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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-05-01 Transcription Page 1 2. Moratorium on rental permits—Consider an ordinance amending Title 17 of the City Code (Building and Housing) to establish a moratorium until March 7, 2020 on the issuance of new rental permits for single-family and duplex units in RS-5,RS-8, and RNS-12 zones within certain rental permit districts in the Rental Impact Area shown in Figure 17-1 of the City Code. (First Consideration) Throgmorton: Could I have a motion for first(both talking) Mims: So moved. Cole: Second. Throgmorton: Moved by Mims, seconded by Cole. Discussion? All right, I'm gonna ask Geoff, uh, Fruin, our City Manager, to provide some background and get us into the topic, and then ask if any members of the public would like to address us on the topic. Geoff. Fruin: Okay, thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh,just over a week ago the legislature passed SF447 (mumbled) tune in the mics here, uh, which prohibits cities from adopting or enforcing rental permit caps. Throgmorton: A little louder. Fruin: We'll get it. Uh, as Council is aware, we instituted rental caps in certain defined neighborhoods in 2017, after the State legislature restricted our ability to regulate occupancy on familial status. The decision to implement rental caps came after a moratorium period that allowed us to research practices of other similar, uh, communities throughout the country. I've been with the City, uh, about eight years now, and in each of those years the City Council has identified neighborhood stabilization and the continual enhancement of our core neighborhoods as a primary goal in your strategic plan. Many of you have been involved with the City for....for, uh, quite some time and know that that goal spans decades, not just, uh, the last eight years. As a city we've spent millions on infrastructure,parks, quality of life amenities in these neighborhoods in recent years. We've also invested millions of dollars of public money in private housing, uh, through these...through programs like UniverCity, our owner-occupied rehab; historic preservation grants; and exterior maintenance grants. We voiced our strong support several years ago for the School District to reinvest into Maim Elementary School at a time when closure was on the table, due to the,uh, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 2 enrollment from the surrounding neighborhood. Uh, we knew that neighborhood schools such as Mann, uh, were a critical component to our ongoing effort to strengthen, uh, our core neighborhoods. All this investment by the City has been great,but a well-crafted regulatory framework, uh, also is needed to help ensure that housing options remain for a wide cross-section of our community. So we are asking the Council for a 10-month moratorium on rental permits in neighborhoods that are currently capped. Uh,this'll give us sufficient time to go back and research and recommend alternative...an alternative regulatory framework that continues to prioritize the health, safety, and integrity of our core neighborhoods in a manner consistent with your strategic plan. Throgmorton: Thanks so much, Geoff. Okay, uh, seems like there's 60 or 70 people here. I wonder how many of you would like to address us? Would you just raise your hands so I can have some idea of how many people want to speak. Okay, not so many. I'm seein'like seven or eight hands. Okay, uh,please feel free to come up, address us, state your name, say whatever's on your mind, take not more than five minutes, and we'll go from there. So, who would like to speak first? Lehman: Do you want me to sign in too? (several responding) My name's Tim Lehman. I'm actually a local realtor here in Iowa City, and uh....I'm against the rental cap here. Uh, I just got a couple examples I wanted to point out to you people. Um, I have a client who has....has a house. The address is 117 N. Van Buren Street. He's surrounded by rental properties. He's been the owner-occupied rooming house for 25 years. Uh, the gentleman has now turned 70 years old and he'd like to sell the house. Uh, about 10 years ago, um, he was....in some discussions with the City,he was told since he's owner-occupied,he does not need to have a rental permit. So he let his permit lapse. Fast forward 10 years (clears throat) 10 years to the day and,uh, so he wants to sell the house and, uh, we just can't get it sold because it's...it's in a....an area that probably should be used as a rental. It's a five-bedroom rooming house, and um, I value it at about$400,000. If it had a rental permit, um, we had it on the market for$300,000 and we couldn't get it sold. So he's....he's gonna be financially, uh,burdened by this. Another example would be, let's say that there's a, uh, doctor or young couple that owns a house on the northside that maybe they're gonna move out of town for a....a two-year or a one-year fellowship, and they wanna rent the house out for the two years they're gone. They're not....they're not able to do that, um, with this rental cap in place. So, uh, I'd just like to have ya be aware of those two examples. Throgmorton: Great. Thank you, Tim. Hi, Ross, how are you? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 3 Nusser: Well, how are you? I'm Ross Nusser and I'm also a realtor here in town, urn, with Urban Acres Real Estate. I just had a couple of comments that I'd like you to take into consideration as you vote on this today. Urn, one being when this was enacted about a year ago, as I remember, and I might not remember this correctly, but it was kind of a resolve of two things. One being that the Supreme Court decided that you cannot define a family, and so it was kind of this whole restructuring of the rental process. And so we got two things out of that. We got new rules about living spaces and percentage of living spaces within a dwelling unit, to bedroom ratio, and parking also restricted the occupancy there. Then we also got this rental cap out of it. Urn, only one of those two things has been challenged and by the St....at the State level, and I just would urge you to think about....what the true motivation behind this is and if you're doing this out of fear, urn, that people are gonna come in in big groups and buy up these large groups of single-family houses in these neighborhoods that we have cherished as neighborhoods, urn, because I just don't think that that's realistic and not somethin' that's gonna happen. Uh, or if it's, you know,just taking a stand against the State, and I'm not here to say which one's right or wrong. I'm just urging you to consider why you're really doing this, because I think that at the end of the day, who this is really going to affect will not be the big business or the big landlord. I think this will affect the people who are living in our community who might want one rental property, or the people like Tim was saying who are trying to sell and it restricts what they're able to sell their property for. You know, this greatly impacting their property values. Urn, so that's all I have and you have a tough decision ahead of you,but best of luck. Throgmorton: Thank you, Ross. Good morning. Bowans: My name's Lorainne Bowans. I'm a realtor. I'm also a very active member of the City Neighborhood Council. I was a member of the Longfellow Neighborhood Association. We were the second neighborhood association formed in Iowa City, and I was a huge advocate on protecting these older neighborhoods. My husband and I lived in a home at 510 S. Governor Street for 30 years. We put it on the market in June of 17. We did not get a rental permit because we were hoping another family would move in there. We cherished that home and prior to us selling we invested about $80,000 in the last seven years to make this home very attractive. When it went on the market I was also the agent for the property. When it went on the market we had so many calls, people looking for rentals. It did not have a rental permit. Had we had a rental permit, we probably could have sold it for $400,000. I did have one agent had a property own....had an investor who was looking for a high-end property very close to downtown for professors This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 4 and visiting doctors. They thought our house fit the bill. Uh, we did not have the rental permit, so that went away. So we sat on the house and we lowered it 375 from 400. Uh, had a little bit more interest. In October we had a verbal offer of 375, hoping for a rental permit after January 2nd. It was for a father who wanted his daughter and her three teammates to live in a residential neighborhood because the girls were two were from out of the country, one was from out of state, and one was from a neighboring state. They wanted a family neighborhood, which Governor Street is. And still is. When we bought our home 32 years ago, it was 80%rental. As neighbors, we brought this neighborhood back. We had it rezoned twice. We had it made into a conservation district. We called police when there were parties, for all kinds of things. We brought this neighborhood back as the residents. We had a fight a few years ago, well I guess a decade ago, when a historic....an old farm house on Lucas Street was torn down and they were allowed to have four units there on that property. They built four units, four bedrooms each. They turned down...tore down every old tree, everything. So that activated us. We were fought by the landlords. We