our development, which
would be completely different from what this kind of development would be.
Um, I've also heard.....um, Southgate and development, uh, people talk about
row housing and townhouses, but if you actually look at these pictures, these are
not town .... the.....the, what typical people think of townhouses. When I think of
townhouses and you're looking at row housing in a very, um, very busy street
such as Mormon Trek or over on Scott Boulevard. You look at those beautiful
row houses that are townhomes over there. These are simply put..... apartment
buildings! Regardless of what kind of construction or what they want to call
them, but if you actually look at the proposed, um, building structures that they're
doing here, these are apartment buildings. Um, so we all know, living in Iowa
City with, um, apartment buildings, it comes with a lot of different problems with
parking overflow, um, and in all reality I really believe that MCCol.... McCollister
Court would be an overflow for parking. Um, and I have five kids! And .... they
use that walking trail for biking, walking the dog, and, um, L....I really see this as
being a safety concern with this development being put in place here. Um, the
other thing is is that many of the neighborhood kids, um, as many have already
talked about, go to Alexander and this development is within the two miles, um,
and would be required for kids to walk to Alexander Elementary and to my
knowledge, um; they already have temporary buildings at Alexander because
they're over capacity. Um, so putting in some kinds of buildings like this, um,
we'd already be putting a big stretch on the School District, and as you know, um,
changing boundaries with the School District is, um, a bigger job than most
people can imagine. Um.....I also want to talk about the, um, the storm water,
um, I have one of those little do ... dome drain things in the back of my .... my lot.
Um, in .... in all honesty, when it rains hard, my backyard is flooded. I have a, um,
a shed in my backyard and literally my shed is surrounded by a pond. Um, for at
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least a good 12 hours or so after a big rain like that. Um, so I can imagine
the .... the storm drainage that they're talking about, I mean it's .... it's hard to
imagine prairie and beauty..... if it's going to be flooded with mud .... because of
the drainage that's there. Um .... so that's another concern that I have. Um, also,
um ... it hasn't been mentioned yet that, um, the other comer .... it has been said that
McCollister Court and, um, or I'm sorry, McCollister Boulevard and Gilbert
Street is a very dangerous intersection. Um, I don't allow my kids to cross it. I
just don't, and.....
Throgmorton: In .... Julie, excuse me, could you wrap it up?
Shaw: Yep, yep! And, um, and also one other thing, um, Kum n' Go is coming on that
comer, so it's .... it's gonna get worse. Um, so I .... would hope that you guys
would vote against this development. Thank you.
Palmer: I know you're gettin' tired, you're gettin' tired of hearin' us. Um, so I'm gonna
cut out half of this stuff. In due respect to my neighbors and, uh, the, uh, Housing
Coalition, we know Southgate did not buy this property except to develop it.
Throgmorton: Excuse me, could you state your name please?
Palmer: Kim Palmer, 803 McCollister Court. Thank you. Sorry! I get excited. I'm tryin'
to get it over with. Um .... I'm just going to skip down to what my other neighbor
said, um, I live so that I can see the intersection. I could pull out my phone and
show you the latest wreck that I saw, November 56. We've seen a.....a bus wreck
there. I want to ask you to please do not approve the development until Southgate
revises it. Um, we've got the missing middle. It talks about, uh, this is you guys'
plan, uh, thoughtfully designed so that the (clears throat) they maintain an
attractive residential character along streets and provide safe and inviting living
environments to the residents. It talks about senior housing. It talks about
accessibility, urn .... my wife's sittin' here in a wheelchair. She couldn't get in any
one of these places. Urn .... so if she.....and in the, uh, middle, missing middle,
you show a beautiful plan here, um, up along Scott, um, so if you look at that and
you look at this, and take a drive up there and say ...... you know, do these two
look alike? Well they don't. Um.....so three things...... please don't approve the
development, which will of one day be approved I'm sure, until we get a revised
plan. The second thing is until, um, McCollister Boulevard is completed.
Langenberg is a thoroughfare, and I agree with these other people. I pulled over
slowly one time to go over the edge. A guy passed me. He was doin' at least 30.
And finally the third thing with, uh, the intersection, um. ..... we're talkin' about
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addin' 200 units, how .... how many people, 300 or 400 people. We're talkin'
about, uh, Kum n' Go. Nobody's mentioned Kum n' Go. Kum n' Go's bought
the property. So you got people comin' in ....... comin' in and out of Kum n' Go.
Um.....Terry Trueblood.....our development, I mean.....this sounds over-
dramatic, but is it gonna take somebody to die there before you say, oh well, we
should've .... uh, we should've straightened it out before we stuck in 200 units.
Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Kim. Good evening.
Araksarod: (difficult to understand) I live, my name is Paula Araksarod. I live in 107....1079
Langenberg Avenue. So, um, I just move in in the summer of this year on that
property, and I (difficult to understand) I heard (difficult to understand) project
and I realize that .... before I move in I didn't know that that, urn .... uh,
Langenberg Avenue, what that traffic, until I move in. You wouldn't know there
was speed bumps. (difficult to understand) safety issue with the kids, you know,
and because there was, uh, people would go through South, uh, Gilbert Street and
make McCollister Boulevard and go through Langenberg to go to another street.
So that very highly traffic there and very compact with the, even the speed... speed
hump didn't seem to help. So it's my concern is just like more traffic and more
(difficult to understand) people gonna move in, this create more traffic and safety
for the people that live there. So I would agree with all my neighbor, that would
be (difficult to understand) I would say.
Throgmorton: Thank you (both talking)
Araksarod: ...ask you to disapprove with the project.
Throgmorton: Thank you. Anyone else?
Hughes: Good evening, Council. My name's Joe Hughes and I, uh, represent Navigate
Homes, which is a Southgate Company. I'm an employee of Southgate
Companies. Um, but want to just mention a few things. As part of my job is, uh,
selling houses that we're continuing to develop. In the Si ... Sand Hill Estates
neighborhoods, where all of our neighbors here, uh, live and .... and are speaking
from, um, there's a couple of give -ins and it was true when we developed Sand
Hill Estates, uh.... um, popular towns will grow and neighbors will fight it, um,
everyone that bought into this neighborhood was given a preliminary plat, uh,
before they bought the house, showing that this land was to be developed. So
there shouldn't be any surprise there. (people speaking from audience) It's part
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of (people speaking from audience) it's part of title work. It's legally required.
Um.....um...... uh, we do need this neighborhood to grow so that McCollister
Boulevard will be extended and that the through traffic that they're experiencing
on .... on Langenberg will be redirected off of Langenberg, cause they're right.
People drive fast through that neighborhood and it's, um, they need to slow down.
Um, walking to the neighborhood will be safer when the neighborhoods grow to
the elementary school. So that kids aren't walking through big gaps to get from
the neighborhood to the elementary school and as town grows, the speed limits in
town reduce. There is a .... a huge problem at the intersection of McCollister and
Gilbert. There are inter ... uh, accidents there all the time. City of Iowa City
already has it as part of their plan to, um, to address that as McCollister, uh, gets,
um, put through. So, that's a reason for us to continue with development is to
improve that. I personally am a runner and a cyclist, and uh, both Terry
Trueblood and, uh, the Napoleon ballfields there are huge public amenity, and we
shouldn't limit it. We should get populations of people out there that can step out
of their house or their row home, um, or their apartment and run around, bike
around this awesome public amenity. Um, Southgate as part of developing this
greater area has given dozens and dozens of acres of protected prairie and open
space, um, that is dedicated and controlled by the City of Iowa City and is
protected right now. Um, we, uh, stand for exceptional design. We built many of
the houses in current Sand Hill Estates neighborhoods, many of which, um, our
neighbors here are living in. Uh, that's why we hired Shive-Hattery for this.
They're a very reputable architectural firm, and we need them.....we need this
product to be attractive or it won't sell. Ultimately, um, we're asking you to .... to
vote yes so that we can get City's accoun.... City Council's opinion on what to
build there. Um, we've been workin' with City staff for a year on this and we've
done many, many different designs. We sat down with Opticos. We believe
we're .... we're doing what City staff and City consultant wants, and a vote yes is
saying let's sit down with Planning and Zoning, you give us your direction, and
we'll build it. So thank you.
Mims: Joe, I have a question.
Hughes: Yep!
Mims: Before you go.....if this were to go forward, can you give us some idea of what
you see as a timeframe for the development of this project?
Hughes: Yeah. That's a .... a good question. We're not gonna build it all at once. Um, we
don't want to be left with a lot of unsold units and we don't want to be left with,
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uh, a lot of units that would be vacant, uh.....uh, either for rent or for sale. So,
um, I don't know how many phases are we lookin' at doin' - possibly, uh, three
different phases, um, but urn .... we would ideally like to start infrastructure, uh, in
2018. On the first phase.
Mims: And so when do you think the first units would be up and for sale do you think?
Hughes: Uh, hopefully by the fall of 2018.
Mims: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Joe. Anyone else? Okay, hearing no one else ..... I need to ask Sue a
question. Am I correct in understanding that we can discuss this preliminarily
without stating how we ... absolutely intend to vote, or .... are we obliged not to
discuss it until the public hearing is closed?
Dulek: If you keep the public hearing open, I mean you need .... that means you're going
to continue to take public input.
Throgmorton: Sure.
Dulek: So what you can do is just give enough indication whether it makes sense for you
or you want to consult with, um.....P, uh, P&Z. And you don't have to know for
sure that, yes, I think I'm gonna decline to agree with P&Z or not. You can
schedule that, uh, consultation, continue the public hearing, and defer (mumbled)
all in one fell swoop.
Throgmorton: Yeah, I .... uh, I ask because I was thinking it'd be helpful to have a very
preliminary non -committal kind of discussion, and then keep the publ ... continue
the public hearing, uh, for a variety of reasons, which I'll explain in a second.
Dulek: Sure!
Throgmorton: All right. So, I ask these questions partly because this is a very complicated
rezoning, and I.....I want to make sure I'm stating something else correctly — you
tell me if I'm wrong, Sue. Uh, and I'm gonna mention something Bob Miklo
said, early in this public hearing. Owners of greater than 20%, urn..... owners of,
uh, greater than 20% of the property within 200 feet of the property being rezoned
have signed a petition objecting to the rezoning. Correct?
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Dulek: Correct.
Throgmorton: Yes, and as Bob Miklo said, this means a super -majority vote from the Council,
that is 6 out of 7, will be required to approve the rezoning. If a super -majority of
us disagree or incline .... are inclined to disagree with the Commission's
recommendation, then we have to offer to consult with the Commission before we
vote. Correct?
Dulek: Correct.
Throgmorton: All right. On the other hand, if a majority of us agrees with the Commission's
recommendation to deny the proposed rezoning, we would not be compelled
or ... to offer a consult, but we could .... still offer to consult.
Dulek: Sure.
Throgmorton: Yeah. Okay. So as I said I think we do need to discuss this, but very
preliminarily, just to get some sense of how people are preliminarily thinking.
Non -committal. Knowing that we're going to continue the public hearing and
before we stop this discussion, I'll ask you to say whether you are inclined at the
moment, inclined to, uh, agree with the Commission's recommendation. Yeah.
In any case....(several talking) ....their recommendation, deny. And in any case,
we will continue the public hearing. And I think offer the Commission a consult,
regardless of what we .... uh, come up with here. So .... you understand where I'm
headed here? I think we need to consult with the Commission. I think we need to
have some preliminary discussion, and then continue the public hearing.
Mims: I have a question. Geoff, do we have, um, the roundabout for McCollister and
Gilbert scheduled yet in our CIP?
Fruin: Um, it .... the intersection improvements would come along in 2019 with the
extension, uh, there's not been a firm decision on whether it'd be a signalized
intersection or a roundabout. I think we heard clear in the earlier testimony at
Planning and Zoning that the neighborhood would prefer signalized intersections
and we would take all that into account when we get through the design work.
Throgmorton: If I could, Sue, on that point, I personally think a.....a traffic signal is called for at
that intersection for a couple reasons which I could elaborate on but....
Mims: Definitely needs .... okay.
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Dickens: I think there's a lot of questions still about what are the covenants that the
homeowners have right now that they're..... they're restricted to. I think the
Airport runway is another question that I need to have a little more information
on. Uh, the prairie land.....that's State regulated, another question. Arid ... finally
the infrastructure, when that's gonna be done. We have got an answer on that, but
those are the three questions I have before I can even think about voting. I think
there's just way too many questions that they could just stop this in its tracks until
we know exactly what the answers are. I think there's just way too much, I mean
I've read through most everything and I haven't seen a lot of the answers. So I
think we .... whether we do a consult with Planning and Zoning to get our
information there, or .... we defer it till the next meeting and get the information.
Botchway: Yeah, I would agree, you know, I'm supportive, I mean looking at the
development prior to this discussion and community input, you know, um, I was
disheartened by some of the comments. Um, and I'm also very supportive of, you
know, entry-level, um, development, um, that occurs in Iowa City. I mean as you
know, many of you know, I talk about affordable housing as much as I can, and
so I see this development as a development that can incorporate a large amount of
affordable housing that I think we need. That being said, um, you know with the
amount of community angst and discussion on this topic, I, you know, I .... I don't
feel comfortable without, you know, asking some of the questions and consulting
with P&Z. Um, I mean just some of the issues that were brought up by
community members, you know, I'd like to have a clear answer on, and I also am
somewhat interested in, you know, um, Mr. Hughes' proposal at the end as far as
what is Council direction as far as the pro, um, the type of property that we'd like
to see. I don't necessarily know how that (several talking)
Throgmorton: Type of project (both talking)
Botchway: Project, excuse me, that they'd like to .... that we'd like to see. I'm not
necessarily ..... I don't know that we can have that discussion right now, um, but
I'd be interested in how we can facilitate, um, kind of a collaborative discussion
with the community as well on what that... could potentially look like, because
I .... I think that we've heard it loud and clear that the community is upset about
this particular proposal. Um, and so, you know, what that looks like going back,
and I know there's money being spent and all these different things. There's time,
deadlines, and all those constraints that are put into this as well, but that would be
an interesting, um, question for me because, again, the mixed development is
important to me, and I think we just frankly had a .... a development over on Camp
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Cardinal Boulevard which we were very supportive, of mixed development and
the use over there, and so I'm.....I'm projecting that on this particular area, um,
but I need more time. I mean straight up.
Cole: Jim, how much do you want us to get into our actual details of whether (both
talking)
Throgmorton: I think you can very preliminarily say things you're thinking (both talking)
Cole: Well I'll preliminarily say that I don't like the project. Um, and I'm inclined to
agree with Planning and Zoning. Um, you know we do do edge developments all
the time. And there's no controversy whatsoever, in at least the one's that I'm
thinking of, or ones where we have a nice mix of housing types, including multi-
family. I do not like developments that are only single-family. Um, I don't like
developments that are only multi -family. I like a mix, and I think we've been
seeing those in a lot of different contexts. Um, there are elements of this that I
actually really like, and I think that, um, with a smaller, more targeted, you know,
might be somethin' I'd consider, but at least as it stands now, um, I'm not
supportive of the project, and I think very preliminarily too on the missing middle
concept, um, you know, I don't think this is a good example of missing middle as
far as I'm concerned. I look at missing middle to recreate what we're, you know,
a .... a greater variety of housing types. Um, and I just .... this just seems to be one
similar type of housing, and there's some variation but not enough that I'd like to
see, but that said, um, in terms of not developing it at all, I'm definitely not
supportive of that. So I think it's smaller more targeted, more contextual, and I
think we can get to a project that I would be willing to support, but for now the
answer for me would be no.
Taylor: I also believe that we have to take very serious consideration of this request. One
thing that's bothered me in my two years on .... on the Council are the number of
requests for rezoning that come before us. I mean I'd always thought that if
something is zoned a particular way, there was a great thought given to why it
was zoned that way, and I think that we should, uh, stick to that original thought,
and with all due respects to Sara and Charlie, uh, you know I've talked about
affordable housing and the need for .... for a long time, uh, but I don't see this as a
solution to that. It's.... it's quite on the south end of town, uh, we don't have at
this time, uh, transit system available to there, and many of the folks that you're
talking about for lower income, uh, might not have transportation. Eventually I
think the bus barn is supposed to be out in that area, but that's years down the way
and I think it's also getting the cart before the horse. We're talking about the
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roundabout or the improvement of that intersection, but why start building there
in ... and increase the, um, safety concern before even doing that. So, uh, I think,
uh, and .... and the number of, uh, folks that we heard from with the number of
signatures on the petition and the emails and the folks that showed up here
tonight, uh, with some very real concerns, uh, I....I also was upset about the
comment, uh, about the, uh, who might be moving into these units. That I
don't .... I had thought that that was only one person of the bunch that had .... that
we'd heard from. So, but that was concerning. Um .... but I just think we have to
be very cautious and.....and give this a lot of thought.
Throgmorton: Just as a point of clarification about the rezoning. It currently is zoned IDRM,
which means Interim Development Residen.... or Multi -Family Residential. So
this is not a shift from, I don't know, RS -5 to R.....RM-44 or somethin' you
know, yeah. So....
Taylor: But the .... what I'd heard was something like a difference of one per square foot
to nine or 10 per square foot and that seems like a pretty big difference.
