HF 184 Do Something?

It's not often that we in U-Heights get really riled up about the legislature in Des Moines. However at last night's city council meeting everyone was in agreement that House File 184 is bad for our town. The bill would eliminate the ability of cities to regulate occupancy through zoning codes. I had written about this last month: Interesting News From Des Moines and What It Means for U-Heights

(photo courtesy iowahouse.org)

Most of U-Heights is zoned R-1 single family. Our zoning codes says that in R-1 zones a family is people related by blood or marriage, or up to 2 UNRELATED adults. So an R-1 home could have:

•  a parent or two plus 5 children
• 2 parents a grandparent and a child
• two brothers and a roommate
• 2 roommates. 

The bill would eliminate all of this and the only limits on occupancy would probably be related to the size of the lot or structure.

If you agree that this would be bad for town I'd urge you to contact members of the Iowa House ASAP it is possible that the bill will be debated on the floor as early as 3/13/2013.

Here is the link to House members by county with their email addresses:

Iowa House

The Iowa League of Cities also opposes this bill. Here is what they had to say:

Action Step: Please contact your Representatives today to oppose HF184, using the League’s talking points to highlight home rule and the purpose of these ordinances. The main supporters of the bill, the landlords, are arguing that this is a property rights issue for landlords who own the rental property. You should stress this is also a property rights issue for the neighbor who bought their property with the expectation of living in a single family neighborhood--not next to rental properties with many renters who can cause congestion and other issues and disturb the character of their neighborhoods.

Here is some sample language I sent to several House members:

Dear Representative XXXX,

As a city councilor for University Heights, a small town of 1,000 adjacent

to the University of Iowa, I would urge you to oppose HF184. This bill

would be very detrimental to our town's well being.

We have a significant number of rental properties in town and we work had

to welcome new residents. We know from experience that many of our long

term citizens first lived in U-Heights as students, loved that experience,

and return to us later in life. However, by not allowing communities to

establish zoning regulations for the benefit of our citizens we will face

a situation where the density of residents would overwhelm our narrow

streets and small infrastructure.

Ninety percent of our homes were constructed before 1970, 57% were built

before 1960. Many homes are small bungalows or mid-century modern ranch

homes of less than 1,500 square feet. Allowing us to regulate the number

of unrelated adults per household is the simplest way for a very small

community to preserve its quality of life and provide benefits for every

citizen.

Please consider everyone's rights and vote no on HF 184

-Mike Haverkamp

 University Heights

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Today's Press Citizen contained an interesting story:

UI planning to pair with firm to build apartments

The gist of the story is that rather than replace Hawkeye Court apartments themselves, the UI will contract with a private firm to demolish, rebuild, and operate an apartment complex to open the fall of 2014.

(UI Facilities Management photo)

The agreement with Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions, based in Dallas, Texas, would include a 444 bed 227 unit project at the current Hawkeye Court site, is to be approved by the Board of Regents on Wednesday. A second phase, not yet ready for approval, would construct an additional 350 beds on the Hawkeye Dr. site. Terms of the agreement include UI leasing the current site for $1.00, and that Balfour would have a 41 year lease with a 10 year extension option.

From the article:

"Rent for apartments in the proposed development hasn’t yet been established, and Rocklin said he didn’t want to speculate about whether the $650 to $750 per month range was accurate. If UI were to continue to own Hawkeye Court apartments, which opened in 1968, rent would need to increase by at least $200 per month to cover the estimated $10 million in necessary maintenance over the next 10 years, he said.
'So although the rents will be higher than we currently have at Hawkeye Court, they’ll be similar to the market in the area and provide tremendously better accommodations than we’re currently able to provide,' Rocklin said."

It will be interesting to see what kind of pressure  these additional units will have on the rental prices in University Heights. One would suspect that having a large increase in competing "student" housing would be felt first in non-owner occupied units at Grandview. But given the rise of single family homes that have switched from owner occupied to rental, it may also make a difference throughout U-Heights?