are not...they were not, at that time we were not against rentals. We had a lot of great landlords, a lot of great rentals. As the neighborhood progressed and improved,property values went up for everybody. Landlords, everybody. Okay? So I have a big strong interest in preserving these neighborhoods. Now when it comes to myself, when you moved the boundaries while we were off in vacation in November of 2017, you lumped our street into Bowery Neighborhood, which was 70...or 82%rental, I believe, at that time. By moving just half a block from Burlington to the railroad tracks of Governor Street, that brought the Longfellow Neighborhood under 30% and lowered the Bowery Street down to about 78% rental. By having these little pockets of'this is high rental, this is this, this is that,' we lost the sale because we could no longer get a rental permit. Then people started going, 'Why has this house been on the market for six months? What's wrong with it?' I even had two agents call me in like January going, 'What's wrong with your house? It looks great. You've done everything,' and I said, 'We don't have a rental permit.' And we've been lumped in as high rental. No one wants to pay 375 to live in a rent.... a neighborhood that's 77%rental! So I agree—the City has done some wonderful things to try and preserve these neighborhoods with some of your ordinances. Strengthening fines for prop....landlords who are not maintaining their property, trying to do away with dude houses. I sat in on neighborhood council meetings with Stan, listening to some of the things that were proposed, and when this first came out I was in favor of it, temporary, because he explained what some people were trying to do, is a property like mine, which was a third of an acre and plenty of parking and everything, could have been doubled in size with all these tiny bedrooms and everything, and I didn't want to see that! Because I loved the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 5 neighborhood. I still love the neighborhood. I loved my house. Because of this, it took almost 12 days shy of a year to close on our house. We paid $1,500 a month to maintain that house. We had moved in....July of 17. So our house sold last year for$335,000. So this is a chunk of my retirement. The people you are hurting are the seniors and the people who are long-term residents in these neighborhoods. We....you cost me a boat load of money. I can't update my current home because I was planning on proceeds from my existing home. I had to cancel a family vacation with my children because we didn't gross enough money. You have things in place. This moratorium on rental permits, I don't think, needs to be there. Because have you not seen all of the current development that's going on downtown? These used to be mainly student houses. Families are moving back in there. And I greatly appreciate what the City has done with the UniverCity program, because many, many homes in these areas have been brought back to families and made affordable, and these people are taking care of the homes. So I guess I think we're on overkill now. Stan said at the last neighborhood council meeting that they were already taking landlords to court because they were not following the new rules. So I guess I don't • understand why we still need this. Because I know of many other people, single- family people, who could not sell their homes or had to sell them greatly under- valued. I hope you understand how angry I am by the shaking I'm doing and my voice. I mean I would like to see all of you put$10,000 in a hat and give it to me. Put another 10,000 into the other single-family home owners who've lost their butts, or can't sell their homes because of this. We as neighbors need to be taught how to preserve our neighborhoods. I fortunately was a member of the Neighborhood Council and learned how to do it, thanks to Marsha Bollinger, and other City staff. You people are a wealth of resources. Help the neighbors figure out how to save their neighborhoods. And there's nothing wrong with renters. Renters is amazing. We have wonderful renters when I lived on Governor Street. Once a year, for a while there, we'd have the party neighborhood. We'd have the party house. It was usually the red roof house,but for some reason that seemed to turn over from party to party, and all it took was about four times of the police showing up at the door, they learned to settle down. We had an incident before I left Governor Street where there was a party of about 200 people. The neighbors called the police, the police showed up, talked a few minutes, did a fist bump with the guy, and left. The party continued on. The next day the neighbors' yard was full of broken bottles,beer cans, and everything else. To me, that was wrong. So you need to enforce and....enforce the rules with the police, that when these houses get out of hand. Also, at the last neighborhood meeting, the....one, someone on the Northside said, 'Well, we still have a party house because every This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 6 person on there own 1%. Their name was on the deed. They owned 1%. So they were owners. They're still partiers. Throgmorton: (both talking) Lorainne, excuse me, could you wrap it up, please? Bowans: Okay. So I'm just saying that there's always going to be a ways to get around it, so the only people I feel you're really hurting with this is the single-family home owner, who is an individual, not a landlord. Thank you. Throgmorton: Thank you. (applause) Good morning, Mark. Kamps: Good morning. Good morning! I'm Mark Kamps. I'm with, uh, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Professionals here in town. I'm also the immediate past president of the Iowa Association of Realtors. I think our biggest concern, and while it's mostly realtors who are here, but I think a lot of other people would show up if they could. But I think our biggest concern is as realtors we protect private property rights. And that's our, one of our most important issues is the property protection of each individual's right. I live in a neighborhood that is at cap, above the cap—Tower Court—which is over on the west side. Urn, it's cul-de-sac. We have a park at the end. I think we have maybe a dozen houses on the street that are rentals. I know which ones are rentals,but that's, you know, part of the neighborhood. You know,realtors love the community. I've lived in Iowa City 42 years,43 in July, and um...you know (mumbled) we sell our community. We volunteer, we get involved, and we try to do what's best. So, you know, when, um....uh, if I as a property owner on Tower Court wanted to move, but I plan to keep my home because it's paid off. Well it will be. Urn, as an investment, to supplement my income. I can't do that. I can't keep my own home.....and move into perhaps a condo, where I don't have to mow my lawn, but that just isn't fair! That just isn't fair, and there are young homeowners in this situation. I work with couples, they happen to live in University Heights, they have the wherewithal to buy a new home. They wanted to keep their current home as an investment property. They can't do it. They can't keep that house, and that's how you build wealth, is with your investments, and sure you invest in the stock market. You put your money in other places,but you should also be able to put your money in your own property and have that pay residuals to you. So, you know, I know it's' a tough situation. I live in the neighborhoods that have a lot of rentals, as I mentioned, but....that's part of living in a university community. And I really think you need to take all of this into consideration before you put restrictions on who can and can't do what they wanna do with their home. Thank you. (applause) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 7 Johnson: Hi, my name is Gwen Johnson and I'm also a licensed realtor,um, in Iowa City. Urn, I also am part-owner of a property management company. We, urn,have rentals in Iowa City, Coralville, and North Liberty,West Branch, uh, Lone Tree, uh, and one of the things that I would like to....I loved what Mark said, um, because number one, first off, how many of you up there have rented property? In your lifetime? That's it? No? Okay. I believe that all of us started out as renters and how we learn how to take care of property through renting and not,but you know there's an attitude here that somehow renting is bad. Renting is actually very good and with new technologies, particularly renters have to learn how to manage credit. They have to learn how to manage their homes. They have to learn how to take care of things, and then they decide home ownership is how they want to do it. There are a lot of very, very good landlords in our community. Very, very good landlords. Typically most of us who own property, we've learned that if we take care of our property, our property'll end up taking care of us, and that's what Mark was trying to explain to you, and there's a lot of people who are seniors, who, um, who are, uh, professionals who are going to keep their property because they know Iowa City is a great place to own a rental property, and it's a • great place to gain wealth, and I'm going to use my mom as an example. My mom is a farm person. She took farm money, uh, when the highway went through Danville, Iowa. She 1031'd exchanged it into property here in Iowa City. She has two rentals. One on Benton and one in North Liberty. That property is what she lives on. Okay? That's