City Council - Regular Meeting

Where's my glasses? See, I'm. >> Okay. Yeah. Great. We're going to make sure we're live. Before we get started here. We're good. >> Phone is my phone.

It's. >> All right. Well, this is the city of Iowa City. Formal agenda for a special formal meeting. April 7th, 2026. And I'm going to call it to order. It's 4 p.m.. Um, and we will start with roll call. Please. >> Alter here, Bergus. Here. Harmsen. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. >> All right. I want to welcome everyone to your city hall. Good to see councilors and staff all back after a little bit of a break. Uh, item number two is the regular formal agenda to a proposed property tax levy. Public hearing on the proposed property tax levy and the proposed budget ending June 30th, 2027. And I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome Nicole. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council Nicole Davies Finance Director. So, as the mayor said, this is the public hearing for the proposed property tax rate. Um, this year is a little more confusing than normal because we had multiple things moving. Um, the first being the general levy has been reduced slightly. That's due to the tax legislation. That's a forced reduction. So that reduction then we offset with an increase to the employee benefits levy and an increase to the debt service levy, and then decrease the debt service levy $0.20 with the local option sales tax. So net result is a 20 cent decrease to the property tax levy. I also added another slide this year, just because I've seen a lot of comments that have a lot of questions and confusion about these notices that get sent out. So first, the state mandates this. Notice the county, we don't have any control over the form or what's in it. So I kind of laid out what the notice mailed out by the county

shows. It shows our rate going up 1.89. The problem with the notice is it assumes that everyone's, uh, home went up 10% in value. Most people's in Iowa City did not. I think what I used was five and a half. I think that's about what my home was. So if you figured a 5.5% increase, it would actually be a 2.29% decrease in tax. So just kind of one of those things, if people have questions, what the notice shows is assuming a 10% increase in value and that's not reality. So it makes us notice kind of even more confusing than it is. But any questions? >> All right. Anyone from the public like to address this topic. If so, please come forth. If you are online, please raise your virtual hand. Welcome. >> Hello, McKenzie.

Drew here with Greater Iowa City, Inc. On behalf of Greater Iowa City, Inc., I'd like to thank you for your careful consideration of how best to use the new revenue from the local option sales tax passed by the voters this fall. Greater ECC is proud to have coordinated a successful campaign, along with many community partners, including Think Iowa City, um, and um, to see and we're excited to see these funds allocated to important community priorities. I would specifically like to thank you for using the new local option sales tax revenue to not only offset potential property tax increases, but also to directly reduce property taxes. This year, as you know, the tax rate is only one part of the property tax equation. Along with the assessed value and the rollback. What percentage of the property value can be taxed? The high property values in Johnson County, along with the 90% rollback for commercial property owners, means that relatively small changes to the tax rate can have significant impacts on local businesses who own their property or who rent from a landlord who will pass the tax increases on 95% of the businesses in Johnson County are classified as small businesses, with fewer than 50 employees and increases to their property taxes can create challenges and force them to make difficult decisions about how to cut expenses elsewhere. We understand that there are many important community priorities that can compete for resources. And on behalf of greater, I see. Thank you again for a balanced approach to using the new local option sales tax revenue and for reducing property tax rates this year. We hope you will continue to consider the needs of our business community in future years budgets. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online, I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to adjourn which is item number three? >> Second.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 7 to 0. All right. We are going to move on to our our next meeting, which is the city of Iowa City. Again, a special formal executive session for April 7th, 2026. Um, and I am going to call this meeting to order roll call, please.

Alter here. Bergus here, here. Mo. Here. Here. Here. Here. >> Item number two. Litigation. Uh, can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss strategy with counsel and matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent, where its disclosure would be likely to be prejudice or disadvantaged. The position of the governmental body, and that litigation. Can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session? So go ahead. So moved. Alter second. Harmsen. Roll call please. >> Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. >> Yes.

Teague. >> Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0. We will, um, go to the city manager's conference room, and return once we're done to open session.

Okay. >> All right. We are back from our closed executive session. Back to open session. Item number three is adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn, >> So moved.

Second. >> All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 7 to 0. All right, all right, I want to now start and welcome everyone to our work session. April 7th, 2026. Um, and the first item here is the University of Iowa Student government updates. Welcome. USG.

Hello. Tonight we will be presenting a resolution to you all that was recently passed by our student Senate. But first, a couple of small announcements. One being that our elections just happened and Emily Cross and Mariana Edmunds will be serving now as our president and vice president. So we're very excited for their admin. Uh, speaking of which, April 21st will unfortunately be my last city council meeting. Uh, in this position. And Eden will be officially taking over. So that's something to look forward to.

Yes and no. >> Okay, so now we will be presenting a resolution recognizing April as Mena American Heritage Month. This was written by our Senator Dominic Eastman. Contributed to by Director of Justice and Equity Gupta and Chairwoman Davis, community sponsors for this resolution were the Iowa Democratic Party, Arab Caucus, Iowans for Palestine and Iowa City Action for Palestine

To start. Whereas, the Middle Eastern and North African Mena region encompasses a diverse array of cultures, languages, religions and histories, including but not limited to, communities from countries in the Mena region. And Whereas, due to the history of and ongoing colonization in the region, this Mena American Heritage Month should be inclusive of inclusive of any people belonging to an indigenous ethnic group from the Mena region, including but not limited to, the Amazigh, Arabs, Assyrians, Maidan, Tuaregs, Coptics, drowsy Jewish people and the Bedouins. Mena Americans have historically faced challenges in representation, visibility and inclusion, recognizing their heritage helps foster a more inclusive and equitable society. And whereas Mena Americans have roots in the Midwest dating back over 130 years, Mena Americans have played a prominent role in shaping Iowa's culture and religious landscapes. Iowa was home to a significant. Landmarks such as the Mother Mosque of America, the oldest purpose built mosque in North America, and Saint George Orthodox Church, both greatly shaping community life in Iowa. And whereas April has been recognized annually by the federal government and Linn County as a time to honor and celebrate Mena American heritage, encouraging communities, schools and institutions across the country to promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of Mena histories and cultures, as shown by statements from the White House and a proclamation from Linn County, which we did send out earlier. If you want to read more for that >> Okay, so action. Therefore, the University of Iowa undergraduate student government formally recognizes the month of April as Middle Eastern and North African American Heritage Month in order to honor the rich histories, cultures and contributions of Mena communities and commits to annually promoting this

recognition through outreach avenues such as social media. Therefore, be it resolved, the undergraduate student government urges the University of Iowa and the Iowa City City Council and the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to recognize April as Mena American Heritage Month and as Eden mentioned, I sent out the resolution a little earlier to. Hopefully all of your council emails where you can click on some of the hyperlinks there. Also, we just read some of the more pertinent excerpts from it, but there are many more statements and we really encourage you all to read that. Thank you. Thank you both. All right. We're going to move on to item number two. Clarification of agenda items.

I have. >> Anything from the formal agenda. >> Um I think I want to like the I want to have like one item for consideration. I'm just looking for the item number. Okay. >> About the district. If somebody have in front of them, just help me. Yes. >> I'm looking. Are you talking about in the calendar? Yes. On the consent agenda. >> Is this the one you're referring to? >> No, the the summit is 6P6PPP.

As in Paul. >> Okay. Yeah. £0.06 okay. £0.06 okay. >> Yeah, I want to have that out for separate consultation. >> Okay. And. Also. I said. All right, so anything else. So we'll have, um, in our consent agenda item £0.06 for separate consideration. Hearing nothing else, we're going to move on to our information packets. Item number three on our agenda March 12th.

12th. >> April 2nd and. March 19th. March 26th.

I March 26th is, uh, agenda or hold on one second. Yeah, IB one isn't that the I you see here for July? We always have for July, July we have our meeting, but I see that on the 20 we have the going into the meeting, I think we talked about why we're having one meeting in July. And since the joint entity meeting is like something like, we must be there, or also we can have somebody to represent us, right? If if we cannot do it, we can just ask the city to have somebody. I don't think they're going to be there. And, uh.

I won't be there. >> Yes, I said, we're going to have only one meeting. We're not going to have another meeting. But like something like the joint meeting is something that we must be there. Either we just have only one meeting in July, or maybe I can if somebody else is not going anywhere, I can just, um, maybe ask the city to represent me, like the staff to represent me on that meeting. >> Generally, as long as there's multiple councils there, councilors there, we're okay. Um, there's no formal votes at those joint entities meetings. Um, so it's, it's more informational sharing, but staff will always be there to, to support. So I think you're okay missing that one. >> Are we expecting anything on the agenda that you were. >> Uh, nothing anticipated at this time. Generally the different governing bodies will look at that and, you know, three weeks or so before the meeting. >> That sounds good.

Sure. >> April 2nd. Um. >> Oh, just a small while.

You're looking for whatever yours is. This is IP9 and it was actually the senior center annual report. And it's just, it's a little it's a shout out, but it's, uh, it's wonderful. Um, that they had a 3.5% membership increase over the year. Um, and that's really significant. Um, so I just wanted to call that out because, uh, the work that's going on over there with a small staff, um, just the vision that's happening and that's occurring, the kinds of events that are happening are really amazing and that the membership has increased is fantastic. So I just want to say kudos to the everybody at the senior center. And Latasha DeLoach in particular for the leadership that she's showing. >> Um. Uh I was going to talk about, um, the joint entities meeting for April 20th, the agenda items, uh, I'm wondering, was this a call to put things that potentially put things on the agenda or.

Yes. >> Okay. And there's currently nothing on the agenda. >> Well, each community, um, have conversations amongst themselves and determine if they want to add an item on the agenda. And so now this is just our opportunity for council to have that discussion and to, if someone has a thought that they want to promote, um, that thought go amongst us and we go from there.

Yeah. So, uh, and I guess I just don't particularly know, we talked about it a little bit at, um, uh, MPO JC uh, but just referring to the uh, uh, the conflicts that have arisen regarding there being more of a University of Iowa hospitals and clinics presence in North Liberty and our paratransit, uh, and seat's operations going to North Liberty and how, uh, it's causing some frustrating outcomes for people because there's not good enough scheduling and north since the destination is North Liberty, it's, uh, in their purview about how they pay for and yada, yada, yada. So I was maybe thinking that could be a good joint entities topic. Um. >> Does can bus participate in joint entities or the university, anybody from the university, I mean, they're kind of the, that they're the progenitor of all of the problems and they should probably have us be at participating in this conversation. I agree with you. This is a big problem for the community. >> Are they are they at joint entities or just MPO?

Just MPO okay. >> Can bus and funding. So I mean, if you have any suggestions on if we should just try to keep those conversations at MPO or Uh, I think the MPO are just just offline elected to elected with those community peers. Um, I can certainly help bring the university into the fold. If you want to work with me on that. Okay. >> I mean, is there some value in just having, um, conversations in general about seats? Um, the fare free? Um, you know, one way, you know, because I think just information could be a great to share at the joint entities meeting, but. >> Yeah.

Yeah, if we can ask. >> Also North Liberty for an update, I do think they have some plans since they're ending their contract with the city of Coralville for fixed route transit. I think they have some ideas for what may be replacing that, but I don't know. I don't know what that is. And we. >> Also know if we can say we think North Liberty should present.

Uh. >> Well, I mean, we could request, um, and then the other is the county. So they have their on demand. So it could just be a transportation theme that we're just asking people to give some updates so that we look at somewhat fragmented services, but also overlapping, you know, overlapping county services. >> Uh, if it could rekindle some regional transit discussions, even maybe, um, I mean, I'm, I'm okay with that. I'm not entirely sure. Uh, who or what we would be asking of our staff in order to do that. Um, yeah. >> So as council amenable to, uh, kind of those three requests.

Um. >> Yes, yes. So then we would just ask staff to reach out to the county, to North Liberty and to the MPO, um, and just ask them to do a presentation and we'll see where we go. Uh. >> And if they don't agree to it, then they just won't be on the agenda. Okay. What are we asking? Like an overview of their public transit offerings? Is that what you're looking for.

Throughout the county? Correct. Okay. And not long and drawn out just informational for everybody there. Um, for seats specific, we would want to include, you know, how that one way fare happens. Um, so that people just have that update as well. >> I guess to be more specific, I think this is what Councilor Weilein is talking about and that would be that there are large buildings that are recently constructed that are not accessible via public transportation, specifically the North Liberty Hospital. And what is our role as the City of Iowa City to help our citizens of Iowa City get to that new facility, either for employment or for medical treatment. Similarly, we no longer have a community college in Iowa City. And so how do people from Iowa City Access Community College that is not on a bus route? And I would say maybe narrowly focused on just health care and education and access for Iowa City residents. I don't know, is that too narrow or just a broad update?

I don't think so, because seats the county not what North Liberty is doing at this moment. But I.

Well, and I think. >> At the MPO meeting, um, Greg from the university said that. Campus to the North Liberty Hospital is a on demand service. Does anybody remember? I meant to follow up with him, but just even some information on like, what are the options there? And Oliver and I did this youth town hall last Friday. And, um, the, the teenagers who were there were talking about not understanding like the east side loop being the only bus that goes along Scott Boulevard. And, you know, so I do think kind of like a transportation overview, um, I realize that's super broad. For staff just to, you know, if we just say that, but, um.

Yeah, I think just with this meeting, you want to make it relevant to all the participants, right? So all the participants aren't necessarily going to be focused on how Iowa City residents. That's what I was. Thinking >> Um, the, the disconnect between origin destination and going between cities, I think is, is a legitimate, I'm just not sure what I think it's a good discussion point. Identify the problem, but I'm not sure that there's going to be solutions laid out at the table for you. >> And Councilor Moe. I think just something about like, uh, you know, uh, regional medical or. >> Yeah.

Educational transportation, uh, on demand transportation, something like that. Whatever we think would be a good, uh, you know, topic title. >> Yeah, yeah. I, is that enough to work with or is that really mushy? That's enough. >> Okay. You're like, please stop talking. >> All right. So we will move on in our agenda. Let me anything else from April. >> To put a pin in that. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> No, no. Go ahead. I guess because we are still on IBI 2nd April second. Yeah. Yes. >> I just I do have a, just a kind of it sounds like this sounds like a good topic. I would like to. >> Um.

Again sort of put a pin in for a session where we get the, um, the food network folks so that we can get precisely that an overview of what the, this coalition is doing. Um, because, uh, simply contributing more to food banks is not really sustainable in terms of the need. And so I know that this, this network has been looking at different solutions and sort of trying to figure out what it could be, but to simply be able to lay out the problems and what, um, the different kind of upcoming potential and likely obstacles for food sustainability in the region are, I think is something that they can both address that would be really, really informative. And then also talk about the work that they've been doing. So I would love to see that at some point. But again, I haven't actually talked to them in a little bit. So to say, hey, can you do that on a dime might be a little bit tricky. Um, but maybe that could be something to, I can chat with them and say, maybe like, I'm really pushing for July, right? And that we could have that as, as a request potentially.

Um. >> So that sounds good to me. Yeah, I want to go to IB, IB for, uh, which is, um, you know, city memo from the city manager office about housing and I want to just highlight the current Iowa City housing Authority waiting list count, uh, as of April 2026, the housing choice voucher waiting list have 2500 oh three application. And, um, the public housing waiting list had 1503. Just to remind us that we still need affordable housing options.

Um, thank you. >> All right. We're moving on to item number four, which is the Iowa City. Uh, Think Iowa City annual update. Welcome, Josh. Thanks, mayor Let's pop this open. I don't. All right. We cut the lights on that a little bit, Jeff or whoever. >> Thank you for being so patient with us. >> Oh, no worries, no worries. Uh, thank you, Mayor and Council, for the opportunity to once again provide an annual update on the work of Think Iowa City and the Iowa City Airport Commission. Sorry, mayor, you have to hear all this again. >> Oh, good.