Thomas: I'm inclined to agree with, uh, Planning and Zoning, uh, the .... the vision I've had
for the South District and when we, whenever we talk about what I would call
traditional neighborhoods, the aspiration of a traditional neighborhood, it....it
would include as was mentioned by Charlie with, um, Peninsula neighborhood, a
mix of single-family through the sorts of housing types we're seeing on this
project, and the goal in my mind is to try to integrate what we typically in Iowa
City tend to segregate and that is single-family subdivisions with multi -family
components. Uh, so you have two .... two elements that really don't speak to one
another, uh, and tend to be spatially segregated and so what I ..... what I would like
to see, and I think this .... this project made great progress from the December plan
through the current plan, is to .... to really look at this question of how do we
integrate this project with (can't hear) Court, through the use of that full range of
housing types, including possibly either single-family or duplex, and .... and work
the transition, uh, toward Gilbert and McCo... and where, you know, the densities
increase as you move in those ... toward those two streets, but right now it does feel
to me that there is .... uh, a....a segregation occurring with respect to the existing
residential, uh, along (can't hear) Court and I really would like to believe that
the .... the edge of this neighborhood is (can't hear) court. Let's incorporate it into
it and .... and develop this property in a way that's, uh, reflective of that. Um, a lot
of talk on the roads, um, I really hope we might be able to do again some interim
treatment at....at M ... McCollister and Gilbert. Unr .... I ..... I really don't want to
wait, um, two years for that intersection to be improved in some way.
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Mims: Urn ..... there's a number of issues here obviously that we've heard from .... from
the audience tonight and that Councilors have mentioned. Um, in terms of the
development itself, um, I am.....basically supportive of, and certainly the design
has improved from what they started with. I think as we talk about these different
neighborhoods and the different types of housing, and this was mentioned
somewhere in the documents. It's.... it's, you know, how big of an area do you
take, and I don't remember what the acreage is of this particular parcel. But when
you go out .... 22, so I mean when you go out, say if you're just looking north of
McCollister, um, you do have single-family there. So do we have to have some
single-family in here? I .... I'm not convinced we have to. I mean I think you've
got it adjacent. I hear what you're saying, John, about, you know, kind of that
segregation, um, kind of that straight line with the path, etc. But you do, to me
you do have it within that area. Um, so I'm not concerned about that. I think one
of the things in terms of the development itself that .... it's really important to me
is the staff recommendations, um, in terms of, you know, the building entrances,
the articulations, the design, um, the quality of construction, etc., to make sure
that these properties, you know, are going to fit into the neighborhood in terms of
the quality and I do like the idea .... and I do want to caution a number.... couple of
Councilors at least have used the term `affordable housing.' These are not
affordable housing, I don't believe, with regard to our definition typically of
affordable housing. They're more.... they're entry-level housing maybe, but
not .... I .... I would just be cautious about using that terminology. My biggest
concerns about the rezoning at this point in time, um, are the infrastructure, um...
the .... the volume and the speed of traffic on Langenberg, the intersection, um, of
Gilbert and McCollister. Um, those I think are.....are issues that become critical
when you start adding in this much housing and that's why I asked the questions
about timing on the infrastructure and timing on the build -out of the project,
because I think.....I think we have to get that infrastructure ahead of the project. I
really feel like we do. So, but, urn .... so those are.....those are my concerns. The
development itself I ... I can, I can work with that. I think particularly, like I say,
with the staff's recommendations on some design and quality of materials and
those kinds of things, but the infrastructure concerns me right now.
Thomas: One .... one quick last comment I .... I'd like to make and that is it's .... it's fairly
clear to me .... seeing how the development works within Gilbert, McCollister, and
McCollister Court. What I'm less clear on is what happens south of McCollister,
where we have the project kind of just cuts off, uh, in a straight line, and .... and so
it .... I'd .... I'd like to have some better understanding of what's anticipated to the
south of it, because that also is going to be part of this larger.... development
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along Gilbert Street and .... or between Gilbert Street and Covered Wagon. Some
sense of how, particularly if we're talking about, you know, higher density
development there, how that interfaces with whatever's anticipated to the south.
Throgmorton: Okay, I guess it's my turn. I want to say.....make several comments, uh, some of
which will reinforce what some have said and some will reinforce what others
have said. So anyhow, I think the proposal is generally consistent with the South
District Plan. That's a good thing. But I think it falls short in terms of helping to
build a strong sense of neighborhood and community. So.....I think the eastern
edge of the development could be integrated much better with the existing
neighborhood in terms of height, mass, and design. They could be duplexes as
imagined, but I don't know that the modern farmhouse look on the eastern edge of
the development wold really work well in terms of enabling it to blend in with the
existing neighborhood. Also, the idea of having South Gilbert and McCo....
McCollister lined with identical multi-plex structures, I .... I think needs to be
revised. Uh, I .... I, the idea of drivin' down South Gilbert Street or Sand Road
and seeing rows of ...a row of multi-plex structures on the left, uh, just really
does not appeal to me in terms of enhancing the quality of neighborhood in that
area. Uh, let's see, I would add to that the development ....... I think, uh, John had
mentioned this earlier, it needs to include a more diverse range of mid .... missing
middle structures. Uh, two-story, four to five unit man .... mansion style
apartments, maybe three story live/work units, I don't know — the range, not just
four but the .... a full range of missing middle concepts, and to ensure that many of
the larger structures look more like homes. I'm not talkin' about the apartment
buildings if. ... if any still remain afterwards. I think the development needs to
have a streetscape with a neighborhood feel. Uh, what precisely that means, uh, I
think the develop.... development team could really think about it a lot, uh, a
crucial thing, I think, would be to have some really appealing interior gathering
space, park -like setting for parents to safely take their children .... to play outdoors,
etc. I don't know that having it over on the .... east central side is the right
location. That could be rethought a little bit. I think the amount of off-street
parking should and could..... could and should be reduced. Havin' a lot of off-
street parking would undermine the sense of neighborhood. So I think if we want
to really create a sense of neighborhood down there, you gotta.....gotta rethink
that. Uh, public transit needs to be a central element of the development's design.
Even though there's not bus transit down there now, I think there will be. So we
should plan that, build it into the planning. I also think the intersection of Gilbert
and McCollister needs to be thought of as a component of the neighborhood.
That is, make the corner memorable in a very positive way. I don't think the
proposed development accomplishes that. In my ideal world, the buildings at the
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northeast and southeast corners of Gilbert and McCollister would incorporate a
small amount of commercial space, so neighbors could walk to that, rather than
having to cross So ... Sand Road to get to a Kum n' Go. And I think a really good
design at that comer would make it into a memorable space that would announce
to the public and to other neighbors farther east that this is actually an entryway to
a really terrific neighborhood that people will love over generations. Maybe one
or two other points. Uh, already mentioned the stoplight and McCollister and
Sand R .... uh, and Sand Road. I think we need to have a stoplight there, so the
pedestrians and bicyclists can cross the intersection safely and so that traffic on
Sand Road will be slowed down. It's much too fast right now.
And.... and...... and ......and, uh, that's probably enough. I probably could think
of some other things, but those are the main things on my mind. And, uh, some of
`em have already been stated and some are new from, uh, from me saying `em.
So I don't.... don't think we need to elaborate any more, uh, but I think we've
given a pretty clear signal. At this point I should take the temperature and I'm .... I
want to have a sense about whether you are inclined .... to vote in accordance with
the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation to deny the rezoning.
So the .... the question is are you inclined to .... vote in accord with the
Commission's recommendation?
Cole: Yes.
Throgmorton: Terry, are you inclined?
Dickens: Yes.
Throgmorton: Yeah.
Botchway: At this time, yeah.
Throgmorton: Yeah, me too!
Mims: At this time yes.
Thomas: Yes.
Taylor: Yes.
Throgmorton: Yeah, okay. So .... I think the signal's now clear, we'd like to schedule a consult
with the Commission so that we can discuss this further with them, or offer
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to .... to consult with `em. We can probably do that at our next meeting, at the
start of our work session.
Fruin: Yeah, assuming that the Planning and Zoning Commission (both talking) is....is
available, we could do it at 5:00 on December 5a'.
Throgmorton: Right, okay. I .... I guess I .... I want to make sure too ...... I do not oppose the idea
of. ........ larger number of housing units in that site. I do not want to see all
single-family housing. I do not want to see all duplex and single-family housing.
I think we need to provide further housing opportunities. I just think there's a
way to build these missing middle concepts into the project more thoroughly.
Okay. Uh, any further discussion? All right, at this point we're going to continue
the public hearing.
Dulek: Yeah, you'll need a motion to continue the public hearing (both talking) and defer
first consideration.
Throgmorton: Could I have that motion please?
Mims: So moved.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. Discussion? Hearing none, this is a...
just a voice vote, right? Yeah, all in favor say aye. Opposed. Motion carries.
All right, uh, thank you. We're done with that topic for now. I .... I need to take a
short break, uh, so.....give me a minute or two or five minutes or somethin' like
that. Thank you!
b) Consider an Ordinance (First Consideration)
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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, we're, uh, we would be pleased to accept public input on this. So if anybody
would like to address the proposal before us, that'd be great! Oh, Wendy!
(several talking) Hi!
Ford: Good evening, Mayor Throgmorton and City Council. Um, I presented an
overview of the proposed TIF policies a couple of weeks ago at your November
....6°i meeting and I would be happy to run through that again if you'd like, or uh,
would just take questions if you had them for me at this time. I've got the slides,
the maps, and everything handy if necessary.
Throgmorton: I think you're okay!
Ford: Terrific!
Throgmorton: Thank you. Anyone else? Good evening (both talking)
Sempf. ...Council Members and Mayor. My name is Ryan Sempf and I'm the Director of
Government Relations and Public Policy at the Iowa City Area Chamber of
Commerce. Uh..I'm here to speak on behalf of the Iowa City Area Chamber of
Commerce and our more than 800 member businesses that, uh, belong to the
Chamber in the corridor region. Uh, first I want to thank the Council for all of
your efforts in developing this policy. Uh.... a majority of the things that are
contained within it, we agree wholeheartedly with. Um, I just want to talk about,
uh, two things, uh, within the policy that we would request be changed. First, uh,
with regards to the sustainability, uh, requirements that are in the policy. Uh, a
letter which I believe, uh, Martha, who's also here tonight, uh, will surely expand
on, um, more thoroughly. Um, requested that, uh, the National Green Building
standard for the Homebuilders Association be added as an equivalent to the
sustainability requirements, and we would, uh, strongly support making that
adjustment in the policy. It allows for greater flexibility for developers, uh, in the
downtown area. With regards to building height, we would request that, uh, the
map, uh, referenced on page 106 of the Comprehensive Plan be removed from the
policy, as well as reference to it. Uh, we believe that the map is flawed and
outdated. Uh, it contains many things that, um, are .... not, uh, not representative
of. ... much of the community's vision for downtown. Uh, one example, uh,
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certainly not, uh, the full extent but the map contains, uh, recommended heights
of one story in multiple places in the downtown. Uh, it's, as we all know, it's not
actually permissible to even build a one-story building in downtown. That's just
one example of how this map is flawed. Uh, so we would hope that you'd
consider that, uh, when making your decision. In addition, and I'll try to make
this quick. I know it's been a long night. Uh.... the affordable hou.... we believe
that the policy restricts the City's ability to incentivize, uh.... growth in the supply
of housing in Iowa City and therefore, uh, prevents Iowa City from, uh, growing
the supply of affordable housing stock within the city. In addition, the restrictions
on height, uh, reduce the gains that are possible in the downtown, uh, with regards
to sustainability. Less density means less gains from sustainability. And third,
uh, more density will help, uh, or would help, uh, the small businesses and
retailers that we have located in the downtown area. They require a customer
base that is local and close, and can, uh, patronize them, uh, at will. Density is
required for those businesses to be as successful as possible. And with that, I will
close my comments. Thank you for your time.
Throgmorton: Great, thank you, Ryan, and thank you for reaching out to other people to try to...
come up with suggestions for amendments. Hi, Karen!
Kubby: Good evening! Been fun hangin' out here tonight. (laughter) My name is Karen
Kubby (both talking)
Throgmorton:.... old times, huh? (laughter)
Kubby: My name is Karen Kubby. I live in the, uh, Mark Twain neighborhood. And I'm
really excited that you're talking about having these policies. I think that when
there are expectations, that they need to be either codified or put into policy, and
it's only fair and rational, and it's kind of part of good government, from my point
of view. When.....you have these policies, you have to base them on something.
So you have two things right now you can base them on. You can base them on
zoning or you can base them on the map. And the zoning is already there. The
map, with its flaws is the base that you have to work with, until you complete
your discussion about form based code. And then you will have that, you'll have
the form, if you end up going in that direction for.....for the downtown. So I
think the map is necessary, even with its flaws, to use, and if you don't want to
follow the map, then you don't ask for public assistance from the City. And so
that's the choice of the development. When we talk about these projects that
come to the City, with a gap, it means that the market is not supporting that
development. And so either a lender will not lend enough money or the money is
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too expensive because it's a risk .... in the eyes of the financial institution. And so
the developer's coming to the City for filling that gap, and there might be some
really good reasons that the City would want to do that, and I think these policies
lay out what some of those good things for the community would be. And so....
um, I just (mumbled) last City Council campaign, Mazahir had said something
that just struck me. It was so clear and so direct, and I'm gonna quote her from
my notes that I wrote at the Chamber of Commerce forum. And that was she
said: "Use TIF to influence and shape what we want to see for our city." And I
thought that was a beautiful sentence. Um, so I think that these policies, if
you .... there's also a .... an open door that if you don't follow the map, there's
some ways that you can do something creative and different then what, um, might
otherwise be. If you have the affordable housing, if you have historic
preservation, increased sustainability, if...and making sure that you have not been
convicted of wage theft. I think those are really important community values to
be living out through a TIF policy. So.....the other thing is tax base.
Everybody's .... sometimes the.....the theater in my head is `tax base, tax base,'
this cartoon character, but we can't just have it be about increasing tax base. We
do need that, and development is happening with and without subsidy, um, in this
area. But all of the candidates for City Council, including Susan, who really has
made the point that tax base is important and it is, but for me that's not the end of
the sentence. It's tax base and these other community values, and I think these
policies help give Council .... to articulate expectations, to let people what the
playing field is to be consistent and still allow creativity. So I hope you all will
vote for this. Thanks!
Throgmorton: Thank you, Karen. Hi, Rod!
Sullivan: Good evening. Hello, uh, my name is Rod Sullivan. I live at 2326 E. Court
Street. I'm a 35 -year now resident of Iowa City. Uh, I wanna uh.... uh, thank you
folks for taking the time to .... to work on this policy. Um, I see this from a couple
different perspectives and I just want to be very upfront about that. One I am
a .... a resident of Iowa City, uh, two I'm a member of the Johnson County Board
of Supervisors, and we are in fact affected by, uh, TIF decisions that the cities
make. So, I .... I thought about trying to break comments out into a ... one hat and
the other, and it's just too late. So, uh (laughs) I'm just gonna throw somethings
out and if you want to ask any questions, feel free! Um, the first thing that I want
to note was, uh, I .... I ..... I'm of the opinion that at least in the last, um, 10 or more
years, uh, the relationship between the County and Iowa City is about as strong
as .... as I can remember it ever being. Uh, and I want to thank all of you for that
because you all play a role in that. Uh, I also think Geoff and.....and, uh, Wendy
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have done a great job. Uh, there are always these TIF consultations and typically
I'm the only person there, and uh, they're very kind to me when I'm there
(laughs) Uh (laughs) but uh, that leads me to my second point, which is I think
we could have more conversation. Um, often times with these projects, uh, we're
told, well this is going to be so good for you in 15 or 20 years when this rolls onto
the tax base. Well, if it's gonna be so good for us then, you know, come sell it to
us. I think that's a .... uh, there's nothing under State law that requires that. Uh,
but there's no reason that you can't, uh, get us on -board. And, uh, that would be
going above and beyond the consultation that you do, which you meet the
requirements, but I'm talking about a little higher level of conversation. Um, I
just want to remind everybody that from a County perspective, uh, there is no
backfill. The school districts are backfilled. I don't know what it is now, 80% or
something, but, uh, County doesn't have a backfill. So, uh, these are significant,
uh, changes, uh, to what .... what happens for us. Um, you folks spend an awful
lot of time on the gap analysis and I think that's great. You've certainly got a
good, um .... uh, consultant with whom you're working, and I think you've got a
really good handle on that data. What I would challenge you to do is to get the
same kind of handle on the `but for' argument. Um, you do a great job of
knowing exactly how much that gap is, but there's not as good a job done figuring
out what happens if we just don't fund this, what's the alternative. Um, I think
we need more conversation about that. Um, as for the paci£... specific policies in
front of you, um, I think it's .... it's generally really good. I think it's a lot better
than what you have. I'm encouraging you to vote for it. Um, there .... there are
many pieces to it. Uh, I .... I can't say that I'm a huge fan of every single one, but
that's how you make policy, right? There are some things (laughs) people get
some things in there that they want, people get some things in there that they
don't want, in general I ... I like most of this and I hope you'll support it. Uh, and
finally I would just say, um.....I think it's really important that we think beyond
the role of just what is the bottom line for the tax base and what is the vision for
the City? What is it that we want, what is it we need? If I look at our TIF use
over the last 10 or 15 years, I would say that the most desperate need we have is
for very expensive condos. Now, that's not actually how I feel. Maybe it's how
you feel, I don't know, but I think if you have a conversation about what do we
really need, well that .... that oughta inform how we use TIF. So, I hope you'll
take that under consideration. I do hope you'll vote for the policy, and I appreciate
your time.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Rod.
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Dieterle: Uh, Caroline Dieterle again. Um, if you know there had been anybody keeping
track and giving you the information, I've been against TIFs for probably the last
30 years, uh, because you know this.....this argument that you invest in this now,
uh, pending the .... the big return, you know, when the thing comes back off the
TIF and you begin collecting this .... this, um, chunk of change that's there,
hanging in front of you. It's like a carrot and stick kind of thing. But in the
intervening time, whether it's five years, 10 years, 20 years, you know, the rest of
us are all paying for that. It's as though the entire community of taxpayers is
being made into an unwilling set of investors, uh, because we have to pay for the
increased services and so forth that the new developments, uh, will probably need,
uh, more fire, more police, uh, more roads, more sewers, you know, whatever.