what she lives on, and she is a... a senior in our community. She's 80 years old. She goes to the Senior Center. She plays bridge. She volunteers. Okay? And if you start capping rental properties that are people's wealth, that's what they're living on, you start jeopardizing how they're going to be able to live their lives. So the decision you make directly impacts how they live their life. It's'not people like me or people who have huge properties or who own....you're talking about small, one single-owned land...uh, landlord, okay? That's the types of people you're affecting. Um, I also know that there's a frustration with how people take care of property. Well I have...I don't know how to tell you this, but legislating boundaries for people, okay, everyone is going to be a good landlord in this area doesn't necessarily work. It's through,urn,us working together to help people to do good home ownership, taking care of your property,maintaining your property. Those are all ways that you get people to take care of neighborhoods. Anyway, that's my opinion and, um, I wish you luck. The other thing I would like to challenge you with—come with us for a day. Come, I'll show you property. Let's go look at property. Go inside property so you know what the decision is that you're making, okay? I would....I think there's lots of people in this room—am I not right—that would take you with This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 8 them and we'll, you know, take two or three hours and we'll go show you some property. We would love it! Okay? All right? (laughs) Thanks so much for your time. Throgmorton: Thank you, Gwen. (applause) Evans: My name is Zac Evans. I'm the owner of ERP Rental Properties. I was born and raised in Iowa City, lived at Meadowbrook Trailer Court, which is far over on the southeast corner of town. I think it's called Breckenridge now, drive over there— it's a good little place. Um.....moved to the east side just outside of town and, uh, rented a house through the end of my, you know, high school career here in Iowa City. Went to elementary school at Mark Twain. Longfellow. Southeast. And I graduated City High in 1999. I care for Iowa City cause I grew up here. Simple as that. Probably have more roots in the ground here than a lot of people. My mom worked at Mercy Hospital for 38 years. My dad worked at Hawkeye Ready Mix for 40 and still works there. My wife and I have three kids and we live just outside Iowa City on the west side,just outside in the county. Iowa City is a huge opportunity for not only people like me, but for anybody. I think you probably all agree with that. But as soon as you start restricting things, opportunities, things quickly can go south. My wife and I started a construction business about 14 years ago. We bought our first investment property in 2008. It was a duplex in North Liberty. Over 11 years of intense hard work, sacrifice, and massive risk, we now own and operate and manage 17 houses, nine duplexes, and one commercial property. During that time, Iowa City's building department,housing department, and many other departments in between have been fantastic to work with. Unbelievably fantastic. Great people. I can't say enough good things about'em. Well over half of our investment properties have been dilapidated and in need of major repair, which I'm (mumbled)which I'm confident that no one was willing to do, except for us. Um, these are properties in terrible shape. And they usually come in groups because nobody wants to live next to a shifty property. Pardon my language. These are single-family homes, remodeled(mumbled) we received rental permits after the repairs were done, and we do our best to keep our properties at high-quality, while maintaining healthy relationships with all of our owner-occupied neighbors, many of which I talk to on a weekly basis. If that isn't neighborhood stabilization I don't know what is. As some of the folks have told ya, we're all in this together. So as soon as you start puttin' a restriction, or a cap, you can very easily destroy something else. I was taught to inspire, not to discourage. I give when I'm needed, and I accept a profit, whether it's a paycheck, a dividend in cash flow, or a bonus, for doin' a good job. Older folks always talk about how bad the County and the City can be when dealing with the bureaucracy. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 9 Stepping out of bounds, misusing power, and simply taking too much of our hard earned money that taxes, permits, and in fee...and fees, and etc. I entered into self-employment because I was exhausted from working my tail off, getting an hourly wage and watching it disappear before I was even able to cash my check. This thievery in my small construction business now gets even worse through permits and fees and regulation. Of course if you make a little bit of money, they'll find a way to get that too when you're done. Now our rental business is faced with the same ongoing stealing of money through excessive permitting and fees, now have which have doubled for all of our duplexes and multi-bedroom properties. I wanna make myself clear—I'm not a rancher. I'm a farmer. A guy once told me that you're either....you're one of the two. We do what we have to do. We do a good job at it, and we make some money. I'm aware that there's some challenging landlords who are only in it for the profit, who may not even live in town. We all know who they are. Most of us know 'em by name. And I realize that it hurts everybody when they do a crappy job. But a cap...on rental properties is not the answer. The answer may be in finding a way to regulate the bad seeds, so to speak, somehow. The cap rate is not different than a form of communism. Make your rules, charge fees—reasonable fees—but eliminate the power and the control that you got on this town right now....cause it's causing a problem, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Opportunities being taken away. I've spoken with at least four people in the last year since the cap has gone through and they wanna sell their house to me,because it needs work, and I'm....'that's great, I think that's great. Sorry I can't buy it. I can't get a rental permit.' And they get pissed. They get mad at me. I'm not....I just tell 'em, hey, it's the cap rate. Nothin' I can do about it! So they're in the same situation some of these other folks are in. Depending on the money,but they can't get it. Real estate market here is being controlled and manipulated by the Council, and I wonder, I really wonder, if the Council realizes what it destroys after it controls something. Thanks. (applause) Krapf: Good morning, I'm Gerhil Krapf. I'm the broker for Homes and Hearth. I just wanna briefly underscore something Lorainne said and Gwen alluded to, which I believe strongly. I've lived here since I was seven. I love this city. I've been a renter myself when I went to the University of Iowa, and I think the underlying implication that there's something wrong with renters is what I'm concerned abut. There's something wrong with some property owners. (laughs) I don't think the generalization is helpful. I understand that there are problems that we want to correct, that preserve our neighborhoods, and I however agree with my colleagues, who have suggested perhaps it would be possible to explore some of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 10 the current mechanisms we have in place to, for example, shut down a party that's going, you know, crazy. Thank you for your time. (both talking) Throgmorton: Thank you. For my benefit, would you state your name again, please? Krapf: Gerhil (both talking) It's a German name. (both talking) You can call me G if you want(laughs) it's easier! G-e-r-h-i-I. Throgmorton: Thank you. Hello,Anna. Long time, no see! Buss: Aren't you guys just lucky? (laughter) Well I've been in Iowa City a long time. I've had a lot of careers. I will tell you that I have spent the last....50 of my close to 70 buying rental property, as that was going to be my retirement, you see, like the one lady whose property couldn't get sold, went down in value. I will tell you that I have bought property. 402 Benton Street, it was owner-occupied. It was a dump. When I bought it, I had to put in$75,000 to make it livable, and I did, and I did that because, number one, I wanted to donate it to the City and burn it down and I couldn't, because it had asphalt stuff in it. So instead, we just remodeled it. At 922 Hudson there was a senior citizen that lived there, and she could no longer afford to stay living in her own home because of the property taxes, and the expenses it was going to take to put on a new roof, siding, and rewire the house up to code. So, I bought it. My banker loves me. 903 Hudson, same thing. I have bought numerous old houses, fixed them up. I am really kinda happy about my tenant record because most of my tenants stay three to five years. I have one house that I've had basically the same group for 12 years. Now this is my retirement that you're messin'with. I take exception to it. A lot of the things the City does doesn't work! That you wanna hire more City housing inspectors, well, don't inspect some of the houses so often. It takes a lot. They walk through. I have very few, as Stan can probably tell you, I have very few violations, and I am the police in my neighborhood. I usually, if there is a problem, I'm usually there before anybody else. But this neighborhood cap thing is ridiculous. First off, it's more vindictive than anything. City's' a little upset because the State said you no longer can cap how many people are in a house. At one point in time when I was a property manager, I managed houses that had eight bedrooms,but we could have three people. How bout that affordable housing thing? That doesn't work very well. So you guys need to get your heads together. All of you should have to own rental property. If you all had rental property and you had to deal what we had to deal with 24/7, the changing regulations, every time you tum the wind blows another direction. I think that you might see things a little bit different. I can tell you that the City knows which managers and owners are bad! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 11 Concentrate on them—leave the rest of us alone! I don't think I've ever had a really horrific, major violation. Ask Stan! We argue all the time. (laughter) (both talking) I remind him of his mother(laughter) which can't be that bad (laughter)but the problem here is, you know, I had four houses I had first right of refusal on, and I canceled those because of this, and it's all in my neighborhood, and I take pride in my neighborhood. You can come over,walk around. I'm over there with all the tree huggers across the street that ripped all the trees out. You know, it's real frustrating the mess that's over there, and yet you're worried about some landlords and a moratorium? I have a real problem with it. So, you might wanna think about it. Gee, go buy some rental property! Thank you (laughter) (applause) Throgmorton: So of course everyone does have a right to speak, but I did ask how many people wanted to speak and, you know....I.....I think we're seein' more who want to. Williams: My name is Carl Williams and I'm here to talk about just a few things, very short. Veterans, we have veterans who come in and out of this, urn, area and oftentimes they're not in a position to buy. They need to be able to rent. They have families, and they have children, and they wanna be in a neighborhood where it's safe, and they don't wanna be in condos somewhere with 50 other people. So for them we don't have enough rental properties, single-family rental properties, to begin with. So by restricting this, you're making it even tougher for the veteran. Point blank. I think also, again, because we don't have very many rental properties, and we have so many people that come to....every realtor here saying that we don't wanna make a decision on buying a house for the first year. Where ya gonna put 'em? They don't wanna be in condos. They have two or three children. They want a single-family home. And they are good, good tenants. A lot of'em are medical staff from the University that transfer in and out of here. That's all I got. Please think about that. Thank you. Throgmorton: Thank you, Carl. (applause) Pretorius: Hi. My name's Adam Pretorius. I've lived in Iowa City since 97, and I had a very pivotal change to my perspective on rentals, uh, in the early 2000s. I was actually sitting in this room. Regenia Bailey was one of the Council Members at the time. Somebody was pitching a development project, and they were wanting it to be predominantly rentals, and though I had no involvement, I was there just to listen for another issue, and I was listening to this and Regenia said something that stuck with me, and I remember it ever since. The Council was arguing that nobody wanted these rentals, and Regenia finally stood up and said, 'I'm a tenant. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 12 What do you think of me?" And I hadn't thought about that,because we're so quick in the university town to judge that every tenant is going to be a college student,but they're not. And I think it's very important to recognize that, and know that not everyone is going to be a student. So maybe regulation would be better than restrictions. I live in the Peninsula neighborhood, which as you can see is outside of your rental cap zone. Of course your moratorium will affect everyone, including our neighborhood. I'm actually the president of my neighborhood, so I have an inside perspective of our association. That stat is for that whole area. My neighborhood is actually about 52%rentals. I selfishly, when the developer was building it, as a homeowner,wanted him to do just homeowner-occupied units. Unfortunately I didn't get that choice,but I will say that our community is successful because it's diverse, and it has a mixed variety of demographics. We're gonna push inclusionary zoning and other sort of options. Your Council seems to want to do more mixed demographics. So why are we gonna restrict tenants? Let's take a minute to just look at kind of the micro- economics and the demographic that we're in. This is a university town. Your number one employer is University of Iowa. Your number two employer is University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. As a realtor, I would love for all of them to buy. Unfortunately they're a very moving population. They're usually only here a few years. Now sometimes they end up loving it and they'll stay longer. But that population needs to have options to have housing,because we all need housing, and homeowner-occupied is not always an ability for them. They aren't able to get financing or long-term they're just not sure how long they'll be here. Furthermore, I think,uh,it's very important to see what's going on in the micro....in the macro-economics. Unfortunately, the newer generations,the younger generations,believe it or not there's people younger than me prefer to rent and not own, and that's their choice, and that demand has shifted demand for the amount of rentals that we need. So caps don't work. Moratoriums don't work. Again I'd love everyone to buy,but everyone doesn't buy. And so the only person we're hurting at the end of the day is homeowners. Now I'm ashamed at myself, last time this got brought up,that I didn't stand here and something. And I'm disappointed that Council doesn't take more time to sit and talk to local economics and real estate industry professionals before jumping to moratoriums and rental caps. So I hope this time you will think about that and I for one would love to meet with each one of you and go through some of these areas, including come visit my neighborhood, which is over 50%rentals, and see that my businesses that are in our neighborhood could not survive without that demographic. Something that I selfishly didn't even notice,until I was forced to see this difference in demographics. Thank you for your time. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 13 Throgmorton: Adam,thank you(applause) can I ask...I wanna ask you a quick question. What neighborhood do you live in? Pretorius: I live in the Peninsula neighborhood. Throgmorton: That's what I thought you said(both talking) Pretorius: ...planned development. Thank you. Neuzil: Good morning, good afternoon to all you Council People. I will guarantee you that my lineage in the County of Johnson County goes deeper than any one of you guys up there on the Council. I (both talking) Throgmorton: ...state your name please. Neuzil: Oh! Keith Neuzil. • Throgmorton: Thank you. Neuzil: I will guarantee it. My family, relatives, settled in Johnson County in 1848, before the state of Iowa was the state of Iowa. So, I have a....a very big stake in this,in Johnson County. All the people here have made a very, very legitimate point on this whole thing. It's economics. It's investments. You know, you guys...you guys talk....that, you know,the people that are renting, there's several reasons they rent. They're here for a short time. We have a university here where most people stay four,maybe five years. They turn over. Twenty-five percent of the students leave every year,unless they go on to post,uh, education, uh, master's degree, doctoral's,whatever it is. You need a....a.....a healthy rental environment for these people. And in the news lately's been all this explaining about,you know, student debt. Well, living is part of student debt. You....you look around outside. I'm, every time I come downtown Iowa City I look around and I look at all the new buildings. The high-rent district, I mean some of these things from what I've heard from my attorney, sit and talkin'with him, 1,800, 2,000, $2,200....a month! Shit! I can buy a house and live comfortably makin' a mortgage payment....at that. I mean it's economics, it's investment. You oughta be happy that people wanna invest, and most of these landlords do take pride in their houses. There are rules and regulations and ordinances on the books that you guys can use to make the landlords stand up and be responsible! I...there's... there's no issue about that. Also the...the traffic issue. You guys want, you know, we talk about traffic. Traffic downtown in Iowa City. Traffic(mumbled) The This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 14 people that are going to the University, going to Mercy Hospital, going to University Hospital,workin'at the University—if they can live close, they're either A)ridin'their bicycles,walking to work. To cut down on the traffic you wanna limit and bring the people from further out, surrounding areas? I mean not everybody can afford a house. I was poor. I know what it was. My first house started out at$355 a month! That was....that was back when I was makin' $7.25 an hour. Working full time. That's....there's a lot in play here. You gotta keep that in mind. Okay? It is....it.....it is what it is. We live