Here's another major issue to ponder:  Is this the beginning of a trend in public/private partnerships for UI? If so the University's current presence in, and surrounding, our town future projects could have substantial impact on U-Heights.

Interesting Election Returns

The special election for the Johnson County Supervisor seat previously held by Sally Stutsman seems to have  had a surprise ending for many with the election of Republican Jim Etheredge. Despite Democrats holding a sizable registration margin in the county, low voter turnout allowed the Republican's victory.

2013 Supervisor's Special Election
U-Heights Active Voters 917

Precinct	Total Voters	Dahms		Etheredge		Write-Ins
UH Univ. Heights	64	34	53%	30	47%	0

Voter turnout yesterday was 7% which was slightly higher than the county as a whole.

What makes the election interesting locally is how the turnout from University Heights mirrors East and near West Iowa City. We were one of only 3 precincts NOT in Iowa City that Dahms carried with a majority:

• CV03 Hygienic Lab
• CV07 Northridge
• UH Univ. Heights

SO Solon was a perfectly split 42/42 tie

Besides those above, the only precincts carried by Dahms west of the Iowa River were:

• IC02 Horn
• IC04 Lincoln

Farther west Iowa City plus the rest of Coralville,  all of North Liberty, and the township precincts were carried by Etheredge. Those include our nearest neighbors to the west:

• 07 West
• 08 Weber
• 09 Hall of Fame  

For comparison, here are the Presidential Precinct results:

2012 Presidential Election
Active Voters 917

Precinct	Total	Romney-Ryan		Obama-Biden		Stein-Honkala		Johnson-Gray		Litzel-Litzel		Write-
		(R)		(D)		(G)		(Libt)		(NP)		Ins
UH Univ. Heights	774	233	30%	531	69%	2	0%	4	1%	1	0%	2

Our voter turnout was 84%, slightly higher than the county as a whole. Our early/absentee voting was 517 which was 58.1% of our total vote, once again slightly higher than the county as a whole.

U-Heights in the News

Two interesting articles in today's Press Citizen

The first was
Mercy to open west-side clinic
Facility to open in August with 2 family medicine doctors


This story told of the new Mercy Family Clinic to be located at 1067 Ryan Dr. Signficant growth in the West Iowa City/Coralville area was cited as a driving force behind the new clinic, which will be near the intersection of Camp Cardinal Road and Kennedy Parkway.

“We identified the growth trends on the west side of the Iowa City/Coralville metro area, and it’s been growing significantly over the last several years,” said Bill Watts, Vice President of Mercy Services Iowa City Inc. “We felt this would be a good opportunity to establish a clinic and offer primary care services to people on the west side.”

The article went on to say that even University Heights has experienced a population growth in the past 10 years increasing from 948 residents in 2002 to 1070 in 2010.  This was accompanied by a quote from U-Heights City Councilor Rosanne Hopson,

Although University Heights Council member Rosanne Hopson hasn’t heard of any demand for additional medical services near the town, she said the clinic may help clear up traffic from nearby University Hospitals and Clinics.

“I think it’s a good idea just to take traffic away from the hospital,” she said. “They have a parking issue and depending on the clinic it can be hard for the elderly to navigate that giant place. This (new Mercy Clinic) could be a good drive-up and walk-in.”

I completely agree with Rosanne that we should be mindful of making amenities more convenient to our older residents. Have nearby (walkable?) and smaller business or market sites within our community would be a wonderful way to improve our quality of life. U-Heights has the oldest median aged population in Johnson County, and the 2010 census showed our first population increase since 1970. We are still the only community in the metro area with a smaller population now than 40 years ago. As I mentioned in Strong Communities Survive Disasters, Eric Klinneberg's research shows that walkable and nearby commercial enterprises are vital to improving and even extending the lives of our older residents.