Good. Um, uh, my name is Josh Schamberger. I'm president of of both organizations and I'm joined here today by a few from our team, um, Nick Pfeiffer, who's our public affairs director, and Angie Jordan, who is known to everybody in this community. So, um, pleased they're both here. So, uh, yeah, just to give an overview of, of what's been happening here at our organization, I'll just kind of go through it and then be happy to, to kind of answer some questions as a reminder as to who we are. Think Iowa City and the Iowa City Area Sports Commission advanced the economic vitality and quality of life for residents and visitors. As Iowa's premier destination, that is our mission. We do that work through five different market segments. Primarily is where we invest our time, energy and resources, the first being individual and group leisure travelers. So essentially, tourists that are that are coming here in as individuals traveling across I-80 or in groups through weddings or other parties like that, reunions, we spend a lot of our time in the next two bullets there, conferences and meetings and amateur sports. And we'll kind of get into that, uh, equal amount of time in arts, culture, and special events. And then, uh, quite a bit of our other efforts go into quality of life, uh, you know, focusing on our community, not just those visiting our community and trying to better that. And so, uh, those are most evident over the years through things like the, our river landing, the North Liberty, Centennial Park, and recent development out there way back in the day, that Terry Trueblood type work and partnering with Iowa City on riverfront crossings and Iowa City downtown district and things like that, uh, he's next area, you know, we, we primarily as an organization, we lead through convening people and organizations across the region as a central hub for collaboration, prioritizing cooperation over competition, acting with agility, and identifying promising ideas and launching proof of concepts faster than traditional

institutions. And that certainly was evident during the Covid era, when we were able to pivot away from our mission and really serve the community most in need a little bit faster than government. And then certainly we take very strongly our role as serving as the region's brand authority and tracking our community's evolution, promoting its authenticity, authenticity, identity, authentic identity to potential visitors. This is our board of directors, our current chair. He's he's not happy, but he gets the big face photo on the slide this year. Uh, is Jake Moore, who's an executive with Green State. Uh, Mayor Teague is the representative through our bylaws from this government authority, but we're joined by governments and Coralville North Liberty, University Heights and Iowa City, who ultimately are our stakeholders because we were born uh, in 50 years ago, close to 50 years ago, in 1980, when cities of Iowa City and Cordova both passed a hotel motel tax. So all of our funding comes through revenue we generate on our own or hotel motel tax dollars that are passed through. And that's our primary market is sustaining and growing hotel motel tax revenue In Iowa City, we receive 25% of the revenue is passed through to our organization, and that is the same in all communities in Iowa City. The rest of the hotel motel tax funds are funded through our support Parks and Rec, and then the public safety efforts. Here is the way the council here has chosen to spend those dollars over the years. So I tell folks, you know, we're not property tax base. So unless you're in trouble and you're sleeping in a hotel room, you're not really contributing to our budget. We do all of our work through these three primary buckets, innovative sales and marketing, authentic placemaking and intentional community engagement. Uh, a little bit of overview of each kind of bucket last year in sales and marketing, which is our primary work, bringing people here,

making them feel welcome and then sending them home. Maybe they decide to stick around and learn more about McKinsey and greater Iowa City and want to move here. But last year, in 2025, our team serviced 67 different organizations conferences, meetings, sporting groups that welcomed over 93,000 visitors to town, and those visitors spent just over $18 million while they were in Iowa City. In Coralville, we closed 2025 with a record number of future bookings, so it was definitely one of the strongest year for things that are to come. And so when you combine the future bookings with those still to be realized, uh, most of our bookings when we book an event, it's going to be here 2 to 3 years from now. That's typically the cycle for bigger conferences, meetings, and sporting events. There are certainly some exceptions, but when we combine all that, we're anticipating future conferences and meetings, uh, about 61 different conferences and meetings, 42 different sporting events and tournaments. All of that translates to just short of 146,000 future visitors, just short of 40 or just over 41,000 room nights and 38 million in future spending. Sports are obviously a very big part of what we do here. We see it all the time. Realize it. Obviously this bottom left photo we just celebrated this past November, the first of a five year contract for Iowa City to be the host of the annual Girls State Swimming and Diving championships. So we're pretty proud of that partnership and partner with not only the city of Iowa City, but the University of Iowa and the Wellness Center. And it was fun to kind of turn that facility as pink as we can get it. They enjoy their pink ribbons and pink rollouts and all of that for the girls state tournament. So, um, we are home to a record number of state championships to the point to where we're getting a little criticized at a state level as to why we're getting our maybe more than our fair share, but we received that because of, I think the large work that our sports Commission does in

exceeding expectations and providing an experience that these girls enjoy when they come here. And boys, we primarily we have about seven girls state tournaments and three boys. And recently a couple of. Excuse me, a couple of weeks ago, we were awarded our 10th state tournament. So next year we will become the new home. Not surprisingly, of the annual Girls State Wrestling Duals. We already host the state tournament, so they'll have a dual tournament that kicks off next year. >> Cool.

We're also the, uh, the sort of deft hand behind bike Iowa City that's a brand we developed and continue to run to this day. It runs as an independent sort of marketing strategy, and we partner, we actually contract with Liz Hubing and others in our community to continue to advance the bike Iowa City efforts Not surprisingly, we continue to leverage as much as we can this Russell Town USA brand. We truly are Russell Town, USA. There's really probably three things that Iowa City I believe from a tourism brand can lay claim to across this planet, the first being certainly our literary writing history here and the writer's Workshop and being a Unesco City of Literature. No matter where you're at in the world, if you're anywhere close to the sport of wrestling, you have heard of Iowa City, Iowa, and, uh, that's another one. And then I think the other one we're really proud of and we try and promote is that relationship we have with women's athletics and Dr. Christine Grant. And in many ways, being laid claim to being one of the birthplaces of title nine. AI is certainly changing the world, and it's no different in our world in sort of this information age. While we continue to face while face to face, um, efforts, sales efforts and Strong relations continue to drive business, we're seeing, uh, AI change the landscape. And so we're tracking that and like many across all our peers, across the broader information economy, we are experiencing sustained and expansion, exponential growth across website and social media platforms. Uh, last past year, we recorded just over 7 million impressions in 136,000 different interactions with visitors looking for information on Iowa City Coralville North Liberty Authentic placemaking. It's important to be able to clearly say who we are and represent as a community. We continue to work towards. We're able better supporting subgroups in the area, neighborhoods, interest

groups and culture groups, and developing their unique identities and placemaking within our community and intentionally learning more about what residents think and look for, especially newer neighbors migrating into Johnson County. After the meeting, I'm sure Angie will be happy to stick around and all the big projects she's working on as it relates to a community needs assessment and where we can support more in our particular area of focus, and then certainly leveraging our core pillars that I just kind of spoke to arts, athletics, that writing heritage, that wrestling heritage, developing compelling stories around and messaging those much like we supported North Liberty with the Hy-Vee center out at Centennial Park and Coralville in our river landing with Extreme Arena this past year, we spent a fair amount of time in University Heights. They recently polished off and we supported the development of a multi-use trail plan that will be taking place on 36 acres to the north of University Heights and just to the south of um. I guess it would be Carver-hawkeye Arena. So that plan is being put into action right now. They recently approved that. Uh, we also have recently begun work and sent out an RFP to partner with the Johnson County Fairgrounds to do a deeper dive in there and identifying where opportunities exist there and what needs to improve out there in order to take advantage of that particular attraction, how to better it for the betterment of the larger community, and then Nick has been working with Josh Moe and Brant Smith up in North Liberty and many others to make sure we stay in touch. Uh, and are on everybody's radar as it relates to the Burlington Street Bridge replacement study and everything else that Nick is leading on behalf of pillar one with the Better Together 2030 initiative. We recently won a big award at the state. We didn't know we were winning award. It was kind of a surprise, but we started a brand new series that highlights all of the uniqueness of the

culinary scene in Iowa City. It's called blend. Uh, we talked to one of our friends, Nate Kaeding, into kind of playing the role of Guy Fieri. And if you haven't seen it, here's. Iowa City area is a full blend of history, stories, characters, experiences. And last but not least, great food. I'm Nate Kaeding, you might remember me from kicking the football for the Iowa Hawkeyes and the San Diego Chargers. I grew up here and moved back to raise my family after my playing career was over. Through this series, I want to share with you the eclectic mix that makes my hometown such a unique place to live and to visit. This is blend in Iowa foodie experience.

That was a trailer for the first episode, which focused on a couple restaurants and I believe a duck egg farm just south of here. Uh, we already came out with a second episode, which was a little bit more focused. We actually took Ukimura, the Japanese star hockey player, and talked about different culinary cuisines in the community, and he went up to Solon, and then we have a couple more being filmed right now, but it's being received very well. Uh, this sort of culinary tourism video series that, that we're, uh, we're kind of investing in. It was already recognized a few weeks back at the state tourism conference for being one of the more innovative ideas, uh, really. Nick and Monica Nieves Hirsch on our team have have done a great job leading this. Oh, didn't mean to start that again Intentional community engagement. As I think I mentioned last year, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I would have said it's not really important that the community know what we do. I mean, at the end of the day, we're our job is to put heads in beds for hotels. And so it's far more important that you all know the return we're providing on the pass through hotel, motel tax dollars and how we're trying to continue that, that really more and more Covid kind of proved that was the wrong way to think of things. The more and more we have become engaged in our community, the more and more opportunities have come about. A perfect example of that is Sunday. I appreciated everything that recently happened with Sunday Downtown, and I hope everything continues to move forward there. But I remember, you know, just because of some of our work with Better Together, he came knocking on my office one day and said, Josh, I want to tell you about this new festival I want to create in Iowa City. And I thought, this is great. I love everything about it. What year are we doing it? And he's like, we're going to do it in 60 days. And I'm like, you're insane. That is never going to happen. And so he said, no, we can do it. We have all the right people. So we invested and it turned out incredible that first year, and obviously last year was even better. And so we're excited about year three And all of those things wouldn't have happened if we hadn't made an effort to be more intentionally engaged in, in the community.

And having the community learn more about us and the, and the, the efforts that we the resources that we have to kind of advance some of these, these, these quality of life festival community, um, engaging opportunities. These are a few, obviously, I just mentioned Sunday's, the African Festival Arts and culture Refocus Film Festival is something we were the initial sponsor for. Uh, it certainly ties in great. The adaptation film fest to the Unesco City of Literature, North Liberty's Fire and Ice. Down here in the middle was a partnership and something we did out at Wilson's Apple Orchard. And then our ongoing efforts to continue to support things like Summer of the Arts and Unesco City of Literature. We also started a new series last year, which has been received very well, and we're going to continue to expand that. It really highlights and promotes local artists and what they're doing in the community. This didn't quite play there, so it's a shorter clip, but this was one of our series. There's a few of these already out. If you go to the Think Iowa City YouTube page, and this was one hour and Carlos Maldonado.

I go to a lot of remote places where I won't see anybody for hours. My name is Carlos Maldonado. I am a full time artist living in Iowa City. I am a full time painter specializing in plein air painting, which is painting on location outdoors. It's really cool to kind of just be in nature and study the area and the location and be in the moment. I am a very forgetful person. Like I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast. But when I look at a painting that I did in plein air, I can remember the temperature, the bugs, all these things that I'm paying attention to in the moment. >> Go back to that. So I encourage you to, uh, to take a look a few of those videos and learn more about the artists that are in our community, kind of celebrating our community and promoting our community. The other initiative that we've been really proud to be a part of is, is really under the, the leadership of, of Betsy and the entire team of the Iowa City downtown district. But we've been really excited to kind of co-fund this, this Iowa City free week, which celebrated its second year. And we have a lot of hopes that that's going to continue to explode and are proud to be good partners with the downtown district on that. As Mackenzie already mentioned, and you all are well aware, this was really under Mackenzie's great leadership and Nick Pfeiffer and the amount of hours those two spent together strategizing and getting the vote out. But we were super proud to co-fund the efforts of lost this past year and help lead the the campaign that was really, truly record breaking on a number of fronts for Iowa City Coralville North Liberty to get close to 80% on all three is pretty remarkable. What does all this mean? So I wanted to end with a couple of the dollar signs. The return slides. Last year, visitors to

Johnson County spent $714 million while they were in county. These are people that do not have spent money in this town, that do not have zip codes, are from this town or this county. They spent 104 million in local and state taxes, and they spent $6.5 million in hotel motel taxes for every $1 of hotel motel tax that was received through all those conferences and meetings and sporting events that we brought to town and are here, we brought a return of $18.60, which is a pretty healthy return to the community. And that's just from conference sports sales efforts. This is a, um, tracking of hotel motel tax over the last ten years, the blue line represents Coralville. The black is Iowa City, the green. When I did this to North Liberty, you know, no offense to North Liberty, but they have one hotel. Uh, you can see they've slowly grown. And then orange is University Heights, which also has one hotel. But that shows the difference between, um, flags and location, uh, with, uh, with those two particular cities. So, um, obviously 2021 was, was Covid. So we had a pretty good dip there, but, uh, been pretty pleased with the continuous growth of hotel motel tax and what that's been able to do for the city's with alternative revenue in addition to the pass through for us to continue to build. >> Just to clarify, that does not include short term rentals like Airbnbs.

It does. It does. Yeah. So Airbnb hotel motel tax is collected by the state. Uh, it's part of the rate. And then the state throws that into the, they send it back to the collecting jurisdiction. Yep. Thank you. So any short term rentals, I believe, uh, used to be over/under 31 days, but then the Clinton city of Clinton got that changed to 90 days. >> Okay.

So what's next? There's a few big, big things on the horizon. Uh, we I was telling Jeff and the mayor on a text the other night, it hasn't been announced publicly. I mean, I guess maybe it has, but Savannah bananas game is sold out. Uh, sold out in about ten hours. Uh, so two full games, 130,000 people will be coming to town July 3rd and fourth, which will be terrific. Um, and then just before that, though, that should say July 3rd and fourth, not June. My apologies. Just before that, we're super excited. And just about a month. Um, we will be welcoming and we will be host to the 2026 Pan American Championships. And we have been working very hard. Nick can tell you all about all of the embassies around South and Central America that we've been visiting with, with our delegations to work through visa challenges. But we are I just got back from Panama a couple days ago where the U17 Pan AMS happened, and I met with every federation and Nick's list to make sure they're all checking the boxes. But just to reiterate how excited we are to welcome all of our friends from South and Latin America and and certainly our friends from Canada to, to Iowa and how we aim to really roll out the red carpet and, and make an example of how we should be welcoming our visitors from different parts of the world. So, uh, a lot of those countries will start to arrive. They'll have about 320 people from 30, 30, roughly 25 to 30 countries. Several of them will arrive as early as April 20th. Argentina and Ecuador will be here for about two weeks before training and practicing. And these are the best men and women wrestlers in all of the Americas that will be here. So they will wrestle for four days and then they'll head back to, uh, to their homeland. It's not just sports. There's a lot of big time conferences coming in June. Downtown Iowa City will welcome the largest conference to ever come to Iowa City, Coralville

It's the National Criminal Defense College conference. The mayor played a huge role in us landing this. We beat out Indianapolis. We are the final two cities, which is pretty remarkable that a city like Iowa City is going to beat out Indianapolis. But we will have. There will be 4000 hotel room nights booked for the month of June associated with just this conference, and we booked them on a multi year. So they'll be back next year as well. And then just a month later over in Coralville will welcome a group called the Catholic Daughters of America. We booked several years ago, and they will have about 3500 room nights all over town for the for their annual conference. So this next few months are going to be pretty, pretty busy between now and the fall. And a lot, a lot of hotel rooms and visitors will be will be rolling in to, uh, to, to enjoy Iowa City. >> Very, very good job. Mayor. Um, I'm also just curious, uh, when it comes to, uh, competing for conferences like that, if you will. Like I didn't know it, you know, came down to two. I'm just kind of curious about that process. I mean, did the mayor, did you just go win them over with your amazing personality or. Well.

You should tell the story about what happened. So. Wow. >> So I to make it short, so I did a video just, highlight our community. And I think it was undoubtedly that we were the, the best choice. I'm more than happy to send any of you the video. It's far more than just he did a video and he also did a video for Savannah Bananas. And he's been. >> A yellow suit I want to see that. >> No, that's what Savannah banana guys wear, right? >> So yellow top.

Our mayors all do a great job. And when the mayors can't do it, council members step in. But these welcomes are really, really important. Um, when these groups come to town and they think, they think I can guarantee you the mayor of Indianapolis probably didn't do a welcome for that for that video, but we got the mayor. >> Josh, when you're trying to recruit or attract a conference to come to Iowa City, do you or the region, do you find that there are gaps in our physical infrastructure, like venue size or proximity of things that, um, from a planning perspective, we should be considering? >> Uh, yeah, I mean, certainly we have our market where there's certainly big ten health and medical and education conferences that we're just not going to get because we don't have the number of hotel rooms attached to meeting space. Um, the, the really only venue we have for conference space in that particular market that is pretty flexible and large enough would be the one in the, our river landing. Uh, but that doesn't mean that that's just Coralville. There's a ton of conferences I could show you that are booking overflow hotel rooms and they love to come to overflow hotel rooms in downtown Iowa City, particularly some of these groups who went to school here and want to relive the PED mall. The dental college is a perfect example of that. When they have their conference here. Uh, so there are there are pieces of business we miss out. Um, the graduate can be a little challenging in terms of just meeting space because they just have the one ballroom, which is great, but in order to flip it for conferences, you need to send the people somewhere, maybe for the lunch and then they come back. But the team there really does a great job with what they have. Uh, Hilton Garden Inn is exceptional for a certain conference. So, uh, the one thing that's super exciting is the university's pivoted a little bit and is getting more and more interested and aggressive in allowing their spaces to be rented. A good example of that that

happened recently is, um, UBC. We had universal ballet competition, which was national. We had 600 ballet folks headquartered out of the Hilton Garden Inn just a couple weeks ago and use Hancher. And so to be able to have Hancher available for those sort of events, to be able to use Platte Recital Hall for a reception. When we have the CDC college is really opening up some doors. So, um, Pete and whether it's Pete and his partnership there or the university needing to find alternative revenue, which is part of it as well, and opening up some opportunities, it's been, it's been really good for Iowa City. >> Great. Thanks.

Any other questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Great job All right. We are going to move on to item number five which is an update on creation of our nonprofit affiliate organization of the housing authority. Welcome, Tracy.

I'm just going to start this for Dave If I can. Okay. Um, Tracy, with Neighborhood Development Services, I'd like to introduce Dave Bright. He is with the Iowa Nonprofit Resource Center, and he's an adjunct professor for the College of Law. He'll walk us through the creation of a housing authority affiliated nonprofit that would operate exclusively for the benefit and support of the housing authority. As you recall from previous conversations and presentations, our current public housing program is not sustainable. We are operating out of reserves. So every year we're going into our reserves, which were developed about two decades ago when we sold public housing properties. That's sustainable for the long term. And what we're getting from HUD is that it's not a good picture. Regarding increased operating or capital expenses for the public housing program. So we're working with a consultant on a public housing repositioning strategy. Whatever final method, we we move towards that repositioning. The one thing we have to do is we have to create a nonprofit affiliate. Um, and I want to emphasize that creating this nonprofit does not commit the council to any specific repositioning path. It doesn't, it doesn't approve a submission to application to HUD and it doesn't transfer the sale of a property to the nonprofit. All those decisions have to come back to you for approval. So I'm going to have Dave walk you through, um, the proposed bylaws and articles of incorporation and highlight the government structure, explain how the housing authority will maintain as much control as we can, and also a secondary benefit that we didn't realize when we were going down this path, but creating that nonprofit affiliate also allows us to apply for workforce housing tax credits for the Summit Street project. And that deadline is June 10th. So we're kind of working under a time frame to apply for those funds. So Dave.

Great welcome.

