Iowa City City Council Nixes Linn Street Flats, Opens Door for Future Commercial Northside Development

The story that follows will contain a lot of property zoning mumbo jumbo.

This said, had to make a basic philosophical decision on Tuesday night: preserving historical, single family neighborhoods versus developing commercial space downtown.

The spirited argument centered on the Northside Marketplace district.

Following discussion and several comments from members of the Northside neighborhood in attendance, the council voted 5-2 (Regenia Bailey and Terry Dickens in opposition) to reject the proposed development plan.

Jessie Allen and Blaine Thomas wanted to replace houses at 221 N. Linn, 225 N. Linn, 223 E. Bloomington and a nearby MidAmerican Energy substation with a two level building featuring apartments on the top floor, small commercial spaces below and nearby underground parking.

However, the council did vote 4-3 to approve an amendment to the city's comprehensive plan for the Northside District, allowing these currently residential properties to be zoned commercial at a future time. Matt Hayek, Mike Wright, and Connie Champion voted no.

This leads us back to the philosophical disagreement.

John Thomas, representing the Northside Neighborhood Association, was one of many Northside residents in attendance spoke against both the project itself and rezoning the land to commercial.

He argued that the council had set a comprehensive plan three years ago to preserve the character of the neighborhood by using residentially zone spaces as a buffer against commercial development. If the city added a high density apartment building in the area, it would cause the Northside market space to encroach upon the Northside neighborhood, he said.

"It's a neighborhood where the integrity (of maintaining the residential space) has been an issue for years, and we view it as a continuing issue due to its location," Thomas said.

Thomas and others from Northside floated the idea of row houses as an alternative, which would maintain the character of the neighborhood while providing more housing options for the elderly and university employees. There was also a sense of general concern voiced by many Northside residents that a large apartment building could bring a concentration of college students to the neighborhood.

City councilor Connie Champion, although commending the developers for presenting an attractive building that would fit the neighborhood, agreed with Thomas. She said for this reason she didn't support changing the zoning from residential to commercial.

"I think this neighborhood is very fragile," Champion said, arguing that the neighborhood should be protected. "We don't have the Coral Ridge Mall, but we have great neighborhoods."

Councilor Mike Wright agreed, saying that the lines were drawn in the previous comprehensive plan in order to preserve the residential character of the neighborhood, and if they could be moved once, they could be moved again and again.

"Sooner or later this has to stop or the neighborhood is going to die a death of a thousand cuts," Wright said.

Mayor Hayek said he approved of the project in theory, but did not like the potential unintended consequences of opening up the space for commercial development, as it could spread into the neighborhood and affect its character in unforeseen ways.

"If it didn't include that, and we could protect those properties north along Linn, I think I would be singing a different tune," Hayek said.

On the other side of the argument, councilors Regenia Bailey, Terry Dickens and Susan Mims contended that extending the Northside Market a few blocks up along Linn Street parallel to Pagliai's, made perfect sense, as Bloomington Street could then be used as the natural boundary that would divide commercial from residential.

Bailey, a Northside resident, said she was excited at the prospect of enhancing the Northside Market district with more small commercial space, a much sought after commodity in downtown.

"I guess we just see it so differently as to what would be good for the neighborhood," Bailey said.

Councilor Susan Mims agreed with Dickens and Bailey on the rezoning, and Ross Wilburn also voted yes. However, the tide turned against the project when Mims and others declared that although they could perhaps stomach commercial development on those properties, they wanted to see a reduction in the density of apartment spaces in the property.

"I'm not quite comfortable with (the scope of the project), yet," Mims said.

With this, Mims and Wilburn flipped to no, joining the three opponents of changing the zoning to defeat the project, 5-2.

Jeff Davidson, Iowa City's planning and community development director, said Allen and Thomas could reapply with another project now that the property is open to commercial development, but this would take another two months to go through the city's planning and zoning commission again.