And while we're waiting for this .... this money that comes down the .... the road,
and I don't know whether anybody in urban planning has made any kind of
attempt to balance off how much money is really expended as a result of putting
this TIF money in it. Not just the abatement loss, but the amount that's paid, in
other words, to .... to accommodate the, um, development that you've..... you've
engendered with the TIF. The other thing is is that this .... this theory that building
up and, uh, instead of out, um, limits sprawl. Um, I just .... and.....and reduces
residential tax. I don't think that the taxes are ever reduced because of the factor
that I mentioned first, having to have extra services to .... to take care of the
development, uh, needs, but um, I don't think in all of this time that I've lived and
paid taxes in .... in Iowa City that the taxes have ever gone down, no matter how
many times you, uh, upped the tax base, because of the attendant costs that go
with upping the tax base. And I.....I don't see that any kind of, you know, break
has been put upon sprawl. I mean we just heard about another set of sprawl on
South Gilbert Street. Anyway, I know that what you're doing is a well
intentioned idea of trying to come up with policies to improve a bad situation.
Um, because businesses have come to rely on TIFs and to come down here and
think that they can almost automatically get them, and you know this is not right
either. But unless you actually make this into some kind of an ordinance and
make it difficult to change it and take some of the loopholes out that have already
been created, it's meaningless! You've just spent a lot of time talking about a
good idea, but .... you know, it....it's.....it's....be surprising if it lasted any more
than another two years. So .... sorry to be so.....cynical.
Throgmorton: (laughs) Thank you, Caroline. Who's next?
Marlow: Evening, Mayor, City Council, my name is Anthony Marlow and I own the
building known as the old Fieldhouse Bar.
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Throgmorton: Good evenin'.
Marlow: Just want to submit some concerns surrounding, uh, EDC's recommendation to
Council to adopt, um, guidelines for TIF in the downtown area. Um, I fully
understand that the City Council has within its purview the ability to approve or
deny TIF, regardless of. .... of the guidelines. Um, and appreciate what Wendy
and her team, Geoff and staff, uh, what you guys have all worked towards on
EDC, etc., to try to set forth some level of predictability, clarity, and guidelines
for developers, uh, in the area. Um, think Ryan had some pretty good comments,
uh, you know, couple points I want to make and they're, you know, mostly hyper -
specific to, uh, you know, uh, my property, which is unique in the sense that, uh,
used to be a nightclub, a bar. Um, once the ordinance for liquor licenses took
shape, um .... uh, you know, opportunities to have tenants, uh, were, you know,
reasonably diminished as a result of the configuration of that place, right? Um,
the other unique component about the property is that it's considered historically
eligible, uh, or contributing property. Um, as a result, I fear that any
redevelopment, uh, will be treated as a .... kind of a tacit demolition. Um, Mr.
Fruin has done an excellent job of communicating that that's not exactly the case,
um, so .... perhaps I'm being a little, uh, finicky about it, but with respect to this
being a new guideline to give predictability, uh, you know, would like to have
some clarity on the issue, not necessarily because particularly, you know, I'm for
or against TIF in general, but just as a.....a competitive, uh.....uh, property owner
in a competitive real estate market, whether it, you know, be marketing the
property locally or nationally, etc. Um, at the present time I have zero intention
of demolishing the building, but just as an example, if I did demolish the building
and, uh, met every one .... every one of the new TIF guidelines, uh, the property
wouldn't be eligible for TIF because of the fact that it's, uh, contributing and
historically eligible. Um, as a result of that, um.....my concern is is ..... any sort of
redevelopment of the property could be, you know, could be kind of, uh, framed
as a tacit demolition, right, and that's what we're looking to preclude. The
Department of Interior's standard for preservation, uh, although there's some
looseness on bringing it back to a utility is .... um .... uh, it's pretty specific, and
because of the fact that this building has been augmented, you know, was, you
know, only went halfway into the property. Some years later it got expanded all
the way to the back, uh, there's been multiple remodels. There's been multiple
facade changes, you know, um.....the footings of the building have been
completely wiped out. It's only the exterior walls. So, you know, I fear that, you
know, whether it's a developer, a joint venture partner, myself, etc., um, the
property becomes potentially worth less because the fact that it's contributing or
historically eligible, which it's potentially arguable that it shouldn't be because
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there's not much there left to preserve. Um, even the facade of the building I was
told by Kevin Munson is fifth generation. Um, I've no way of, you know,
verifying that, um, but uh.... it .... it's our intention to directionally keep the
historicness of. ... of the building. Uh, when we redevelop it we just want to, uh,
potentially be eligible for TIF. Um, the other thing is is prior to acquiring the
building, uh.... urn, I was looking at the building as being a tenant and the City
Council approved a $400,000 TIF, uh, resolution on the building. There were
some parking .... I was going to bring a couple hundred jobs, etc., uh, 1, you know,
would like the Council to consider, um, any sort of prior actions as being able to
be considered or remain in place on a go -forward basis. I'm unsure of any
situations in downtown Iowa City other than this one where TIF was approved
but.....but didn't move forward, etc. Um, appreciate the consideration. We're
looking to bring the place back to life. There's some fogginess in the guidelines.
You guys clearly are going to .... this, these guidelines are imminently going to get
approved. Um, I think the ask is is that you take a little time to pragmatically
look at some of the things that the Chamber's saying, the Downtown District's
saying, that property owners like, uh, me are saying. Um, and just understand that
we're coming from a place that, you know, the place has sat empty in the last five
years and, um, you look at the thousand foot rule, I mean even if we wanted to do
affordable housing there, and, um, you know, even if we didn't want to do TIF
and we wanted to do affordable housing, we couldn't because the property is, uh,
contributing, the property is, uh, eligible for the historic registry. As a result, it's
impossible to get a parking waiver to even do residential there. Um, so a lot of
the things that I've heard tonight, you know, as it pertains to, you know, mixed
use is desirable, affordable housing is desirable, um, there's just a lot of things, it
just ... it seems like every which way, you know, I .... when I have a .... I'll wrap up!
When I .... when I have a prospect, uh, come to look at the development of the....
of the building, it's no less than five or 10 items they say can we do this, can we
do that, can we go up, can we do this, can we do residential, and the answer is no,
no, no, and no, and it all has to do with .... with regulation. And, um, you know,
the intention is to, uh, bring that building back to life and, you know, we're just
fearsome that, uh, that there's some fogginess in the guidelines that could impact
this. So we, you know, uh.....understand that this is imminently going to pass,
but we hope that you take a bit more time to sort out a couple of the details.
Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Anthony. Sara!
Barron: Hi, all! Just really quickly, because, uh, the Affordable Housing Coalition, uh,
did ask for you to defer the actions so that we could have more conversation on
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the issue. I just wanted to, um, say the Coalition wasn't able to come to
consensus for any specific changes to the policy or recommendations, but, um, we
did want to thank Ryan and the Chamber of Commerce, and the opportunity to
talk to the other downtown stakeholders, um, and to hear folks like Mr. Marlow
and the Chamber of Commerce talking about possibly including affordable
housing in their projects, I think, goes to show all the great work that you all have
invested in thinking through the positive impact that your work is gonna have on
lots of different aspects of the community. So I just wanted to say, give you that
update that we didn't have a specific request of you but just thank you for
the .... the work that you're continuing to do.
Throgmorton: Great! Thank you, Sara.
Norbeck: Hi, Martha Norb eck.
Throgmorton: Hi, Martha!
Norbeck: Good evening. Um, so I wanted to thank Rod and .... and Karen for their
comments and bringing things out and putting things in perspective. I felt that
was very helpful, um, and I think Karen's comments about the map being sort of
an intermediate step is .... was good for me to hear, because um, as you know, I
have not been a huge fan of the map as .... as the best way of conveying intent.
Um, but I wanted to mention is that I .... I was thankful to the meeting that Ryan
called and there were, um, two.....two people representing the HBA there, and
one of the questions that came up was why are you only calling for LEED and my
comment was what else is out there that's actually going to achieve the same
thing, and I was challenged to research that question and came up with the
conclusion that the .... that the National Green Building, um, standard has actually
improved over time. It used to be sort of like a rubber stamp (laughs) like, yeah,
sort of ha-ha, under the table. Yeah, you're green, but it's actually become a very
rigorous standard over the years and.....and after doing some research, I did feel
that it was worthy of consideration, and one of the things we talk about at the U.S.
Green Building Council, Iowa Chapter, all the time is how to reach out to other
people who are doing this work. It shouldn't just be it, you know, with internal
organization. This is something we want to see people doing across the board,
and so I felt.... modifying the sustainability section, if possible, to .... to include an
additional compliance path would be worthy of consideration. Uh, the same
token, since my work primarily focuses on LEED, if you pass it as is, I'll also be
happy (laughter) so thank you for your consideration!
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Throgmorton: Uh, Martha, could I ask you a question please? I .... I know I've seen, uh, some
proposed text, uh, about an amendment concerning the National Building, Green
Building Council standards. Uh, am I correct in understanding that that
amendment would, with regard to the NGBC's standard would apply only to
residential projects that apply for TIF?
Norbeck: That is correct, and they would have to be entirely residential (both talking)
Throgmorton: Entirely residential.
Norbeck: ....because that's the way the standard was written, and it was developed by the
National Association of Homebuilders, in conjunction with other, uh, regulatory
agencies, and so it would not be applicable to any mixed-use, any commercial.
Throgmorton: Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, well it's not a formal public hearing so.....could
I have a motion to approve please?
b) Consider a Resolution
Thomas: So moved.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Thomas, seconded by Botchway. Discussion? I.....I'd like to say a
few things, uh, right at the start. In our November 6s' meeting I described the
process we followed in generating the proposed policy before us. I said then and
say again tonight this may well be the most extensive and transparent effort at
devising a policy that any of Iowa City's City Councils have ever conducted. So,
but there's no need for me to repeat the details, justifying that claim. Tonight I
want to focus on the substance of the proposed TIF policy. This proposed policy
puts out values to work, especially with regard to affordable housing, social
justice, climate action, and ensuring that any TIF supported project downtown
will help us achieve the aspirations of the downtown portion of our
Comprehensive Plan. That is, to preserve and enhance the historic buildings and
character of downtown, while encouraging appropriate infill development with a
mix of building uses. That said, I ... I want to recommend that we make two minor
modifications to the proposal before us. And, Sue, you can help us with the
process for this, please. The first pertains to the sustainability section that Martha
just referred to. In .... in light of that advice and other advice we've gotten from
the Chamber, the Homebuilders Association, and so on.....uh, I would support
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amending the sustainability section as follows. I .... I'm gonna read some text. Do
I need to do that? (mumbled) we don't have a written copy of the text here, right?
Sol....I need to read it, right?
Mims: Are you using the same as what they presented in the .... (both talking) changing
(both talking)
Throgmorton: (both talking) ...sure what we've seen so .... let me just, I'll read this so .... excuse
me for taking a little bit of time to do this. So ..... it would be amended to read as
follows: New office and mixed use building projects receiving TIF in any urban
renewal area shall be certified silver or better under the LEED for new
construction rating system current at the time of design development. Here comes
the, a new sentence. New residential projects shall be certified silver under the
National Green Building Standard, or the LEED Green Building raring system,
appropriate to the building type. That .... that's the inserted.....sentence. Further,
then the next three words are inserted, for LEED projects, at least eight points
shall be awarded for the LEED NC optimized energy performance credit. No, the
NC comes out, right? Um, at least eight points shall be awarded for the LEED
optimize energy performance credit to ensure that TIF projects help meet the
City's carbon emission reduction goals. So, basically this is what I've....
understand that Martha and the Homebuilders Association, uh..... uh, one or two
more, architects on our Steering Committee, uh, have recommended to us. The
second proposed amendment is much shorter, thankfully! It pertains to the
downtown building heights and character section. The second page of the
proposed policy currently states the provisions of this section will apply until a
downtown form based code is adopted. I recommend aden... amending that
sentence by inserting the words `or urban design plan' after the word code. So, it
would read: The provisions of this section will apply until a downtown form
based code or urban design plan is adopted. This provides greater flexibility I
think in terms of. ... how we can accomplish our objective. So I don't know, do
any .... shall we consider those amendments first?
Dulek: Yeah, it's just a resolution, so you can take the amendment and vote on it tonight
if you're comfortable with this language. If you feel that the language is a little
too complicated and you'd actually like to see it, you can defer the resolution, but
if you're comfortable with the comment you can just ... uh, amend the resolution on
the floor and .... and vote in favor of it or not.
Throgmorton: Okay, so we have a motion on the floor. I've suggested two amendments. (both
talking)
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Dulek: And I'm sorry, Jim, you can take `em one or two. You can make the motion with
both amendments or you can take them individually, however (both talking)
Throgmorton: Yeah, so I .... I.....I'd suggest we take them as a whole, uh, unless, you know, we
decide we don't want to (laughs) All right, so .... fire away!
Cole: So .... so moved. (several talking)
Throgmorton: No, it's already been (both talking)
Cole: Okay!
Throgmorton: We've already got a motion on the floor.
Dulek: (mumbled) just need a second for the amendment. Is that ... is that what (both
talking)
Throgmorton: (both talking) ....moved that we adopt the amendment, is that correct?
Cole: Yep!
Taylor: Second.
Throgmorton: All right, moved by Cole and seconded by Taylor that we adopt those two
amendments. All right. Discussion about the whole? Yeah.
Botchway: Well I guess we kind of moved pretty quickly through that. I mean I .... I don't
know, I wasn't.....maybe I wasn't paying attention last meeting, but this is the
first time we're discussing the TIF policy in general, right? Outside of the EDC.
Throgmorton: You are free to, uh, discuss every part of it, if you want to tonight, yes.
Botchway: Outside of this motion or....
Throgmorton: No, the .... we're talkin' about the whole now, which is the policy as presented to
us and the two amendments (both talking)
Dulek: Those two slight amendments, right?
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Throgmorton: Right, but otherwise the whole thing is up for discussion.
Botchway: Okay. So .... I don't know how you want to go through this. I have a lot of
different comments. I guess I'll start off with a statement. So I'm generally
supportive of this policy. Um, you know I want us .... I want the community to see
this as a living document that will be reviewed regularly, and maybe .... may need
to be changed regularly as we learn. I think that, you know, in general when we
talk about policy, that's something that we have to consider. One of the things I
really focused on, and I think I mentioned at the last Council meeting was the
discussion about, and it's been mentioned today about the balance or just wanting
to have clear expectations and clear guidance. I think that's important and I think
that's been discussed multiple times is, um, at least this generation of Council, the
people have been focused on and .... and saying that that's an area of need. One of
the key indicators I also wanted to throw out there is, uh, flexibility because I
think that as we .... as we deliberate as a Council and as we see proposed projects,
flexibility is important to me as well. So clear guidance with flexibility are those
two things that are important, or two standards that I'm focused on. Uh, the last
part kind of just speaks to the wealth of information, um, from the, uh, EDC
Committee and discussion that in general, um, and I'm actually maybe taking this
separately outside of consideration tonight, but education on TIF. I think that we
need to have a .... a clear community engagement approach, awo.... about what
TIF is, because it seemed pretty clear to me based on the survey information that
there's a lot of people that say they know a lot about TIF or may know a lot about
TIF but there's still some questions out there that I think need to be answered.
And then secondly, um, and this kind of goes back to Rod's comment about, um,
understanding the `but for' argument, but even more broadly, understanding the
true process that the developer goes through, and ..... and I can just speak for
myself that I .... I frankly don't have all the background knowledge I feel
comfortable to really know from point A to point Z all the different steps a
developer goes through and I think that for me that would provide a lot more
clearer understanding, um, and I .... for me! May ...... maybe different decision
points, um, that could be articulated and how we go through, um, our TIF process,
or again, at least for me. So there's a couple of kind of quick changes that I....
that I think, for me, are important and I based it somewhat on, Jim, your comment
on the two key areas, um, that were points of contention. Um, and I think that in
general most everybody was, um, in favor of the policy as far as the EDC was
concerned except two key areas, but outside of those two key areas, one of the
things I wanted to focus on was, um.....social justice off .... first, and affordable
housing. So from a social justice standpoint, and as I was reading and going
through this TIF policy and over and over again, you know, I would like to
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change the name to `economic justice,' and this could be, you know, somewhat of
a .... a, you know, just a, uh, it's not necessarily just something I'm throwing out
there. From a .... when looking at the policy and talking about (mumbled) other
things it really focuses more for me to economic justice. Social justice tome
encompasses not only the (mumbled) discussions that we're having more was
within the policy but also, uh, sustainability as well. I don't want to make those
things different. I think those are all part of encompassing social justice. And so
for me it's just as simple as a name change to be `economic justice.' The second
part is the affordable housing piece and I really appreciate, um, Karen Kubby
coming here and talking about the vision, because I do see this TIF policy as
visioning for Iowa City, and so I would propose that as we're talking about using
City funding, and I know that many of you and .... not all of you have been
supportive of affordable housing. I want to see more affordable housing. Now
I'm not necessarily saying that it's just focused on downtown. I think that this
TIF policy to me is more broadly needed to be used across Iowa City. Um,
but.... focusing on just the affordable housing element piece, I want to focus on
looking at how we can increase the percentage of affordable housing that's being,
um .... uh, that's being, you know, brought up within that particular, um,
framework. I'm actually looking at as high as 50% in affordable housing. If
we're truly talking about what we want to see within Iowa City, and again, this
campaign, you know, um, not too long ago has given me a lot of time to talk with
different folks about what is the current need of Iowa City, and I would say in
general, not only from the EDC comments but also just in comments from the
campaign, has been affordable housing. So that's what I would like to propose as
far as if we're talking about using City money, and we're truly talking about
visioning and saying that this is what we want to see in Iowa City, I want to see
50% affordable housing. I want to see .... and going back to Susan's comment, I
think a couple of items ago, you know, I am talking about affordable housing as
we are currently defining it around 60% of the area median income. So ... I'm
throwin' it out there. There's still a couple more points I want to go through but
I'm gonna wait on, you know, some of the other pieces.