Good evening. Thank you for having me. Um, just a little background, just sort of on who we are, just to myself, uh, I work at the College of Law at the Waterman Iowa Nonprofit Resource Center. We were founded in 2000 by Sandy Boyd. Uh, have been in operation since then. And we work with nonprofit organizations and individuals around the state on all manner of projects, formations, dissolutions, conversions, um, we work in three main areas education, engagement, and research. We're really good at education and engagement. We have no time for research, so I won't speak too much to what we do in that regard, but we do a lot of what we're doing today. We help people, uh, talk about how to form an organization, why they might need that organization, why maybe they don't need that organization, uh, and help them work through those steps. Uh, and so with that in mind, to give you a little while our standard, you know, you can't have a lawyer in the room without a disclaimer. So, uh, while we're here talking about legal things, obviously the city has council and so we wouldn't be serving in a council role, although we are attorneys. Um, a little background on our process. We previously worked with Tracy on some projects, right? How stream city MDC of Iowa City and she contacted us about, um, the idea of forming a nonprofit to hold and manage the city's affordable housing assets. So we had an initial meeting with Tracy, uh, and the legal staff and other people from the housing staff to sort of talk about what was involved, where this idea was coming from. Subsequent to that, uh, we met with representatives from Baker Tilly and Cordell. Uh, that just kind of gave us background on the conversations that had taken place so far and what would be involved, uh, from our end. And also kind of gave us some familiarity with other municipalities who had been through this process. Um, and so we could, uh, kind of, you know, learn from other people's experience. We're a big fan of

going out and seeing what other people have done. Uh, relying on that, rejecting that obviously is, you know, your situation varies and differs from, from other locations. Um, and we reviewed the documentation that Baker Tilly, and Cordell provided, looked at some case scenarios that they had from other municipalities to just kind of generate some ideas and thoughts about how best to approach it. We also reviewed some formation documents, specifically articles of incorporation and bylaws, uh, from an entity in Minnesota in the Twin Cities, to be specific. Uh, that seemed most similarly situated to where we were and what we were doing. Um, and then we put together draft articles of incorporation and bylaws, uh, for discussion and review purposes with, with the staff, uh, Eric and I discussed those drafts, finalized them for review and discussion with staff and council at this work session. Um, and so that's kind of where we are obviously today. Um, with respect to the documents, um, just some sort of basic overview of the process for this. So if you haven't gone through it before, you can get a little familiarity with it. Um, assuming the draft articles of incorporation are approved in a final form by the city, uh, they would be filed with the secretary of state of Iowa that would create a separate, uh, what Iowa calls a domestic nonprofit corporation. And for purposes of definition, domestic means you're either from Indiana or you're from India. It doesn't matter. You're just not, you know, you're within Iowa if you're domestic, if you're foreign, you're from any other jurisdiction. Um, and then we also prepared draft bylaws. Those would be adopted by the initial board of directors. Upon incorporation of the corporation. So that would be sort of the second step in your formation. Um, one thing that's important to note is that this would be a nonprofit corporation in Iowa. It would not get tax exempt status. That's not required for these purposes. The organization

could be positioned for that if so desired. Um, but since no application to the IRS for tax exemption is anticipated at this time, we didn't we didn't include the additional requirements, uh, within the formation documents that you normally would if you knew you were going to go on and form a tax exempt, uh, some basic content, uh, from the, from the documents. And you can see these in the copies of the documents that were that we provided the initial board of directors would be comprised of two members of the city staff from the housing department, uh, and the mayor pro tem, um, those are essentially by virtue of the office, right? Or ex officio positions, similar to the positions that Josh was describing with respect to the that that board in his presentation, the initial board, those three people would recruit and vet and identify members from the private sector, uh, who would serve on the board. And we think that there would be some advantages in having those private sector members on the board who could bring experience and development, construction, other areas that would be relevant to the operation and the governance of this entity as it managed and held these assets. Um, the other key advantage to having members from the private sector would be that in the event that this organization wanted to contract with the city for the management of these properties, it could do so, but it would have sufficient members on the board who could vote on that matter and not require the people who work for the city or the mayor pro tem, who obviously have existing relationships with the city and avoid any potential conflicts of interest that way. So it would give you some flexibility as you were negotiating and working with the city, perhaps to provide services for management purposes of those of those housing assets. So very quick overview, obviously, in terms of what we, we've done. Um, but you do have the documents available to you, the articles and the bylaws.

Um, if anybody has any questions about those, I'd be happy to answer them. Um, if you haven't had a chance to review them, certainly you could reach out and we could discuss them by email or you could contact me at a future date if you'd be interested in learning more. But, um, certainly I'm happy to take questions if anybody has any at this point. >> Yeah.

I would like just to ask you if you can again talk about the board of directors selection. When you say like the mayor pro tem and the two other staff, they will recruit three other community members. Is this means those three are going to replace the initial mayor pro tem or this is going to be six. It's not going to be six six board members that if I count all of them, uh, or. Yeah, and I know that have to be like an odd number maybe, I don't know. Yes. Tell me a little bit about that. >> Sure.

Um, we wouldn't anticipate having members from the private sector replace those three. They just serve as the initial directors. When you're starting the entity and when you say have your initial meeting to adopt bylaws and take other initial formation steps. So they would be the first three in place who would then help to identify additional members to join them in serving on the board of directors. But we wouldn't be replacing them. And those three roles, the city staff and the mayor pro tem, since they're ex officio, would be by virtue of the office. So as those people, you know, moved on, retired, did whatever they did in their careers and weren't in those roles anymore, the next people to inhabit those roles would serve in that same capacity. So you would always have those representatives from the city serving on the board, but you would also have members from the private sector serving on it. And to your question about the the number of them, ideally, you have an odd number to, you know, avoid a deadlock. You can also build in deadlock provisions if you need to in your governing documents to address that. Um, I wouldn't say that the board size is fixed at this time. And we started with a certain number just as sort of a place to start, but that's certainly something that can be considered as we continue with the process.

Do you mean like the majority of the board members will be community member? >> Well, I mean that you would have people from the city who would serve on the board by virtue of their positions with the city, and then you would have people from the community that you would recruit, ideally, with some experience that would be relevant to running a nonprofit that's focused on affordable housing. So you would want to look at the community and see, you know, find people who would be qualified to serve and make sure that they were came with appropriate skill sets and backgrounds.. But still, the majority is not city employees. The majority. No. I mean, you would have the city would have two people on the board at all times that are staff, and then they'd have one member of council.

And you said you already like, take this example from another city, like the Twin Cities in Minnesota and all those. Can you tell me a little bit about the people, the board for those examples? >> Uh. It varies. Some of them, if they have, uh, Housing Authority like a, you know, say like how we have our planning and zoning commission, if they have a housing commission that serves that similar kind of function, oftentimes they would have everyone who's on that commission automatically serve on the board of that nonprofit. So the boards would be essentially identical. Um, others would have a mix of staff and members of the council. There really wasn't any set kind. It just kind of varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. And I think a lot of that was attributable to what kind of system did they have in place. So if they had that commission, they would rely on those people to serve. If they didn't have a commission that was appointed by the city council or other governing body, and they relied on staff in that regard. It was staff. And then in many cases, a mix of staff and and and council members or elected officials, I should say. >> And the majority is not a city employees. >> Um, I don't recall seeing one where a majority was city employees. I mean, it's possible that there are, but but I didn't see any that had that kind of structure. >> And what's wrong with making the majority of city employees? >> Well, I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with it. What you're trying to avoid is any potential conflicts of interest that if you have people from the city who are serving on the board and then let's say they're contracting with the city to provide management services, you wouldn't want to have people who are working in the department that would provide those services. And also serving on the board of directors for the corporation that's contracting with the city. For those services, you'd want to have enough directors on that board who are disinterested. In other words, they don't have an obligation to the city by virtue of their employment or by being an elected official. So it would give you flexibility and

freedom. It doesn't require that you contract with the city. It just gives you the ability to do that. And obviously, in this instance where you're talking about housing stock that's been managed by the city for some time, there's a strong argument that those may be the best people to manage those entities. It doesn't mean they have to be, but it would obviously give them an advantage because of that history.

But those people who are not employees are in the board, just like a volunteer, people who are going to give advice. But at the end of the day, the city is the one who's doing everything right as, as like, because those people consider, consider like the board is just like a governor, but the actual people who do the administrations and everything will be the city, right?

Well, it could be. I mean, it doesn't have to be. I mean, you could you could contract with someone else to provide the management services of, of the housing stock that's owned by that nonprofit. I just think the city is a good candidate for it. And so if you're thinking about opening yourself up to as many options as possible in terms of who you could have manage those assets, you wouldn't want to create a situation where you couldn't engage the city because the only people who serve on your board are people who work for the city. And then how do you figure out, you know, who votes to approve that, right? Everybody's got a conflict of interest. They couldn't. >> So, yeah, I agree with you that the city would be the best option to manage those, because we want to make sure that we do everything like in good quality, even management. But what if the people who are not a city employee are the majority and they decide that this is not going to be the city doing it? And now we we have to go by what they said, because they are the majority and they are the governing body. So I guess like a little concern about that, if it could happen too. But now the city is the one who wanted to do to become a developer. Now the city is the one who wanted to provide quality, affordable housing. And that's why when I say we, I, I feel like maybe more city staff, which is the majority would be great. We still need to hear from the public. We still need to hear their opinions. But I feel like that the majority should be that. But I think that's the Council like kind of discussion. I'm sorry, but.

No, no, no, you're great question. Do you mind if I. >> So what I will say is we have ten minutes before 6 p.m. We're going to put a pin in this and we'll come back after the formal session to continue this discussion. >> But Maya, before you go on, I forgot to ask you also, I want to Below are the six key. As a separate consideration. Also. >> Great. Thanks. All right. I'm wondering whether you need Mr. Bright to stick around or have council ask the questions that they need. I have been speaking with Mr. About this.

I think we have city staff or yourself. They probably answer the majority of the questions. Are we comfortable with that? Just having Eric. >> If you can. I think if you can, we're not going to push you. But I think if you can, you. >> Should stay. Okay. Quick question on timing, because I know you had said this is what somewhat time sensitive. We want to use it for summit, but we're not voting on this tonight. You are not. >> So if we have questions you can't answer and it comes up on a future agenda will be able to ask. >> It is our hope to bring something to you to take action at your next meeting on the 21st. >> So if there's something you can answer tonight, we can get the answer between now and then. That's right. >> Sure. I didn't know that. Thank you for your cooperation. >> Sure. All right.

Okay. >> Thank you. Where we are going to be in recess from our work session until after our formal meeting. >> Eric

Great. All right, well, it is April 7th, 2026, and it's just after 6 p.m.. I'm going to call the city of Iowa City meeting to order. Roll call please. >> Alter. Here. Bergus. Here. Harmsen. >> Here. Oh. Here. >> Yes. Teague. >> Here.

Here. >> All right. Well, I want to welcome all of you to your city hall that is here in person. And hello to everyone that is joining us virtually. We're going to move on to items in our agenda, which is too-a proclamations. Um two, which is proclamations. And two, A is fair housing month, whereas April 26th marks the 58th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act, which enunciates a national policy of fair housing for all who live in the United States. And whereas the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status and national origin. And Whereas the city of Iowa City additionally prohibits discrimination because of Creed, age, marital status, sexual orientation, presence, or absence of dependents, gender identity, or public assistance, source of income. And whereas fair housing is a positive community, good and whereas economic stability, community health and human relations and all communities are improved by diversity and integration. And whereas acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal housing opportunity are repugnant to a common sense of decency and fairness. Now therefore, I Bruce Teague, mayor of Iowa City, do hereby proclaim April 2026. To be fair Housing Month in Iowa City to establish Iowa City as an inclusive community committed to fair housing and to promote appropriate activities by private and public entities intended to provide or advocate for equal housing opportunity for all residents and prospective residents of Iowa City, and to receive this

proclamation, as Catherine Davies and Liz Garr and, um, from. Yeah, so welcome at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And members of Council, on behalf of the Johnson County Affordable Housing Coalition, we thank your continued dedication for fair and affordable housing for all Iowans. >> Great. Thank you both All right. We are moving on to item number two. B Sexual Assault Awareness Month Whereas sexual abuse, sexual violence and stalking affect anyone, including children causing long term physical, psychological and emotional harm. And whereas every 68 seconds an American is sexually assaulted and every nine minutes that victim is a child, and whereas approximately 70% of people affected by rape or sexual assault experienced moderate to severe distress, a large percentage than for any other violent crime. And whereas sexual violence in rural communities exists as a hidden, silent, and often unrecognized crime that is often underreported, it is widespread and affects every community member. And whereas through the inspiration, courage and resilience of people affected by sexual violence, our communities are learning to be better. Uh, to, to better respond to the life changing impact of sexual violence on individuals through systems and in the community. And whereas DV I, p and r v a p has worked to end violence and abuse for more than 45 years through the collaborative partnerships of staff, volunteers, local municipalities, criminal justice, health and human

services, faith communities, business leaders and private community members, and whereas our community's achievements should be commended and we must continue our commitment to respect and support those affected by sexual violence and to prevent future violence in our community. Now therefore, I Bruce Teague, Mayor of Iowa City, do hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Iowa City, Iowa, and urge all people to work together to eliminate sexual violence, sexual abuse and stalking from our community and to receive this. As Andy, the director of domestic Violence and Sexual assault advocate, accepting this proclamation.

Hi, I'm Emmy, thank you for the introduction. Um, we wanted on behalf of DV, IP and Rvp to thank, um, the Mayor Teague and the city Council and the Iowa City community at large for um, your continued support for our organization. Um, through that support, um, our s-a-r advocates were able to attend 189 sane exams last year. Um, and we were also able to provide 1604, um, sexual assault services last year. Um, so that's a huge amount, a huge amount of support through the community. And I will also say that, um, through the eight different counties we serve, um, two of the three places that you can get a sane exam exist in Iowa City. And so through the support of the Iowa City community, we're not not only able to advocate for survivors in our community, but also in seven other counties. Um, so thank you for your continued support.

Great. >> Thank you. All right. We are going to move on to our consent agenda, which is items three through seven with separate consideration for £0.06. Can I get a. Motion and. >> 6B6P and six K. All right Can I get a motion please. >> So moved.

Second Harmsen. >> All right. Anyone from the public like to discuss this topic. If you're online please raise your virtual hand. Seeing no one in person or online council discussion. >> I just want to like. I'm very excited that each time I see the city is home to make it affordable and good. And after that, even if we sell it to people, it's still like, that's something really good. I just would like to bring to your attention something like, um, the city is really going far and beyond trying to do like this, like kind of, uh, increase affordable housing stock in Iowa City, but also we noticed you can also add housing provider that we are missing large houses. We are really missing like six bedroom, five bedroom, uh, you know, units in Iowa City, like according, like I talked many times to the Housing Fellowship and they don't have that. And I don't see any developer willing to do six bedroom, five bedroom for like a lot of four bedrooms. So I just want to highlight that when we have like this kind of opportunity And if the city, instead of like doing it like two separate, uh unit, we can still some time think about purchasing and make like just one single unit with six bedroom or four bedroom or like whatever, you know, we can do to like increase, like, you know, how is it that like larger houses for like family that who are really like, because nobody likes doing it right now, we don't see developers doing it. We don't see. And even if the developer did like fix five, six will be like this huge, you know, houses, which is very expensive. So like, I'm very excited that

the city is doing it. But let us think about that too. That's what I'm thinking. >> Hearing no other comments. Roll call please. >> Alter. Yes. >> Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Yes. Teague. Yes. >> Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0. We are going to swing back to item £0.06 and six K. Could I get a motion to um. Should we handle those separately. Yes. We should do them separate. Thank you. All right, let's do, um, six k first. Um, so could I get a motion to approve six K. So moved >> Second. Weiland.

All right. Moved by Bergus. Seconded by William. Anyone from the public like to discuss these. Uh, this item. If you're online, raise your virtual hand, which I don't see anyone right now. See no one in person or online. Council discussion. >> Yeah, I just would like if if you know somebody from the housing authority or, you know, can come and tell us exactly what this and how I understand that my understanding is, uh, during Covid, we have a lot of families who are homeless and we starting this emergency housing vouchers so we can like, uh, you know, just help those people who are families or people who are homeless. And after that, this is being covered by the like the, you know, American Rescue Fund, I think, and, uh, or maybe the emergency fund, whatever it is from HUD. And after that, now we are seeing it like it going to have sunset. So that's why we are looking for a way to house those people, right? >> Correct. Yeah. The emergency housing vouchers were created in 2021 by HUD in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. Iowa City Housing Authority was originally granted 69 of those vouchers. We've successfully leased 83 families. I believe in those right now, 53 of them are still currently leased in the realm of housing for formerly homeless households. This is a very big win, keeping 53 households housed this many number of years. Um, and we collaborate with Shelter House. Shelter House provides case management support for these families. That number of vouchers staying stably housed, given the circumstances they came from, is such a celebration for our community and shows how powerful a voucher can be in that situation. Uh, unfortunately, HUD notified us last year that they plan on discontinuing funding. These vouchers.

We don't have a firm date, but they anticipate by the end of calendar year 2026, there has been a lot of conversation on a national level of how emergency housing voucher households should be treated. Um, there is there was a waiver available for housing authorities to apply for to justify cause for us to be able to take our emergency housing voucher households and put them onto a regular housing choice voucher without a disruption in their rent assistance. It was a long process to apply for that waiver. We did apply. We were successful. We were granted that waiver. And now the next step is what you see before you to amend our administrative plan so we can. It still is a little bit convoluted, the process, but the waiver is allowing us to place our emergency housing voucher households directly on our waitlist and develop a preference to pull them off before anybody else. So we're able to, through several steps, give them a regular housing choice voucher and ensure their continuity of housing stability.

