Why Might UI be interested in the St. Andrew Site?

Jim Lane, in his post last week, talked about financial reasons why the city of University Heights should be interested in the future PRIVATE ownership of the St. Andrew church site. He also mentioned that it would likely NOT be in the city's best interest to see that parcel of land be acquired by the University of Iowa. That got me looking into WHY the UI might be interested?

This is a very rough look at how the St. Andrew property lines up with it's neighbors. Immediately to the north and west of the church is property owned by UI. Then you can see how much the UI owns west of the Iowa River. From the Sunset/Melrose corner UI owns everything west to Kennedy Parkway and north to Highway 6, except, St. Andrew, Birkdale and the few homes along the golf course. I don't think it is much of a stretch to consider that UI would be interested in purchasing this property if they were offered the rights to it.

Securing the Financial Future of University Heights

Since 2009, when the possibility for St. Andrew Church to move arose, our city has been wrestling with the dilemma of what to do with that property.  Initially we faced three possibilities:

• The development of that property by a private developer 
• The potential for the University of Iowa to purchase that property
•  The church not moving, in which case the other two possibilities would become moot.

Throughout all of these years and discussions, it has been one of my principles that we as a city take this potential opportunity to expand our tax base.  Now that the church has made the decision to definitively move, we are faced with two very real possibilities:

 The private developer, who has a purchase agreement with the church, works with the City of University Heights on developing that property;

OR

the City Council refuses to come to an agreement with the developer regarding a development.  

At that point the developer would walk away, and the University of Iowa will have the opportunity to buy this property for their own purpose.

During my research about expanding the tax base, I sought input from City administrators in five different municipalities in Eastern Iowa and the Des Moines area (Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, West Liberty, and Windsor Heights.)  and the Johnson County Supervisors.  I talked to these individuals because they are city management professionals, which we do not have in University Heights.  EACH of them said that in any budgeting process it is fiscally prudent and responsible to find ways to protect and expand a city's tax base, simply because the budgeting future cannot be predicted more than a few years out.  This information was so helpful and significant that I encouraged my fellow councilors to also call officials in other local government entities and seek their opinions.

Another of my principles is to ensure the financial viability of University Heights.  We are a small landlocked community, with limited ability to significantly expand our tax base.  The possibility of a private development on the St. Andrew property offers us a rare opportunity to positively impact our long-term city budgets.

The possibility of the University of Iowa being allowed to buy this property causes me concern.  We would lose this rare opportunity of increasing our tax revenues, and we would not be able to control what is developed by the University on that property.  Supporting this possibility is, in my opinion, short-sighted, and does nothing for our city's long-term financial future.

I am constantly seeking input from my fellow citizens, and I value all opinions.  As your representative I appreciate knowing your concerns, and especially want to know how you feel about this issue.  Please don't hesitate to comment.

Video Updates

Below is the link to the webcast of our July regular city council meeting. 

July 9th City Council Meeting Webcast

Since not everyone may have the time to watch the entire meeting, fortunately on the webcast page there are index points that allow you to skip to certain portions of the meeting. Here are four highlighted portions that may be valuable to citizens to see what a typical meeting is like.

Public Input beginning 1:05 minutes into the meeting.

This is a time for any citizen to speak to the council about issues they want to air. Five citizens address the council.

City Engineer responds to questions and complaints beginning at 13:47 minutes. 

Some background: At 17:00 minutes audience members start shouting out questions, which Josiah politely answers. You can't hear the questions since the audience members don't come to a microphone. At 20:00 minutes an audience member asks Josiah "Is the contractor also working on projects at the University right now?" Josiah answers. "I don't know." The audience member shoots back, "I think you do!" Josiah can't do much more than shrug and rightly just moves along with his report. 

Summary and Discussion of June 25th Work Session beginning at 1 hour 59:44 minutes.

This is where council members talked about the work session and out thoughts on how to proceed with issues related to the St. Andrew Church site. 