Which brings me to the second story from the paper, the headline and first 5 paragraphs really struck me:

Prof talks business, change
'Everyone has strong emotions about some particular kind of change' 

Sara Rynes-Weller, professor of management and organizations at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business, spoke about organizational change Sunday at UI's 30th Annual Presidential Lecture.

“The concept of organizational change and change in general is something everyone is going through,” she said. “Everyone has strong emotions about some particular kind of change.”
In many cases, she said, dealing with change from a business perspective is especially critical given the scope of employees and services in an organization. She called attention to the status of the U.S. Postal Service, which recently laid off employees and reduced the availability of delivery services on account of “disruptive innovation” — gradual developments such as email and digital retail that grew in popularity over the decade as postal officials paid little heed.

“Businesses were snoozing; the postal service was snoozing,” she said. “No one thought that instant messaging or texting would be making a lot of money right away; it wasn’t a threat to the postal service.”
Strong management — specifically keeping employees calm during a financial or public-opinion crisis — can help lead companies out of situations brought on by not paying attention to market-wide change, she added.


I would hope that now, and in the future, our citizens will realize we can't be caught snoozing.  We need to work actively to have a voice in, and help to focus and drive the type of change that confronts us on all sides, whether it be the University of Iowa and their long term plans, or our neighbor, Iowa City. In the coming months that will play out as council probably deals with the Planned Unit Development agreement for One University Place (St. Andrew Church site)

 

City Business Updates

Here are a couple of items people may be interested in.

The February 12, 2013 City Council meeting is now available as a web stream, as are all council meetings. This happens courtesy of Iowa City Cable Channel 4, and our University Heights videographer, John McLure.

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You can click on the above image to go to the meeting stream

Here is the link for Channel 4 Video Streaming, besides our council meetings you can watch IC City Council, Johnson County Board of Supervisors and more.

Also the PUBLIC HEARING on the FY 2014 Budget will be held on March 12, 2013, at the University Club, 7:00 PM. For more information about the budget, check out the U-Heights Finance Committee page. Our city budgets begin July 1 and end June 30. Budgets must be approved by council and sent to the state for certification prior to March 15 yearly. A major change in the FY 14 budget is that we will not continue to receive Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds. Since 2009 the city has received approximately $10,000 per month from LOST. This represents a nearly 10% revenue decline from the FY13 budget.

Interesting News from Des Moines... and What it Means for U-Heights

According to today's Press Citizen, the Iowa House is considering a bill to prevent cities from restricting the number of unrelated adults who live in a rental property. This would have enormous implications for University Heights. We considered rental issues at our February council meeting, like we do at many meetings. At our February meeting we learned there are over 130 current rental permits. There are roughly 425 housing units (single family homes, duplexes, condos and apartments) in town.

Our rental code is written so that any rental home or unit in a single family zone is permitted to be occupied by a family, which means as long as the tenants are related to each other, there is no maximum limit to occupants. However two unrelated adults are also considered a family. That means that at most two unrelated adults are permitted to live in a rental house. Three adults would require that at least two are related, four adults in a house would require that at least three are related.

Most single family home rentals in U-Heights occur in our older neighborhoods in small homes. Having this restriction prevents streets from being unduly crowded with cars, helps to make sure that  services such as garbage are not over burdened and generally helps to protect everyone's quality of life. Iowa City allows single family plus one tenant in their single family homes, so that a minimum of three unrelated adults are allowed in their least dense zoning areas.

Here is the text of the story:

Iowa City Press Citizen 2/14/13 11:24 PM
Bill takes on rental restriction

Cities currently can limit the number of unrelated people living in a home

Iowa City’s housing and inspecting director said the city is closely watching a recently resurrected bill that would prevent cities from regulating how many unrelated people live together in a rental home.

“It would impact us,” Doug Boothroy said. “We obviously don’t support the change. It would change how we regulate occupancy. We would have to completely change the language in the code.”

House File 184 passed out of the House Judiciary Committee last week but has not been scheduled for a full chamber vote.

Similar legislation was discussed last year in the Senate but died in the committee process.