in a university town. We need rentals. We need good rentals,not high-end, I mean, I just cringe at this. This whole thing, I mean it just....you guys drive,you guys do drive the market! Whether you like it or not! By rules and regulations....you get that? So thank you for your time. I've been here my 55 years, goin'on 56 years in Johnson County, Iowa City. So I know, I've watched it all takin'place. Thank you. Throgmorton: Thank you, Keith. (applause) Carlson: My name is Nancy Carlson. And I have a different point of view. I would like to talk to you about wha...I don't know, it's the missing middle. Everybody's been talking about how important rental units are,that we need rental units. We also need inexpensive houses that people my income can buy. Our inc...I, we have lived in my house for 39 years. The first five years I lived in ignorant bliss. The last 35 years I have been attempting to defend my neighborhood,because basically everybody wants to come in and....and turn the units into rental units, and they keep saying we need more rental units. What about the people who are working income people who would like to live in Iowa City who don't want to have to drive 30 or 35 miles and out....30 or 35 miles every day one-way to come to work. What about them. We need to look at this group of people and realize that we are totally ignoring them. I am one of them. It is very painful to listen to you talk about the high-end and the low-end and forget about us in the middle who work on a daily basis. I maybe one of the few people here of this income level,because I am now retired. I work part-time. Basically most people who, of my income level cannot afford to take off in the middle of the day to come to a City Council meeting. Unlike most of these people who are real estate agents who are ma...who are here because they are making a profit on the land, on the buildings that they are....that they are selling, and they are looking at them as investments. I'm looking at this as my home. That I worked very hard to buy and to maintain. When we went through this before, a few years ago, I did a lot of research. Penn State had a cap of 25%. Since the 90s. There were places in, uh, Minnesota that had caps. This is not a unique experience, and from those things, from those instances, it has shown....it showed that this had already worked in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 15 other places for a long period of time. Uh....as I said, I just think you need to think about all the people who live in this thing, and the City Council has said over and over again when we've come before us, we want to protect the housing stock in your area, so that people can come in and buy cheaper housing and live here. But that never happens! When I first moved, the end of the rental un... rental housing was the 800 block of Jefferson. I live in the 1000 block of Jefferson. It's now two blocks beyond me to the east. It just keeps going on and on and on, and in the meantime middle class people who will live here and probably work here all their life,have great deal of difficulty finding a place to buy, if they want to live in this area. Thank you. Throgmorton: Thank you,Nancy. Who else? Bums: Jesse Burns. Uh, I....I've lived in this area for pretty much my whole life and, uh, work in this community full-time since....oh, 1993 and, uh, I am a contractor, realtor,uh, property owner, farmer,uh, musician, and I like to think I'm a good listener too. But, uh, I....at one time I was a renter,when I was completing, uh, business college at the University of Iowa and who knows, maybe I'll be a renter again if I go back and get my MBA or maybe if my health, if somethin' changes with my health, or age, or just a choice I wanna make,but I wanna have a choice! And, uh....I'm not gonna, I was just plannin'to come here and listen,uh, so I'm kinda wingin' it here and I've been following this, you know, in the media and its.....and with, uh, emails and just out of curiosity. I....I currently don't own any houses and duplexes,but I felt after hearing a lot of people speak today, wanted to tell my story,urn, that's related. I did own some duplexes here in town and, uh, up until pretty recently actually, and I'm gonna roll back the clock a little bit because these duplexes were designed and built by myself, leased by myself with the help of my son, uh, personally, and they were....they were good units. They were large. They enhanced the neighborhood. Two-car garage, two spaces in the driveway. I had some really....all good tenants of a variety of backgrounds. Some were students, some were students and working, some were family, some were retired, some worked at home, some were eng...engineers, I mean just a variety of really good people. And through the course of time, you know....I....I watched and had to deal with the regulations changing. I'm rolling back the clock to the'no more than three unrelated' definition, which we had to live....I had to live through for...for two years. It drastically affected who I could lease to, when people would come inquire, and I still to this day do not understand how that was not discrimination to define familial status. Um....and I'm still fascinated that it's still up on the web site being defended. I....I'm.....you know having, I had to, you know,turn people away because....wasn't my definition of a family. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 16 Somebody else's, and I....I said calmly to an inspector one day, you know, that was out on my(mumbled) I said, you know, me and my son and my girlfriend and her two kids are not qualified to rent my unit. He put his head down and in kind of a shameful...shamed manner and said....he heard me, and he said, well, I....I think they're takin' a look at that. So.....I realize that is,that rule has since passed and it went on to the parking thing. I....I started sellin' my units at that time. I said, you know what? I'm not gonna participate in this. Um....and moved on, but it was, you know, having to turn people away....because of a certain definition, uh, I....I.....I do not, you know how I feel about that. So, and this seems to just be an extension of all that and it went into the parking. Now it's gone into the districts, and you know, I don't know where it's going to go next. So, no, I don't own any homes or duplexes, but uh, I think we should just keep all in mind that they're....there are good renters, there are bad renters. The majority of'em are good. Just like there's good homeowners and there's bad homeowners, and the majority of'em are good. And I think we can serve them all and do it in a manner without all this, you know, I....I just don't think this is necessary. I think there's enough rules on the books and you can....you can sure bet if I had a bad tenant in one of my units, uh, one of those duplexes, I woulda got 'em out if they were doin' somethin' detrimental to the unit. So I don't know who you think's easier to get out—a....a bad homeowner or a bad tenant, but I....I think it's pretty clear who's the easier, you know, to deal with (mumbled) make a change. So....anyway, that's my personal story which I....which I'm, again, wasn't planning to speak and I'm comfortable giving some of my personal side to this and my personal, uh, life story and situation, and uh, I....I hope you all keep it in mind! Throgmorton: Thank you, Jesse. (applause) Varguson: Hello, everyone, my name is Terry Varguson. I'm a....life-long resident of Iowa City, a realtor,property management company owner, and an investor...an investor in Iowa City,just like most everyone else in this room. The...the concern I have here is that....we seem to be coming out with reactionary responses to decisions that are being made,uh, outside of the Iowa City limits and....you know, for every action there's sometimes unintended consequences, and we've all been concerned about affordable housing, even having a, you know, housing available to people. Ya think just puffin' a flat stop on rental permits is gonna help the cause? I...I'm thinkin'there're gonna be some victims in this, some unintended victims, good people that are either aren't gonna be able to rent, people that won't be able to convert some...something into a rental property and pay taxes and pay the rental permit fees and abide by the rules because we have to. I'm....hoping that you would at least consider a little more deliberation, a little more This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 17 consideration than just what some of us feel is a knee-jerk punitive response. Okay? There are, you have tools in your box right now with the Universal...with the International Building Code standards. There's clear-cut space requirements for people and bedrooms. I live in the College Green area, I always have(laughs) okay? Things that I think were talkin' about here are College Green and north end Goosetown. Right? That's the problem. And.... guys (sighs) you know, you...you've got parking, you can apply parking requirements. You've already passed rules that you can't pave the yards. These houses are closely located. There's not really(laughs) a whole lot of room for people to add 10 parking spaces. You know? There are reasonable balances to this discussion, and to just arbitrarily say, 'No, I'm not going to give you any more rental permits;may not be the most adult response that we could have in this situation, and for long-term, and for those that are gonna be affected by this, I would hope that we would have a little