In what I thought was a well written summary of one of the major issues in the City Council campaign, the Iowa City Press Citizen endorsed the candidates of We are University Heights Moving Forward. Here is the text of today's editorial:
We usually avoid backing one-issue candidates in city council races, but in University Heights, the one issue on everyone’s mind seems to be developer Jeff Maxwell’s proposed One University Place.
If the members of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church decide to move from their property at 1300 Melrose Ave., Maxwell has proposed to build two buildings — one five stories and strictly residential, the other three stories and residential/commercial. The total square footage of the entire project, as currently proposed, is about 210,000 square feet. He also has requested $6.5 million in tax-increment financing for the project.
And now, after years of impassioned rhetoric for and against the development, yards throughout University Heights are filled with one of two main campaign signs.
The first lists the names of four candidates who, for the most part, support working with Maxwell on One University Place: incumbent councilors Mike Haverkamp and Patricia Yeggy and challengers Jim Lane and Amanda Whitmer.
The second lists the names of those who either oppose the project or want to see it dialed back dramatically: incumbents Brennan McGrath and Rosanne Hopson and challengers Janet Leff and Rachel Stewart.
We’ve supported various versions of One University Place in the past, and we’ve commended Maxwell for being willing to work so closely with the council and the community to dial back his initial designs for the project. And while we’re not crazy about granting a TIF for the project, we do think the council is using that economic development tool appropriately for a project of this importance — especially one that, after the TIF period sunsets, would add much to the city’s tax rolls.
And we said as much earlier this year when we endorsed Lane over Hopson for the Jan. 11 special city council election.
University Heights voters, however, disagreed with us and elected Hopson 262-234.
The choice on Tuesday is the same as it was earlier this year. For those University Heights residents who think Maxwell and the council have been working effectively to scale back and to tweak the development to be something beneficial to the city, the obvious choice is to vote Haverkamp, Yeggy, Lane and Whitmer.
For those who think the developer and the council haven’t gone nearly far enough in scaling back the proposed development, McGrath, Hopson, Leff and Stewart are all credible candidates for putting a check on any such large-scale proposals in the future and for moving forward more cautiously with Maxwell in the meantime.
Given our past and present support for One University Place, we side with Haverkamp, Yeggy, Lane and Whitmer.
But whoever wins Tuesday still will face a closely divided city on an issue that doesn’t cut cleanly across traditional ideological lines. And whichever slate of candidates gains a majority of the five seats up for election still will have to work with at least one member (maybe two members) who are on the other side on this single issue.
