Bolkcom: We're down to item number 5 which is business from the Planning and Zoning Administration regarding the Johnson County/Coralville Fringe Area Agreement. As the Board knows, there has been kind of a staff level discussion going on trying to put some general principles together about how we would work with Coralville to develop a fringe area agreement. There's a public, not a public hearing, but a public informational meeting on December 16th at 7:00 at the Coralville City Hall to essentially bring this out and begin to get some public input about what's being proposed. This is on today to brief the Board basically about what's on the table. Rick...

Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: Good morning.

Bolkcom: Good morning.

Dvorak: I've got a couple maps here. This is for the public actually. I've given each of the Board members a copy of the proposed fringe area as Coralville would like to see it fall into place. This map that Steve just put up is basically all the fringe areas that we have been working on, trying to identify, so you can see we've tried to keep things fairly well together. This map here... I believe that one gentleman here is from the Coralville area, I guess this would be a representation for him if you want to put it up. This same map, you folks all had last week. The document I gave you last week to look at, it was a draft. As Joe mentioned, the 3 of us plus Kelly and Rich Russell started working on this draft. I have a bunch of copies available for the public.. I know a couple people back there would like to have them. There's more here. I don't know how much time we have this morning, usually don't have much time

Bolkcom: Don't worry about the time. Just go ahead and present.

Dvorak: OK.

Bolkcom: We'll worry about the time.

Dvorak: I don't know if you want to start... The front page is basically the same as Coralville and Iowa City that we already have in place and we tried to mimic that. The main interest of the Board is to look at the fringe areas themselves and what we are pursuing in those areas. If you refer to your maps, Fringe Area A1 and A2 are basically rural area. Do you prefer I read these individually, Joe?

Bolkcom: Yes, that would be fine. It won't take long.

Dvorak: Agriculture use in rural setting is encouraged. Residential development is to be discouraged in those areas and that again...

Assistant Planning and Zoning Administrator R.J. Moore: I'll point where these are here.

Dvorak: Thank you. County review of subdivisions, he said he really has no interest in the reviewing of those areas. County building permits are strictly ours and the subdivision will be reviewed by the City. They exempted the farmstead splits. The B1 and B2...

Bolkcom: Before you go on, A1 and A2 would essentially remain agricultural farming areas?

Dvorak: That's the intent.

Bolkcom: OK, thank you. Go ahead.

Dvorak: OK, the B1 and B2 are the areas of most concern of Coralville. Those are the areas they foresee themselves as growing in the future. So the restrictions out there are a little bit more restricted. B1 and B2 is residential land uses are encouraged. Conservation and requests for subdivisions are encouraged. Subdivisions will be reviewed by the City. Farmstead splits will be exempt. City design standards will apply for streets, storm water management, and sidewalks. Water and sewer will be constructed in a setting upon annexation. In other words, like we have with Iowa City and their growth area, we require that the infrastructure be all put in place, including water and sewer. With this proposal, basically everything has to be put in place, except the water and sewer and then upon annexation, it will be the responsibility of the people within that subdivision to have the sewer and water included. There has to be easements set aside for that. Oakdale Boulevard Quarter will be protected per JCCOG transportation plan. Annexation will be voluntary per State code. They are proposing no involuntary annexation as the State code identifies.

Duffy: Say that again now, Rick.

Dvorak: They are proposing only voluntary annexation. They are not proposing any involuntary annexation in this growth area. That's identified by the State code.

Jordahl: Right, which allows for 20% of the people being annexed, in a voluntary annexation to be non-consenting. It kind of amounts to the same thing.

Duffy: Well there's... Can I ask you one other question?

Dvorak: Sure.

Duffy: Fringe areas you don't have to go the 2 full miles? It's up 2 miles?

Dvorak: Yes, you can see by this plan. In certain areas they aren't going far at all.

Duffy: That's what I wondered.

Dvorak: We try to create some physical buffers by using Dubuque Street and North Liberty Road and obviously for Evergreen Road on the north side, of course Iowa City is on the south, and then using some quarter sections and section lines on the southwest quadrant so there is no conflict with Tiffin in their growth areas down there. We tried to bunch up to the other areas, including North Liberty too. I'm sorry, does that...

Duffy: Yes, thank you.

Dvorak: Here's something we've done with Tiffin and we may want to change the language a little bit. The last item on B1 and B2 is joint City and County building permits will apply. The reason for that is some of the annexations that have happened where the developments, commercial, industrial and residential, did not meet State building code requirements. So the City is proposing this to protect their interest in annexation. Now this, I may want to change because we are looking at a building code for the County so at the point in time that the County would adopt one, if we were to adopt one... I don't think it's necessary to have the City building inspector go through and then the County building inspector...