Throgmorton: Let me ask a clarifying question — I think Geoff can answer it. Am I correct in
understanding that, urn ... TIF incentives can prefi... be provided to developments
only if they're located within TIF districts or urban renewal districts?
Fruin: Within an urban renewal district.
Throgmorton: Just the urban renewal district. But .... but not citywide?
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Fruin: Correct, unless you were to (both talking) create an urban renewal area over the
entire city.
Throgmorton: So .... so right now this is not focused on the whole .... whole part of the city. It's
focused on urban renewal districts.
Botchway: I agree, and so there's only, I mean, that would.... there's more than one urban
renewal district.
Frain: Correct. Yes, we have several, I mean I think if you looked at .... there's a map I
think in your packet somewhere, but a lot of `em are over industrial property.
Um, some have been established and yet aren't active, um, if you think about the
Moss property. We have an urban renewal area over there, but there's.... it's not
an active TIF. Um .... most of the residential, I think probably all the residential
that ... that's been incorporated has been mixed use and within the downtown,
Riverfront Crossings area.
Botchway: Sycamore Mall is also an (both talking)
Fruin: Sycamore Mall, Pepperwood Plaza, yeah.
Botchway: That's .... (mumbled) so that's what I was speaking to, for clarification.
Throgmorton: So you gonna keep track of those two suggestions, cause we .... come back to `em,
make sure we act on `em one way or another.
Dickens: I'm glad to see that the .... the National Green Building standard was put in there
as well because I think there needs to be two. Sometimes I think LEED certified
is maybe over -rated, sometimes, and I think having choices that will complement
each other will .... will not hurt, uh, your eight points. With the carbon emission, I
think that's very important, especially with the political.... national political things
we're working with, the carbon doesn't seem to be a problem, but we all know it
is. Um, the only thing I would say is the height. I don't know why we have such
a problem with height. Um, I talked to farmers around this area and they thank us
for building higher.....because it does prevent sprawl. It's economical, it's
sustainable. So I .... that would be one area that I .... I have a problem with.
Overall I think it's.... it's a great way .... a new TIF policy, and people keep
bringin' up that our TIF policy doesn't bring the taxes back to all the entities. The
way we do TIF it actually raises, you know, if it's an empty lot, the way we do
TIF according to that graph we actually increase the amount of taxes, even during
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the TIF process, so there is more taxable income coming in during that TIF. Uh,
we do know that some of the TIFs have been paid off in eight years instead of 20
years. So .... so to just make a blanket statement that TIFs don't pay back within a
certain time is .... is not true, because they do pay back, and they do pay back very
large. So .... overall I would say it's .... it's a great step forward, but I do have
some questions about the height.
Thomas: We, um, you know earlier tonight talked about, uh, the .... the Kinnick house and
this question of aligning our Comprehensive Plan with our zoning code, and I ... I
do think this in some ways, we're not talking about a zoning change but we are
talking about trying to articulate both our policies and our values as we ... as it
applies to our TIF policy, and I think as Karen said, I do tend to view,
urn... what... what we're looking at tonight is in effect kind of a bridge. This is a
working document. It's not .... we're not at an end point. Um, but I think we are
taking a leap forward here, um, it....it may not be perfect. I don't know that it can
be perfect (laughs) uh.... but I think we're working toward articulating that vision
and as .... as we've said, it ... whether it's a ... leading toward an urban design plan or
moving toward a form based code, I think it's a step in that direction. Uh, so I
support that as well. Um, a couple of things I wanted to emphasize that's in the
policy that we haven't talked about is.....the fact that we will now be able to use
the TIF to, uh, apply toward historic preservation projects, which, you know, prior
to this change, you know, historic preservation (laughs) usually doesn't pay for
itself. So we .... we do need for .... if we believe that's a value, which I think we
do, uh, we can apply that district -wide TIF to historic preservation on a particular
site. I think that's a major advancement of how we're trying to address historic
preservation through the .... through this policy. Uh, I also wanted to mention that
in terms of the financing aspect, the policy refers to, uh, that our preferred
approach with the use of TIF is that the.... financially the projects are rebated, not
paid up front in cash. And two that they be of a short duration. I think those are
two very important aspects to our policy. It .... it promotes what I would call
gradual money. I'm sort of more of a proponent of let's release this gradually,
let's (laughs) not get too far ahead of ourselves, let's look at our markets, and our
markets are weak. I think, you know, this is one of the things that has brought me
to believe that there is a place for TIF, not only to .... to promote affordable
housing but also to.....uh, particularly in the downtown area where the default
tends to be, uh, shall we say architecture that's not particular.... particularly in...
inspiring, uh, to improve the quality and amenity that .... that we can provide, uh,
in my mind, toward the purpose of creating housing that's affordable to a
workforce level of, uh, affordability. So I think there are a lot of things about this
policy that are, uh, you know, moving it forward, um, it's a process. I think there
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are st.... you know, further steps to be made, uh, but I think, um, and my ..... my
overall vision is that, you know, there are eight.....eight focus groups as a part of
this effort. (person responding) Nine? Okay. Um .... my vision, my hope is that,
you know, when.....when we're.....when we've articulated it well enough that,
you know, it's clearer as to .... to what .... what it .... what it means in terms of
implementation, that every one of those focus groups will feel that they were
listened to in the outcome. Uh, not only that they came to the table, but they
walked away from the table feeling, you know we got something out of this. Uh,
so that's my hope. Uh, I think it will, you know, we are one community.
We .... we tend to divide into groups, uh, but I hope that the TIF policy in that
sense might serve as kind of a unifying element.
Mims: Well, I'll go next. Um, as most people probably know, the vote at the Economic
Development Committee was 2-1 and I was the 1. Um, and .... I will not be
supporting the policy tonight. There are a number of things in the new policy that
I think are really good. Um, but there are a couple of things in particular that, um,
I .... I guess really one thing probably the most and that's the height map. That for
me's a deal breaker ..... on this. Um, that map, um, and .... I'm not going to go into
all the detail but there's .... we asked for staff to give us input on how that map
made it into the Comprehensive Plan and it turns out that that map was .... was not,
uh, well vetted at all by members of the public who are working on the Comp
Plan. It was something that was put together by the, um, consultant and kind of
just ended up in there at the very end without much.... oversight or review or
anything by the public. Um, when you look .... so one, and I think a lot of you....
who have watched these meetings over the last eight years I've been on Council
.....to me process and procedure is incredibly important. Um, to .... to shortcut,
uh, appropriate processes and procedures I think ..... is really detrimental to the
whole governmental process, and so to me that is absolutely crucial. And so to
rely on a.....on apart of a document that was not appropriately vetted and use that
now, um.....as a means to determine the key methodology within which
developers can get or limited to getting, um, TIF financing I think is .... is a major
mistake. Um, when you look at that map, there are.....there's just not a lot of
logic to it ..... as far as I'm concerned. Um, without going in .... and I'll use the one
example I have used repeatedly, uh, I could use others. The .... the one primary
example to me is if you look at the northeast corner of Linn and College Street,
that's where the Meardon, Sueppel, Downer law office is right now. A one-story
building. Um, and it's on the map as ..... if my color coding is right here, um, a
four to six -story building. So if somebody came in and my understanding
(mumbled) with this new language, um, anybody came in with a proposal that
was not either four, five, or six stories, okay, it would not qualify for TIF unless
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they met qualifications through some of the other.....public benefits that have
been specified. So in other words they have to go.....to me.....to me is what it's
saying, the way this TIF policy is written, it's like.....if you match the height map,
you can probably get the TIF. But if you don't match the height map, for
whatever reason, you have to go above and beyond and do extra special things.
So to me that says that the basis of this whole TIF policy is you have to match the
height map, which in many cases when most of downtown is, or all of it is CB -10,
is saying that.....we're really putting a limitation on the heights, without rezoning,
but by the economic methodology that we're using.....until we can get a form
based code or an urban design..... whatever the language was. Urban design plan.
Okay? Soto me it's..... it's kind of backdooring us, into that, or other people
would say it's an interim, you know, process. But either way you look at it, I
think it is .... it is a methodology to limit the height of future development on most
of the parcels downtown. Um, it's a legal and legitimate way; um, I don't agree
with it. I .... and particularly because I feel like this is being based on a totally
flawed map. Um, that the map itself is flawed and the methodology of putting it
into the Comprehensive Plan was flawed. Um, couple other.....points that I just
want to mention in terms of ... of. .... um.....this. I look, for example, at, um, and
Anthony Marlow's property and .... and others along, uh, College Street, but that
one in particular and the Union Bar property. Um, those are shown on here
and .... and just forgetting historic preservation, cause that's an important aspect. I
know a lot of people don't think I care about it. Ido. Um, but I look at those and
they're two to three stories is the way they're coded on there. Those are
incredibly deep buildings that run back to that alley, with the back part of those
buildings built later. Now I don't know the technicalities of whether the back part
of those buildings are considered contributing, considered part of the same
building, cou.... something else could be different, but when you talk about
density, and you talk about.....being able to increase our housing downtown,
wouldn't it be a neat idea to be able to take the back of those buildings and go up
seven, eight, nine, 10 stories, I don't know, you .... you could go up significantly
on the back half of those buildings. You wouldn't even see it from the ped mall.
It wouldn't cast any shadow on the ped mall. You wouldn't even see it from
anywhere because it's sitting back far enough. But based on this height map, and
again, ignoring for a second the historic issues cause I don't have the details of
that, that can't be done unless there are ..... unless the developer were to meet an
extra..... extraordinary or much higher set of standards simply because of this
height map. I think that is placing .... an extraordinary burden upon developers, all
right? The comments were made earlier about the .... the gap, and I agree and I
appreciate the comments that have been made, that I think the City does do a very
good job with the National Development Council who comes in as an independent
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third party to help with our gap analysis, uh, we ..... we are fairly stringent in terms
of the rate of return that we allow developers to get when that gap is calculated.
The `but for' is a much more challenging aspect to actually document, all right?
But I think you can see it in terms of. ... some of the development that does take
place. I think if you go back and look at some of the .... the documents that we got
and the input that we got from those focus groups on the fact that if you go up
high enough to go into steel construction, it is virtually impossible for developers
to do that without public assistance. All right, and you see this in almost any city
probably, nationwide. It doesn't make a lot of sense to go .... seven or eight stories
because once you get into that steel construction, you want to keep going higher
so you've got more square footage to get a return on your investment. If we
don't.....if we don't support developers who want to do some of these taller
developments, what we are going to have is the five to six stories that they can
build, with the two stories of concrete and five .... four to five stories of stick, all
right. They will be 30, 40 -year, 50 -year buildings, of lesser quality, lesser tax
revenue, all right, and predominantly student housing, when you look at the
University impact area. If we want higher quality construction; if we want more
office space, which is in huge demand downtown; if we even want good quality
of affordable housing downtown; if we want more affordable retail, we need more
space for it so it's more competitive with others, okay? We have to incentivize
those developers, okay? So .... I could go on in terms of the extra co .... I don't
believe there's extra cost for services when we're increasing the density
downtown. We're not hiring more police officers. We're not hiring more
firefighters. We're not putting in new water mains, I mean all that kind of stuff,
that infrastructure's there or it's being repaired because we need to have it
anyways. Okay? We put in more infrastructure for the sprawl, with more roads
to plow, more roads to repair, okay? Downtown, we've got the infrastructure.
It's not costing us more to go high and go more dense downtown. So while I
think there's a number of good things in this, again for me the deal breaker is
using this map to limit developers' ability to get TIF based on an arbitrary, flawed
map unless they do extraordinary other things to get around that. So I'll be voting
against it.
Throgmorton: Anyone else?
Cole: Yeah, I would just like to briefly comment. You know I think there's another
way for people to build tall buildings, if they want to pay for it, and I don't
believe the taxpayers should pay for luxury units. We've heard a lot about the
question of affordability downtown and yet I've seen no evidence whatsoever that
the past policies have led to more affordable units downtown in terms of who
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lives in those units, um, or in terms of increasing supply so much that we put
downward pressure on affordable housing, you know, on the housing stock. I
think if we were really serious about that argument, we would let the market
function and the market would allow additional similarly priced units and that
would increase the .... the supply of similar types of units, which would put
downward pressure on, uh, prices, and I think eventually we could get there, but I
don't see that present. I think this is absolutely a question of values, what we'd
like to see, and I don't think our values should be subsidizing people that don't
need it. Um, as to the question that we can't have high-quality, high-rise
buildings, um, we have one going up to the south of Burlington right now, The
Rise, and that did not include one penny of taxpayer dollars, and not only did it
not include one penny of taxpayer dollars, it also included $1 million of
affordable housing that we are now utilizing right now. So .... and that was what
the market developed, and that did not involve any TIF projects. Now, we do
need to be pragmatic. We authorized a seven -story TIF cause I do think in certain
areas, we.need to have high-quality construction. So we are pragmatic on that and
we will see that growth, but if you look at the south of Burlington, very few of
those units have even a penny of TIF, and I'm incredibly impressed about how
the .... the types and the quality of units we're seeing, uh, as well as the quality of
construction. So I think that's an argument that we, um, must reject. The other
thing with height, it's not some sort of just sort of esoteric topic for urban
planners. It's extraordinarily expensive. You do need the steel construction and
so it almost nearly guarantees that you're gonna be asking for a handout from the
taxpayer; and two, that the socio-economic, uh, component of who's actually
going to live there is primarily going to be super high income residents, which we
want. We want high income residents. I just don't think the taxpayer should
subsidize those units. So I'm an enthusiastic supporter of this. I'm proud of what
we accomplished in terms of how we did this process, and not only that, this is not
the end but it's the beginning, I think, of an ongoing discussion about this. I think
Kingsley bri... brings up a good point. Um, I think this will be a living
document. I think we are going to be pragmatic about it and see how it works, but
I'm an enthusiastic yes and I'm proud of both the process and the way that we
achieved this.
Throgmorton: All right let me say a few things. Uh, first, urn ..... for those of you who have not
been following our discussion within the Economic Development Committee, uh,
I can tell ya that the points that Susan made and I'll make right now have been...
ones we disagreed about, kind of all along, uh, so it's a .... a legitimate point of
disagreement, uh, even though we agree about I think everything else in the
proposed policy. But with regard to the downtown building heights and character
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section of the TIF policy. They are designed to help us achieve the aspirations of
our .... of the downtown portion of our Comprehensive Plan, which is to preserve
and enhance the historic buildings and character of downtown, while encouraging
appropriate in -fill development with a mix of building uses, to do both
simultaneously. That is a hard thing to do, but that's what ..... the content of that
section seeks to accomplish. So, with that said, I.....I wanna indicate clearly that
as I have in the Economic Development Committee meetings, that I am open to
considering revisions to the building heights map at some point in the future
because like Susan says, it's not perfect. And I will recommend including that
possibility in our forthcoming strategic plan. Any major revisions to that map,
though, I think need to be informed by our historic buildings inventory, which is
underway right now, and an urban design plan or form based code for the
downtown. So there's that. Then I want to be really clear also about the, uh....
uh, let me see, I gotta find it. Really clear about the ..... what happens if somebody
wants to.....somebody proposes a project that differs from the.....from the, uh,
from the ..... from the building heights map. So, except under extraordinary
circumstances, ap.... applicants seeking TIF must ensure their projects fall within
the desired height ranges shown in the downtown/Riverfront Crossings master
plan, but it also provides a pathway for considering deviations from the map in
that plan, if the applicant demonstrates that one, the proposed building and uses
will help fulfill the overall vision of the plan by facilitating architecturally,
materially, and/or.... financially the preservation and enhancement of adjacent or
nearby historic structures if applicable, cause sometimes there are no such
structures nearby; and two, that the proposed building will provide exceptional
public benefits. The policy provides 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 a more
inclusive, just, and sustainable city. So, Rod .... vision! That's what that's all
about. For a proposed project that would be located on a street with a substantial
number of buildings eligible for historic landbar... landmark designation, the
tallest portion of the project must be stepped back from its street frontages, far
enough to produce no significant impact on the existing historic character of the
street fronts when seen from the public right-of-way, which gets precisely to your
point, Susan. So, I just wanted to be clear about that, that that's what's in the
policy.