Jeff Maxwell is invited to speak beginning at 2 hours 18:05 minutes

Developer Jeff Maxwell speaks about what he'd like to know from council, and his thoughts.

So that was our meeting this week. What do you think? I'd certainly like to hear your opinions. Feel free to use the comment box below.

For something a little more light hearted, Last week I got the link below which is also from cable channel 4:

Community Highlights: Bike/Bus/Car Race 2013

Elected officials participate in the annual Bike/Bus/Car Race from the Coralville Public Library to the Iowa City Public Library, which was part of the 2013 Bike to Work Week activities. This program follows race participants Terrence Neuzil, Jim Throgmorton, and Mike Haverkamp as they make their way across town on their separate modes of transportation. For more information about bicycling in Johnson County, click here.

 

July Council Meeting Summary

Fellow U-Heights residents,

City council held their regular July meeting tonight. Here are a few highlights:

Sunset Street Wide Sidewalk Project

City Engineer Josiah Bilskemper caught the ire of several residents regarding progress on the wide sidewalk. He did a nice job of explaining the current status and process going forward. Here is a summary of comments he made during the engineering report:
There has been slow progress the last three weeks.  This project is a 45 working day contract.  The contractors  are 60% through the contract. Utility poles have now been all re-located. Last week the city engineer made an official request  to DOT and the contractor for a new construction schedule.  If the project is not completed  in the allotted time, the penalty for not meeting the construction deadline is $1K dollars per day. Construction of the retaining wall at Sunset and Benton is scheduled to begin tomorrow, July 10.

Financial History

Jim Lane and zoning commission chair Pat Bauer met with city accountant Steve Kuhl to gather information regarding city finances over the past 10 years. Bauer presented those statistics to council, and then gave additional statistics that he had put together himself. We only received a hard copy of that tonight but it  will be included on the City's Finance Department Page eventually.

One University Place

Council talked about where to go from here. It would appear that council will hold several community-wide meetings to gather information from residents about amenities to include in future development. Developer Jeff Maxwell spoke to council and reaffirmed his commitment to developing a high quality project. He also  asked council for their vision of what would be acceptable.

For more information about the entire meeting, view the PDF of the Agenda and attached materials.

This would be a meeting that I would strongly encourage people to watch, as my summary doesn't do it justice. The web stream will likely be available late this week or early next. See all U-Heights meetings HERE. (Click on the blue "Government" tab and pull to "University Heights City Council." Remember council meetings are also broadcast every Thursday at 9:00 PM on Iowa City cable channel 4.

I also post more interesting articles and observations here:  UHForward.

It is a great honor to serve as your city councilor, if you have any questions or comments I look forward to hearing from you.

-Mike Haverkamp

 315 Golfview Ave.

Some Advice to Consider...

Among the places I look through now and again is the Wise Economy Workshop 

Whose principal, Della Rucker, has a fascinating background and interests in a several of areas that I'm familiar with, teaching and historic preservation. She is now an urban planner with a focus on economic development, and community engagement. I stumbled across a post she wrote nearly a year ago that seems pretty useful to us in U-Heights:
Controlling axe-grinders ain’t enough: Doing real public engagement

I think there is some sage advice for us, but to really understand where she's coming from you need to go back to an earlier post here:
How to run an effective public meeting when dealing with people who have an agenda.

 I thought our work session in June was much better organized than others we have had. I appreciated hearing the council speak first and then getting citizen feedback. I do believe we could do a better job of getting meaningful engagement, and real input from a better cross section of our citizens.

End of the Line for LOST

From the Press Citizen, in the business section:

Iowa City sales tax to drop July 1
Beginning July 1, sales tax in Iowa City will drop to 6%.

The 1 percent Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) Iowa City voters approved four years ago to help raise funds for flood recovery and protection efforts is set to expire at the end of June. The City of Iowa City sent a news release Monday, reminding businesses not to collect the tax after June 31.