Stutsman: If they are more strict than we are, whose code do you go by?

Lacina: The more strict...

Stutsman: Is that how it... OK.

Dvorak: So I think we may want to tweak that language just a little bit.

Lacina: (Inaudible) they can also apply their rules and regulations with our staff. If we go into that area and we know that it's potentially an annexation area and we've got the agreement, we just apply their rules and regulations.

Dvorak: See we still want to control the (inaudible). They want to have the houses and the buildings actually inspected so the person would have to get a building permit from us for location and use so it complies with our zoning ordinance and construction inspection of the structure by the City of Coralville. It's similar to what we have in place with the City of Tiffin right now.

Duffy: Well there's a little difference in building codes. Some of them you don't even have to have an inspector. The ones responsible for building the house, they are the ones, in case it's not built right. I'd go a little slow on... Like I say there's all kinds of different rules and regulations and things the County can't afford.

Dvorak: Right.

Duffy: Just be a little careful.

Bolkcom: Go ahead Rick.

Dvorak: OK, Fringe Area C which is the...

Jordahl: The purple part down here.

Dvorak: Thank you, Jonathan. Land uses as described in the Coralville Future Land Use Plan subdivisions will be reviewed by the City. Farmstead splits are exempt. City design standards will apply similar to B. Street, storm water management, sidewalks, water and sewer will be constructed and assessed upon annexation. Iowa Hwy. 965 corridor protection is mandatory, and again we do have the 28 E agreement in place on that. Annexation will be voluntary per State code and that goes back to what Jonathan said. The 28 E would apply. Joint County and building inspection and permits process will also apply in this area. I'm sorry, do you have any questions about that part? OK, again, protection of agriculture operations, and again we put this in for the right to farm, per our ordinance in this policy. (Inaudible) it is the County's prerogative if a County has adopted its a zoning ordinance. The City however exercises authority over subdivisions regulations and its City's fringe area. Annexation is also primarily under exclusive rule of the Cities. Each of these activities however affects both jurisdictions and produces a clear need for coordination and joint administration. To that end, the City of Coralville and Johnson County agreed to the following procedures for administration of land use regulations. I just wanted to read that paragraph to outline what the reminder of this document is talking about. Again, under zoning regulations, zoning regulations for all unincorporated territory will remain under the authority of the Johnson County Zoning Ordinance in provision of Chapter 335 Code of Iowa, enabling legislation of County zoning. Number 2 talks about variances that you have the obtain through our Board of Adjustment. Number 3 is just our responsibility to submit these applications to the City. Number 4, this is important. I have another map showing this. If a property is already zoned something, we are not taking that right away from that person. This protects that person. In other words, if you bought this land anticipating on doing something and we come in and change what can be done on it, I think we're subject to some problems. We're reiterating this and this is in pretty much all the other documents.

Duffy: That's another State code on that too. What's the rezone for that? We're not supposed to alter that.

Dvorak: That's another question. Yes.

Duffy: Yes.

Dvorak: Any questions on that?

Bolkcom: Any questions on that? Go ahead.

Dvorak: Paragraph b subdivision land within Coral fringe area will be required to conform to either County subdivision standards our Coralville subdivision standards in accordance with policies specified in this agreement, just reiterating that. This just talks about simultaneously filing applications before the County and the City. Number 3, and this again reiterates what has already been stated. It basically says that subdivisions with fewer than 3 lots will be regulated by the County and basically A1 and A2 and the remainder will still be reviewed by the City. OK, then it talks about annexation. Coralville will annex territory only in accordance with policy statements specified in this agreement, which we have already discussed on the voluntary annexation. Number 2, this basically outlines that the City will give us copies of any annexations and gives us an outline of how we want to respond, if we do want to respond. Number 3 talks about what Charlie talked about. They may extend their jurisdiction up to the 2 mile but in a case where they would contact us and allow us time to respond to any annexations. Then d is where we... I think it's very important to the County and the City... talks about roads. This again... it's language we've worked on and it may need to be revised. We tried to get the intent of what I think the public wanted us to do and what we felt like our interpretation of what the public wanted us to do. It talks about the City of Coralville and Johnson County shall work together with the Johnson County Council of Governments to create a transportation plan for the fringe area outlined in this agreement. This transportation plan will work in conjunction with this agreement to ensure that future transportation corridors are protected from development. In other words, instead of just having reaction zoning all over, we want to have a plan out there to try to stem directions in different areas so we have a very good road plan so we don't have to have to go out in areas that we can't support with a decent road system. I don't know, if you want to elaborate a little bit on that, Jonathan.