Botchway: So I left off talking about the .... the building heights map cause I wanted to hear
what .... other Councilors had to say. This has been one of those things that has
caused me at least a lot of, um, angst just thinking about what it means, the
perception, how we .... how will we apply this, cause even though, I mean I'll
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walk back just a little bit. Even though I did say that this is a living document, I
do mean that. From my perspective, I also know our community really well. As
soon as we put something into works, everything that attenuates from that is going
to be, well this was a document, cause I think we had that same conversation
when it pertains to our Comprehensive Plan, when it pertains to multiple
ordinances. It's like, well this was a document and you said .... and then, you
know, well any changes based on that, well this is the document you said. And
so .... walking back from that just a little bit.....in part ...... I ...... in thinking about
TIF usage, and going back to Rockne's point cause I .... I disagree. Not all the
points that you made but just this particular point. When we use the Court and
Linn property, or throw the Court and Linn property out there, I worry about us
using that as a kind of a flagship in a sense, because that was out of town
developers, with a lot of money, coming in and building a development. The
focus that I want to make sure that we don't miss here is that when we looked at,
when we look at and we're talking about different TIF properties and we're
talking about these, you know, people that are .... have a lot of money and, you
know, I don't want to subsidize, you know, um, rich folks living downtown, I ... I
also worry that we're kind of punting or pushing out in -town developers that have
a .... a built-in or a vested interest into the Iowa City community. I'm interested in
providing City funding for individuals that are in -town developers that are willing
to stand by, take a lot of the community pressure, a ton of the community heat,
and build something that they're gonna have to live with especially, um,
throughout their time in Iowa City and going forward. You know I threw out
another example, you same ... saw the same thing with Rose Oaks situation. That
wasn't a City -funded project, but again, that was a project where you had out of
town developers coming in, taking the property, and putting whatever they
wanted to put in there. So .... I'm gonna go back to my point. Going back to the
downtown building heights map, this is what I'm proposing.... cause I do think
there's a lot of perception, there's a lot of angst that we're not gonna be able to
work around if we approve it as it currently stands. I do agree with you, Jim, on
your point as far as having a conversation in the strategic planning session around
the downtown, um, the .... the heights map. I would propose that we move that
conversation .... to the strategic planning process. We have a little more, a lot
more, deliberative conversation as far as what that looks like. I .... I'm thinking
about tons of, uh, different collaborative work session, I .... I don't wanna, you
know, discuss in detail what I mean by that but I .... I am thinking of more
collaborative discussion as it pertains to the downtown building heights map just
in general. What I am saying is that I do like the public benefits, or the
exceptional public benefits that are on there and I'm actually stating in this
proposal that I would want to make .... remove the downtown building heights
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section, leave the character portion in there, allow for that public benefit piece to
be in there, because I truly want to make sure that when we're thinking about
incentivizing these things and develop them in general, that all these things need
to happen. I don't want a developer coming in and looking at the building heights
map and simply saying well I'm just gonna build what I want to build here,
without City money, without considering some of these things or maybe being
incentivized by some of these things. And so for me.....let me be clear, cause I
know that sometimes I'm not (laughs) I want to move .... remove the downtown,
the map; make sure it's a part of our strategic planning, um, discussion, a
collaborative work session with multiple stakeholders in the community. Make
that number two point a character point and continue with the added benefits that
are here. There .... I had some questions as far as what we mean by long-term
residents. I'm not sure exactly what that means, um, as it's currently defined,
cause I think short-term residents should be able to access affordable housing as
well. And then move forward, um, on this particular portion. I think there's some
other suggestions that I think you and people have had that I want to make sure
that we talk about as well. Um, but to me that .... I know it doesn't necessarily get
to our issue right now at this particular point in time, but I do think it provides a
compromise that I think that we're missing when we're talking about how do we
incentivize, um, in -town developers to ensure that we're getting many of the
things we have elaborated here. Again, that's my .... that's my thought and
proposal on it. I mean I .... I really feel like with this, the perception that's coming
out from people that I've talked to, um, in regards to the heights map, we're going
to .... we're going to bury ourself.....a little bit as far as how people are perceiving
that .... in the direction that we're going in and I would rather.... shift the
conversation to strategic planning process and have a more of a collaborative
work session.
Throgmorton: Are you proposing an amendment?
Botchway: So.....my amendment would be ...... I don't necessarily know if I need to say
shifting the conversation to the work session, but I would say removing the
downtown building heights map, making the number two piece of that only about
character, and then leaving the potential, um, I think A through E sections in
there, I mean there... again there's some points that I want to change, but I'll leave
that for a different discussion.
Dulek: Yeah, I'm not sure that all can be done on the floor. I .... I think you could have a
consensus for that and .... and staff would bring back language that would fulfill
that. Um.....certainly, but per .... perhaps maybe we just go back and take, uh, the
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Mayor's two changes, at least get that cleaned up and that'll .... and then we .... go
on from there, or ..... do you want to just.....have a consensus on all these sorts of
things and bring .... have staff bring it back or how .... how do you folks want to
give us some.....
Throgmorton: I thought we had agreed...
Dulek: Yeah!
Throgmorton:.... to include those first two amendments in the whole. So now....
Dulek: Right!
Throgmorton: ... that's what we're dealin' with (both talking)
Dulek: ...and that's fine.
Throgmorton: Kingsley's proposed an amendment to that.
Dulek: Okay.
Taylor: I .... I would not be in favor of that amendment....
Throgmorton: Well let's.... before we do that....
Taylor: Okay.
Throgmorton: .... he's making a motion.
Taylor: Okay.
Throgmorton: Is there a second?
Dickens: Second.
Throgmorton: Okay, uh, moved by Botchway, seconded by Dickens. Uh, are you clear about
the amendment?
Dulek: The.... the.... the generally, yes, I mean I understand that you want to take the map
out and put that into strategic planning. So it'd be out of the .... the.....the TIF
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policy, um, but keeping in the public benefits as sort of a.....a...... you look
favorable on a developer who can bring those to the ta.... to the table, right, but
I .... I think in terms of what that language actually looks like, I think you'd have
to.....we'd have to bring that back to you at the next Council meeting. But
(several talking)
Throgmorton: That sounds right. Okay, so there's a motion on the floor. Discussion? I can say
I don't support the proposal.
Cole: Neither do I.
Mims: I do.
Taylor: I don't!
Thomas: I do not.
Botchway: Is there any reason why, cause that's interesting (both talking) I'm just saying
(laughs) like one, two, three, four, down the line, without any discussion!
Taylor: Well I didn't know he was going to allow discussion cause I .... I do have some
thoughts on this as far as the height. Um, it's .... states right in there that the
purpose is to preserve and enhance the historic buildings and character of the
buildings downtown. I can speak personally for myself, uh, course it was in the
70s when I came here to go to school, I fell in love with Iowa City because of the
Pentacrest buildings, the historic nature of Iowa City and downtown. I came from
Des Moines and downtown and all the tall buildings, and I wanted to get away
from that, and I think that's the character and the charm of Iowa City. I, uh,
people know, I guess, it's a well-known fact, I haven't been in favor of...of tall
buildings. I'm talking 10 to 12 -story buildings, uh, because I .... I jut don't think
that's necessary, and for another reason I think that we're going to at some point,
maybe we're even already there, reach an over -saturation point as far as 10 to 12
stories of, um, apartments. Do we really need that? Or the office space, retail
space. I ... I think we need to start looking at, um, different characters of buildings
and .... and retail spaces downtown, rather than thinking all these, uh, tall buildings
with retail/apartment buildings. That's.... that's my opinion. So I'm in favor of
keeping the height in there.
Thomas: Kingsley, to .... in my response is, and I didn't mention it in my previous
comments, the .... the downtown plan, a key element in the downtown plan was
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the market analysis for residential and commercial development anticipated over
the long-term in downtown and Riverfront Crossings. I think the overall estimate
was five million square feet of development. So the form base to Riverfront
Crossings and even though it wasn't adopted for the downtown, it was .... with....
with the heights map and the yield analysis on specific sites in a sense given a
form base, and .... and the....the intention there was how do we distribute in the
downtown and Riverfront Crossings, that five million square feet of office space,
with these other considerations in mind, specific to the downtown — historic
preservation and so forth. So ... so the heights map, the way I interpret the heights
map, it's .... is that it's an acknowledgement that we have a limited amount of
development potential in Iowa City. We are not Minneapolis or Chicago. Uh, in
fact the TIF that we see as the gap reinforces that .... that sense, because if we were
Minneapolis or Chicago, and a developer proposed as in a sense The Rise is, as
you mentioned, that's Chicago development. Chicago can afford to build 15 -
story buildings without a TIF. Iowa City cannot. So in order to do that,
especially if we want to use local developers, the TIF becomes involved. So in
my mind the plan and the map.....as ...... as they're, you know, if you squint, you
know, if you focus on specific parcels, you're gonna have, you may have
disagreements. If you just look at it as an intention, a spirit, I think it reflects the
fact that it's an attempt to articulate an approach to allow development in the core,
meaning the downtown, while balancing that with these other factors — historic
preservation; we didn't mention parking. That's a .... another major issue. You
know, our .... our parking ramp concept, as it stands now, was not anticipating
residential development in the downtown. So, you know, I .... I support residential
development but we do have an issue that's developing. The more we provide
residential development in the downtown, how is .... how's that going to play out
in terms of our parking capacity? So ... so that's, it's a very complicated issue
developing in the downtown, um, and again, that's why the way I tend to view...
gradual money, more incremental approach, so that, you know, we .... we don't get
hit in the face with .... over-densifying in an area that, you know, we may not be
able to support it and it may undermine the historic character.
Throgmorton: Kingsley, I can say I, uh, would not support your motion, um, primarily because,
uh, on the Economic Development Committee we .... we had worked on the
proposed revisions for over a year, and......what you see bef...what we see before
ourselves right now with regard to downtown building height and character is a
result of extensive conversation, and I can guarantee you that what appears there
now is quite different from what was initially being discussed. So it takes into
account.....I think every .... every objection that's been presented, and .... and.....so
it ends up in a place where I.....I know Susan disagrees (both talking; laughter)
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Mims: Yep!
Throgmorton: And I think Terry disagrees (several talking, laughing) but it is a result of
extensive conversation, and therefore, uh, I don't see any need to change that at
this point.
Cole: Neither do I.
Botchway: So quickly a comment. So I want to focus on .... and John and I, you know, for
many people who are watching, you know, I'll quickly, you know, give, you
know, John a lot of commendations because I like how he (mumbled) deliberative
process, as other Council Members, but in particular I just want to focus on that it
is a complicated issue, and because of that, I .... I want to make sure that the, you
know, the news writers writing in the back as well, cause J see how this may be
going, is that I'm not necessarily saying I'm supportive of 10 to 12 -story
buildings. I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying though is that based on
the discussion and perception, and because I believe as .... as you do that it's a
complicated issue, I think we need to push this back, have a more collaborative
discussion, and I get your point, Jim, so I'm not saying that it wasn't collaborative
or you didn't have focus groups or there wasn't a process, but have a little more
collaborative discussion as it pertains to this particular issue. Um, because I feel
like we're .... we're digging right now, and I.....I think, I feel that we can walk
back from this, simply by waiting on this piece. Now again, I mean if we were
to .... the policy goes into effect right away. If we were to look at a particular
project that was 15 stories high, it would still have to follow these character
guidelines. We .... nothing to me would change, and so ultimately as I was
thinking about it from a goal perspective, I mean, nothing to me would change
from the standpoint of we would still be looking through all these other
identifiable characteristics, under character, to ensure the building was something
we believed was an exceptional benefit, if we believe that it should go that high.
So to me it goes back to what is the goal at which we're trying to do with this
downtown heights map, and I agree, it is looking at the different historical, um,
character and nature of the downtown. It's focusing on and making sure that it is
in line with the Comp Plan, cause we ..... you didn't talk about this maybe
necessarily now, but before, but I do feel like there's a lack of understanding from
many folks that I've talked to that that is the case and so for me it's pulling that
back, having more of a discussion on that .... on that end in the strategic planning
process or however we decide to go about that process, because ultimately the
goal to me never changes. Again, if we have the character piece in there, we
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won't be able to, or no developer will be able to provide a 15 -story building, ask
for TIF money, without still doing all these things as it's currently articulated.
And so I guess I'm just going back to what are we trying to do here? I mean
(laughs) there .... there was a story I was going to tell about my dad, and it's late at
night (laughter) so I'm not gonna go that far, but (laughs) but .... I worry about
how the message that we're sending and pushing it down.....I mean I've .... I've
talked to a couple people saying that, you know, Council.....I mean and we've
heard some of these comments. Council isn't pro-business. Council's this ... and I
don't necessarily agree with all the comments as they're currently, um, stipulated,
but if there's an opportunity to educate and provide a different, a .... a different
understanding from the community's standpoint, I .... I think we can, especially if
nothing would change by taking the heights mat out.....heights map out. I mean
if you can tell me that something would change by taking the heights map out, I'd
vote in favor of it. But I don't see that as.....I don't see that as (both talking)
Throgmorton: I think it can, uh, it would change a lot because the whole .... the whole structure
of everything that appears after the map is based on.....uh, whether deviations
from the building height map can be ... approved, and it lays out a whole series of
steps.... toward a .... accepting deviations from the height map. If you get rid of
the height map, what are you deviating from?
Botchway: I mean, Jim, I would say that we currently have, I mean we've been deliberating
for the last two years on zoning code ... or zoning code that currently allows for
different zoning across the downtown, and so when there has been changes or
(mumbled) has been discussions, we've deliberated (both talking)
Throgmorton:.....CB-10 and Public in downtown. CB -10.
Botchway: And so if we have an issue with the height, we would then do what we've done
before and go back through all those different scenarios. We've done that.
Throgmorton: Okay, I'm sorry, I'm gettin' kind of agitated. So ..... never mind. So, further
discussion? Uh, can we have a roll call vote please on the, uh, proposed
amendment?
Dulek: Just to clarify, the last .... you said you were voting down then Kingsley's motion,
correct?
Cole: Yes.
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Dulek: Okay.
Mims:
Dulek:
Frain:
Dulek:
Botchway:
Dulek:
Botchway:
So ... do we need to formally vote on it or .... no? (several talkin) Okay.
You had four votes.
Um, Kingsley, you had a couple of other requests early on in the conversation
(both talking)
Yeah, I don't know if you wanted to make those a motion too. You had two.
One is economic justice. I'm just gonna put that out as a (both talking)
Right.
...single motion. (several talking)
Tbrogmorton: Let's.....let's hang with that for a second. Question about clarification, which you
or Wendy could answer. Uh, is there anything in, uh, the draft policy where we
use the term `social justice,' where using the term `economic justice' would sort
of undermine the intent?
Frain: No. I can't think of (both talking)
Throgmorton:.... so I'd be pleased to support using `economic justice' instead of `social justice.'
Any objection to that? (several responding) Okay. And what was the other one?
Botchway: The other one was around 50% affordable housing.
Throgmorton: Yeah (several talking) I can't .... I can't see doin' that (several talking)
Botchway: ....from the standpoint, we just looked at .... sustainability's a key strategic goal
for us. We basically have stated that we want to see LEED gold, silver, and eight
additional standards on top of that. I appreciate Martha Norbeck and HBA also
presenting that they want to incorporate the National Building Association. It
makes clear to me from an objective standpoint that we support sustainability.
I'm excited about that. Historic preservation as well, I mean, it's very clear to me
that we, uh, supportive of, uh, of historic preservation. From affordable housing
standpoint, if we just do 10% affordable housing, there is no way we make the
dent, or excuse me, there's no way that I feel like we make the dent in which we
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Mims:
Frain:
Mims:
want to make sure that affordable housing is a clear objective of, um, Iowa City.
I'm proposing 50%. I'd be interested in some .... I mean if anybody else is willin'
to propose something, you know, lower, but again, I mean currently we're at....
we're looking at 10 to 15%. I don't think that helps. And if we're talking about
visioning, if we're truly talking about wanting to ensure that downtown is
incorporated in the way that I think that it should from affordability standpoint, I
think we need to have a different conversation as far as what we mean about
affordable housing. I think 50% hits my mark. I don't know that .... I see that it
doesn't necessarily hit others.
I think before you do something that drastic, you really need to do an economic
analysis. I mean you talk about a complexity of this whole issue, um, one you're
gonna drive up the gap, big time, and which means more taxpayer money, and
before we do that, I think we would..... should have a conversation about not
having, um, how do I want to say this? Currently with our policies on that
affordable housing, the affordability only has to last as long as the TIF or 20
years, is that right, Geoff?
Correct, whichever's longer.
Okay, whichever's longer. To me the first conversation is that those units have to
stay affordable in perpetuity, because what we're going to find in 10, 20 years,
we're gonna keep having these affordable units roll off the affordable list.
Throgmorton: I agree.
Mims: And so .... to me that's a discussion that we need to have first. But again, even
doing that is going to up the gap, uh, when they do the economic analysis. So.
Botchway: Susan, I appreciate you mentioning that because I think that for me, and I'll just
be frank, when we're talking about the gap analysis, we're paying for affordable
housing.
Mims: We're paying for it for 20 years.
Botchway: Right (both talking) but we ... but we are paying for it.
Mims: Yes!
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Botchway: And so to me, if we're paying for 10% affordable housing or even 15% affordable
housing, why is it out of the question that we could pay for additional affordable
housing?
Mims: I'm not saying it's out of the question. I'm saying this is incredibly complex and
needs to have an economic analysis done before we just .... in .... in a 20 -minute
conversation throw it into a policy.
Cole: I agree with Susan.
Thomas: Kin... Kingsley, one comment I would ... I would make on the affordability, cause I
do ... not necessarily in the way you're.... you're applying it, but.....uh, I do think
we .... we have a what, maybe a 10 -plus year, um, backlog, track record, with
respect to our use of TIF. I think it's a fair question at this point to ask to
evaluate, as kind of a post -occupancy evaluation, could be (mumbled) our
strategic planning, uh, sessions.... looking at the affordability as it pertains to our
TIF development. You know, how affordable, what are the rents in these
buildings? What..what level of afford .... I'm not saying that we're providing
affordability, but what level of affordability are we a .... attaining with. our TIF
projects, and then the other issue with regard to occupancy that I'm interested in
personally is the ... the tenure, you know, are we talking about.... people who are
living there long-term or are we talking about short-term residency. Th ... those
are, I think, two key issues that we've, you know, are part of the.... the..... you
know, the goal I think we have with TIF. We're trying to diversify the downtown
in terms of its resident population. I think it's fair to ask so how have we been
doing when it comes to actually achieving diversity and long-term residency.
(unable to hear person speaking from audience)
Tbrogmorton: Yeah. (unable to hear person speaking from audience) No, we're in discussion
period. Sorry! Maybe I wasn't clear about it, but we're doin' Council discussion,
tryin' to get to a point where we will actually vote.
Taylor: Kingsley, it's included in here, and I've heard this over and over when we're
talking about TIFs for certain projects is .... or a fee in lieu of, and so I .... I think
developers will be frightened by that 50% and ... and opt for the fee in lieu of and I
don't .... I don't think that's a .... a good option.
Throgmorton: I'd like to suggest also, Kingsley, I mean I .... I totally understand where you're
comin' from on this. I ... I think this is a conversation that we need to have in the
strategic plan session, because basically you're saying, I.....I think you're saying,
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we need to do more about the affordability problem with regard to housing in
Iowa City. We've got a great action plan, but still we .... we need to do more.
That's what I'm hearing!
Botchway: Yeah.