Are these the households that are, say, 53 still housed? Right. But say all of a sudden there's one family that might be in danger of dropping off. It's that family or there's. So that would be. >> It's all 53 of the currently with the EHV. So will discontinue the vouchers completely. >> Can you talk a little about how you was covering it Because I my understanding that we don't have vouchers and you said there was like money from HUD, the US like paying it every month, like they rent the housing authority was paying their, their rent. Like how it was work. Yes. >> Right now we're we get an allocation from HUD for these 53 families monthly. Uh, off the top of my head, it's between 30 and $35,000 a month. Um, and we pay the rent and the idea with this administrative plan amendment is that as we have vouchers available through attrition over the course of the next year, we have about a 9% attrition rate annually. That's shown pretty consistent over the last decade that will prioritize giving these households who are currently stably housed with a voucher, already a housing choice voucher. So we make sure we're not risking their housing status and all the families, the households that came to us into the EHV program were currently homeless at the time of their referral, so they were either literally homeless or in shelter. Shelter House Uh, and certainly have had a lot of barriers to housing stability. So wanting to make sure that we continue providing that support. >> Yeah, I'm really glad you are doing that. I'm not against it. I just wanted to add this is this is this is not a voucher currently. This is just like a system from HUD. That you receive. And now they're going to lose it. So that's why you want to find a way to put them

back to the waiting list. While the waiting list is closed, and also put them in the top of the waiting list. So the first available, they can, they can get the first voucher. But what the difference between those groups and the permanent supportive housing voucher that the Shelter House sometime ask for it and we allocate it? Yeah. >> Those are mainstream vouchers. So these are all what HUD calls specialty vouchers. The HUD uses a lot of acronyms. So you'll see SPV sometimes or specialty vouchers. We have we have a really large percentage especially vouchers, the largest percentage in the state of Iowa, which I think nobody's probably surprised by that. We're very good at this. Hud-vash is especially voucher. We have 90 vouchers for veterans experiencing homelessness mainstream. We have 78 of those vouchers that Shelter House uses for permanent supportive housing. We have an MOU with them for that. We also have stability vouchers. That fits in that same vein with Shelter House. Um, and emergency housing vouchers were just a specialty voucher type. So it is a voucher, it has a separate funding stream. Mainstream also has the same separate funding stream. The regular housing choice vouchers. So we get a different funding notice. We get different money, but in the exact same way as the regular housing choice voucher program.

And how those 70 something or the 53 has been selected How were they selected originally? They were selected through coordinated entry in Shelter House in 2021.

Okay. Sure. And since we this is great that we are helping homeless people to like give them something too, so you can like prevent them from like going back to the homelessness. But why we don't do this all the time, can we? There is a way because while I was looking to see the rabbit, for example, and I talked to some people over there, they have been telling me that they have amazing program where a homeless people, they have like they have a program that they allocated voucher from the mainstream. They are not special voucher. They just regular voucher for people who are homeless. And I said, why we don't have that here. Oh, can is there something prevent us from doing the same thing in Iowa City? And if you can talk a little bit about that >> Sure. Cedar Rapids has what's called a local targeted preference. They allocate a certain number of vouchers of their allocation. I don't know how many vouchers they have off the top of their head. Off the top of my head. Um, hopefully they do. Uh, I want to say that they dedicate 100, but I might be incorrect about that. So they take 100 vouchers and they say that they're going to give these to service providers to allocate to families or households experiencing homelessness. Uh, we're able to do a local targeted preference like that. It would require an administrative plan change and submission to HUD. So it's a process to get there. Um, but housing authorities are allowed to, uh, put a local targeted preferences for a group of different things. And one of them is households experiencing homelessness. >> But it's doable. It's not like something prohibited by heart or anything, right? Since it is doing it. >> Correct. Yep.

Sure. >> Rachel. I'm sorry. Are you done? >> Go ahead. Yeah. Um, of the 53, remaining e v h EHV voucher holders. How feasible is it? Will we. Will there be an available voucher for them to transition to in the next six, nine months? And is that. >> It's a good question.

Okay. I mean, historically how I mean, I know there's obviously a fit for the right housing, not just a unit, but like do we think there's going to be a substantial number at the end of this program that will be suddenly without. >> I think that of those 53 households sustaining housing without a voucher will likely not be feasible for any of them. We pay the highest per unit cost for these vouchers, which means most of these households don't have any income. If they do have income, it's pretty minimal. Um, and the way they were referred in 2021, I was actually a part of it on the other side as a community service provider at the time, I worked at Hcap at the time, and I know being a part of those discussions on the other side that we as community service providers really referred households with the most barriers, the the most vulnerable. In 2021. And that still holds true. Um, and so I think that without a voucher, we will see a large return to homelessness in this group. Uh, as far as if we're going to have vouchers available. If we look at the historical trend, we should have vouchers available. If I look at the last ten years, I think I mentioned earlier, we have an attrition rate of about 9%. We have about 9% of our voucher holders every year, hopefully mostly for good things. They have enough income that they're no longer needing assistance. Sometimes, you know, people pass away and households leave the program that way or they move to other communities. Um, I will say that in the last six months, which is a very small time period to be thinking about attrition rates, um, ten years is really like a minimum amount that I would want to count on. In the last six months, we've seen almost no attrition. Um, and I don't, I don't have an explanation for that other than it may be a weird fluke. Um, so I'm hopeful that we'll continue the historical trend and have enough vouchers to absorb these at the end of this

time frame. Uh, I know that I've been in conversations with Shelter House pretty considerably about how we protect these households. Um, and if we don't have enough regular housing choice vouchers, we certainly have some backup plans, B, C and D. Thank you, thank you. >> Go ahead.

I was just going to ask, is there um, a specific benefit or, uh, conversely, a, a gap, um, to, to having this, let me just go benefit. Sorry. Um, the local targeted preference program. Is there something that it's addressing that the current waiver that you've been waivers that you've been able to get through HUD to be able to cover these families? Is there is there something that, that, that. What's going on in Cedar Rapids with the local targeted preference? Is that doing something that currently what is set up doesn't do, does it? Does it gain something more for the people who are have vouchers? >> Yeah. Um, you know, removing EHV from the conversation because they're sunsetting, we haven't been able to refer somebody to a new EHV since September of 2023. So we haven't had any new household EHV since September of 2023. Our mainstream vouchers are for non elderly households in which the head of household has a disabling condition. That's a very specific HUD requirement of a mainstream voucher. And so it's a real subset of the population. And same with Hud-vash. Of course, it has to be a veteran experiencing homelessness. So what the local targeted preference like Cedar Rapids uses does is it provides kind of a way to triage households in the most dire need experiencing homelessness that maybe don't fit the criteria of mainstream or, um, stability vouchers, which we were awarded. Seven stability vouchers. We have seven of them. It was certainly not the award anybody was hoping for, but that's what we were given. Um, those all have very specific criteria. And a local targeted preference allows a community to kind of set their

own preferences. >> Thank you. I was just going to say thank you to you and others who are working hard to constantly make the best out of a just a string of bad situations with the current administration. And those efforts are seen and appreciated. Thank you for that. >> Thank you. All right. No other questions. Any other? Oh, no. Um, anyone from the public. Oh, wait a minute. Were we. We're ready to. >> We're ready to vote. That's what I was thinking. Yes. Any other comments? I think council discussion right before we vote. Oh, sure. We can have a council discussion. Yes.

Yeah. I really guess this is this is great that we are housing 53 people that were going like we don't want them to be go back to homelessness. And that's why exactly we're doing this. But this is really bringing this like those people who are homelessness people. And those people were completely homeless and they get this through like assistance from HUD all this time. And now we are putting them back that that's why that will bring really the program that we have it. It's really amazing. And I just feel like this council should think about that. It is next door and they are doing it and it's working. And I think it's really good. And I, I believe while we are now changing this, we can also give direction. If they if we can do that here in Iowa City, uh, I don't know what the other council think, but, uh.

So the one thing I would say is if we're, if one, I think giving direction to. >> Staff. Oh, to explore. Yes. Oh. Got it. I thought you meant to. No, we are not changing. This is because this item is for certain things. >> Sure, sure. But it is like we are changing language to add something and that will be the same. I know that is process and they have to go too hard and get the waiver and everything, but explore this idea.

Yeah, I think it's great. >> Yeah, yeah. >> So thanks. All right. Any other comments. So we've given direction. The majority of council. Um all right. Roll call please. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Yes. Teague. Yes. >> Yes.

Alter. Yes. >> Motion passes 7 to 0. We're on to item number £0.06 from our six K from our consent agenda. No. £0.06 correct. 6P6P from our consent agenda. Architect and engineering agreement for Summit Street project. Um, and anyone from the public like to address this topic. We'll need a motion first. Mayor.

Yes. Can I get a motion, please? All right. Moved by Harmsen. Seconded by Mo. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online council discussion. >> Yeah, I think this is simply we want to approve the design. And everything is not like something major. We're not doing anything but last meeting I proposed that, uh, you know, teaching the some of the one bedrooms to make it two bedroom or three bedroom because I think the demand is a lot when it comes to families. And I want to revisit that idea again. And I told you, I think I spoke to Jeff also about this. And, you know, at this point, we did not do anything like we did not belong. We want to again. And we we did not design and we're not king. That's why I feel like from my own experience with families during the last, uh, you know, from 2023 until now that the people we house a house like 272 people who are renting their own, those people are not in the section eight waiting list. Those people are not in any kind of waiting list because, you know, the waiting list is closed. But those are families, families who live crowd like seven people living in two bedroom apartment. And, you know, uh, four people live also like, uh, with somebody else. And, you know, yes, that's why I think there is a demand of doing it. And now the city become a developer. That's amazing. I love it. And we are doing 50, 50% of the unit that we're going to save. We are going to do 36, and 18 of them is one bedroom. You know, I just feel like we are doing for certain kind of like, like group of people. I want to see like some equity. This is now it is, uh,

whatever square feet it is. I want to see like one third is one bedroom, one third is two bedroom and one third is three bedroom. Even that, if the three bedroom is not become 12 will be less than that because it's one third even if two bedroom is is not seven, you know, it could be like more a little bit. And the one bedroom could be less that that's what I really wanted to add. The Council if we can do it, since this is our first project, let's get started for everyone and divide this area by those people. I think it is just a matter of us directing the designer to do it. That doesn't mean the designer have to do like 133%, maybe 35 for one bedroom, maybe like this. Wherever the designer figure it out. Because at this point, we don't know like how many rooms will be fit. They are. So I just want the council to just understand where I'm coming from and why I'm doing this. And let us give directions to do like one third for each. And after that, the design can come back to us and say, you know what, really we have, we cannot do like 12 one bedroom. We have to do 13. We have to do 14. And but, you know, with that consumption in mind.

Just to make sure I'm following correctly, what you're talking about with the one third is of the square total square footage. Right? So you'd be talking about roughly not be exact, 33% of the square footage for three, two and one, which would end up being still higher numbers of one and two bedroom. But you'd see more parity with a variety of needs. Um, of doing it, doing shooting for an approach that way. >> Exactly. And when I talk about this because you know, that area, I live close to that area, by the way, but that area is really great for family. The school is just like walking distance. The Hy-Vee is just across the street from them. And like everything there, it feels like family oriented bass line and everything. So that's why I will say like, let everybody live there. When I say by everyone, people who need one bedroom, people who need two bedroom, people who need three bedroom.

I know when we talked about this last meeting, one of the things that was coming up, we had several different data points looking at where the majority of you know where the need was, right. And there's a need across the spectrum. Um, I know as I was thinking about this and thinking about the things you talked about, um, I guess the one question I would maybe staff can sort of give us an idea of this if we were to do roughly third, third, third, will they all fail? Because the one thing I don't want to have is, and I'm thinking the answer is going to be yes, but I would just like to hear that, you know, if whatever we do that we're going to have, you know, we're not going to have the wrong size for needs or are we going to fill those units? Because that to me, that's like the. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Tracy. Neighborhood Development Services Director we have such a need in one, two and three bedrooms. Yes. We believe if we build it, they will come. We were just looking at the the need we see for one bedroom households that. That is why we put the recommendation that we did. >> Sure. No, I get that too. I think I think it all makes sense. Like I said, my thought is if we're filling whatever we if we're building stuff that people need, then I'm okay with, you know, doing a nudge towards 3330, you know, third to third, third. But that's fine with me.

I also have a question for Tracy. Um, I assume you were alerted that we were the council was going to ask about sort of changing the numbers a little bit. Did you have a chance to look at the sort of the pro forma for how this building operates and like what the whether this works financially for us to make this. I know that the recommendation that came to us was, was based on, you know, data and research and our national consultant. But I also know there's probably some fudge room is, does this work financially?

Well, we didn't put through the model the third, third, third. Um, we do need a certain percentage of three bedrooms just because of the payment standard and the increase in rent. That helps us cashflow a lot. So that's why you see more three bedrooms and two bedrooms. And then the one bedroom is just for basically purely need. We need one bedroom accessible apartments because we have so many people that are in one bedrooms that can't find accessible one bedroom. So they're in two bedroom units. And so they're paying 40 more than 40% of their income on rent. So that's why we prioritize 1 in 3 bedrooms. Three bedrooms helps with cash flow. But there's also a huge need for us for one, bedrooms that are accessible. >> I feel like yeah, three bedroom, you know, even if my one third third is not working, you know, with the goal I'm looking for, I'm really just looking more families because now we have 18 one bedroom. I want to see even if we still can have the 12 as it is three bedroom. But the idea could be the seven two bedroom. We can make it like ten two bedroom, or maybe like, I don't know, nine two bedroom where we can get two one bedroom to convert them to one two bedroom. This way we're saving one bathroom, we're saving a kitchen, and we know how much is a bathroom. How much is a kitchen? There is there is huge saving. I think it's not going to be, but we can leave the three bedroom to have the cash flow as it is. 12 I don't mind that. Sure. That's great. I thought it going to be less if I went with my idea. Third. >> You don't need to make the unit mix discussion right now or decide on the appropriate unit mix. We will bring that back to you after we hire an architect and they start working. Maybe there's layout, maybe there's site difference about why they want a certain configuration, why they need so many units. But we'll have that good neighbor meeting. We'll have a concept plan. So you don't need to make the decision for unit mix tonight.

Yes. Yeah, I understand that. >> But we did know. I mean, and I'm not contradicting you at all. I'm just remembering that it was like to to know sort of where council is. At exactly. >> When we go through the concept. That'd be better earlier than later. So once we hit final design, we need to know the by the time we get final design. But since we haven't even hired an architect yet. >> It might be a little what. You know. >> So if I'm hearing you right, I think, uh, what maybe what we're talking about here is maybe, you know, when the conversations with the architect happens, say the council is interested in this, uh, is it feasible? Give us maybe an option. And then here's the other one, you know, just to put it into the conversation and then you can come back to us and see what they say. And is that.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, just to be honest with you, if we I know that it's better to give directions early or at least, you know, within the council mind so that we can tell the designer. And if I just like start refreshing my mind as a civil engineer by training, I think whatever we ask the designer, they should do what we ask him to do. And after that he can say, oh, I know that, but you cannot fit like seven two bedroom. But yeah, as much as that, the engineering should reflect with the what we ask him to do and hopefully, yes, yes, I want to, I want you to know if we have concerns here that people want to do that. And after that we can come back to it.

I just want to make sure also that we maintain it within whatever the budget, you know, our costing. You know. Right, right. >> So it's just, it's sort of it's that mosaic or the jigsaw puzzle of, you know, that we, we have a preference for more family centric. Sure. And, but still keeping it within the budget that we've, you know, the grant that we've gotten and the costing that we're thinking it's going to be. >> Putting all things in the mix. >> Yeah.

So. >> I, I definitely come to think that it's like, it is such a great place for families and, and to understand that it might be if that's the direction that council wants to be. I mean, that's also we you had raised it last time, but it's sort of let us sort of the rest of council sort of sit and stew and marinate in it and be like, how do we feel?

Yes, exactly. And now I think if like to to make the I will still say, okay, keep the 12, let the cash flow come. No problem. And let us just think about the two bedroom and the one bedroom. How can we increase the two bedroom? >> Well, also have that conversation with the architect. We're we're. Our goal is 36 units by zoning and we'll have to see what that unit mix. Like with the site that we have available with the on the off site amenities, you know, like the parking, the, the drive. Can we get 36? Does it look at 36? Or if we, if we play with that unit mix, do we only get 34? And what would be the.

Definitely we're not going to get 36 and I understand that we want to increase like more housing. I understand that, but let us think another way. And instead of increasing more housing, let's think about increasing more people to live in those housing. Because when we convert two bedroom to one like two, one bedroom to one two bedroom, we're going to house instead of housing 1 or 2, we're going to house for So we are we increase the people that we are housing more than we. Increasing numbers of units that we supply And I think even if we become 32. But we are like housing more people in the city to than housing less people. In series six. We should go with that because our goal is to house more people that what I believe, I don't. >> Know.

I want to I mean, I do hear council in agreement with coming back with some opportunities for the council to consider. Do you need anything else? Do you understand? Because the majority of the council is saying yes. So. All right. Great. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Roll call please. >> Harmsen. Yes. Yes. Yes. Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0. We're on to item number eight, which is community comment. This is an opportunity for anyone to speak on a matter that is not on our agenda. Um, and I wanted to see if there's anyone that is in council chambers that want to speak on this agenda item. Uh, please raise your hand. All right. We'll invite you to come up at this time and you'll be given three minutes. There is a sign in sheet for you to sign your name. And then please state the name and city you're from. If you already filled out a little card, you can drop it in the basket. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from. >> Claire Hernandez from Coralville, Iowa. >> Welcome.

First of all, thank you for your patience. I could not find a babysitter for tonight. Um, I do, I live in Coralville, but my husband bikes 12 miles a day, six miles and back to Procter& Gamble from Coralville. And it's been great for him and great for the environment. However, in the four years he's been going to P and G from Coralville worked at both locations, he has had three three different bike wrecks involving vehicles. The last one we got a license plate in and actually it got the guy fined. So I commend that we now have the distracted driving law, and I commend that we have painted bike lanes, but I don't feel I have a burly. I don't feel safe taking Veronica very far in this community in Coralville or Iowa City, there's a lot of big distracted pickup trucks and that's not your guys's fault. However, I saw your bike implementation plant and it's paint. And the truth is, a lot of people don't pay attention to paint, and a lot of people's vehicles are so tall they can't see the paint, nor do they care. So what I decided to bring for the future for my husband is I brought some pictures of other bike lanes in the United States, especially intersections that are raised. So enlarge distracted cars go by, they can at least feel the bump and know that they are going on the wrong way. So my I just propose for the city, for the environment, and for our future that you guys could please implement some sort of raised bike lanes just to make it safer and more comfortable for people to bike. >> Thank you.