Jordahl: Well we've seen a lot of... The Prairie du Chien Road discussion for example, the question of well can't we go through here? Well no, there's a house that was recently put there. Well we want to avoid situations where we're putting houses into places where we're going to need future roads. So rather than being frustrated by something we didn't think about, we're suggested to look ahead.

Bolkcom: Good.

Lacina: The only suggestion I would have to that is you would expand it beyond transportation to include utility easements and set back requirements with the ADA. The Cities are required for their 8 foot sidewalks now and of course we don't have that component in the County. We have our 66 foot wide road. If this potentially could be expanded into an arterial street you not only have the wider street, but you're going to have to consider utility easements, sewer lines and that sidewalk, which is going to require the City set backs. Now maybe that's addressed in the plan.

Dvorak: Well I think our goal is to work with JCCOG too, which includes the City and the County to ensure that the things that you have discussed, for example like the Mike Kattchee application... If we had had a plan in place, we would know if that road, it was brought up frequently that the road, may be moved over here or moved over here. If we had a transportation plan in place, we would know where that road would go and also what vision right of ways would have to be dedicated to County, what structures may have to be impacted and may not have to be. It takes, in my opinion any way, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of it so we'd have something concrete to present to the public and people in that area. It's at least a plan.

Bolkcom: That's a good idea.

Duffy: Yes, I hate to be controversial but what do you mean JCCOG? Does that mean that the decisions on our county roads is going to be made through JCCOG? Is that what...

Lacina: Well what it means is like Oakdale, where it runs part of it through the county, part of it through Coralville, part of it through Iowa City, they would sit down so the road was consistent, all the set backs and...

Duffy: I mean all the roads... I'm not about to give... that's a very important function of the Board of Supervisors and the Johnson County Council of Governments. We don't have any people in the rural area on that committee. We have 2 supervisors but we have to represent the cities too. I'm a little touchy on this. To have another entity between our County Engineer and that would be the Johnson County Council of Governments... So you'd have to be a little careful. Now what do you mean again, Rick?

Bolkcom: The agreement is between Johnson County and Coralville, not JCCOG. We certainly ask JCCOG advice...

Duffy: It doesn't matter though. JCCOG...

Bolkcom: ...but this is to prepare for Coralville and Johnson County merging in the future.

Duffy: Say down by Hills some place, we wanted to put in a bridge.

Lacina: Coralville has no jurisdiction over that.

Duffy: No, but I mean, once we start, what I've been hearing, throughout the county... Now is that what we are talking about?

Bolkcom: No, we're talking just about the Coralville Fringe Area Agreement. I want to stay focused on that this morning.

Duffy: No, but I'd like to know how far this is going to go because... Yes, I understand the Coralville fringe area but when we are talking about JCCOG, I'm not so sure... I'd hate to see them...

Bolkcom: That's a whole other question.

Jordahl: Their function is to help coordinate...

Stutsman: Yes, they would be a resource.

Jordahl: ...joint planning among governments and they have planning/transportation people there who, Sally said, are resources.

Duffy: I'm seeing that Jonathan, but still my question has not been answered. I think it is part of this plan. What do you mean in the rural areas?

Jordahl: What I mean is that those rural areas are being discussed here precisely because Coralville may in the future annex those areas. We want to try to make the neighbors in that area aware of what the plans are. We want to enable Coralville to grow in an economical way without putting obstacles there that will make it more expensive for our citizens who live in Coralville to have an orderly city at a reasonable cost.

Duffy: I understand that but still I'm very disappointed in what happened in the North Corridor, Sugar Bottom Road. I thought that... So I just don't want to say any time we have a controversy, or a road, to have to go to JCCOG and ask for permission.

Bolkcom: We're not.

Stutsman: No, we're not.

Gardner: That's never been the intent.

Duffy: Well that's what you mean then. It's just work with the Cities.

Lacina: That's right. Cooperation.

Dvorak: That's all we're proposing on the table today.

Duffy: How about our County Engineer? Is he...

Dvorak: Whatever this JCCOG does before us is work with Mike, just like we did in the management in other parts of the county, and it would be presented before this Board before anything would be done, and the Council.

Stutsman: Yes, we're not going to turn over our authority for roads to JCCOG. This is not what this is saying.

Duffy: Well that's the way it looked to me.

Bolkcom: All right, any concluding questions or comments from the Board and then we may ask any members of the public have any comments on this.

Jordahl: Isn't there a subsequent point there?

Stutsman: Yes.

Dvorak: It's really important.

Bolkcom: Go ahead.