Throgmorton: So ... we should have that discussion in the strategic plan. I mean you can still vote
against the policy for your reasons. I totally understand that, but .... uh,
nonetheless, however the vote goes we should (laughs) we should have that
discussion during a strategic plan discussion. Any further discussion? Hearing
none, roll call please, and this is on the, uh, the original draft plus those first two
amendments that I stated.
Dulek: And Kingsley's... the `social justice' to `economic justice.'
Throgmorton: Yes. Thank you.
Dulek: Okay!
Throgmorton: Motion carries 4-3. Thanks everybody! We can move to Item 9, Rental Permit
Requirements.
Fruehling: Jim, there's a correspondence, motion for correspondence (both talking)
Throgmorton: Oh right, could I have a motion to accept correspondence?
Mims: So moved.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by, uh, Mims, seconded by Botchway. All in favor say aye. Opposed.
Motion carries.
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Item 9. 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)
Mims: Move first consideration.
Botchway: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Botchway. Hi, Karen!
Howard: Hi!
Throgmorton: Great to see you!
Howard: Good evening (both talking)
Throgmorton: Are you feeling perky (laughter; talking in background)
Howard: I think it's rampin' up (both talking)
Throgmorton: .... warmin' up! (laughs) It's waking up from its nap!
Howard: There we go! At your last Council meeting, you asked us to, uh, go, uh, dig a
little deeper into some of the issues, um, and so staff has done that. Um .... uh, this
was the original rental impact area map, um, that was presented at your last
meeting. Um, you asked us to look at the edge effects and the potential, you
know, unintended consequences of. ... of the rental impact area and the district,
um, boundaries. Urn, so, uh, we took a look at that. We feel like the open space
die... districts were a good starting point, um, and .... and, uh, but we did look at a
few things that, um, might need to be modified. Uh, one of the things we looked
at, um, unsurprisingly is the Central District Plan. Uh, we have divided the
Central District Plan into three sub -areas, and a lot of the discussion in the Central
District Plan within sub -area A, which encompasses a lot of that older area that's,
uh, surrounds the downtown in Iowa City and the University campus is what
we're talking about. And it really has the greatest diversity of housing types, the
widest range of zoning designations, and it's the only area of the city where we
have those stabilization zones. So it....it is specific to this topic. It also includes
most of the City's historic and conservation districts, and has been used in a
number of neighborhood stabilization efforts, including the creation of the
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University impact area for the neighborhood stabilization effort that happened in
2012, that focused on the multi -family, uh, development. Um, and also the
University neighborhood partnership program area. Um, you asked at your work
session for, uh, to look at the map of the impe.... impact, University impact area
map. This was the map that we.....we developed that was based on the sub -area
map in the Central District Plan, but modified to address more specifically the
multi -family issues and included some other areas besides the Central District,
that included part of the Southwest District and a portion of the multi -family area
in the Manville Heights area, which is in the north corridor, or in the, uh,
Northwest District.... planning district. Uh, looking also, we also took a look at
the Southwest District Plan as well. While there was public input on the east side
boundaries, we thought it would be wise to look at all sides of the map to make
sure that our districts are .... make sense, and that Southwest District Plan also
divides the area into different sub -districts. The Roosevelt, what we call in the
Southwest District, the Roosevelt District included the area that is .... encompasses
two of the rental permit districts that we have on the map. We found that those
mashed almost exactly, in fact exactly, um, the Roosevelt District, um, in that
plan. So we feel comfortable as staff recommending those districts are .... are a
good .... a good match. With regard to east boundary adjustment, sto... staff
recommends adjusting several of those east side rental permit district boundaries
to coincide with the Central District Plan sub -area A boundary, and I'd like to just
focus in a little bit, um, got a close-up of the map, and this map also shows the
parcels, which is kind of interesting cause you do see that pattern. The gray
parcels are all rentals, and the white parcels are owner -occupied properties. So
you can really see that pattern that's developed in these older neighborhoods, um,
in .... in these .... in these districts, and.....and you can see we've modified that east
boundary to match the sub -area A boundary of the Central District Plan. And
more specifically, on the north side, we shifted the boundary east to include, uh,
the neighborhoods commonly known as Goosetown and this Deweyville, little
Deweyville neighborhood to the north. Those are all west of Hickory Hill Park
and really more, uh, of the some genre, uh, same era, um, and pattern as the rest
of the Northside. The College Green neighborhood, um, the boundary also
shifted slightly east, urn .... and it follows basically comes down Parsons Avenue
and follows Ralston Creek. You can't see it on the map here, but that is Ralston
Creek, uh, includes that Moffitt, um.....uh, and the Governor, Lucas, or excuse
me, the, uh, College Hill Conservation District and the Moffitt Cottages Historic
District, um, in the College Green, so it expands it a little bit to the east. And then
the Bow ... Bowery District, uh, is also shifted to the east, to the alley between, uh,
Governor and Summit.....Street to encompass the entirety of the Governor, Lucas
Street Conservation District and the University neighborhood partnership program
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area. Uh, and then the Hickory Hill District, it was an open space district,
obviously, because it's one of our largest urban parks, um, but it didn't make a lot
of sense with regard to rental permits. So, what we've done is just incorporated
the neighborhood that was north of Rochester Avenue, south of Hickory Hill into
that City High neighborhood, which makes a lot of sense, cause it really is pretty
similar to development in the City High neighborhood. And then the areas north
and to the east of that, uh, really are outside the impact area. So this is, um, the
other .... the other thing we looked at is .... is looked at those nuisance and .... and,
uh, noise complaints. This heat map that we called, um, and looked at those
adjusted boundaries to see if it matched a lot of that pattern as well, and it really
correlates quite well, uh, the new boundaries, with, um, the wider, um, areas
in ... more .... wide -spread nuisance and noise complaints.... um, in the central part
of the city. So staff is recommending an adjustment to those boundaries, um, in
that regard, and then moving on to your second thing that you asked us to explore,
which was the percentage of the cap, what is the threshold beyond which, um,
neighborhoods would be not allowed any more rental.... rental permits for single-
family and duplex uses. Um, this was the spreadsheet we put together to look at,
um, the differences between the different caps, and uh.... uh, you can see here,
um, the difference between, these are all the ... the rental permit districts that would
be off the table then. You can see that they're all above 50%, um, and the highest
one's significantly above 50%, uh, rentals. And this is single-family and duplex.
It doesn't include all the multi -family rentals that are in those areas as wh.... as
well. So a significant amount of rentals in those neighborhoods. And then it falls
off in the Miller Orchard and the Longfellow neighborhood (mumbled) next
lowest one's at 28% and so we know that somewhere in between, you know, it's
not an exact science, but at some point between those numbers, um, there's .... we
could say that there's a tipping point. Um, beyond which, and so I think you can
safely say that, uh, the cap somewhere between those numbers is justified by the
evidence that we have on the table. Um, you can see there the differences in the
number of units, additional units that would be allowed in those neighborhoods
that haven't quite met that threshold, um .... and so, uh, staff feels comfortable, uh,
supporting, um, any of those ..... any of those percentages you had mentioned.
Sounded like a consensus of about 35%, um, so we feel comfortable, uh, with that
recommendation. And then finally, uh, there was some minor amendments to the
ordinance based on some input we got from.....from various folks and just some
clarifications, some letters we received, uh, from the public, from ... uh,
particularly from landlords, um, and then a question last time at your meeting.
We did clarify the language that no more than one tenant is allowed within an
owner -occupied property without obtaining a rental permit. So it's an owner -
occupied property. You get one, regardless of how many owners are living in ... in
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the property. Um, beyond that you have to get a rental permit. Uh, bedrooms
must not exceed 35% of the finished floor area, uh, one of the things that we, uh,
looked at was we looked back at the National Homeowners study and they did
include things like foyers and bathrooms and hallways in their calculation of they
took 100% of the units and ... and said these are the kinds of percentages in each
type of space in .... within the home, and so the Homebuilders study did include
things like foyers and bathrooms and hallways, and .... as part of the .... so they
were looking .... a finished floor area. Uh, so we, uh, adjusted, we suggested
adjusting the language in the ordinance to address 35% of the finished floor area
rather than 35% of the habitable floor area. That gives a little bit more flexibility,
um, and acknowledges, um, the concern, uh, of some of the landlords. Uh, the
other thing is just a .... a .... additional benefit, it's going to be easier to affor.... for
both the developers and the staff to administer that. Um, third point, existing
rental units, um, not in compliance with the minimum shared living space
standard may continue. It's just an acknowledgement, um, there's no non-
conforming provisions in the housing code, so we need to acknowledge that in the
ordinance that those kinds of things can continue. If they are.... ever brought into
compliance, of course, they can't go back. Uh, also the language clarified that
duplex separation standard, um, it....it will not prevent duplex units from sharing
amenities, such as common hallways and stairways and laundries. It just means
that each unit has to have a secure entrance to those common areas, and that
you ... that someone shouldn't have to expect that somebody gets to walk through
their unit to get to their other .... to the other unit, um, and allow people to walk
through, or have doors that directly connect the two units together that can be
opened and closed at will, um, that's what that standard is all about. Uh.... and
then finally, uh, we, uh, suggest adding a restriction on paving in rear yards of
single-family and duplex rentals, effective today November 21 ", to preserve a
minimum amount of open space for the residents, basically to maintain the
healthy and sustainable neighborhood environment. Um, we've seen an increase
in paving in the backyards. It's been a concern for .... for a while, um, we've seen
it ramp up in the last few weeks and .... and, uh, to, uh, make sure that we have
some usable open space, um, in the rear yards of single-family and duplex rentals,
and we feel this is really needed at this time. More fully, we can explore some of
the, uh, other issues, like parking and that sort of thing when we get to the zoning
code, but this is really just addressing, um, where paving can go in .... in the
backyard in order to preserve some open space. And, uh, I would be happy to
answer any questions that you have. Stan's also.... where's Stan (laughter) is also
ready to take the wheel if you have any (both talking)
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Throgmorton: Yeah, thank you, Karen, for the clear, uh, description. Uh, does anybody have
any questions for Karen?
Botchway: Karen, can you just go back to the bathrooms (mumbled) must not exceed 35% of
the finished floor area. Could you just explain that a little more thoroughly, cause
I was .... I'll be honest with ya, I was more ..... I was not necessarily aligned with
that 35% if it was .... if we hadn't a clarified it the way we did here, but can
you .... can you just talk through what that means again as far as the finished floor
area compared to the habitable floor area?
Howard: So what this is intended to do is make sure that we don't have single-family and
duplexes that are chopped up, you know, take the shared living spaces that are
typical in a single-family home. You know, your living room, your dining room,
and those bigger shared spaces that are expected in those types of living
environments, um, and you know, making lots and lots of bedrooms and not much
shared space. So, becoming de facto rooming houses. And so this .... this is what
intended, it was based on a study done by the National Homebuilding Association
that looked at a variety of homes in all different sizes and, uh.... uh, different
ranges of prices, and found that very consistently across.....across different
housing sizes, bedrooms tended to take up about 30%, little less than 30%, so we
hedged on a little bit up to say 35%, and then what they were looking at was in
the study, um, they had listed, you know, 3% of the houses typically have a ... you
know, maybe a foyer and .... and 3% of the floor area, finished floor area, is, you
know, something else. And this much percentage is kitchen, and this much
percentage is .... and so the percentage of bedrooms, and they were really talking
about finished floor area. Um, when we're talking about habitable floor area, it's
a very specific term, um, and defined as just a .... not including those kinds of
hallways and stair, uh, stairs and those sort of things. So, if we had that, it would
be a much stricter standard and probably not what we really intended.
Botchway: Thank you.
Throgmorton: Other questions? Apparently not. Thank you, Karen. Appreciate your
perseverance here. Okay, would anybody else like to address this topic? How ya
doin'?
Warnock: Good!
Throgmorton: Good to see you.
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Warnock: It's late! (laughter) But I.....we actually had some more Goosetown people here.
My name is Chris Warnock. I'm here on my....on behalf as a Goosetown resident
and for the Goosetown Neighborhood Association. Uh, we just want to say how
happy we are, first of all, with the rental cap policy. We think this is a really great
balanced and fair approach for all stakeholders. Goosetown prides itself on
having short-term and long-term residents, on having owner -occupied, on having
students, on having a whole variety of people living in our.....in our
neighborhood. We love it that way. I talked to staff and they said, you know, we
looked at Goosetown proper, and it's 40% rentals right now. So we're at the
tipping point in our neighborhood, and so if we add more rentals, we're gonna get
to a point where the owners are gonna be driven out. We don't want that and we
don't want the rentals to be driven out either. We want to keep it the way it is. So
we're very, very happy with staffs recommendation. I think they've done a very
careful job as far as looking at the boundaries. They've put us in Northside, and I
think that's a perfect match for Goosetown in terms of the type of people, the type
of housing stock we have, and what we're trying to accomplish with this policy,
which is really to keep this a vibrant city and, um, so again, we're very much in
support of the overall rental cap and we're also very much in support of the way
the staff has recommended that the boundaries be changed. I think you're gonna
find that it's never perfect, that there're gonna be people that'll come in and say,
oh, we should shift it a bit this way and shift it a bit that way. I .... don't stop
though with this policy. Let's go ahead and get it in place and then later we can
revisit some of the little boundary edging and everything. The staff though is
very concerned about being able to justify these boundaries to the courts. So
when people come in and say, oh I want my neighborhood moved a bit, we need
to make sure we're not torpedoing the whole policy that we can't support that in
court because we're gonna have, I think, uh, challenges to this, but this is a .... a
very, I think it's very innovative. It's been based on some other cities. I think it
can work here. So, again, I won't talk much longer, but Goosetown is very happy
with this and I think that the .... the inner core neighborhoods also are very much
in support of it. So we hope that you'll go ahead and support it tonight and then
get this in place by the deadline. So again, thank you very much.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Chris. Good evening.
Mellecker: I will be brief (laughs) First of all thank you all for your service, for doing this
every week, every day.
Throgmorton: Oh we don't do this every week (laughter)
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Mellccker: Um, my name is Sue Mellecker and I am a life-long resident of Iowa City. I....
let me finish my sign in here. I grew up on, uh, my mom grew up in Goosetown.
Uh, I grew up on Ronald Street. Um, I raised my kids living on Hunts Avenue.
They went to Horace Mann. So I'm very familiar with, uh, the unique and diverse
neighborhoods of the north end. Um, and living next to student housing. Um, I
currently live on Morningside Drive and, um, I'm coming late to this party
because I just happened to watch the City Council meeting last week, um, and
then I also just happened to previous to that see that our neighborhood, the
Glendale/Momingside neighborhood did not have any representation with the
City. So I happened to call Marsha Bollinger last week and said, well how do I
sign up to be the contact for th Glendale/Momingside neighborhood, separate
from all of this, and she said, I'll put your name down and so I'm here not
representing the whole neighborhood, I'm representing myself, but as part of that
she recommended that I read through this information with the rental caps. And
so I didn't realize that the staff had already pushed some of the east side
boundaries, but the .... the, I'm concerned because the City High, uh, rental permit
boundary, um, is quite large and could be impacted greatly, especially that very
near, um, downtown area that carries over from College Street. And when I look
at that, those maps, there's a small little extension that, especially on the heat map
of the noise and the complaints, that is exactly like in my neighborhood, not that
there's a lot of that going on there now, but, um, when you look at the impact of
not being able ..... a developer or a landlord not being able to buy another house in
the north end, Goosetown, Bowery, they're gonna start looking at that near east
side and they're not gonna buy a property on north Seventh Avenue or up by
Regina. It's gonna come into that very near City High area where all the houses
were built in 1959 and so from my house to the Iowa City Library is one mile. I
mean it's about 10 blocks, couple of `em are long. High Street, across the street
from me, currently has two single-family homes, one rental house, actually.....
three single-family homes, one rental house, two apartment buildings, um, a
duplex, and a Systems' house, and it's a great neighborhood and I .... I mean like I
said, I've grown up with this diversity and it's .... we all get along fine. But I ... I
was coming here tonight to hope that the College Green neighborhood could at
least be extended out to at least Morningside because if you look at that kind of
heat map of the complaints, um, there's already activity in that very area, and
these 297 additional rental permits, they're not going to be probably..... targeted
towards something north of Rochester, um, like Windsor Drive. It's going to be
targeted in that very near, older neighborhood right by City High. And so I was
hoping that we could revisit that line, since we're just kind of finding out about
this. But .... if it's been done, that's great, but .... there is a pocket there where
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there already is rental that could very much escalate with this policy, um, and I
just wanted to see if there's anything we can do about that. So....
Throgmorton: Thank you, Sue.
Gunsley: My name is Cecile Gunsley and I'm in the Longfellow district. I applaud you for
the .... the, lot of the great research that's gone into this. Something needed to be
done and, uh, this is a wonderful attempt to .... to control the situation. Um, as a
resident of Longfellow, I'm very uneasy about what the effect of, um, we're right
next to that Bowery district, which is at 74% or 76% and I just .... and we are
already on the high end of those, uh, just above .... uh, 5 ... the 53% marker on your,
um, on your graph. We're at 28.4% of single-family, duplex units having a rental
permit. Um, one of the cities that you looked at for comparative purposes was,
uh, Winona, Minnesota, and they opted for a 30% cap, um, and I'm wondering
why you focused on the 35% cap. In our district, for example, um, that would
mean there could be 60 more houses that could get new rental permits. Um, at
40%, 106, and at 30%, 15 houses could get, um, apply for rental permits. I think
60 houses is getting perilous... perilously close to destabilizing, um, areas of the
neighborhood, should that be the percentage that you go with, and so I'm just
asking you to consider rather the more conservative 30%, um, cap as being less of
a jeopardy to the neighborhood.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Cecile.
Wu: Um, hello, I'm Austin Wu. I'm a student at the University of Iowa from Cedar
Rapids. Um, I have, um.....
Throgmorton: Could you please state your name?