more...conversation about how to solve this rather than just, you know, put a divide between the Council and the...the members of Iowa City. You know, I....I think we can work together and I think we can find some solution to this, other than maybe what we're looking at today. So, I thank ya! (applause) Throgmorton: Okay, we've had about an hour's worth of commentary. Is there anybody else who desperately needs to speak, to bring up any new point that we haven't already heard? Okay, if not we have a motion on the floor, and I....I will invite the Council to discuss what they want to do. But I'd like to make a couple points to begin with. First I wanna thank you for sharing your views, especially the details you've provided about, uh, your own experiences. Course most of you who spoke were realtors, so that's one perspective. There are other perspectives we need to take into account. You've made many points, which I'm sure we will consider thoroughly in our discussion. I wanna remind you also this is an ordinance that we're considering, so we have to do three votes on the ordinance. So this is first consideration. I assume the next one, assuming it passes today, I don't know that it will, uh....uh, I guess that means at our Tuesday night meeting we would have second consideration, and then at our following meeting on the 21st, I guess, of May, we would have third consideration, if there's a majority in favor each time. So it's not as if this is the end of the discussion. All right. The other thing I wanna draw your attention to is we need to be really clear about one thing. The State has banned our use of rental caps and what we were doing was considering a moratorium to give us time to come up with an alternative, now that that tool has been taken away from us. So we're not....debating whether to continue the rental cap, ad infinitum. We're considering whether to establish a moratorium to give us time to come up with an alternative, and as we're....assuming this passes and goes on and that kinda thing, surely we will engage in numerous conversations with This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 18 realtors and others about what we wanna do in....in the form of an alternative. The last thing I wanna say is that when the State was considering its proposed preemption of our ability to establish a rental cap ordinance and so on, we proposed four specific amendments through our lobbyists, four specific amendments to that bill. Uh, at least one of which addressed the first topic that, uh, first claim that was made by the first person who spoke. I don't remember what all the four were, Geoff, and maybe at some point in our discussion you can identify what those were, but it's'really in a sense irrelevant because we're go... we're considering whether to enter into a process of coming up with an alternative to the rental cap. Okay. Did I state that clearly enough and legally enough, Eleanor, and...yeah. Okay. Okay, good deal, so, uh, Council Members, uh, do you have....uh, comments you want to make before we....uh, vote on this, uh, on this motion? Cole: I would like to make a comment. And I echo the Mayor's comments about thank you for sharing your vision with us. You know any time there's a community conflict, you always try to go back and dissect what could of we all done differently to avoid where we are here. Urn, clearly I think that there's been some miscommunication in terms of both the Council, as well as, you know, us more effectively explaining the rationale for this policy. Um, you know and as I go back and look at it, um, you know, clearly I think we both need to sort of self- identify in terms of different things that we could of done differently, so I'll start at least with me, as a....as a Councilperson. One thing we all have in common is that we love Iowa City, and I think the question we all have is is how do we get to making sure our neighborhoods remain healthy neighborhoods for our first-time homeowners, while at the same time keeping a robust rental market. So we're trying to keep both of those things into consideration. It's clear in our, uh,use of the rental cap,urn, we did not do enough outreach. It would have been nice if we could have had a shared solution at the outset, so we would not have a,urn, a ban, um, so certainly I think that's something that we could of done differently, but by the same token, um, I thank you for all the comments that you've made,but you know we are here to work and serve you, and we can more effectively do that if you reach out to us, if you make public comments during our meetings. Our goal from the get-go was for this policy to be a living, breathing document, and that's something that we wanted to get right,because we understood that we don't have a lot of support in the legislature in terms of some of the things that we wanna do, and so moving forward, I share, um, the gentleman back there who had made the comment about deliberation. The Mayor's right. This is not a ban. We do not have the authority to do a ban.All this gives us is time, and I'm hoping that if we're able to get a majority to support this, that during this time we can come This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 19 together with a shared solution that is gonna meet both of our goals. Urn, and I think one thing I wanna make very clear is this is not anti-renter. I agree with you there are number of wonderful renters, and there's a number of wonderful homeowners and....not so wonderful homeowners. That....that's humanity, urn, but we wanna have a solution that's gonna work for everyone, so at least in terms of where I'm coming from, we just want more time, urn, we do not have the authority to be able to do the rental cap. Urn, this gives us time to have a solution that hopefully is gonna work for everyone. Thomas: Yeah, I....too, uh, thank everyone for coming and speaking, and urn, really view this as perhaps the first in what would be an extended conversation about how to address some of the issues that have been raised. I know I'm very sympathetic to, uh, you know, some of the comments and scenarios that have been described. You know, Lorainne, your....your situation, uh, is....is representative of a number of people who kind of basically did the right thing, um, and found in the end that, you know, as....as the neighborhood around them changed, um, and it came time for them to sell the property that there was....a reduction in the value of the property as a result of the rental cap. So I'm concerned about that type of scenario. I'm also concerned about, uh, the, what I would consider to be the lack of space in the area that we're talking about, which I think is important to keep in mind. This is the core of Iowa City. This....this moratorium does not apply to the rest of Iowa City. It only applies to those areas that exceed the percentage of rental cap....of 30%. It's difficult for long-term renters to find rents,places to rent in that area, from what I can see, because it's the short-term renter, uh, aggregating rents that out compete both homeowners looking for a place to live long-term and renters, hoping to find a place to live long-term. So how do we solve that, those....those two questions, uh, you know I think what we'll....what we'll be seeing over the next period of time is coming together and seeing if we can't address some of the un....perhaps you could call them unintended consequences of our current, you know, the current rental cap concept. Urn, so ....again, I...I, we'd...(mumbled)kind of hoped that perhaps we could have had this conversation without the State intervention. Urn, you know now, you know, the moratorium will provide us with an opportunity to....to have that conversation. I would of rather not had the moratorium, but, you know, that.... that's, the State acted. We need to kind of create the space for that to happen, without the situation radically changing on the ground. Mims: I would agree with an awful lot of what has been said right now. I think we have, um, I think we have improvements to make. I think we,um, I think people have done a great job of explaining unique situations, which we need to try to find, urn, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 20 a way to address. Urn, I have a daughter who has a rental property in town. She's...she's one of those, you know, people that you talk about. She came here, she bought a house, she left, and she's like, you know what, if I can afford it, I wanna keep it and, you know,be able to build equity in that and have it for a long time. Urn, so I....and I manage it for her(laughs) so....got calls last night at movies (laughing)uh, but....so I understand that and I understand the....the situation, you know, with elderly people who live in these core neighborhoods, and the pressures that they're under in terms of who is willing to buy and who's not willing to buy and what....what those values are. And I think it's what John alluded to, I think is...is a concern, and I don't know how we...we get around this is the highest value on a lot of these houses in that core neighborhood is for student housing, urn, because you can rent'em out, you know, per bedroom, and so it doesn't....it doesn't help with those opportunities necessarily for the families. So we have a lot of complicated issues here, and I also agree with what has been said in terms of this, what we're doing is not something new. The rental cap is in place,with its flaws, and because of the State legislation,we need to make some changes