The tax helped raise more than $34 million for flood mitigation projects, and has helped provide the city's share of funding for two major public infrastructure projects: the relocation of the North Wastewater Treatment Plant at 1000 S. Clinton St., and the "Gateway Project," which will elevate a flood-prone section of Dubuque Street and reconstruct Park Road Bridge. 

Other than the obviously non-existent "June 31" in the article this is a very small and quiet ending for a very large chapter in University Heights.  Johnson County voters were given the opportunity to vote on a 4 year 1 cent local sales tax to help fund flood related projects on May 5, 2009. Any municipality in the county who passed a measure would be allowed to collect sales tax on eligible items (notably food and medical services were exempt) All money collected within passing jurisdictions would be pooled and then re-allocated back to those jurisductions. 

Here's what happened in the two largest jurisdictions in the county and U-Heights

City	Turnout	Percentage	YES	Percentage	NO	Percentage
Iowa City	7,279	15.14%	3,641	50.05%	3,634	49.95%
Coralville	1,921	17.25%	956	49.79%	964	50.21%
U-Heights	199	26.82%	159	80%	40	20%

Yes, you're seeing that correctly. Iowa City passed the measure by 7 votes and Coralville defeated it by 7 votes. U-Heights "Yes" vote percentage was the highest in the county. Every small town passed the measure EXCEPT North Liberty and the portion of West Branch that lies in Johnson County (where it failed in an exciting 6-4 vote). Unincorporated Johnson County also defeated the measure. Our turnout percentage was 3rd highest in the county, barely behind Hills and Oxford. 

Why did we pass it with such a high rate? One major reason was that we had applied for wide sidewalk grants and this would allow us to get the local money needed for our 20% match. The other major reason was that we barely had anywhere in town that would be collecting the sales tax! We paid it when we shopped in Iowa City or anywhere other than Coralville and N. Liberty.Our portion has averaged nearly $10K per month since our first payment in September 2009. For the last 4 years roughly 10% of our annual budget revenues has come from LOST. Our last scheduled payment will be this September.

Here was the revenue purpose statement that appeared on our ballots 

Summary: To authorize imposition of a local sales and services tax in the city of University Heights, at the rate of one percent (1%) to be effective from July 1, 2009, until June 30, 2013.

A local sales and services tax shall be imposed in the city of University Heights at the rate of one percent (1%) to be effective from July 1, 2009, until June 30, 2013. Revenues from the sales andnservices tax shall be allocated as follows:

• 0% for property tax relief.

The specific purpose for which the revenues shall otherwise be expended is:

• 100% for street improvements, sidewalk widening projects, and/or any other lawful purpose.

We have used, and will use the money for our sidewalk projects, and the revenue collected the past four years has also helped make up for budget shortfalls.  What has been particularly noticeable is that it evened out our cash flow, since we receive property tax revenues (the vast majority of our city revenue) only twice a year in April and October.

My Thoughts on Our Work Session

I'm still mulling over statements and ideas from last night's work session. I've also received interesting comments today from both people who attended the meeting, and people who received my email summary. For now I'd just like to report my answer to Jim Lane's question that started our conversation last night:

1.      What type of vision do you have for the development of the St. Andrews property to best meet the needs of our residents?

To talk about our future let’s look at our past: When I first ran for council in 2009 I talked about ensuring that U-Heights was “A financially sustainable community that maintains its high quality of life.” At that time I widely quoted the City’s Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2006. 

After the 09 election the new council, rather than rush to adopt any development plans followed through with a promise to update the Comprehensive Plan (link to process) which was amended in May 2010. 

Here is what our Comprehensive Plan has to say:

Page 1 Why have a plan?

A comprehensive plan establishes a general framework for zoning ordinance revisions and future development. The need to revise the University Heights zoning code prompted the City to initiate the comprehensive planning process. Comprehensive plans are valuable tools for directing future development. The process by which a comprehensive plan is developed allows community residents to express common community goals in a formal document. Once adopted by resolution, this document serves as a guide for decisions made by the city council and zoning commission.