Thank you. >> And you can pass it over to our city clerk. Can I get a motion to accept correspondence? >> So moved. Second. All in favor, say aye. >> Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 7 to 0 And do we at least understand her name? Or do we need to have her write it down? >> Is it.

Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from. >> Uh, my name is Brandon Ross. I'm from Iowa City. Um, you know, just listening about the affordable, the unaffordable housing situation. We could probably do well if we just got rid of the landlords, but that might be too simple. When I lived in San Francisco, I was a musician for about seven years. We had rent control out there, San Francisco and Berkeley and Oakland, and some of my musician friends still have their rent control places out there, and they cost less than Iowa City apartments. It's pretty amazing. So I believe in rent control, and I think that should be something considered. I also believe in landlord control, uh, which I think would be a good idea to that regulations can help us. Um, but what we have is we have housing for profit, just like we have health care for profit. We also have bombs for profit and well, then that's the way the system runs. Uh, people, uh, upset at the current administration, but I would, I would say the administration is not a good one. Uh, as far as the presidential, uh, but you know, we have a military, we spend all our money in the military, um, trillion dollars. That's both parties that are responsible for that. Um, and we don't have to go back too far, but we can see that we've bombed, invaded or changed regimes in so many countries. It's just a regular thing that we do and we don't really even talk about it because the corporate news is about 90% of

what we see. So we never really get to hear about what's happening. Like, few people know that we have about 1300 U.S. Citizens that have died in Iran so far, because the corporate news has kept that down. You know, we've bombed or invaded, uh, places like Yugoslavia or Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Pakistan. We have regime change in Libya, Syria, Ukraine Uh, we sell bombs all over the place. So how can we afford housing? A friend and I were walking past, um, in the ped mall, a garbage can, and I thought, yeah, that's about what we're heading for. The garbage can will be our affordable housing, especially the ones that have the two windows. You know what I mean? You can see out. It's pretty nice. And we have cool and groovy people out there who are living on benches and such. So while we're bombing countries and killing their children and not thinking about that at home, we have 30% of our people are in poverty now, like 60% are afraid of getting sick. They can't afford it. So I say, get up. Don't support this system. The system is wrong. We have to change the system. The system, not just the party. Thank you all you cool and groovy people. >> Thank you. Anyone else like to speak during this time? Seeing no one. All right, we're going to move on to item nine, which is planning and zoning matters. Nine a rezoning west of Wetherby Park and north of Sand Prairie Preserve ordinance. Coordinate conditionally. Rezoning 56.35 acres of land located west of

Wetherby Park and north of Sand Prairie Preserve, from low density, single family residential zone with a plan development overlay zone to T three neighborhood edge with a plan development overlay. Wait. Zoned to T three. Neighborhood edge zoned for 9.62 acres. T three Neighborhood General zoned for 37.50 acres. T4T4 neighborhood small zoned for 8.04 acres and T four neighborhood small open, zoned for 1.8 acres and welcome Danielle.

Thank you. Mayor Danielle Sitzman Neighborhood and Development Services. Sorry, that was a long one. And I'm going to open up the public hearing before you start.

Great. >> Thank you. This application is by Prairie Heights Land, LLC, Navigate Homes for the 56 or so acres that you just itemized, it's bounded here in the white dashed outline. It's located east of South Gilbert Street, south of Pepperwood addition subdivision west of Weatherby Park and north of Sand Hill Estate Subdivision and the Sand Prairie Preserve. Um, it's not on your agenda tonight, but there's also preliminary Platte coming through for this area as well. And it's being called South Village. Um, this project will be the first major implementation of Iowa City's form based code. So it's another thing to celebrate tonight. Um, this is the form based code that was developed for greenfield development rather than the redevelopment form based code that we've been applying to riverfront crossings. So as you'll recall, in 2017, the city worked with the consultant to assess the feasibility of implementing missing middle housing and creating that form based code and adopting it in 2021, a form based code set standards for neighborhood design, building and form and land use within form based zones. Those so-called T zones that you just raised, uh, itemized because they're based on planning framework called transects. Um, these standards reflect the community's vision for implementing the intent of the comprehensive plan to ensure development that reinforces highly valued character and scale of our Iowa City neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods might range anything from more suburban to more urban. The particular transect tracks tracks that are included in this zone are largely more suburban, but there are the neighborhood's small T four zones that are trending towards more urban. And all of those things contribute to neighborhoods and corridors with a mix of housing, civic, retail and services. All uses in a compact, walkable, transit friendly environment. So this exhibit shows you the proposed rezoning exhibit tonight. Um, as you itemize, there are, um, neighborhood edge neighborhood, general neighborhood, small and some neighborhood open small

zoning districts, all proposed. Um, the current zoning is an OPD Rs five zoning and it is not compatible with that form based zoning district requirement that was developed in 2021 for the South District plan. So to implement the form based code, the zoning is rezoning is required. The request tonight is to move from the existing zoning to a mix of those zones that are form based, code compatible. I won't go through them again, but we'll talk a little bit about more about them. When the form based code was developed, the approval criteria for rezoning were also described. They're a little bit different than a normal rezoning. Um, the first one is always is it in compliance with the comprehensive plan. And then there are three more that are a little bit more specific to form based codes and what they're intended to accomplish. And I'll go through each of those. First of all, consistency of the comprehensive plan. This is a map of the entire South District form based code. The area tonight we're talking about is in the oval. Um, the, the regular comprehensive plan for the city applies first and then the South District plan in this plan apply more specifically. So as far as density, the proposed rezoning is consistent with the general future land use map from the Iowa City 2030 comp plan designating residential uses at a 2 to 8 dwelling unit per acre density, and the comprehensive plan also then does have, in addition to that future land use map goals and strategies. And this is also accomplishing by fulfilling the form based code, those goals and strategies. So talking more specifically about the South District future Land use plan map, which portrays the form based code, it is in compliance with that. At the top of this is the plan map from the South District. At the bottom is the proposed exhibit. You can see the general colors there. I would just say that the color density in those purples is reversed, but there it is in compliance. It is the same proposed arrangement of those zoning districts. And this one at the bottom. The zoning tonight does not include a street network because it is put in place during the preliminary Platte. But as far as rezoning

goes, this is in compliance with that South district and our form based code. Then moving on to the other criteria that we review the zoning is organized to respond to the various site conditions, including existing surrounding neighborhoods and sensitive areas. And this is a bit of an infill development. While the code was written for greenfield development and there's never been development on this parcel, it is surrounded by existing neighborhoods. So the proposed rezoning is sensitive to that and puts the types of zoning on its edges that is compatible or intended to transition from those areas. It also celebrates the Weatherby Park space and the surrounding civic spaces, and is sensitive to sensitive features like, um, the Prairie Reserve. The third criteria is that the proposed rezoning has demonstrates appropriate transitions between form based zoning designations, um, this is, um, again, to be sensitive to the context of the transitions between themselves on the site and ensuring that, for example, when that road network is proposed, that, that the zoning is compatible across roadways. And then fourth, the proposed project has been designed to address specific conditions of the proposed project. One of the sensitive features in the vicinity is the Prairie remnant or the Sand Prairie Preserve. And so it is also sensitive to that. So a little bit about the site. As I said, it's a bit of an infill. It was initially part of Sand Hills Estates. Um, it had been developed, other phases of Sand Hills estates had been developed around it. But this is a proposed rezoning to a form based code to implement our self district code. Um, we did adopt some zoning code, text amendments, if you'll recall, in March of 2025, to continue to fine tune that form based code after it was initially adopted in 2021. So we're here tonight for the rezoning.

Uh, in a couple of weeks, you'll see the preliminary plat. And then it would be final plats and building permits. After that. So based on a review of the relevant code criteria, staff recommended approval of the proposed rezoning with three conditions. Those conditions include installing traffic calming measures, installing additional pedestrian connections to Weatherby Park, and the installation of installation of a fence along portions of the property bordering the Sand Prairie Park or the Sand Prairie Preserve. At its February 18th, 20, 2026 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission concurred with staff and also recommended approval of the rezoning. With those three conditions. Um, they did. The applicant did host a good neighbor meeting, and I'm happy to answer questions or the applicant is here tonight.

All right. >> I don't know my T zoning yet. Um, is 267 lots. Um will that in this development is what I think I see in the staff report. Um is that right? Is that, does that translate to 267 units or is this a mixture of single family and, duplex multifamily. Something you'll see at the prelim Platte and definitely in more detail, the form based code rezoning requires a mix, so they'll definitely be a mix. Um, you'll see those units laid out appropriately in these zoning districts at the time of that prelim plat in a couple of weeks.

Okay. So for the, for this purpose, I'm just kind of curious, the range of units that could possibly be here. What, what should we be thinking? >> So the applicant can maybe hype themselves up a little bit there when they come. >> To this? Yeah. No, I'm very excited about this. So I just. >> I definitely had to tweak their housing product to fit with our form based code. And it's been a, an iterative process where we've addressed our codes. Um, they've addressed their design and we've kind of tried to figure out how we could get the most out of everything. Okay. So they have large and small homes, they have duplexes, they have a bit of a cottage court development proposed in the in the development. But again, you'll really see those details on the prelim plat. Other questions.

I believe you also talked about the conditions and that some of them was additional, um pedestrian entrance into Weatherby Park. And it says it'll be shown in the prelim plat. So it's great just to be. Just to highlight that the Prairie preserve is not the same kind of park as a lot of our other. Parks. It's just. Yeah. So it has more limited connections. But yeah, that would be a thing that would be portrayed on the prelim plat. And as required by the zoning commission. Right So we'll just wait for the plat to be able to see the, the entrances into Weatherby.

In the staff report. Danielle, there's a reference to Outlot F and the environmentally sensitive areas that have some um buffers in there. Is that that also is something that you've seen and are taking into consideration and will be on the preliminary plat. >> Absolutely. The planning is where we actually, uh, make sure we have all the easements in place. There'll be a dedication of some additional land to be part of the preserve. Um, and so those details will be, um, definitely laid out clearly. >> Okay.

Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? If so, please come forth. >> Good evening again, councilors. McKenzie drew with Greater Iowa City, Inc. Here to speak on Strong support of your consideration of Navigate Homes rezoning application. This proposal aligns squarely with our goals and strategies to increase housing supply, support thoughtful density, and make it easier to deliver the kinds of housing our community needs. As Iowa City continues to grow, projects like this are essential to ensuring we are adding homes in the right locations, at the right scale, and in ways that strengthen neighborhoods while expanding opportunity for all. Navigate Homes should be commended for leaning into the city's form based code and demonstrating how it can be used as intended to encourage predictable, high quality development that fits its context and contributes to walkable, livable places. Form based codes can be challenging to navigate, particularly for smaller or mission driven developers, and navigates willingness to take this on help show that these tools can be accessible, understandable, and and effective when applied thoughtfully. This application reflects the type of partnership Iowa City has been working toward, where community goals, clear regulatory frameworks, and private sector leadership come together to deliver real outcomes, increasing housing supply and supporting additional density in appropriate areas is not just a policy objective, it is a practical necessity for affordability, workforce attraction and long term economic vitality. I encourage the council to view this rezoning request as an example of the kind of forward looking, solutions oriented development that advances, adopted plans and community priorities. Thank you to Navigate Homes for their leadership and commitment on this new form based code, and thank you all for your careful consideration of this particular application. >> Great.

Anyone else like to address this topic? Welcome. >> Hello.

Hello, hello. I know, please state your name and city you're from. >> From the wonderful South district of the city of Iowa City. Um, and I am here, uh, sharing council members Moe's excitement for this new development. Um, I was on planning and zoning when we worked on this form based code for many, many, many months engaging, uh, builders, developers, uh, partners, and most importantly, the residents of the neighborhood. Um, in this, in coming up with the form based code and the concept behind the missing middle, um, and I am thrilled to see what navigate is bringing forward for this project. Um, I have seen early, early iterations of the preliminary plat. Um, we've got single family homes, we've got duplexes, we've got townhomes, we've got cottage courts, we've got every single element of the form based code and the, and the missing middle concept. And, um, there was a, there was a good neighbor meeting, um, a couple months ago. Um, probably one of the best attended good neighbor meetings I've seen or heard of in a long time. There were probably around 50, 40 to 50 neighbors there. Um, and the, and I can say I was there representing the South District Neighborhood Association. I'm the president of the South District Neighborhood Association. I'm speaking tonight on my own accord. Just to be clear, but, um, I was there at that meeting and, um, the, the general consensus and, uh, of the neighbors that were there, uh, and the satisfactory answers that they got from the developer on what their plans were and what, um, what the intent was, um, I was quite impressed that we didn't walk away with a lot more complaints than what usually happens at good neighbor meetings. Um, so I encourage the council to move forward with the rezoning. And when you see the Platte to, to move forward with the Platte and get this exciting new development started on the on the south side. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Anyone else like to address this topic and you're a part of the development team. Okay, so, um, certainly I would would have invited you up earlier had I thought you wanted to share. Um, but we will not have the timer go for the development team. >> I do not have a lot to say.

But I will address Councilman Moe's discussion or question. My name is Gina Landau from Navigate Homes. Um, so I didn't have the information as far as the breakdown. So John with Ms.. Who is here for any technical questions that I may not be able to answer. Um, we went ahead and added them up. Um, so it sounds heavy on single family, but there's 187 single family units, but those are the more traditional homes and they're called a townhouse house scale. So very like narrow, um, single family units. So that 187 is a variety of sizes of single family. Um, we have 76 and duplexes, I'm sorry, duplexes are mixed in there too. Um, in that big number we have 76 attached townhomes. So those are kind of like the four plexes that you're used to seeing. And then we have 24 cottage court units, which are a brand new. I haven't seen it in this area. I saw it in Florida when I was on vacation. It's quite unique. So you'll see that with the preliminary Platte. So just wanted to touch on that a little bit. Um, as well as, um, Laura's question about Outlot F there is little prairie remnant that will be dedicated to the city. So the Prairie Preserve Park will be, um, expanding in size for the city, um, as well as in Mark signs talked about the good neighbor meeting. It was, it was more of a question and answer session. I would have to say it was, it was very good. There were concerns. Uh, we discussed many things, but it was just kind of people wanting to know. And it was just putting it out there for everyone. It lasted quite a while, but it was, it was very good. We did take away that, um, after the good neighbor meeting that we were thinking one of the streets wasn't going to need raised

pedestrian crosswalks. Um, after discussion with the neighbors, it was decided that we better do it so we don't have cars racing around the side. So that's kind of off the rezoning topic, but it was kind of addressed a little before. So I'm happy to answer any questions. If you do have them. Um, John, do you have anything you want to say? If you do have, like I said, questions Jon D. Marner is here as well. >> No questions. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, just want to make sure if anyone from the community wants to make comments on this, please come forth at this time. Seeing no one in person or online. Just wondering if council is inclined to vote alongside P and Z recommendations. All right. I'm going to close the public hearing. Could I get a motion to give first consideration please. >> So moved.

Second. >> Moved by seconded by alter Council discussion. >> Just to reiterate, just to reiterate what others have already said. But it is very, very exciting. Having been on council since 2020 when we had opticos here and the development of the form based code, and then the implementation of that into our zoning code, I know it was a complicated process and took a lot of effort. And then getting to kind of that next stage of having a developer who's willing to actually look at what that application would be on a specific piece of ground and be able to say, we might need a few more tweaks, but we know we can make this work. It's very, very exciting and hopefully we'll have more development under the form based code. >> I agree.

That like seven years. >> Yeah, yeah. Moving at the speed of city. >> Yep. But moving. >> So moving and finally. Yeah. Does anybody have John Thomas's forwarding email? Because I feel like he would be excited to know this. Yes. Yeah. Yes. >> Um, I'm so sorry for breaking, uh, the rules, but I have a question now that I think about it. Um, I, um. >> And now is an opportunity to talk to either staff or to the developers if you desire.

Yeah. Okay. Um, uh, because I also like, uh, Councilor Moe have not, uh, I'm still getting acquainted with the t zoning with all the T's and everything. Um, yeah, I'm just, uh When it comes to, uh, I know that it's, um. Hold on. Okay, okay. I'm saying the right thing now. Uh, I'm curious about, like, the, um. Uh, amount of density that's possible under this zoning. Um, versus what potentially is, uh uh, proposed, um, just for curiosity's sake. And I'm also curious about is it strictly just residential? Um, yeah.

So form based codes don't care about density because the density could end up being immense. The density is usually off the charts from a conventional zoning perspective. So if we're trying to convert to conventional densities, everybody's going to struggle with that because it's, there's really no way to do that with just looking at the t zone itself. So we could probably, when we get to prelim Platte tell you how that ended up panning out in this particular development, but because transects are based more on the form of the building and you can have a lot more density in even a smaller building than you would normally get in a regular conventional zoning schema. Um, I can't, I don't know that I can answer that for you. In general, transects are laid out from rural to urban. So as you go up in the number of AT1, two, three, four, five, six, you're going to be moving from the from the wilderness into a rural development, into a suburban and more urban urban until you're eventually in the urban core. So we don't plan the plan for the South District did not include any of the T districts that would be in that upper, higher, more intense, taller block scale, high rise kind of forms. They're all in the twos and threes zones, which are meant to be kind of suburban to try trending towards more urban. So it's a mix of a lot of housing styles that are really house scale and not block scale. So missing middle meaning anything that you're missing when you have a conventional subdivision of just houses and a conventional subdivision of just apartments is going to be those things in the middle middle that the market may not normally deliver to you. Fourplexes townhomes, cottage courts, maybe small scale apartments as well. So it is largely residential. This development, there are some open districts so that T open area is an area where you could have some small commercial if, if somebody wanted to convert a house to a studio or a house to an ice cream shop or something like that, the scale of that is still going to feel like a house in a neighborhood, though, whether it looks like that exactly or not. >> Um

nice. Cool. >> Thank you very much. And I appreciate the clarification about the single family homes. And I think, um, uh, talking with you about it, uh, the single family home, but, but denser than we normally think about. So I think that's an important distinction. Uh, yeah. Very cool. I, I'm just glad more people are going to, would be able to go to Wetherby Park, you know, like all these people doing it. That's, I think my favorite park in the city. So yeah. >> All right. Any other, um, comments? Roll call please. Mo. Yes. Yes. Teague. >> Yes. Yes. Alter. >> Yes.

Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. >> Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0 nine B zoning code. Text amendment. Parking and open space. Requirements for the conversion of guest rooms and hospitality oriented retail uses to residential ordinance. Amending title 14 zoning to exempt guest rooms and hospitality oriented retail uses that are converted to residential uses from the parking and open space. Requirements for multi-family, residential and the central business. I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome again. >> Thank you, Mayor Danielle Sitzman. Again, this is a staff proposed amendment to the zoning code to address vacant hotels in the downtown core and provide a pathway for increasing the city's housing supply by removing obstacles for adaptive reuse of those vacant buildings when they're in a CBN zone. So downtown Iowa City contains a handful of hotels in the CB ten zoning district and or riverfront crossing zones, two of the three that are in CB ten are currently vacant. That would be hotel vitro and the Chauncey the third that is not vacant is the graduate. Both of the sites for the vitro and and Chauncey contain a mix of uses with commercial and office space in the lower floors, hotels on the middle floors, and residential units on the upper floors. Um, hotels in the CB ten zone are generally located in downtown and are definitely in walkable areas with access to jobs, transit and services. And of course, the university residents of these locations are less likely to rely on personal vehicles for their daily lives, and Iowa City continues to experience a high demand for housing. The potential to convert vacant hotel sites to multifamily is a key solution to our housing shortage, or at least another way to address our housing shortage. Um, vacant hotel sites that are converted to multi-family residential is one avenue for increasing our housing supply. However, parking and open space requirements for multi-family residential can act as a barrier, so this is intended to remove any potential barriers. The zoning code requires additional parking and

open spaces beyond what is currently provided at those sites, so we did conduct an analysis both for the parking changes that are being proposed and the open space. Taking a look at what is currently how those two sites were currently developed with the use of the parking for folks that were using those as hotels and tried to evaluate what this change might affect. Um, with any good zoning code, there's always a lot of analysis before a proposal is made. So we looked at the existing conditions. They were both of these sites were developed with parking facilities. They both were intended to obviously house people in their cars overnight. Um, during operation, both sites had access to on and off site parking. And if converted to residential use, the zoning code requires additional parking. So there's your barrier. Um, how much of an impact? We think this would be a fairly minimal impact whether someone staying in their apartment overnight or staying in a hotel room. Really the only difference is the person, um, they're still someone sleeping there, someone living there. Uh, both of these hotels had rooms that had, um, cooking facilities in them. So there's actually not much to convert, but really the car remains the same. And we think these would continue to accommodate 24 hour stays. Um, it would therefore not introduce new or more intensive uses of these spaces. Um, talking a little bit about public, public garage access, um, residential access to city owned facilities is part of these, both of these developments. It's not to say that we would be providing that parking in lieu of the required parking, but there could obviously be permit parking arrangements made or there's opportunity for that. So again, that really pointed us to the fact that this would be a limited impact. Um, so as I've said, we don't really anticipate a measurable increase in demand on the existing parking facilities by implementing this change, it's very targeted for very specific circumstance. And when we looked at the open space analysis, all of these hotels were developed in the core of

the downtown where opportunities for use of open space, public open space are very nearby. And we don't really think that would be a negative impact to go from folks who are already staying in hotels, being out and about on the PED mall to being, um, residents of the downtown doing the same. So, um, these changes are actually very simple code changes. Tweaking one standard in the open space requirement to remove the regulatory barrier to adaptive reuse and changing one standard or in a footnote, honestly, in a table to change the parking standard to allow that conversion. So this removes specific barriers to prevent adaptive reuse, exempts just three properties, and is very narrowly tailored for a specific circumstance. Um, as with all zoning code amendments, we looked at approval criteria for consistency of their comprehensive plan and the comprehensive plan clearly supports infill development to provide a variety of housing options and encourage project projects that attract long term residents to the downtown. So as far as where this falls, this would be a zoning code amendment. And then eventually, if there are new buyers or redevelopment of those sites, we would be looking at just staff reviews for building permits. So based on a review of the relevant code criteria, staff recommended approval of the proposed zoning code text amendment. And at its February 18th meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of this as well. Adoption of the text amendment would exempt guest rooms and hospitality oriented retail uses. Hotels that are converted to multifamily, residential just in the Cb10 district. From those two standards for parking and open space. Happy to answer questions.

Danielle, you just said it out loud. But just to be clear, because the text amendment for the exemption for open space is also only CB ten, correct? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. >> And we also just aware about three of them right now. Great. Correct. There's only three hotels in the CB ten zone in the first place. And it would apply to the two that are currently vacant. If the third one were ever to want to convert as well, it could. >> And have we decided this because they approached us, they want to do it or. We're aware they're vacant. I mean, I think we're all aware of their vacant and they're probably not going to be hotel uses. And so we're looking for an adaptive reuse of those to facilitate it as quickly as we can.

Like you just doing it to give them option, but not necessarily reach out to us. And they say, oh, we're going to change that residential. >> Correct. But still, maybe somebody else can come and buy it and make it a hotel too, right? >> Sure. It could be. It could still continue to be a hotel, right? All right. Thank you. Anyone from the public like to address this topic, please come forth Say no one in person or online. Before I close the public hearing. Just wanted to see if council was inclined to vote along with PNC. All right, I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to give first consideration, please? >> Move for this consideration,

Second alter. >> All right. Council discussion. >> Was a little. Concerned at the outset when I saw this, when we set the public hearing that this would be a weird loophole we would create. But our staff was able to provide me with plenty of information to say, this would be a terrible decision for somebody to develop a hotel and then immediately convert to residential from a financial perspective. So thank you for going through the due diligence of telling me why that was not something to be worried about. Um so. >> It was sort of going through the same thoughts in my head. >> So, um, anyway, I support this. This makes sense. It's practical. We got space. We should have people in it. >> I think.

Adaptive reuse. >> Yeah. And in terms of the, the, you know, hopefully doing it quicker the longer anything sits vacant, the more likely of some expensive damage and whatever else. So the faster that we can, if we can nudge this along, I think that's to our benefit.

Yeah. >> Also like close by public parking. >> So yeah, and it's close to a lot of public transit. >> Exactly. Yeah. If they don't decide not to use. >> Yeah, it's just kind of a weird timing. I've, I recently read a couple papers about the SRU law in, uh, in, in, in France, which, uh, mandates that local municipalities reach a certain percentage of like social housing, yada, yada, yada. And Paris is going even further because they're even cooler and they, uh, their biggest way of meeting that mark is, uh, hotel conversion. So it's just like a very effective use in that way. So I, yeah. I think New York City is looking at that as well.

Yeah. Cool. >> Roll call please. Yes. >> Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0 nine C zoning code amendment. Floodplain management standards ordinance amending title 14. Zoning related to the city's flood plain management standards to address comments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to maintain the community's continued participation and eligibility in the nation. In the National Flood Insurance Program. This is the second consideration, and the staff is requesting expedited action. >> I move that the rule requiring that ordinances must be considered and voted on for passage of two meetings prior to the meeting, which is to be finally passed, be suspended, that second consideration vote be waved at the ordinance. Be voted on for final passage at this time. >> Move by Mo

Second Harmsen. >> All right. Anyone from the public like to address this topic. Seeing no one in person or online council discussion. Roll call please. Teague. >> Yes. Online. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. >> Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0. Can I get a motion to pass and adopt? So moved. >> Second line. Roll call please. >> Y line. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Yes. Teague.

Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0 nine D preliminary. Platte sky Commerce development resolution approving the preliminary plat of Sky Commerce Development subdivision, Iowa City, Iowa. Can I get a motion to approve, please? So moved alter. >> Second mo.

And welcome, Danielle. >> Thank you. Mayor. Uh, the owner, Stephen A. Moss is requesting approval of this preliminary plat for Sky Commerce Development. It's a 62 acre subdivision of land containing five lots and one outlot. It's located northwest of I 80 and highway one. The purpose of the subdivision is to create those five lots for development and a future time by ATI Group. And that one remaining outlet. Um, it's the subject property has been used primarily for agricultural, agricultural purposes from the 30s to 2014, and the land has remained undeveloped and vacant. Um, since then or over that time. This is the prelim plat itself. North is to the left. So we're rotated a little bit from what you would normally think about. But I-80 is running on the right hand side of that slide. So you can see those 3 or 4 larger sites and then one smaller one. And the road network that would be laid out inside. These are rather large sites which matches the zoning and the anticipated development would be constrained by the current zoning. The current zoning was put in place several years ago in anticipation of this kind of development. Um, this is the most current plat. So if you've been looking in your packet, the one that came to the PNC had some refinements that needed to be made. They've all been made. And this is the current version. When we review a subdivision, we look at the preliminary plat criteria as well as a comprehensive plan. Um the proposed plat is consistent with the policy direction of the comprehensive plan. And we have reviewed it and it is complies with the city's subdivision ordinances and meets the required subdivision standards in its design and through its Subdividers agreement, the streets and circulation and blocks and block lengths were scrutinized as well as obviously, infrastructure provision. There's no open space requirements, since this is an entirely commercial, uh, anticipated to be entirely commercial development. So no public open space would, would, would be required. Um, there are environmentally sensitive areas, but none of them are being impacted beyond

what's allowed by administratively through our codes, they've met all those sensitive area protection requirements. They're actually well below several of them. Um, this land does have a history of kind of going through rezoning in anticipation of development over the years 2010, 12, 14 and 15 without any development occurring. Um, most recently, though, we did do a comp plan amendment and that rezoning in 2013 to position it for redevelopment. So this preliminary plan is that next step. There would be final plats needed to actually finally create the lots for sale and development. And then we'd be doing site plan reviews and building permits. So based on a review of the relevant code criteria, staff did recommend approval of the proposed plan. And at their March 4th meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission concurred with that staff recommendation. And as I said, the plat has been updated and all those deficiencies corrected. I'm happy to answer questions. >> Don't hear any. Thank you so much. Anyone from the public like to address this topic. Seeing no one in person or online council discussion roll call please. >> Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Yes. Teague. Yes. Yes. >> Motion passes 7 to 0. We're at item number ten, which is our regular formal agenda ten A is vacate. Easement resolution to vacate a storm sewer easement and block 18 county seat addition. And I'm going to open the public hearing. And I'm going to welcome our city attorney, Eric Goers. >> Thank you mayor. Briefly, this is part of the hive development. Previously, it was a number of parcels that were placed together and there was a storm sewer easement that ran through it that was relocated upon the development of the hive and now is no longer needed. So we'd like to vacate the easement >> All right. Any questions?

Hearing none, anyone going to open up? Um, anyone from the public would like to address this topic? You're invited to come up at this time. CNN hearing no one in person or online. I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve, please? So moved. Mo. >> Second. Altar. Council discussion Roll call please. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter.

Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0 ten B Alleyway Improvements 2026 Project resolution approving project manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the alleyway improvements 2026 project. Establishing amount of bids. Security to accompany each bid. Directing city clerk to post notice to bidders and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome Tim. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Tim Schmadeke and I'm a civil engineer with the city's engineering department. The Alleyway Improvements 2026 Project is a project that involves the reconstruction of the alleyway pavement between North Gilbert Street, North Van Buren Street, East Market Street and East Jefferson Street. This image here shows the project location. Property owners along the alley have expressed concerns over the years with their alley pavement being in poor condition. They reached out to the city and the city agreed to meet the property owners halfway and pay for half of the reconstruction of the alley. As there will be a. The project will meet city city standards. There. The city will also maintain the alley pavement for 20 years. The reconstruction includes sidewalk curb ramps on the east and west ends of the alley. The main line paving of the alley and pavement tie ins between the right of way line and the edge of the alley. As you can see here in the image in these images, the existing conditions of the alley are in pretty rough shape. There is a sanitary sewer manhole that's in that bottom right image there that will be replaced during the project. This is the financial responsibility of the city. The alley will be closed to through traffic for the duration of the project. There will be temporary impacts to property owners along

the alley there as, um, the contractor moves along throughout the project. The property owners are aware of these impacts and we will meet with them to go over specifics as we get closer to the beginning of the construction. The estimated construction cost is $228,000. The property owner's share of this construction cost is that $228,000, minus the cost to replace the manhole, and then divide it by two. So roughly $108,000. The bid opening is April 12th. The contract will be awarded the following Tuesday on May 5th, and the construction will take place from June to September of 2026. The alley paving itself will be wrapped up in July. We just have items that can't be completed during the summer heat, so that's why that construction goes on until September. There Here's my contact information. That's all I have for you today. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions? >> When the city paves an alley, um, and we do a cost share like this. Who maintains responsibility for maintaining that? Like scooping the snow.

Snow removal won't be on the city. That will be on the property owners. >> But repairs to pavement would be the city's for 20 years. Yes. Is that how that works? Okay. I don't know if this is a question for you or for Jeff, but what precipitated this partnership? Because as I've understood Ali's, I've always been the responsibility of the the owners. Who's that abut that? So what kind of was it because of the the sanitary sewer or just. Um.

Yeah, this one's a little bit unique in that it is in a partly a commercial setting as well. So we have done commercial alleys in the downtown, for example, with the Dubuque Street reconstruction project. We redid that alley that runs kind of behind 21 South Lynn over towards the senior center there. So typically in those commercial alleys, we have well, not taken a not really a top priority for us. We have addressed them. Um, this has that commercial element to it along with the residential, uh, we know it's heavily used not only by the, um, the people living there, but also people accessing John's Grocery too. So, um, it is a bit unique, but I think it's, it's a little unique setting to. >> Thank you.

It's bad. >> Yeah. Oh yeah. >> It's really bad. All right, here are no more questions. Thanks. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online, I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve, please? Don't move. >> Second mo. All right. Council discussion. It's bad. >> Yeah. It's bad. Roll call please. >> Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Yes. >> Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. >> Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0 ten C bike master plan implementation 2026 project resolution approving project manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the Bicycle Master Plan Implementation 2026 project. Establishing amount of bid security to accompany each bid. Directing City Clerk to post notice to bidders and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome. >> Hi, I'm Vivian Olsen. I'm a civil engineer up in the engineering division. I'm taking on this project. So just a brief overview of what I'll be going over. So this is part of the annual Bike Master Plan implementation project. Fund. And so kind of going over what that is, what that funding source looks like. And then more into the specifics of the projects, what this round of it is going to do and the day to day impacts that we anticipate. Beyond that, we'll take a look at the project timeline. Uh, and then the cost estimate, and then I'll pass it back for questions. So, uh, like I said, this is part of a larger bicycle master plan implementation. Uh, there's the city's bicycle master plan and also the sort of larger corridor area master plan for that. Uh, and this is a, an annual fund that receives funding each year that then accrues, and then we spend it on larger projects like this. So this one s 3827 gets about 35 K each year. Uh, and then when we hit sort of a point where there's a project that we can go for, we go for it, uh, the project in the CIP includes construction of bike lanes and conversions of four lanes to three lane roads. And in areas that have been identified by the master plan to have high, uh, sort of variable transportation. Uh, this

addresses a couple of our goals. Uh, obviously the master plan, but, uh, it increases mobility through these areas by expanding the options that people can use. And also, uh, safety and well-being. Uh, it obviously reduces the need for vehicular traffic, which can be hazardous. And additionally, uh, you know, promotes activity, uh, healthy ways of moving and reduces the carbon footprint of the city, which is kind of part of our goal as well. Um, so this go around, there's a couple of different project areas with this implementation. Uh, there is Sunset Street, which is more of a residential area. And then, uh, South Gilbert Street. Um, and we'll get more into specifically what extents, uh, are for each one. And then just, uh, as part of this, we're lumping in a very small section of Mormon Trek Boulevard that we're adding a turn lane. Uh, that's just to reduce, uh, duplicate mobilization costs for the contractor. So reduce our costs there and it'll be funded separately through just sort of a streets maintenance account, uh, very minor. So, uh, taking a look at Sunset Street, uh, this is a residential two lane street, but it is massive from back of curb to back of curb. Uh, it's about a 50 foot roadway currently. And so you have kind of dual lanes. You can really Kruse, which is not ideal. So what we're looking to do is a lane width reduction from sort of almost 25ft for each lane down to something maybe more reasonable for a car. Uh, about 12ft. Uh, and then bike lanes on either side, uh, as part of this, there is currently on street parking on both sides. Uh, we took a look and I'll have a larger graphic overview coming

up. Uh, and we are preserving parking on the east side of the street, uh, which has more direct driveway access. Uh, and we are converting, uh, sort of the cross section to remove parking on the west side, which has more connections to side streets. And there's still parking there and less direct driveway access. Um, so these are some of those cross sections you can see going from two lanes or at the sort of intersection, uh, down at highway one, uh, having, uh, some turn lanes, uh, included as well. And these are buffered bike lanes. So you have the six foot width and then additionally a painted buffer to add some space between the cyclists and drivers. Um, so this is kind of the extents of the Sunset Street implementation. Uh, so north is page, right? Uh, so we connect up with the Benton Street bike lanes that are, uh, existing and with the highway one, sunset trail down to the south. So it's bordered by existing bike lanes. And this creates a connection between, uh, so parking is removed, uh, on the west side here. And you can see there are, uh, a number of connections to side streets and courts and that kind of thing. Uh, and there's relatively few direct driveway accesses on this side, as opposed to the east side, uh, which has quite a number of them. Uh, this was following a parking analysis by the MPO JC to sort of take a look at things we did during the neighborhood meeting, have somebody bring up concerns about, um, parking during game days. Uh, given that that's a sporadic event and mostly people traveling from outside the area, uh,

the, I think, uh, primary motive is to, uh, serve the residents in the area, uh, and understanding that in those specific, uh, high parking load events, parking would be redistributed to other areas. Uh, obviously we don't want people parking in bike lanes. Um, South Gilbert, uh, is the other location. Uh, this is a four lane to three lane conversion along most of South Gilbert. There is sort of an exception that I'll talk about. Um, so typically, uh, the cross section through here, uh, is four lanes again, uh, wider throughout, uh, and the traffic demand for most of South Gilbert does not really require, uh, that many lanes. Uh, and so instead of going from two lanes in either direction, we'll have one lane in either direction and a passing a turning lane, uh, through the center and bike lanes on either side. Um, this does not include the area directly off of highway six. Uh, there's a lot more traffic through there. And to maintain, uh, the necessary queuing for that light. Uh, we pick up this at Stevens Drive, so everything is staying the same from Stevens Drive to the north. And we're converting, uh, down to the south to provide continuity. We're having sharrows those sort of shared lane signs added in that red section, but there won't be any change to the cross section of the road. Um. And just for transparency, uh, the small Mormon truck change is removing, uh,

the sort of blocked buffer area here and just inputting a left turn lane, uh, very small change relative to the linear footage of the other two sites. Um, so this is sort of the timeline that we've been following set public hearing last month. And then, uh, we had two informational meetings, one in person, uh, after reaching out to neighborhood associations and sending letters to impacted residents. And then one virtual, uh, a couple of days after which was recorded and then posted to the project page. Um, we only had one person attend the virtual meeting, but I think we had 60 or so people view the video. Uh, so some decent pickup there. Uh, now we're here at the public hearing looking to bid this directly following, uh, an award in May and construction would pick up, uh, from May to late summer, sort of trying to avoid the, uh, start of the school year. So trying to wrap that up prior to that, um, the probable construction cost is about 130 K. Uh, most of that is Gilbert Street, which has just a lot more linear footage that is being converted. Uh, Sunset Street at about a third of that at 33 K and the small changes on Mormon track at 5000, um, that's about all. Uh, if you have any questions, I'm happy to, uh, answer those here. I did not include my contact information, but I can get that to you. Uh, and I included a couple links to the master plans as well. Thanks. >> Vivian.