“The ordinances that restrict the number of people who live in a dwelling based on their family relationship are nonsensical and illogical to me,” said Rep. Chip Baltimore, R-Boone, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He introduced the bill.

Iowa City regulates occupancy based on the number of related and unrelated people sharing a residence. It varies from residential zone to residential zone, Boothroy said.

Advocates for the change say such ordinances violate property owners’ rights and are discriminatory, particularly against those who cannot afford to rent or buy a house of their own.

City leaders argue that such restrictions help mitigate public safety and community welfare concerns. Boothroy said occupancy regulation impacts noise, traffic and garbage and contributes to neighborhood stabilization.

“We feel we need to have that as a local control,” he said. “We need to have that for protecting neighbors from those types of issues that can occur.”

In 2008, West Des Moines passed an ordinance allowing no more than three unrelated adults to live in a single family home, duplex or townhome, be it rented or owner-occupied.

West Des Moines City Manager Greg Sparks said residents worry that allowing large numbers of unrelated adults to live together can diminish the “values and quality of life in single-family neighborhoods.”

More vehicles might be parked in the street, driveways or yards, and traffic and noise problems are more prominent, say Sparks and other advocates for the limitations.

Baltimore argues those concerns are better addressed through specific city regulations and effective policing.

“There are all sorts of ordinances that deal with the actual problems that people are worried about that have nothing to do with family relationships,” he said.

Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee and voted against the bill in committee, said regulations that require strict oversight by law enforcement and other officials are costly to cities.

Ames prohibits more than three unrelated people from living together in low-density zoned neighborhoods.

The city was involved in a 2007 lawsuit in which the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the Ames ordinance did not violate state or federal constitutions and that cities have a right to establish such acts.

Kelli Excell, an Ames real estate agent and president of Landlords of Iowa, said having to kick people out of rental properties because they don’t meet the family requirement is “morally incorrect.”

Excell said the issue involves not only college students, but also older adults who live together to save money and young professionals who purchase homes and take on roommates to help pay the mortgage.

“I really don’t feel like I should have to discriminate against people because there are some neighborhoods who do not want renters,” she said.

 Iowa City Press-Citizen reporter Lee Hermiston contributed to this story. Emily Schettler is a reporter for The Des Moines Register and can be reached at eschettler@dmreg.com.

February 2013 Council Meeting Summary

MELROSE BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION NOTICE

 To accommodate emergency fiber optic repair work by Century Link, traffic on Melrose Avenue, from Stadium Drive to Olive Court, will be shifted slightly resulting in the elimination of the turn lane in this area. It is anticipated that normal traffic will resume by the end of the day on Thursday, February 14th.  Motorists are asked to take note of this lane shift and to allow extra travel time as delays may be possible. As always, caution should be exercised when traveling in all construction areas.

Last night city council held regular monthly meeting for February, here are a few highlights:

View full Agenda and attachments

1. FY 2014 Budget

Council heard last night from city accountant Steve Kuhl and finance committee chair, Jim Lane about the city’s proposed FY 2014 budget which must be adopted by council prior to March 15, 2013. A formal budget hearing will take place at council’s regular March meeting on 3/12/13. The FY 2014 budget year starts on July 1, 2013. The proposed budget showing changes alongside the FY12 actual income/expenses and the FY13 budget can be found here:

FY2014 Proposed Budget

2. Proposed Ordinance 182

Council gave second approval to a speed limit ordinance. If approved for a third time in March speed limits on non-arterial streets (everything except Melrose & Sunset south of Melrose) will be 20 mph. For the full background on this proposal more details can be found here:

Proposed Speed Zone Changes

3. Zoning Comission Report

Council received a report from the Zoning Commission, and voted to update and distribute a brochure for all residents this spring.

Zoning Commission Report

Council will hold its March meeting on 3/12/13 with the place yet to be determined. A public hearing on the FY 2014 budget will occur at 7:00 PM.

As you plan charitable gifts please consider the University Height Community Foundation