Iowa City Wins Award From American Planning Association

From the City of Iowa City:

by Tracy Hightshoe

The City was honored by the Iowa Chapter of the American Planning Association Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019, with an award for the City's Affordable Housing Action Plan.

The City won in the award category of Implementation, which recognizes "an effort that demonstrates a significant achievement for an area...in accomplishing positive changes as a result of planning," and emphasizes long-term, measurable results.

The APA acknowledged the work done to date in completing 14 of the 15 identified action steps since its adoption in 2016.

The APA highlighted several accomplishments of the plan:

Completing the zoning requirements to enable Cross Park Place, a housing first option that gives chronically homeless individuals permanent homes

Adoption of an annexation policy to encourage affordable housing

Creation of an affordable housing requirement in Riverfront Crossings,

Pursuing a form based code for the South District (Alexander Elementary neighborhoods) to promote a diversity of housing types

The APA also noted that the City provides quarterly updates on the Affordable Housing Action Plan's on icgov.org.

"The City is honored to be recognized by the Iowa APA for our work and steps taken to improve and increase affordable housing opportunities for our residents," Tracy Hightshoe, Neighbrhood & Development Services Director, said.

"It means a lot to the City to be recognized by an organization made up of professional planners, planning educators, planning commissioners, and planning students from across the state."

Iowa City hosted the APA-Iowa chapter's annual conference last week, where members took tours of the City, took in lectures, and were able to share ideas and projects with fellow public servants across the state.

This press release was produced by the City of Iowa City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.