Can you were South Gilbert and highway six connect that intersection. What does that going to look like? Is it just bike lanes start right there? I know it's a it's a very strange intersection with a lot of volume.

And it's very odd. So essentially, uh, as you're moving south from the intersection, from two lanes, the left, the left lane on that southbound is going to at Stevens Drive, turn into a left turn lane. So a dedicated left turn lane there, which then will peel off and the right lane will continue into the single lane. Uh, and then there is a tapered section moving north, going from, uh, the single lane. It expands out into the multiple existing lanes. So after that brief transition period, it goes back to what we have there currently. >> Okay.

Um. >> Okay. Are there plans to close Gilbert as this is being done or is it going to be sort of planned so that it'll be part closed? One side will be closed, but traffic will still be able to go through or. >> We include in the uh, specifications that peak hours should be avoided. And we're trying to not have that sort of total road closure. Obviously, it would be temporary partial closures. Is, is the idea. And we'll have a pre-construction meeting with any contractor establishing a clear schedule before we get going.

Thanks >> Um this is really cool. Thank you. Um, I'm curious, uh, and I think I already know the answer, but I just want to make sure that I understand correctly. The reason why, um, these conversions where we're just doing some paint redrawing basically. Right?

Yeah. So essentially what this specific project fund is doing, uh, is taking that small recurring amount and making those quick and easy improvements that can really, you know, like on Steven's drive, going from that super wide cross section down, that's going to reduce speeding in the area ideally. And also provide some dedicated >> Bike areas that uh, don't, don't haven't previously existed. There are other projects within the CIP. Uh, and that are currently unfunded as well. Uh, that involve dedicated bike trails that are separated from roadways. I know that in the public comment that came up, uh, and I think I believe in that corridor along highway six, there are several bike trails that are being that are sort of in the process of getting installed.. >> And I guess, uh, I'm still trying to wrap my head around, um, uh, in the CIP, the conversion of, uh, market and Jefferson into 1 or 2 ways. It's like this just came out like priced lower than I expected it because I'm still trying to wrap my head around, like when, when conversions like this happen. Uh, why that costs like $1,000,000 trillion in this costs 130 K, you know, and I'm imagining signage and lights is the majority of that cost. >> Yeah. I'm, I'm not involved with those other projects, but I do believe the signalization at those intersections is really a significant cost difference.

Yeah, I just wanted I'm trying to understand everything better. So I mean, I'm glad it costs not that much money to do this. >> Yeah All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online. I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve, please? So moved. >> Second white. Council discussion Great. Roll call please. Mo. Yes. Saleh. Yes. Teague. Yes.

Yes. >> Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. >> Motion passes 7 to 0. Attendee. Equalization. Basin. Surface seating 2026. Ceiling 2026. Project resolution. Approving project. Manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the equalization basin surface Ceiling 2026 project. Establishing amount of bids security to accompany each bid. Directing City Clerk to post notice to bidders and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome again. >> The equalization Basin Surface Ceiling 2026 project is a capital improvements project to address the excessive cracking of the pavement. Sorry, asphalt pavement of the equalization basin at the city's wastewater treatment plant. This is an image of the location of the um of the project. Here the equalization basin is located in the northeast side of the city's wastewater treatment plant that's a few miles south of the city. Here, the equalization basin is an overflow area for when there's an excessive amount of flow coming into the wastewater treatment plant. This is usually during an intense rainfall event. 16 years ago, the basin was expanded to what we see today here, shown in this image, you can see that there's a significant amount of vegetation growing in the in the basin. This is due to the cracking of the asphalt surface That opening lets nutrients seep in and then seeds get in, and then vegetation sprouts out. Uh, to avoid a regulatory response for that vegetation growth and the excessive cracking. We had a project this past fall that removed that vegetation and then sealed any cracks that did have vegetation coming out of them, or had the potential to

have vegetation grow. Uh, the, this project here this spring will seal the entire surface. The basin slopes there, the basin floor of the asphalt pavement to prevent further cracking from creating being created and extend the life of the asphalt pavement. This is an annual. Uh, sorry, this is a routine. Uh, rehabilitation for asphalt pavement to extend the life of it. The estimated construction cost for this project is $168,000. The bid opening is on April 28th, and the contract will be awarded on May 5th. This construction will take place from May to June of this year. Here's my contact information. Thank you all for your time. Are there any questions?

I'm just curious if the equalization basin has ever been used. Have we ever actually exceeded the flow and it's gone in there. >> From my understanding, yes. And then it also fills up with rain as well when that rainfall event happens. So it has been full before. Thanks So in our we have not combined storm and sanitary. But if I heard you correctly, you said in a high rain event it would fill with water. Through infiltration through the sanitary sewer system and come through manholes. There it. >> Okay. It's still there's still that level that. There's still stormwater that enters the sanitary system. Okay. >> Yep.

Thank you. >> Thank you, thank you. Anyone from the public would like to address this topic. Seeing no one in public or online, I'm going to close the public hearing. Could I get a motion to approve, please? >> So moved. Second Mo. >> Council discussion. I just want to hear someone say equalization basin one more time. Yes, it's just nice. >> You know, like. You're so funny All right. Hearing no other comments roll call please. >> Salah. Yes. >> Teague.

Yes. >> Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. >> Motion passes 7 to 0. Item ten E Washington Street from Madison Street to Capitol Street to Juniper Drive. From Alpine Drive to Alpine Court. Reconstruction project resolution, approving project manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the Washington Street from Madison Street to Capitol Street and Jupiter Drive from Alpine Drive to Alpine Court. Reconstruction project establishing amount of bids. Security to accompany each bid. Directing city clerk to post notice to bidders and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. I'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Justin Harland, I'm a senior engineer here with Iowa City. For the sake of splitting that long title out, we'll just call this the Washington Street Juniper Drive reconstruction project.

Great. >> This is one part of our annual pavement rehabilitation project. Same capital improvement program. CIP So overall project location. This might get a little confusing because we're in two different locations. We have phases and we have stages. So phase one is Washington Street. Phase two will be Juniper Drive. And the limits to those are Washington Street from Madison Street up to Capitol Street. So kind of in the downtown area by the pentacrest. And then Juniper Drive from Alpine Court to Alpine Drive. That's kind of out in the Lucas Elementary area. >> Okay

So a little bit of the background on these, Washington is a collector. Um, it was identified by our pavement study that's recently been updated, um, as a rapidly deteriorating condition. Um, going out there and looking at it, I think that's pretty evident. Um, you can see some joint deterioration, uh, panel cracking and then you can also see a multitude of asphalt patches that we had to do multiple times. Juniper drive is a local residential street. Um, it was identified as being in poor condition from the picture out there on the right is juniper picture on the left is Washington Street. Um, you see various cracking joint deterioration overall, not in very good condition. I will point out that Washington Street two is a main thoroughfare for our transit system, not only Iowa City, but Coralville and Cambus as well So what is the project we plan to reconstruct both of those we will reconstruct with Portland cement, concrete? Um, PCC. We are not planning to do any widening of those. We're simply going back in with pavement as normal with no lane change configurations. We will take care of some storm sewer improvements, and we will take care of some Ada crosswalks as it fits into our strategic plan and the overall key reasons just to upgrade the the ride quality, um, and to do our Ada compliance, just fix up those roadways. So we have nice smooth roads to drive on because they are in poor condition. So what does that mean? What does it include? It removes, it includes removing the existing roadways. So we'll tear up the roadway. Uh, we'll also prep subgrade subbase, add a drainable subbase in especially on Juniper Drive. We've, uh, we

know we have some drainage issues there. Um, we'll, as part of that, we'll remove driveway approaches, we'll replace those impacted sidewalk panels, we'll replace the storm sewer, um, where it's necessary. And then we'll put that back in place. Staging, uh, Washington Street will be the priority as that is a main thoroughfare. Obviously it was collector and it's right by the University of Iowa. Um, the focus is on that and getting that done prior to the students coming back in August. So that one phase or stage in Washington Street. So we want them to focus on the Madison Street, Washington Street intersection first before moving on. They will get Washington Street completed. Then they are able to move to Juniper Drive. Um, both of these are scheduled to have the roadways open by July 31st. Um, during that time the roadway will be closed. Obviously we'll include advanced warning for those. And um, appropriate signage. And the contractor will maintain postal and waste collection, of course, especially in that residential neighborhood. And by doing this, we hope to minimize disruptions again, especially in the Juniper Drive neighborhood. Kind of doing it half the time. So you have on street parking, contractor has room to stage the quickest, most efficient way we can do it. The project timeline. We did have a public meeting at Lucas Elementary School on March 24th. It was fairly well attended. I believe we had over a dozen um, neighbors in there. Obviously tonight's the public hearing is scheduled on April 29th, Ward on May 5th will start in June after the students get out in the University of Iowa. And then looking to complete both the Juniper Drive and Wall Street Have both streets open by July 31st of 2026. With that,

um, it's also slated to cost 1.25 million. With that, I will open it up to questions from council. Justin, how do you anticipate the bus service will be changed since obviously that will impact all three transit systems. So during the design process, we've worked with each of them. We've notified, of course, Iowa City canvas Coralville. Um, and they have planned detours that they'll have to work around. Luckily, we're kind of in a very gridded system there, so we can work around that intersection. So shouldn't be a lot of interruptions, just some delays maybe, or. >> Yes.

Okay. All right. Well, I will say as a cyclist, I'm really grateful for that downhill getting improved. Yes. >> Yeah. Um will you be maintaining in that area, the downtown area, the brick crosswalks >> No. Right now we're scheduled to go back with concrete. >> Okay. Is that just a. I know that if there was a moment in time where it felt like the city was moving towards brick crosswalks because they didn't have to paint them and their stay permanently colored, but that's not the direction we're going anymore. >> Correct. Okay. >> Okay

Uh, yeah, my question was about the busses as well. Um, especially because that's like the bus spot, you know, like very close. And, uh, I was at a friend's house on, I don't even know what street it is, but one of the smaller streets that, uh, currently the Iowa City, uh, busses are because of the Court Street construction, you know, they have to go through some residential. And we were just hanging out and the bus driver actually had to like, get out and knock on our door because like. Cars were parked like on both sides of the street. So I just was thinking. And then we had to go out and move one of our cars so the bus could work. Um, I guess, you know, it does seem like this would be a, you know, an easier place to navigate around it than those small residential streets. >> Yes, very much so. Okay. You have Clinton Street, Jefferson. Uh, you can go down to Burlington and use some of those cross streets to get around downtown. >> Okay.

And in the construction zones. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone from the public like to address this topic, seeing no one in person or online? I'm going to close the public hearing. Could I get a motion to approve, please? So moved. Mo. >> Second. Council discussion. Roll call please. Teague. >> Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Yes. >> Motion passes seven zero.

Did you just vote for her? >> So funny. All right, ten f. Um. Fireworks ordinance amendment. Ordinance. Amending title eight. Police regulations. Chapter five. Miscellaneous offenses. Section 12. Fireworks to amend the dates and hours during which the discharge of fireworks remain legal and compliance with the newly amended state law, and to prohibit the use of fireworks on city property. This is the second consideration and staff is requesting expedited action on this second consideration >> I move.

That ruling, that the rule requiring the ordinances must be considered and voted on for passage of two council meetings prior to the meeting, which is to be finally passed, be suspended, and that the second consideration vote be waived and that the ordinance be voted on for final passage at this time. Move by Mo. >> Second Bergus. All right. Anyone from the public like to address this topic. Please come forth Now seeing no one in person or online council discussion. Roll call please. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Salah. Yes. Teague. >> Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0. Could I get a motion to pass and adopt. Moved by. >> Second alter

Moved by. Seconded by alter. Um All in favor say aye. Well no. We have to vote on that one. Uh, roll call please. >> Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Salah. Yes. Teague. Yes. Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0 ten G. TIF district, North. Dodge and Scott. Ordinance providing that general property tax is levied and collected each year on all property located within the North. Dodge and Scott Urban Renewal area and the City of Iowa City, city, County of Johnson. State of Iowa. By and for the benefit of the State of Iowa. City of Iowa City. County of Johnson. Iowa City Community School District and other taxing districts be paid to a special fund for payment of principal and interest on loans, monies advanced to and indebtedness, including bonds issued or to be issued incurred by the city in connection with the North Dodge and Scott Urban Renewal Area. This is the second consideration and staff is requesting expedited action on this item.

I will again move that the rule requiring the ordinances must be considered and voted on for passage at two council meetings prior to the meeting, which will be passed be suspended that the second consideration and vote be waived and that the ordinance be voted on for final passage at this time. >> Move by Mo. Second Bergus. >> Council. Would anyone from the public like to address this topic Seeing no one in person or online council discussion Roll call please. >> Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Yes. Yes. Teague. Yes. >> Yes. Alter. Yes. >> Motion passes 7 to 0. Um, can I get a motion to pass and adopt. So moved. >> Second.

All right, roll call please. >> Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes. Salah. Yes. Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0 ten H. TIF district. Sycamore. Ordinance providing the general property taxes levied and collected each year on all property located within the Sycamore Urban Renewal Area and I in the city of Iowa City. County of Johnson. State of Iowa by and for the benefit of the State of Iowa. City of Iowa City. County of Johnson. Iowa City Community School District and other taxing districts be paid to a special fund for payment of principal and interest on loans. Monies advanced to and indebtedness, including bonds issued or to be issued incurred by the city in connection with the Sycamore Urban Renewal Area. Um, this is second consideration and staff is also requesting expedited action on this item. >> I move that the rule requiring that ordinances must be considered and voted on for passage of two council meetings prior to the meeting, which is to be finally passed, be suspended that the second consideration and vote be waived and that this ordinance be voted on for final passage at this time.

Second. Moved by Mo, seconded by Harmsen. Um, anyone from the public like to address this topic? We're going to invite you to state your name and city you're from. Welcome, Mark. >> Signs from Iowa City. Um, I was here, so I figured I'd stick around and make a comment, if you don't mind. All right. I just want to applaud the council for being proactive on on this, uh, on this item. Um, I know TIF districts have gotten kind of a bad, a bad rap, and I know councils are always, you know, being very cautious on, on how they utilize this, this, this, uh, mechanism to, to help fund improvements. And, and I think anyone who's been by the Sycamore Mall area recently knows that there's a great need for improvement in that part of town. Um, I live a couple blocks on the other side of the, of the, of highway six. Um, and Greater Iowa City, Inc. I know has identified this as a target area for their interests also. I attended one of their first, um, uh, public meetings that they had around gaining input on, on ideas for the area. And I think there's some exciting things being talked about and in the works. And, um, this is just one piece that will help make some of that happen. So I applaud you and I encourage you to, to vote for approval. Thank you. >> Great.

Thank you. Anyone else want to address this topic? Seeing no one in person or online council discussion. Roll call please. >> Mo. Yes. Yes. Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0. Can I get a motion to pass and adopt. So moved. Alter. >> Second solid. Roll call, please. >> Yes. Teague. Yes. Yes. Alter. Yes. Bergus. Yes. Harmsen. Yes. Mo. Yes.

Motion passes 7 to 0 11 is Council appointments 11 a is historic preservation Commission one vacancy, one vacancy for an East representative to fill an unexpired term upon appointment through June 30th, 2027. Um, and then this is time for council discussion. There is only one applicant. Um and of course this is a for East College Street. Um, just wanted to know if my colleagues are all right. Look like there is a majority. Could I get a motion to appoint uh, Trish. Trish. Trisha Carlson. So moved. >> Second.

All right. Move by. Seconded by Saleh. Um, anyone from the public like to address. Wait. I'm sorry. Um. All in favor, say aye. Any oppose? Motion passes 7 to 0. It was a 4 a.m. Morning >> Yeah, yeah.