obviously,but we need some time to do that. My goal would be that we do come together, we have those conversations that I wish we had had rather than it going to the State, and that we try and do that in a timeframe that would allow us to get something done in considerably less than the 10 months that we have in the ordinance. But I bet that's going to take all of us trying to work together and have some discussions, but at this point I will support the moratorium. Taylor: I would also echo a lot of things that have been said, including what John said. I would of appreciated, uh, this conversation a year ago when, uh, I think it was Terry had mentioned, uh, the unintended, uh, consequences of actions, and....and of course the rental cap was put into place as a result of the limiting the number of related,unrelated in buildings, and it certainly would of helped at that time to have this room full of people, um, sharing your opinions on this, uh, topic. It would of saved a lot of time, uh, and the anxiety at this point in time, and as, uh, Susan had said, at the time before it went to the State, um....uh, Terry, you also mentioned needing a little more conversation on how to solve this, and we certainly would of appreciated that, and as Jim had mentioned, we do have, urn, the two more, uh, times to....to think about this, but uh, I would be in...in favor of the moratorium. Teague: So I appreciate everybody corrin' out, of course, and sharin' your perspectives. Urn, one thing I will say is....um, I think that a lot of Iowa City came out, urn, very clearly in this room(mumbled) residents sayin'....people havin' the ability to do with their properties what they want to do, as well as the ability to occupy and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 21 obtain properties. I think, you know, this was a decision before me(laughs) so at this point, I think it's the transitional period that is appropriate for the Council to, urn, you know,hold to the moratorium, urn,just to allow some time,but I don't think that I'm willing to agree to 10 months. I think that has been very clear that there are people out there affected by this. Um, 10 months I understand can allow more time,but I'm more in favor of a five-month, urn, October 1st,um, type of a stipulation. This would allow, I think the City, to figure out whatever options there are. Uh, it's gonna be limited. There's not gonna be a lot of options, and I think movin' forward with the decision so I will support it if we will decrease the amount of months. Salih: Uh, also as Bruce said, I wasn't here when they have this ordinance. Uh, I was just like you in the audience, and just (unable to understand) I be renting for the past 21 years. The(light applause, unable to hear speaker) the...maybe 18, I will be one year out of 22 year being in the United State, I'm a home...I will be home owner. I'm home owner right now, but I will be one year as a home owner. That said, if I was (unable to understand) permit, I would oppose it. I would say...the rental cap I mean. I will oppose it because I been looking for houses for long time. Sometime we find houses, sometimes we not. And I know that (unable to understand) indirect because....especially renter who look like me,renter who as immigrant came to this, to Iowa City to make Iowa City home. They really cannot find...now this. I have a friend, I was helping her reach out to (unable to understand) three bedroom in Iowa City because she doesn't want to go to Coralville. There is many in Coralville,but she couldn't find anything in Iowa City, even in downtown area or somewhere,because she wanna keep her kids going to Shimek Elementary School (unable to understand) and since you know we been really looking for that and I see that three-bedroom become like, I guess it's really expensive, and maybe if we have more renter, that's will drive the market down a little bit. Uh, I....I, but the problem is now I'm sitting here. I'm not on that audience. I have to listen to everyone. I have to listen to the people who are in favor and I have to listen to the people who don't like it. So, I just need time to come up with my decision,because now I hear you all and I almost convinced by everyone what they said, but I need to hear the other side of, the people who really don't want renter. Renter are good by the way! You know, I really don't think renter will make like I talk about this in many topic that they saying the neighborhood is depleted its ability is because they want more(unable to understand) I understhat that, but not a lot people can afford to be a home owner. I was one of them for 22 years. I couldn't afford to be home owner, but I was a good renter. My neighbor liked me and I just move because I....time I just wanted this house, that why I move. Anyway, I really just need time to (unable to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1,2019. Page 22 understand) what Bruce said, five months.You said five months right? Five months. So I really...especially the Mayor said today well we not talking about (unable to understand)we are just need time. Yes, we need time,but I need shorter time. So there is a lot people and I wish if we can (unable to understand) you know houses (unable to understand) but I just....so I will support it if it's less time than it....than 10 months. Throgmorton: Okay, so I wanna ask Geoff.....you remember a few minutes ago I said that we had proposed four amendments to the State legislation that banned the rental cap. I wanna ask Geoff to describe each of those four,just so everybody in the room knows what we tried to do at the State level. Geoff? Fruin: Sure. And if I could back up just a....a little bit. Uh, when we passed the ordinance, we tried our best to anticipate, urn, certain situations that might be problematic and we introduced a number of sections into the ordinance. Um, from military service to professors on sabbatical, um, to owning one side of the duplox...duplex and renting out the other—those were all exemptions in the rental cap. We tried our best but when we passed that, for those of you who were at the Council table, I think we were pretty clear that we thought we were going to have to....to tweak this as we got some local experience here, because,uh, it was really untested here in our community. Um, when the legislation was introduced, uh, this winter, uh, late winter, uh, we were completely blindsided. We had no idea that legislation was coming. Uh, we found out I think the day before it was going to a subcommittee. Um, and uh...uh, I reached out and....and tried to have some conversations to say,hey, can we....can we one, press pause. That was my first request. I said can we just press pause on this and talk about it locally for, until January 1st. It was clear I think from the get-go that they, uh, the....the folks behind the bill had the legislative support to pass it. That was pretty clear to us from the street. Um, but I requested, I said can we.....can we hold off until next session, uh, it's the same legislature. Uh, even at the time I made the request the bill was funnel-proof, uh, meaning it was already at an elevated status for next session. I said let us talk and try to figure out a solution to this and if we can't come to a promise over those period of months, then, um, you'll have the same votes to pass that through. So that was my, kind of our first position was just let's delay, let's talk and see what happens. Uh, and importantly, let's talk here in Iowa City and....and not in Des Moines. Um, after the delay wasn't successful, we threw out a couple of other, um, ways to limit the current rental cap, uh, so we talked to....we offered to limit it to just our historic districts,which is a much smaller area than shown, uh, in the green there. Uh, those areas are already subject to higher, uh, regulatory oversight by the City and uh,have been identified This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 23 by the City as specific areas, uh,that, uh....um, we're interested in....in preserving at a higher level. Urn, we also expressed flexibility in....in raising cap percentages and looking at, uh, additional exclusions. So is 30% the problem? Should we be going up a little bit? Urn, none of those, uh, seemed to draw the interest of the folks behind the bill. Urn....we ultimately, uh, offered a....a legislation, or an amendment to the legislation that was introduced by, urn, our Representative Mary Mascher and that had the four, urn, amendments that....that you, urn, that you're askin' about, Mayor. Uh, the first amendment was a hardship one. So we heard some of the economic, uh, hardship examples that we heard here today that, urn, we wanted to try to address. So we...we had an economic hardship provision in there. Uh, which, uh, stated that if the property had been publicly listed for sale for 12 months and received no offers from perspective owner-occupants equal to or greater than the most recent assessed value of the property, uh, then you could get a rental permit. Urn, if it was contiguous to all other rental properties, again I believe the example that, uh, Mr. Lehman brought up. In that case we would....the amendment would have allowed for a rental permit. Urn, if the property owner was to be occupied by one or more immediate family members, we offered that in the amendment. Urn, that would take care of the situation in which a....a, urn, family member wanted to purchase a home and allow a son or daughter attending the University to occupy that home along with other occupants. That was included in there. And then we had one, uh,to speak to some examples we heard on....on somebody that, uh, may have had a disability or due to age was no longer able to, urn, move, or....no.....no longer able to function within that property and required an immediate move. In that case they would be granted a rental permit. We tried our best to respond to those concerns through....all.....all the concerns that have....have, were voiced to us, uh,through that amendment,but at the end of the day, the feedback that we got was there was no compromise on rental caps and....and, uh, if....if rental caps is any part of the solution, there was....there was no compromise. So that leads us to where we're at today. Again, not seeing this legislation come forward and focusing really our time in the last few months on how do we strike a compromise. Now we gotta figure out what to do next, and urn, that's, again, why we're asking for the moratorium today. Cole: Geoff, in terms of the time, um....I agree with Maz and Bruce in the sense of trying to get it done in five months,but I don't wanna unnecessarily bind ourselves. How did we arrive at the 10 month as opposed to the five? I mean is it (both talking)how tight a schedule would that be? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 24 Fruin: Well I would say we....we set it at 10 months, urn, but that doesn't mean we can't come back to you in eight months or nine months. We're not required to go to the end of that moratorium period. Um, but, uh, we....we set it at what we thought was a reasonable period of time for us to do research, for us to do outreach, for us to have public meetings and get feedback on it. Uh, ultimately,uh, you're gonna need to adopt it through....and multiple public meetings. Urn, it....it takes time and....and each time is....is, it gets more difficult, right, and familial status is used across the country. That is the most common regulation that college towns use across the country. That was taken. We had to research and there's a much smaller sub-set of....of solutions that college towns employ. Penn State, East Lansing, Minnesota—some of them were mentioned tonight. Those are communities that use some form of rental caps. We studied the alternatives. We felt that was the best. We offered that. Now that's off the table. So now we're at a smaller sub-set. I'm not sure there's a whole lot we can learn from other communities frankly. Uh, we're probably going to be inventing regulations ourselves, and....and.....and that's gonna require a little bit more time. Could we do it in five months? Sure, we can....we can get you something, uh, in five months. It's not gonna be as well thought out. You're not gonna have as much time for outreach. There's probably gonna be greater unintended consequences. Um, if that's the trade-off that you want,that's fine. The other thing I wanna make sure that you know of is...is you know the workload of the staff that's currently going to be doing this. That's our Planning staff. Uh, our Neighborhood Development Services. We have to....we have to be willing to,um, sacrifice our progress on other initiatives that you've started so that we can look at this issue. And the shorter the time period, the more sacrifices that we're gonna make on those other(both talking) Mims: I'd say that...I mean I think I was the first one that said I would like to see it done in less than 10 months. I don't agree with five though. I think that is too short and I think it....it, I mean we're not even gonna get started until the first of June by the time we have the three readings. So then you're saying June, July,August, September, October. You've got people who may be gone for the summer. You can't get the same kind of input, I don't think, during the summer. You know, at our last meeting we added another, an 11th major item, to our Planning staff, and in the memo regarding that one Geoff even said in adding that one it's going to affect deadlines. So I don't think five months,um, is a reasonable amount of time. I definitely would like to see it done in less than 10, but I would rather pass the ordinance for 10 months and then work hard with staff and with scheduling and see what we can do, and....and I'll just reiterate. I'm....and the bulk of our audience is realtors, and I think Geoff made it really clear, and I'm....I'm really This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 25 disappointed. I didn't say as much the first time but I will now. I'm really disappointed that as a community and with all of us caring, and I do believe everybody here cares about this community,that there was not more of an effort to have discussion with the City and try and work something out prior to just taking this to the State and then no interest in any local discussion, urn, in trying to work something out and maybe put the....put it off for a year. But(unable to hear person speaking from audience) Throgmorton: No! Mims: No. (several talking from audience) I'll be around after the meeting but now we're done with public input. Salih: What about if we just said by the end of, before the end of the year? We need something. (several talking) Throgmorton: Hold on for a second. We have a motion on the floor. If we wanna debate the length, we should have an....a proposed amendment to the motion, and....and so, uh, yeah so...rather than just go off on whatever topic. So before we do that, if you would, I'd like to express my own views about this. Uh, first of all I've been a renter in the affected area for 10 years. I've been a landlord in the affected area for 10 years. I've been a property owner in the affected area for about 10 years. So I think I have a pretty strong, clear view of what it's like to be in each of those roles. Moreover,when I was a renter....I.....I rented under two different landlords. One was very good, the other was not very good. And the consequences were pretty clear in terms of the structure I lived in. So and I think I know the core of this city pretty darn well, and there are a lot of people out there with a lot of different views, and a lot of property owners who really strongly support the rental cap,but the rental cap's goin' away. We cannot use it. So we will work over a period of time to come up with an alternative solution to that. So I'm gonna support the moratorium as proposed, but (mumbled) Bruce, would you like to propose an amendment to the ordinance? Teague: I would. I....I think the options that we're gonna be given are very limited. I don't think they're gonna be great, and I think that, urn,you know....and I get the staff time. I....I do get that. Urn, am I willin' to go six months? I might be willin' to go six months,but at 10 months, I am sorry—I think that's too long. Throgmorton: Okay,propose(both talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 26 Teague: So I propose that, urn....for the ordinance that is, urn, bein'proposed today, that we just change the date until November 1st. So it would be a six-month instead of a 10-month(several talking) Dilkes: ...formal amendment? Teague: Yes. Throgmorton: Is there a second to that amendment? Salih: I second it. Throgmorton: Okay, discussion? Mims: I'd like to know how you're counting, because I....I just wanna be clear, if you're going to November 1st, we aren't even going to have this done until the middle of May, and so if you say starting June, you're June, July,August, September, October—that's five months. Throgmorton: Do you really mean six months from date of adoption? Teague: Yeah, so I said six months so it would go to November 1st. Mims: No, that would be about (both talking) Salih: December.... Teague: Oh,because November 1st would be (mumbled) I'll go with December 1st. Throgmorton: Okay, so you review that motion (both talking) Teague: Yes (both taliong) Salih: Yes, second the motion. Throgmorton: All right, so discussion on that? I don't support the idea. I think we need to have the moratorium as proposed and if staff can, and us, and we, can accomplish what we need to do before 10 months is up, great! Mims: I agree. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019. Page 27 Thomas: I would certainly like it to be done sooner,but urn, I'm...I would prefer to have, keep it as it is and work with....you know, expeditiously as we can, and see where we end up. Cole: I would agree. I think let's get this right and have a lot of time, I mean we don't have unlimited time and we want to get it done as quickly as we can, but we really do need to maximize the public input. Urn,hopefully we can get it done quicker though. Throgmorton: Any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call please. Dilkes: Voice vote. Throgmorton: Voice vote. All in favor of the motion, Bruce's motion to, uh, get it done by December the 1st say aye. How many ayes? Salih: Aye, two aye. Throgmorton: Were there any others? All opposed say aye. Uh, motion is defeated 2-5. So we have a....a motion on the floor, uh, about adopting a 10-month moratorium, and this is,urn, a roll call, is it not? Roll call please. Motion carries 7-0. Could I have a motion to accept correspondence please? Cole: So moved. Thomas: Second. Throgmorton: Moved by Cole, seconded by Thomas. All in favor say aye. Uh, opposed. Motion carries. Okay, so this is just first consideration. We'll turn to it on this corning Tuesday night. Teague: May 7th. Throgmorton: May 7th, yeah, thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special formal meeting of May 1, 2019.