Wu: Austin Wu.
Throgmorton: Austin Wu. Thank you. (both talking) I'm sorry, I didn't hear it. Yeah.
Wu: Sorry about that! Um, so, yeah and I technically live I guess in the Bowery
district, uh, in Iowa City. Um, I have a number of concerns about this proposed
rental cap limit. Um, especially in neighborhoods near campus. If we go back to
the heat map .... um, I think it runs the risk of artificially constraining the housing
supply, um, which runs the possibility of increasing rents artificially already in an
area, already in like an atmosphere where many students are constrained by rent,
um, and have rent concerns. Um, and I assume the intention of this is to move
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tenants out of these, uh, neighborhoods near campus to further out to the .... like
further out. Um ... and I'm afraid that it might run the risk of decreasing
walkability and forcing students to, uh, drive to campus or tenants to drive to
campus, to the downtown area, increasing congestion there, decreasing
walkability, and quite frankly, running counter to the sustainability goals set out
by the City. Um, and let's see, and like another (mumbled) concern I've heard,
um, from other people as well is that by only focusing on houses instead of
apartments, um, this.... implementation of a rental cap might unintentionally...
kind of promote the destruction and demolition of single-family homes, especially
in historic districts, in favor of replacing them with higher density apartments
without any real consideration for the architectural character of neighborhoods.
Um, and many of the concerns noted in this heat map, including maintenance
problems, snow removal, um, lawn care, etc., um, they aren't actually the .... for
the most part they actually aren't the concern of, um, the tenants. Their ... and the
lease is signed; they're usually the responsibility of the landlords. Um, so I think
(mumbled) rental cap might unneedlessly blame tenants rather than the property
management companies and landlords. So, uh, I would personally advise
dispensing with the cap entirely and (mumbled) housing code changes or
drastically increasing it above that 40% mark. Um, and shifting discussion to
dealing with, uh, landlords who fail to take proper care of their properties, and
um, maybe improve tenant connection to the neighborhoods in which they live in
by promoting multi-year occupancy, especially among students, or like a sense of
ownership and agency in the properties in which they live in currently. I think
both those should be, uh, better for a students, keep (mumbled) stable, and
ultimately preserve, you know, preserve that walkable atmosphere that, uh, draw
many students to Iowa City. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Austin. Anyone else? Ben!
Nelson: Hi, uh, Benjamin Nelson, 816 N. Dubuque Street. In a couple hours, 1801 S.
Central, Burlington, Iowa. (laughter)
Mims: I was going to say you didn't get a very early start on your drive tonight.
Nelson: No, I did not. (laughter).....um.....(laughter)...... and so.....all of you are in
general familiar with, um, the Student Government positions, uh, City Liaison for
the University of Iowa Student Government, just for the record. Um, I don't think
we need to go through like the Socratic method of like what .... what do we mean
by this housing code, uh, the rental permit cap, but I think fundamentally a lot of
the concerns from the long-term residents had to do with the borders, this and that
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kind of nitpicking as sort of like who was included in what. Um, and I think
fundamentally the housing permit cap does not address the issue that is causing,
um, kind of students to "invade" long-term neighborhoods. Um, the reason for
that is because there's a simple short.... shortage of. ... of housing for students to
live in, um, for private housing stock. I know early in the work session Geoff
mentioned about 4,000 beds or so have been added, and that includes the
University dorms. Um, but I.....and I do commend the City for both prov...
promoting that sort of behavior by, um.....uh, developers, but I also think when
we look at the raw data, it .... we should not be content. We still have a long ways
to go in.....in terms of catching up to peer averages. Um, the simple fact of the
matter is, if we were to promote higher, denser housing .... in areas, say the
Riverfront Crossings, then students will live there. Um, but they .... they won't
live, you know, in Longfellow. They won't live in Goosetown. They won't live
in the Northside neighborhood because fundamentally students care about two
things, where they are in proximity to the University and how much their rent is.
They don't.....they don't live in the neighborhood for the same reason, um, you
know, John, you live in the Northside, because .... we.....we just know that. Um,
so I think.....I think as long as the City promotes higher, denser housing in Iowa
City, we adapt where changing demographics. These solves these issues of
students pushing out into long-term neighborhoods. It solves the issues of
students complaining about higher rents because.... Econ 101, you know, increase
supply lower .... lower demand, lower prices. Um, and, yeah I .... I don't,
this .... this rental permit cap simp.....simply does not address the issue that it's
trying to, and that is the low lack of housing. So .... thank you very much.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Ben. Hi, Gustave.
Stewart: Hello! I have .... my name is Gustave Stewart, um, I'm the Deputy City Liaison.
Um, a lot of my concerns will kind of echo what, uh, Ben has, uh, said. So, I
believe that this rental permit cap has a strong likelihood to increase rental costs,
for both students and lower income people. When we reduce the supply of
housing in the long -run, we will see a further burden. The cap may draw students
in addition.... the cap may draw students further away from the campus, which
will lead to increasing transportation costs and an increased need of car because
they simply live farther away, like the concerns Austin was saying. When I look
at which neighborhoods would be open for additional rental permits, the next
neighborhoods would be neighborhoods like Willow Creek and City High, ran,
various other neighborhoods which aren't close and suitable for the Iowa City
community in the long run. We both want a good balance of neighborhoods for
rental and owner -occupied. Um, I am from Iowa City and I definitely understand
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this. Um, I think it is essential that we do have a good ratio, but .... I think, um, the
thing is I know what it's like to live in the surrounding Iowa City area. But I also
know what it's like to live off -campus, as a student. The only way the City can
truly fix the problem is to build student -oriented housing and developments. This
will lead to a reduced.... pressure on neighborhoods we are considering today.
Putting this cap will only further risk problems, for students and low income
people. In addition I want to encourage the City to do more research on this issue.
Uh, simply looking at past cities that have implemented this, uh, rental permit cap
makes me worried. If someone has to move cities, for example, because of a job,
that person will have difficulty selling their place because there's a reduce in the
lack of demand for that neighborhood and in addition they will not be able to rent
their unit because of this cap. This will .... could potentially lead to further
depth..... debt for that individual. So in summary, I believe that cap, the cap, can
have damaging side effects for the Iowa City community. I also am afraid that
this band-aid .... band-aid will end up being permanent. There needs to be a
constant evaluation of this program. The only true solution is create more
opportunity elsewhere for students and tenants around the campus area and the
downtown area. A good example of this that the Iowa City Council has been
doing so far is the Riverfront Crossings area. So yes, the City has made strides,
but we need to work more on this issue. We need to keep on developing and
creating more supply, to create more affordable units. So I understand where
you're coming from and I hope you consider removing this or raising it, raising
the rental permit cap, um, so we don't experience those damaging consequences.
Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Gustave.
Gillaspie: Hello, my name's Hunter Gillaspie and I am also a student at the University of
Iowa. Um, and I'm also a resident of 432 S. Dubuque Street. Um, I'll keep it
very brief cause it's obviously super -late, um, I just want to echo all the
sentiments, um, that all of my, um, fellow Student Government members have
said. Um, I'm here as just an individual, um, and I'd like to say that if, um, if the
goal is to promote affordable housing, um, and to accommodate students, um, in
harmony with the rest of the community members, I don't think that, um, the cap
being proposed is the way to do that. Um, I think it has a large potental.... a large
potential to raise, um ..... uh, prices of housing units that are close to campus and
that are appealing to students, and actually push them out farther into other
neighborhoods, um, so I really don't think this is, um, a way to kind of combat the
problems that we think it's going to.
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Throgmorton: Thank you, Gillaspie. Good evening.
McLaughlin: Good evening. I have a handout if that's all right (mumbled; speaking away from
mic) Council Members, couple of pages. My name's Mike McLaughlin and, uh, I
own some property that I lease out in downtown Iowa City neighborhoods. Um,
my primary concern regarding the, uh, proposed ordinance really's focused on the
duplex separation. My most con .... my main concern is the safety of the
inhabitants of those residences. Um, historically, uh, years, years ago, I think
many of these duplexes were single-family homes, so they had a front door
entrance and they may have either a side or back door entrance. But, uh,
essentially two means to get out of the structure. And when the City allowed
those to be permitted, they required a, uh, fire rated door to separate in most
instances an upstairs unit and a downstairs unit. Uh, based on my understanding,
which may not be entirely accurate, however, um, the proposal requires a
permanent .... I would say probably wall to remove that, um, fire rated door, which
then is gonna leave these units with one entrance and one exit only, particularly in
the case of a hazard is what my concern is, such as a fire. Um, the front page of
my, uh, documentation I handed out to you is statistics regarding 2016 fires and,
uh, by and large what I highlighted is single-family and duplex structures are by
lar .... by and large the most common type of structure that .... that, um, accounts
for well over half of fires in the United States .... in 2016. Uh, the second page,
uh, is a .... is, uh, information about a fire in 1999 in Keokuk, Iowa, where, uh,
people perished because the, uh, stairwell, which .... the only means of how they
were able to get out of the building died because of limited ways to escape. And
that's my primary concern about that proposal with this, and uh, I don't support
that particular, uh, proposal because I'm .... I'm concerned about people's safety.
So, I hope that you, uh, will strong consider that tonight. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Mike. Ooh, easy! (laughter)
Carlson: Eventually it works out! (laughs) My name's Nancy Carlson and I live on... at
1002 E. Jefferson. Thirty-eight years ago, when I bought my house, I was
incredibly excited. In 1980, banks did not loan wom.... money to women to buy
houses, especially low income women. I had tried and tried to get a loan so that I
could buy a house. As a result I was a renter for much longer period of time, and
so when people talk about renting, I know what it's like. I know what it's like to
rent because you cannot buy a house, because the banks will not lend you money.
Fortunately in 1980, interest rates were 18%. And so people were selling houses,
uh, they were taking .... they were assuming the .... the, uh.....they were willing to
sell `em with a five-year balloon. You could buy them on contract with five-year
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balloon for 11%. And so I thought this may be my way to get into this. So I
bought my house at 11 % interest with a five-year balloon. But I did manage to
start my path toward ownership. It took me 30 years. I've, uh.... paid payments
to I don't know how many different savings and loan associations throughout the
country, because when my balloon came up, the only people who would consider
lending me money were the savings and loan associations who would give money
to anybody who could walk in the door. I went around to the banks again here in
Iowa City at that point and they wouldn't do it. So for 30 years I paid 1 I%. By
the time I got done paying off my loan, interest was 6%. So when you talk about
affordable housing, when you talk about renters, when you talk about not able to,
uh, afford housing, I've been in all those instances. So in 1980, when I finally
started on my pathway to ownership, I was so excited. And I went, okay, I am
now a real part of the community. I have skin in the game. Not only am I
interested in my house, I am interested in my neighborhood. I want my house and
I want my neighborhood to thrive. Over the years, I was part of the group of
people who got the RNS zoning change, which made a big difference. Before that
it was RM -12 and .... land owners would buy properties, not fix them up, rent them
out for a number of years, tear them down and put in an apartment building. So
by doing the RNS zone, we really helped stabilize our neighborhood. It did make
an improvement. Uh, later on.....the City decided that they wanted to change the
number of people in a single-family house from four until three, because they
were concerned that with four people, houses were being divided up. And they
wanted to keep the, uh, original structure of the house inside as much as possible
so that it could be turned back over to somebody else who wanted to buy it. I
came and spoke for that. I am here now asking you, please, to think about this.
This is not about who lives there. This is about our neighborhoods. In the work
session tonight, you talked about the Lusk house. And you talked about
neighborhoods and preserving neighborhoods. This is about preserving
neighborhoods as much as possible. We already know that at 50% or more the
neighborhood and the.....viability and the stability of the neighborhood is
compromised. I ask you .... what person wants to live in a compromised, unstable
neighborhood, whether they are an owner or a renter. I believe everyone has the
right to live .... to feel safe and secure and have pride in the neighborhood that they
live in. The other thing I would like to bring up is the 30....35%, uh.... um, thing
for bedrooms. In the home study, uh, thing which I believe was in your packet,
and which, uh.....brought up so .... so, uh, brilliantly also. Most single-family
homes, the percentage is around 28%. I am asking for 30%. We're talking about
single-family homes that maybe at some point may go back to a family. Why can
we not look upon them as a single-family structure that is capable of housing a
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family, that is capable of having enough room that people who live in there can
live .... can have, uh..... events together.
Throgmorton: Nancy, could you wrap it up please?
Carlson: As I said, I have been here 38 years in my house. I have tried to...be a good
citizen. I have tried to pre .... present and protect my neighborhood. I also want to
protect the people who live in the houses, to make sure that they have decent
living conditions. Thank you!
Throgmorton: Regenia! Perseverance!
Bailey: (both talking) ...late, yeah! You have perseverance, um, Regenia Bailey. I live in
Goosetown. I can walk away very happy tonight. Thank you for, um,
considering including Goosetown in the Northside. I think that makes a lot of
sense. One of the things, and I know it's late to ask you to consider yet another
new idea. Last time you talked you talked about some multi -family housing that's
coming on-line in the next couple of years, and you referred to that building in an
earlier discussion. And so what I'd like you to consider is setting the cap at 30%.
I have real concerns about the edge neighborhoods, and I think that they brought a
valid, um, valid concerns, and so if you set it at 30%, with the re-evaluation that
was mentioned, and I think that this always should be evaluated on a regular
basis. Set it at 30% and as those multi -family structures come on-line, re-evaluate
what we've got. I think that gives an opportunity yet I think it addresses, um, the
concerns of the edge neighborhood, with a really new policy. Setting it low, you
can always raise it. Setting it at 35, it's hard to go .... it's hard to go down. So
think about that as you consider that, and look at those numbers in those edge
neighborhoods and the number of rental units that could come on-line. It's a .... it
is really a huge impact if you think about it. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Regenia. Good evening.
Lewers: Hi. Um .... I guess I have to sign in?
Throgmorton: Yep!
Lewers: Um, my name's Riley Lewers and I live at 621 Iowa Ave. I'm a student and, um,
have lived in Iowa City pretty much my whole life, and I don't want to say a lot
but I just wanna echo the concerns of the other students that spoke earlier. Um,
I'm just worried that setting a rental cap will increase the cost of housing for
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students and I'm .... uh, especially concerned about this considering the tuition
increases that have already happened at the state level. I'm really worried about
students' cost of living. So I just urge you to consider that, um .... when you're
considering this whole housing code. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Riley. Anyone else? Good evening, Mike!
Oliveria: Good evening. It's been a long night! (laughs) Um, on the behalf of the, uh,
Apartment Association, uh, membership, uh, I drafted, um, our legal counsel
some areas of concern after the revision of the last code, uh, amendment from the
Building Department and I just think we need to highlight that area. I think Mike
McGlaughlin did a good job of the duplex separation issue. Uh, that's a concern
for a lot of the older houses in the neighborhoods. It's going to be very difficult
to meet that standard. Um, almost impossible in some of those old houses. If we
do that duplex separation, we'll never be able to convert some of those homes
back to single-family after we do that. It also causes us some concerns with fire
safety issues. Personally my company's had a fire where we had a .... one of the
exits, um, was blocked and they had to use an alternative exit out the window to
get the tenants out. So I'm well aware of it and concerned about that. I'm not so
sure that we have a policy within this code that ... the way it's written, um, it's too
loose and not defined enough. Um, that it's gonna allow the .... the, too much
leeway on the Building Department's, uh, standards to say, well this building's
okay, this building's not. Uh, I think at this time that should be thrown out, not
considered. The second issue we have concerns about, I ... I got a lot of feedback
from the executive session at the Apartment Association meeting, and the
members, about the 12 to 24 -month clause in there for carry-over, uh.....uh, for
the rental penalties for the landlord. Uh, it just doesn't make sense, because
you .... and I was really appalled by the City Attorney's, uh, comment in the
response, uh, saying that.... that the tenants , they maybe had a problem carry-
over with their friends and it carnes more potential problems for future renters.
I .... I just don't see that. Been doin' this for 12 years! I just don't .... I .... I'm not
experienced so.....it's almost like you are profiling the bad apple who's gonna
carry on to the next rental period. That's usually not the case. So I think the City
needs to go back and look at that 12 to 24 -month clause, and figure out a better
way. Either increase the fines, maybe towards the rental permit, uh, on the
landlords that are havin' the problems, or some other way, but to carry a .... over a
two-year period, you're penalizin' some people that tenants you may have already
cleaned up the problem over this .... to new people and it just doesn't make sense.
You gotta look at that and ... and look at the letter we wrote from our attorney.
I .... I think there's... we were very clear on the arguments we presented. Without
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that I have coup .... one other couple things I think the City needs to look at, that
were never brought up. There's people like me that we're in the rental process
during this moratorium. We were working on buildings, um, in the process,
uh.... in the rental permit process and then we got stopped in between. We're
adding new upgraded electrical in a couple of the buildings, and we got a call
from Stan said, hey, you got 24 hours to finish it or you're not gonna have a rental
permit. It's like I .... I can't finish construction in 24 hours! So there's those
people that were gran... need to be grandfathered in but .... that were work in
process during this moratorium. I think you need to take a look at cause it's bad
for business. (mumbled) people in Iowa City that we're workin' on, like myself,
the Bach buildings. We're workin' on improving those buildings and now we're
faced with, you know, what are we gonna do with that building if we don't get a
rental permit? Um .... and also I'd like to ... and also the Council to consider
companies like myself that can take an older building, tear it down, put a new
building in, single-family home in a neighborhood that we can retain the rental
permit. I think that's a option that should be on the table. Like currently right
now, the City staff, I have a, uh, unit right now at 319 N. Van Buren I'm
considering tearing down to put a new single-family home in there, but I'd like to
have the option to have that rental permit restored. It's a current rental right now.
I don't know if I want to tear it down! I was thinkin' of tearin' it down to build a
single-family home but I don't know with that 25, 35%. I've gotta look at all the
numbers, because I got a small lot, to make it work. Feasibility. You know,
I .... there's a lot of factors here. I think more than the Council has yet determined.