All right. 12. Item number 12. Announcements of vacancies. New. Um, we have 12 A, which is Airport Commission. Two vacancies to fill four year terms. Uh, July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2030. Historic Preservation Commission two vacancies for at large representatives to fill three year terms. July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Historic Preservation Commission one vacancy for a Longfellow representative to fill a three year term. July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Historic Preservation Commission one vacancy for a North Side representative to fill a three year term. July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Housing and Community Development Commission two vacancies to fill three year terms. July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Park and Recreation Commission one vacancy to fill an unexpired term upon appointment through December 31st, 2027. Planning and Zoning Commission two vacancies to fill five year terms. July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2031. Public Art Advisory Committee one vacancy for an at large representative to fill a three year term. July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Public Art Advisory Committee one vacancy for an at large representative to fill an unexpired term upon appointment through June 30th, 2026, applications must be received by 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 12th, 2027. Uh. May 12th, 2026. Can I get a motion to accept correspondence? >> So moved.

Second Moved by alter. Seconded by Saleh. All in favor, say aye. >> Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes 7 to 0 and item number 13. Announcements of vacancies. Previous. Um. We have, um 13, a airport zoning board of adjustment, one vacancy to fill a five year term. Airport Zoning Board of Adjustment one vacancy to fill a five year term. Board of appeals. One vacancy for a licensed electrician to fill a five year term. Board of appeals. One vacancy for Hvac professional to fill an unexpired term. Historic preservation Commission. One vacancy for Brown Street representative to fill a three year term. Historic Preservation Commission. One vacancy for Jefferson Street. Representative to fill a three year term. Historic Preservation Commission. One vacancy for Woodlawn Avenue. Representative to fill a three year term. Vacancies will remain open until filled. We're on to item number 14, which is City Council information

Economic Development Committee met on April 1st. Councilor Weilein Councilor Salah and I did, and there were two, uh, big juicy topics. I'd strongly encourage you guys to watch that whole meeting. Um, the arts endowment that we're setting up has, um, we're moving forward. However, there's just a lot of specifics that will eventually have to address, um, about, I think the sticking point is going to be how the money is invested. So, um, I would strongly encourage you to watch that. And then also the, uh, the property tax tax exemption program, sorry, it looks a little bit like a tiff, but it's not because we don't have a say. It's just a general broad tool for us to encourage additional development. Um, also something, a different program that I think will, I think, encourage more development of housing. It's not focused specifically on, on a permanent affordable housing, but it's just housing stock at large. But Councilor Salah had asked us to add a sort of second parallel program that would maybe, um, add additional affordability requirements to see if we have people interested in, an additional component on top of the basic package tax exemption. So again, a really productive meeting. Um, and when will those things come to council for the formation of arts endowment. Um, is that another two? Meetings >> Probably may or June.

May or June. Okay. >> So you have time. Um, and then I'll let somebody else talk about MPO if they want to. Uh, I. Read to children at the library and it was awesome. I just wanted to, I, uh, wanted to say what they wanted. Um, when I asked them, you know, the preschoolers what they wanted in Iowa City. Um, I got the answers. More dogs. Um, someone said dinosaurs and somebody and a little girl said, um, unicorns. Uh, so, uh, do it that way you can. Jeff. Um.

No problem. >> Uh, I was thinking of a mural. I don't know, um, and, uh, Laura and I also partnering with You-a did a youth town hall at UAE. Um, it, I thought it went really well. Um, it was just a, a small group of teens, basically mostly high schoolers, some middle schoolers. Um, one college kid, uh, that's, uh, we just got to talk to them for two hours about anything and it was awesome. It was, I think it was very insightful about how the youth, youth experience Iowa City. And they notice a lot and have lots of opinions, which I think is awesome. Specifically involving public transportation. Um, and yeah, I would say that was a lot of what we talked about. Um, there was, um, a high schooler there who lives at Modern Manor and was talking about a lot of the problems there. And, um, was excited to hear that about that. We are always trying to have conversations about, um, uh annexation. Um, and what the county has been doing to help out. >> Yeah. Um, there were a number of, uh, queer and trans kids who are in that group. And one thing that really struck me was that, um, one individual noted that there were basically two public places and Iowa City where they really felt safe. And one is the Iowa City Public Library and the other being a Y. So big shout out to our library for being so welcoming for all members of our community.

Absolutely. And just the, um, uh, the always the need for more spaces for anyone to hang out that there isn't the expectation of buying anything. Um, you know, so that was brought up a lot too. Yeah. They're just like, yeah, we go to the library every day, but what if we want to do something else, you know? Anyways, yeah, it was great. We did talk up the rec centers. We did. Yeah. >> There you.

Go. Cool >> Um, I attended the meeting and Jeff actually mentioned it in his Friday updates, but, um, Ellen Habel, the deputy city manager, was named the next EDI. And I think that's going to be really exciting. Um, and, uh, and actually it was wonderful because there was just that, that meeting, though it usually is long as Laura can attest, and there's a lot that goes on. This really was just a great moment to pause for all that Karen had done for the group. And so that was really lovely. Um, and then also there was a peace and justice center that some of us attended. And that was wonderful. It was held at the rec center and had amazing food and, um, was just a really great way to bring community together. So that was lovely. >> Great. Um. >> All right, we're gonna move on to item number 15, which is our reports from our staff, city manager's office.

Not tonight. Thanks. >> City attorney. Uh, on Friday, we were sad to see Susan Dulek go. As I described at our last meeting. But on Monday, yesterday, we were thrilled to welcome back Sarah Greenwood. She had been with our office for about 17 years and then left for a couple of years and, uh, decided she'd like to come back. And so we were thrilled to have her back. >> Great. City Clerk. >> Thanks. All right, we're going to move on to item number 16, which will be a motion to adjourn from our formal meeting, and then we'll reconvene in our work session. Can I get a motion to to adjourn? >> Moved again from the.

Second. >> All right. Move by Salih, seconded by alter. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned from our formal meeting. All right. We will reconvene our work session. Um, which is today is still April 7th, 2026, and we are at item continuing the conversation from item five. And I know that, um, it was just comments from council at this time. I think he was trying to say something. We left it at.

That. >> Uh We were talking about the, um, the nonprofit, the establishment of the nonprofit. And I think my questions will be able to be answered probably just by Eric or down the line. Um, I'm forgetting the gentleman's name, but, uh, our.

David bright. >> David. Bright. Yes. Yeah. Um, uh, I was basically just going to ask more about, you know, the makeup of the board to make sure that at the end of the day, if we're talking about the nonprofit, that it's going to control the city's municipal units, I want to make sure at the end of the day, the city has the final say. Just to talk through all of that. You know, that's the only thing. But I don't we don't need to keep us any longer. Those are conversations that we can have in the future. Especially if that's not something that you need direction from us right now Tired. That actually gets to my question. So there's the next step was the articles of incorporation, correct?

Yes. So they would, uh, in order we would want to incorporate and Mr. Bright will take care of that for us. Uh, and then, uh, those three, uh, initial directors again, the mayor pro tem, uh, Tracy, Chu is n d s director and Rachel Carter as Housing Authority, uh, coordinator, um, would serve as the initial directors. That will be a challenging assignment as that will be a working board. Um, and they would then recruit at least two other, um, I'll say non-city individuals to serve on the board. I say at least two because if those three are conflicted out. And this is one of the things that Mr. Bright was addressing, then you need at least two left to take action. So we need at least five. We would maybe shoot for five and exactly five. Um, so that they can, um, both, uh, take action when it's needed, but still have three city people out of a five person board.

And then the board would do the rest of like creating the bylaws and that sort of the rest of that work would come after the article. It's been incorporated, right. My apologies. I thought that the draft articles of incorporation and bylaws were to be included in your packet. I'm told that they were not. Um, those are documents that Mr. Bright and I have already worked through. So that's already ready from our perspective. But to answer your question, yes, the bylaws would be adopted by the directors. Is the number of directors determined in the articles of incorporation or in the bylaws? >> In the bylaws, it says at least five. >> I'd be interested in us saying five. It could always be amended.

Sure. >> But I think establishing it at five would be. >> Yeah, it would be great. Good. And three, uh, required to be staff. Right. The uh. >> Two. Staff, one council member, right. And those are ex officio. And so those are, I'll say permanent, if you will, whoever fills those three roles would serve on the board. >> You mean it's still from the community at large? Only two. >> Yes. It's still like city majority kind of. Uh, yes. >> Yeah.

That's right. You want. And I'm also just a little bit confused about the, um, how it would be a conflict of interest if like where the conflict of interest were sure, like the city staff and the city councilor can't have the nonprofit work with the city. >> Sure. There's a couple of examples I can think of. Okay. Um, as you're aware, at some point, the, um, property, the units, the residential units in question are going to be transferred from the city to the nonprofit. We envision they'll be sold to the nonprofit, or at least the terms of that transfer will need to be negotiated. They'll need to be negotiated between the nonprofit and the city. And so that's a time when the mayor pro tem, for example, even the two city employees that we've mentioned would would be conflicted out and all likelihood, um, the other example is, um, I think it is envisioned at present that, uh, it would be likely that the nonprofit would hire the city, uh, to manage those units, basically to hire the city staff, not on an individual basis, but pay the city to employ those folks who are already doing that work to keep doing the work. That was what Mr. Bright was. Now, again, that's ultimately up to the nonprofit's board to decide. But that's kind of what we envision would be likely. >> And what do you mean.

Would we envision the city folks working on the city side and recusing themselves from the nonprofit so they wouldn't? It's not like they couldn't participate on either side of those transactions. Correct. >> Well, when you say the city, I guess I haven't given this a lot of thought, but it's possible that the mayor pro tem that serves on the nonprofit board would have to recuse from, um, the city vote as well because of at present, her conflict with the nonprofit board. But the other six council members would still be in.

I'm sorry. Speaking about city staff, I don't want to preclude um, in in the current iteration, Tracy and Rachel from participating on the city side in the development of what we're talking about, that would be conflicts. They could participate on the city side and then recuse themselves from the nonprofit board. >> Right. I guess it depends on the work that you're talking about. I mean, obviously, Tracy and I are still here. I just had to look to.

My right. They came back. >> They did okay. They would obviously be continuing to do their work here at the city. And again, I'm presuming that the nonprofit would contract with the city in order for that work to continue to be done. Obviously, they need to keep doing the city work. If that comes up at the nonprofit level, you know, hypothetically, that they're dissatisfied with the work that the city is doing in some fashion, well, then obviously they'd have to recuse. Um, if your question is, can they do I'll say city work in managing those non-profits despite their role in the nonprofit. I guess I'd have to think about that a little bit. I just don't. Want to limit their ability to act on behalf of the city.

Yes, exactly. >> On the on that. , on the same line of sort of conflicts of interest and being able to vote on this board, can they participate in the ex officio members, participate in dissolution? Uh, the dissolution of the. If this does not work and we want to jettison from it, can they can they participate in dissolution?

Well, I have not thought of that. Um, I suppose the question would be the would be why if there motion, if the motion to dissolve was related to again, some dissatisfaction with the city or broken down relationship with the city, you know, something like that. And then maybe, um, yeah, yeah, I don't know. >> Sorry, I don't want to poke holes, but. >> Yeah, no, I mean, I'm let's, let's talk it through now. Better now than later.

And then I maybe expanding on my concern about a little bit about liability. Like the city has some immunity. And then when we become a not for profit, we lack that. If we create this organization, do we create multiple, multiple organizations for each unit? Or does the umbrella organization create those? >> Yeah. So ultimately that would be a board decision. And I say that because I don't want to be cute. I mean, I represent the city. I do not represent the nonprofit. I would envision that the nonprofit would be getting separate legal counsel and separate accounting. And separate probably all of that, likely with the exception of the management of these units. As we've discussed. Um. You know, um, I, I would imagine that a nonprofit, um, would take steps perhaps like a private landlord in creating separate LLCs so as to silo their liability. Um, that is if there, you know, let's say you have a trip and fall case in front of one of their apartment units that results in a large judgment. It would only be that one LLC that could be affected as opposed to the remainder. That's the decision that the board would have to make down the line. As you and I have discussed, one of the disadvantages, of course, is that the city has some, um, sovereign immunity. Uh, and from the Municipal Tort Claims Act in chapter 670, presumably the nonprofit would not, um, but probably in the balance of considerations versus the cash flow that is the significant advantage of this. Clearly, it would be in favor of moving forward. I would advise. >> I would like to understand again, because your questions Councilor Bergus, that for when it comes to conflict of interest, I want you just to repeat again, what that means is this means like, for example, if something that as you said, the city is doing

it and the city have to recuse themselves, the staff have to recuse themselves. If we're talking about the five people now, sure. The two staff and the mayor pro tem, three of them have to recuse themselves. That's what you think. Well, again, if the question is, let's say a contract with the city, I would say, yeah, they would probably I mean, again, ultimately that would be the advice would have to come from their attorney. Um, but um, my opinion would be that that seems like a gimme. Yeah. That they would probably.

Have to, if that means like when, uh, if we want to contract the city have to manage the property. And now we wanted to vote for that as a nonprofit, like, and the number of those three people will recuse themselves. And the two people will be the people who decide which is our public people.

Right >> Yeah. I really have concern about that. >> Well, I guess maybe this will ease your concern. Maybe not. Um, but the, um, articles of incorporation lay out the three initial directors and they're the three that we've mentioned, the mayor pro tem, um, you know, Tracy and Rachel to be informal. Uh, they do the recruiting for who those other two are. They need to elect those other two. So they would likely want to be intentional and deliberate about who they are selecting. Not, you know, that they presuppose any votes, but, you know, you would want to probably get people who, um You know, are interested in the best, uh, you know, in, in the mission of Housing Authority and so forth and appreciate the value of that Housing Authority staff has given all these years to the management of these properties. I guess I'd just say. >> That I understand that, but you never know. >> Uh, that's fair. I mean, it's ultimately those are two independent members and they have. >> To try to say something. Yeah. >> Yeah.

We're working with two different consultants who are advising us on this way. And I can't guarantee you the exact nonprofit set up, but what they're telling us is the nonprofit is simply the repository of the assets. And they typically don't have employees. So they're contracting with the housing authority and we're managing it. But we probably will have to contract out for legal advice and maybe separate accounting, but there will be no employees with the nonprofit. They will be contracting. And the the whole purpose in the bylaws and articles of incorporation is to operate exclusively for the benefit of and the support of the purpose and functions of the Housing Authority. So there are some. >> That.

Does help. And then we provide those assets into their. You know, we'll have to get attorney advice. There'll be so many strings because no nonprofit. I think we talked to our consultant today, like the first tranche or whatever term they use, the 53 and maybe a rad or a section eight disposition is 53 units. That's over $10 million. Um, no nonprofit that we work with has $10 million to give to us. And so there will be a bunch of, I think protections like, um, you know, like when you give land to, um, the VIP, we gave them the grant and they gave us, we didn't really transfer money, but we transferred property. There will be protections about deed restrictions regarding that property. And so we'll be managing the housing authority will be managing it, and the nonprofit will have no employees. If we if we if we administer it like we've seen in other housing authorities that have done this, I don't know if that helps or confuses things. >> But what I kind of hear the description and again, I'll probably know better because we'll have those documents to review for the next meeting. So what I kind of hear this is those other two members who are coming from the community are almost kind of that outside oversight almost, right. So that's we got somebody other than like, you know, from outside of our city council and city staff, which the council oversees. So that's still kind of our entity. But just two other sets of eyeballs to kind of look over some of these decisions. AM I reading that somewhat correct? >> The three of us will meet. I mean, definitely Davies. We want certain expertise that we're after, whether it's development, finance, experience, just to have another, um, a skill set that we're after that we want on that board. >> Right? Yeah, yeah, that's kind of, it's kind of what I'm understanding. So it sounds like I'm not too far off. >> What kind of organization? I felt like I heard Mr. Bright say, we're not going to organize as a not for profit. >> Uh, I think he said he would not look for tax exemption. If I remember, it's it would be a

chapter five. Oh, for nonprofit. >> We don't need that. That's what he said. >> Yeah. I think the idea is that it is not likely that this is an entity that would do fundraising and thus, um, you know, would want to offer donors, uh, tax exemption, you know, we would be giving them money, but we don't pay tax. We, the city don't pay taxes anyway, so it doesn't matter to the city. But you know, if it ever got to the point where there were a bunch of generous residents that wanted to contribute to the cause, then that board would probably reconsider and see if they can get tax exempt. >> Okay. Got it.

I don't think that decision has to be made now. I think they can decide three years from now. >> Regardless of which organization you choose, you can still receive tax credits from the federal government if we want to. It's just donor private donors receiving that benefit as a. Donor tax exempt status. Yeah. It's being organized under chapter five for nonprofit. Yeah >> I don't know, but you know, I still like have that something. >> Losing, losing.

Control about losing control. Exactly. Especially when these come. But, uh, I understand that we said we start with five, uh, you know, and also like everything come to mind, we have a wonderful mayor pro tem right now, but I don't know what's even going to happen in the future if we get another person who is the other two, they will be majority city doesn't have control. I don't know, I guess like all the bad thing come to my mind. Not the good thing, but yeah, hopefully no.

I share those concerns and I think it is hard since we're having this whole conversation without having seen the documents. And what I understand from what Tracy read to us is, you know, for the benefit of the housing authority of the city. And so, you know, if a board member acted out far outside the scope, they would be violating their fiduciary duties to the nonprofit. And there's a process for removal of them. >> And that's in the bylaws. Fiduciary duties. Yeah. >> So that makes that alleviates a lot of that concern. >> For me.

Or maybe, yeah, we can still put in the bylaw, for example, like to hire the city to become the like the nonprofit who manage those things all the time. They have to be the city or something like that, you know, like to be put on the bylaw. I don't know, we still have time to think about those. But yeah, sure. >> And so the vision that I have is that, you know, we'll bring something, as Tracy mentioned previously, she's interested in getting this up and running so that the nonprofit can apply for some workforce housing tax credits, which I think is like $1 million or something. If I recall. Um, so we're motivated. Um, so we'll plan on bringing you something for formal action next month and hopefully we'll have a little more of the details about how we see it. Um.

Going next. >> Meeting, next meeting. I'm sorry. Yeah. >> Good, good Thank you. >> Yeah. We can go home. All right. Um, if nothing else on that item number six is council updates on assigned boards, commissions and committees. Many of that. Most of that was done at the last meeting. Any other items that people wanted to discuss there? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Have a good night. >> Thank you. Yes.