So, please, I know it's late, but I think (mumbled) note a couple of those items
and take the .... respond back to the Council and the Apartment Association and
the people that have money invested in this town, and we'd like to see everybody
succeed here. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Thank you, Mike. Good evening!
Villhauer: Good evening. Mayor, Council, thank you. My name is Chris Villhauer. I live at
912 Juniper Drive. I am also with the, uh, Greater Iowa City Apartment
Association, but I have one comment from that and one for .... for personal as well
too. Um, one thing I just want to make sure everybody knows if there's a
nuisance property, the City does have means in place to take care of that. There is
a .... there's a three strikes you're out, you can lose your rental permit, so there is
means to take that. Um, so just so people know that .... you know, if they're not
doin' the sidewalk, if there's a criminal problem with the tenant, um, there's ways
that the landlord is responsible for taking care of that. Um, the second thing I
(mumbled) personal thing. Um, is for the Council to maybe consider when you're
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lookin' at the .... instead of looking at the whole big neighborhood, on some of
those areas you may want to look at by block by block, whether it should be a
rental or not. Um, cause I know a person who has a single-family home who, uh,
is every house on the block is a rental. When they go to sell that house or they
need to sell that house, their market value's gonna go down if they know it can
only be sold to someone who's gonna be living there as owner -occupied. So if
there's that cluster .... my question to you would be is how it's gonna hurt to have
one more rental on a block that's all rentals already. If that person needs to sell
and make money to go to a different living, whether it's assisted living or
whatever the case may be. So... just a thought for ya!
Throgmorton: Thank you, Chris. Anyone else? Okay, seeing no one else, um, we'll move to
Council discussion. Who wants to go first?
Mims: I will. I've got a question for Karen first. Karen, on the 35% for the bedroom
space, we've had some different correspondence and it was .... one of them was
talking about that that isn't necessarily accurate like for some of the older, small
houses. If ...if we come across say an older, small house that the bedroom space
exceeds that, but it has not been recently renovated to increase the number of
bedrooms or anything, do we have any flexibility within this to still give the rental
permit or would they ab ... would they absolutely have to be denied?
Howard: That is one of the .... that is open to administrative review. So we have some
flexibility on that number for reasonable accommodation.
Mims: Okay. Okay, I just wanted to double check on that. Thank you. Um, I'm gonna
support this. I .... would agree that it's not necessarily perfect. I think we all knew
that this was gonna be, um, a starting point and a work in progress. Um, and
certainly a lot more things that we want to get done, but the State legislature put
us in a .... in a real critical position. Um, to .... to the students, I would say this.
The intent of this is not to move students out. It is not to decrease the housing
available. It is to put a cap. So in other words there's only a certain additional
amount that can be developed there. Um, I think one of the things that was
mentioned and, Geoff, a real quick question to you, and I probably lost my spot
here .... on that, urn .... memo that .... that the Mayor had asked you to do on new
housing, the one on .... Highway 6 is the one that is not yet in place, that isn't open
yet, is it? 892?
Fruin: Um, I think you're referrin' to The Quarters development?
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Mims: Is ... okay, is that The Quarters?
Fruin: That'd be The Quarters. And they're.... they're occupied (both talking)
Mims: Okay, I wasn't.... okay, I wasn't sure, because I didn't know on Highway 6 and
Gilbert if that was listed on here and I don't think I saw anything there.
So ... okay! I just went through on that, uh, chart and added up the ones that are
gonna be opening in 2018 or later, and that was 886 bedrooms. Um, so we have a
lot coming on-line in the next year or so, and I think we're gonna see, and ... and
those are relatively close in, and I think we're gonna see that that's gonna make a
difference. The goal of this policy, in my mind and I believe in Council's
collective belief, is that this is neighborhood stabilization, that you get beyond a
certain point in terms of rental permits on a percentage basis and you end up with
potential for people in the neighborhood that are not really invested in the.....in
the neighborhood. And so it's important to have that balance between owner -
occupied and rental. Um, I think this is something, again we've talked about
living documents here tonight on various things, and I see this definitely as one of
those, that staff and Council need to be reviewing on ..... an every other year
maybe basis, in terms of how is it working, you know, do we see that ... that all of a
sudden rents are starting to creep up for some reason, is this maybe having an
impact on that. But I think we're going to continue to see more units come on-
line, I think in the Riverfront Crossings area, that is going to help. Um, I think it
is going to help both tenants and landlords hopefully be more responsible, when
we look at this heat map area and the potential for, um, some fairly negative
consequences for them there. Um, I am .... and I .... I'm pleased with the
adjustments that staff has made on the boundaries. I think we, you know, we
expressed our concern and certainly, um, members of the community did last time
on those edges. I think we've, again, it's not necessarily going to be perfect, but I
think it's better certainly than it was. And while I was leaning towards the 35%, I
am more compelled after looking at all the documentation, listening to people
tonight, to start with the 30%. And .... maybe with this being our first go -around,
saying, you know what, we're going to review this in 12 months, and let's see
what has happened in 12 months. Um, because as we all know and people in the
audience have mentioned, if you ... if we go to 35, you .... it's hard to move down.
Regardless of what number we set, it's really hard to move down. I'd rather start
at 30, come back in 12 months and look at it, and .... say, okay.... where.... where
have we had new permits, how are things looking, what does the heat map look
like, um, are we comfortable moving it up or do we see a need to move it up.
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Thomas: I'll build on that comment, Susan, because I think (clears throat) uh, the ... the
question of what happens at the edge still .... still applies and .... and as I was trying
to ... to emphasize in the work session, and ... and Ben and, you know, the .... the
comments by the students, I think, kind of reaffirmed this. The .... the equation
with .... with short-term rental is distance from the campus. So it doesn't matter
where we draw the lines. We can kind of see, uh, how over time, over the last 50
years, the.... the..... the radi... the radius of rental has just expanded, and we have to
keep in mind that the reason we are acting on this is the State took away our
number, you know, our cap on unrelateds, so .... so we will, that .... that in itself
will generate more, uh, supply, you know, we don't know how many. So there is
that additional supply, but we don't know what the impact of that will be,
particularly in all of these neighborhoods that have say the 20%, 20 to 30%, uh,
rental with some .... room for additional rental. My theory, you know and this is
why I would support 30%, is what we're gonna see is that ... those rentals will tend
to concentrate.....you know, at the nearest edge there where we already have
higher percentages. Uh, which actually in my mind runs counter to the affordable
housing aspect because all .... most likely all of that will be student rental, and so
the ability within these districts that we had defined for rental will be absorbed by
the student rental market, rather than, uh, potentially the long-term rental market,
which wouldn't be as .... as focused on being close to campus. They could live
well on the east side of the city, uh, district, for example, but they may not have
an opportunity because we'll have already reached the cap, uh, on the west side of
that same district. My feeling is we .... we start at 30%. As we've all mentioned,
this .... this thing really, there're a lot of, you know, bugs that need to be worked
out. I appreciate that, you know, in terms of landlords expressing all those
scenarios. Um, but in terms of how the .... the percentages are going to play out
geographically, I think we .... we need to be conservative. We can always change
the number as we move forward, uh, but for now, especially given the, um, the
fact that the .... the number of occupants will change in, at least in some rentals, I
think a, you know, 30% is a good starting point and then we can, um, evaluate
what happens on the ground.
Throgmorton: I want to ask a .... staff a clarifying question with regard to the percentages. My
recollection is that the original recommendation was that we could choose
anywhere between 30 and 40%, and that would be with still.... either extreme
would be compatible with, uh, the nuisance map, the heat map, or whatever that,
uh, we need to have a rational connection to. Uh, that's correct, right?
Fruin: Correct.
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Throgmorton: Yeah, okay. Uh, other comments?
Cole: Ditto. 30%. (laughter) ...support it.
Botchway: Yeah I would be in favor of the 30%. One of the things I saw from the, uh, HCDC
commentary was the discussion on number two, which is around the 35%, um,
piece, and I think that I already kind of played my hand a little bit in stating that I
was concerned about it until, you know, I saw the changes that staff made and so
really.....really like the changes that Susan and others have already talked about.
Um .... so I am supportive of 30%,1 mean I .... I do, it makes me think as I look at
these numbers though, I mean are .... it begs the question are we comfortable
where our current neighborhoods are? Could we go lower? That's just thought
process, I mean it's late so I'm not trying (several talking) looking at, you know,
when I see 28, 27, 21%, I'm looking at, you know, going back to that lower
conversation, should we say 25, as .... I mean I .... I'm not saying that's the case.
I'm just saying it's from the standpoint of, you know, kind of going back to, John,
your comment. We're gonna see some jump here or some of them moving out
and so this really stops that, and I worry that in a year we'll see some of these
changes pretty quickly and won't be able to go back or pull back. But I'm not
gonna equivocate on that (both talking)
Mims: But does 30% destabilize a neighborhood? See I (both talking) so that's where
I'm comfortable (several talking)
Thomas: If I could insert, uh, another comment here. I think we could set it at 30 and see
what happens. We, you know, initially there was a proposal as part of this
program to have distance requirements or block percentages. That would be the
other way of dealing with the edge, what happens at the edge, because we know
that, you know, those .... those residences along the edge (laughs) living on the
edge (several talking, laughing) We're all living on the edge at this point.
(laughter) Um, is it (several talking, laughing) You know, it's.... they're gonna
be ... the edge is gonna be .... would be protected by block percentages or distance
requirement, um, and then lastly, very quickly, this also has an impact, uh, I
would say secondarily on our .... our.....our public school enrollments, because
these, you know, Twain, Longfellow, uh, Goosetown, Mann, Manville Heights,
Parkview Terrace, we're.....we're reinvesting in all of these neighborhoods with
our schools. I think the goal (laughs) should be to try to preserve as much
housing stock as possible. I'm talking single-family and duplex for student
enrollment in those areas.
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Throgmorton: Other comments. Pauline? Terry?
Dickens: 30% seems like a .... better, I like it better than 35, cause I do worry about it
moving east, uh, I rent to my father out on the east side. He lives way out on
Green Mountain. That's just cause my mom didn't like him (laughs) but the fact
is there are rentals out in those areas, but I ... I worry about too much, but like
Goosetown, you know, I walk through there. I live up in the north end, and I
walk through Goosetown and it is a great mix in that area where you've got rental,
you've got long-term renters, you've got .... homes like that. That's what we
really want. I .... we don't want an overload in one area, which we .... we do have
in certain areas. But, uh..... there is the demand. So .... as long as we keep
building, it'll help take care of it a little bit, but the price is, you know, anything
that's close to downtown, either the University buys or .... developers buy, and
it .... it's expensive property. So you do have to charge more, but.....I'm..... I'm
comfortable with the 30%.
Taylor: I'm okay with the 30%. (several talking) I'm okay with 30%. I, and I'm a little
surprised on some of the numbers, cause I live in the Willow Creek neighborhood
and just in my block, up a block, uh, three of the homes as people have aged and
left their homes and sold them, they've become rental properties and maybe
they're not listed as rental properties, but, uh, in two of those three are quite
obviously college students.
Mims: Give the address to Stan. He'll check. (laughter)
Botchway: So one point I wanted to make (several talking in background) one point I wanted
to make in conjunction with Susan's comment was around measurables and so,
and I think John as well, how we're going to track over time. So the heat map is
going to be one way, from a nuisance standpoint, but in the HDC .... HCDC
minutes, Charlie had talked about incorporating, and maybe we already do this
but I wanted to make sure, incorporating the current price of the rental property
within the permit.
Mims: You mean what they're charging for rent?
Botchway: What they're charging for rent. Is that something we could do, because we're not
gonna see that measurement. I think the students bring up a good point as far as
wanting to make sure, I mean, if it is increasing rent, I .... I want to know about it
and I want us to maybe look at some changes later on down the road.
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Mims: How can we get rental information?
Fruin: Yeah, we've responded to that a couple times. We really don't feel like that's the
appropriate way to gather that information, um.....um, we think that doing some
type of survey or scan, um, of advertisements would be a .... a much better
approach to gathering that data and would give you much more realistic numbers,
uh, as .... as opposed to requiring through a .... a rental permit, which I think there':
some legal question as to whether we can even do that.
Botchway: Okay. Thank you.
Throgmorton: Yeah, okay. Well I haven't said anything about this. I'll support the 30% cap. I
see good reasons for doing so. Uh, and I want to respond a little bit to the points
that, uh, Ben and Gustave and others have made with regard to effects on
students. I think it's really important to remember that this ordinance will not
shut down any existing rental units without permits. We're talk .... and it has no
effect whatsoever on rentals in multi, uh, multi -unit apartment buildings. So, the
vast majority.... well, is, you know, not going to be affected, at all! And the
second thing is that the, uh, the number of new units that have been constructed, I
know it's been mentioned before, but I just want to re-emphasize it, according to
that report that Geoff gave us in our most recent Information Packet, there has
been or will soon be a net increase of 4,021 bedrooms, primarily serving the
student market, since 2015 or .... within a year or so. That's a huge increase! So
I .... I think it's, uh, one shouldn't kind of overstate the risk of increasing risks
associated with this rental cap proposal. Uh, so .... in the end, I strongly support
what we have before us, with the amendments that Karen and Stan and I don't
know who else put together. It will have co ... considerable benefits for, uh,
helping us achieve a healthy balance of long and short-term residents in our
neighborhoods, especially the ones closest to the University. It's absolutely
crucial to do that. All right, any further comment? If not, roll call please. Motion
carries 7-0. Could I have a motion to accept correspondence please?
Botchway: So moved.
Dickens: Second.
Throgmorton: Moved by Botchway, seconded by Dickens. All in favor say aye. Opposed.
Motion carries.
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Item 12. Council Appointments
Throgmorton: We're gonna defer action on these appointments to our December 51s meeting.
(several talking in background) All right.
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Item 14. Community Comment [if necessary] (items not on the agenda)
Throgmorton: Ben or Gustave, did you want to talk?
Stewart: It's a late night! (laughter)
Throgmorton: Hey, it's only five after (both talking)
Stewart: Only a little bit, you know, some may say it's a little past my bubble bath time but
(laughter) that's all right. Um, so, um ... yeah, things, uh, going on with UISG.
One of the things that we did, uh, recently in like the UISG's Senate is we added
an International Constituency Senator to try to encourage that diversity and make
sure, um, international students are represented within our, um, Senate. Um,
yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving! (laughter)
Throgmorton: You too! Thanks!
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Item 15. City Council Information
Throgmorton: Uh, I have nothing to say. (several talking)
Taylor: Kingsley and I .... (several talking) our listening post, just briefly (both talking)
Throgmorton: Sure, fire away!
Taylor: (both talking) Kingsley and I, um, had a listening post at Oaknoll. It was very
wonderful. It was well attended. There were 18 people, Uh, recurring themes of
street conditions and the transit system.
Throgmorton: Good deal! Glad to hear it! Anybody else wanna.....
Botchway: I'll be real quick, I know you're tired, whatever (laughs) Dave Ricketts retired,
uh, he had his party last week, um, just amazing guy. Got a chance to work with
him as a .... as a Cambus driver. I don't necessarily know if I saw him too much,
but definitely (mumbled) working with him on Council during the, uh, JC. Uh,
Pauline mentioned listening post. I attended the Iowa City Federation of Labor
meeting about the state of the State, and some of the issues that have happened at
the state level. It was very informative. Um, provided a few words during the
Armistice Day observance at the Pentacrest, um, last Saturday. Uh, two
Saturdays ago actually. Was very cold, um, but was great to see a lot of people
out there, um, supporting peace. Uh, went to the Willowwind solar panel ribbon
cutting today. They were the .... Iowa's first LEED gold certified school and now
they'll be Iowa's, or excuse me, Iowa City's first elementary to embrace solar
energy. And, uh, one of the things I had an opportunity to with the Noon Rotary
was hear a presentation by the Executive Director of the Cedar Rapids Airport,
about the `buy local' approach. I do think it's something that we should consider
as far as, you know, how we support our local airport because many cities
throughout Iowa don't necessarily have an airport as close, but I'll save that for
another time.
Mims: I just wanted to really quick mention, um, County Board of Supervisors had a
work session last week and invited both the Steering Committee and Governance
Committees for the access center to come to that. Um, one of the absolutely
major things that came out of that was an agreement by the Board of Supervisors
that they see, um, it as being one of the major roles of the Board of Supervisors to
fund mental health issue, to basically ... to the extend that they will fund the deficit
for the operating costs of the access center, up to several undefined but several
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hundred thousand dollars per year. Um, I think this puts us, um, on the road to
actually moving forward with the project. Um, we've gotta get 28E agreements
in place. I'm talkin' with Geoff a little bit more about the structure of those and
probably bring that back to Council when we have more time to discuss it, but I
think that got us over a huge, huge hurdle, um, in terms of moving forward. So
we'll be starting to look at some contracts and 28E agreements, but when
everybody's less tired and a little more focused, we'll talk about it in more detail.
Throgmorton: Great. That's terrific news. Thanks for tellin' us about it. It's huge! Anybody
else want to say anything? I want to mention a couple things. Since we're doin'
this, uh, as you know I attended the National League of Cities summit in Charlotte
last week. I got back, I don't know, 12 midnight Saturday. Uh, it was interesting.
I met a lot of good people and so on. But also a week before went to this Mayor's
Institute on City Design event, and I gave all of you a copy of the report about
that. It was a terrific event! Six other mayors, seven very skilled professional
experts, all focusing attention on topics that the mayors brought to the event. It
was great! Last, I want to congratulate Susan and Kingsley on their re -elections.
(applause) Well done, congratulations to both of you. (several talking) Yeah!
And .... (several talking) and congratulate Mazahira Silah on her very impressive
victory and, uh, I don't know, Terry! (laughs),
Dickens: (mumbled)
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council
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