Dvorak: Then we can overshoot the last of it. This is something that has been a real question. This more of an enabling paragraph than it is an ordinance per say. Road Assessments... The City of Coralville will work with Johnson County to ensure that the rural Johnson County residents are not assessed a burdensome rate for street improvements which may be consequential to annexation. This is the 80/20. This is particularly important in the case of long term residents who may be annexed as a part of a 20% non-consenting properties in what the law calls an voluntary annexation. And again, this is nothing but open the door, a liaison, between the County and the City to work out something to try to protect the residents of Johnson County.

Bolkcom: OK. Questions or comments on that? You've explained it very well.

Stutsman: What's the recourse? What can they... Who determines what is burdensome? What the City may determine is not burdensome, a landowner may.

Jordahl: Excuse me. I've drafted some language for this thing and have been concerned to try and make this work. Cedar Rapids handles it in a different way than Coralville does. They don't pave anything until more than half of the residents request it, for example, rather than paving it upon annexation. They don't assess the full amount of the cost of the street to people there. They have a general budget fund that pays for part of the street cost and they are only assessed like 8 feet from the center line or something, so it's a portion of the street cost, once they do assess. There are options for different ways of doing things. We of course can't control what Coralville does. But the intent of the paragraph is, is to raise the question, to draw the attention of both bodies as we talk about this, to the question of long established residences who bought into the area when they were expecting to be rural and to remain rural. Now the town is growing out and absorbing them. The question of what is burdensome is relative to your own situation in each individual case. It's necessary at some point to draw a line and say this is a regulation. An example would be the farmstead split law. We have a 1979 date. Residences in existence before January 1st, 1979 are eligible for the farmstead split, and those after aren't. We might have, suggest, something analogous there where residents of a certain age would be protected against things. Otherwise you'd have a case where nobody would consent to annexation. They'd all say well I don't want to pay street assessments therefore I will be non-consenting. We've got to handle this carefully and in an open conversation. This is intended to open that conversation, not to resolve it.

Bolkcom: OK. I think that clearly will open that discussion. I think it is a good discussion for us to have.

Dvorak: Currently, at this time, Coralville is reviewing the same document. I think the last paragraph, and then if you want public input... This came out of some problems we've had with the Iowa City Fringe Area Agreement. This will allow us to set up something to sit down and negotiate if we feel strongly that something should be allowed in an area that may be in conflict with a fringe area agreement. There's no language in any of the other documents so we created this for this document and hopefully we will be able to do that. This document is recommended to be in place for 20 years, with a review every 3 years. That's all I have.

Bolkcom: Great. So if there's disagreements between the County and Coralville on an application, we'd get together and talk it through. It's essentially what that does.

Stutsman: I think it's good to put that in.

Duffy: It's a good idea.

Stutsman: Does that mean all the representatives, we don't have to get picky but...

Dvorak: It's a committee. However you want to do it.

Stutsman: I didn't know if it would be all Boards or designated individuals and how many from each and stuff.

Bolkcom: All right.

Dvorak: It's up to you folks how you want to resolve that.

Bolkcom: Thank you, Rick. Does any member of the public wish to address the Board on this agreement?

Lacina: Before we do... I don't know if it's workable or not, but under the definition of hardship, in the discussion if we could bring up the idea of not having any special assessment be in excess of a percentage of the value of the property. If you have a very modest home, an assessment could in fact be 100% of the value, which would in effect could cost you your home. If you have a corn field, obviously, the assessment is going to be far beyond the value. But the impact of that cornfield or modest home, as opposed to a commercial establishment and utilization by the public, are far different. So, I don't know if we talk to them about a 20% rule, a 50% rule, but at some point, some designation of hardship, in order to protect some of the individuals out there that we had discussion with before about losing their homes because of an excessive assessment that, in fact, the bank won't loan them the money to pay it off because it's in excess of the value of the property... It may not fly but I think it's just something to talk to them about.

Jordahl: That's it. You've added another good example of how we could do this. Yes, thanks.

Bolkcom: Any comments from members of the public this morning? Yes, go ahead then.

Mike: Could we know, who in the Supervisors has participated in drawing up this plan?

Bolkcom: Jonathan and I have, working with Rick, Rich Russell, and Kelly (inaudible). We've had a series of 4 or 5 meetings just to talk things through, and basically provide something for people to react to when we take it out.

Jordahl: A starting place. It's not meant to be the agreement, but it's a place to start talking.

Dvorak: When was the tentative date? I forgot it.

Bolkcom: The tentative date is December 16th, at 7 p.m. at the Coralville City Council Chamber would be the first opportunity for both bodies to kind of kick around some of this and also begin to get some input on how to improve it and make it work.

Dvorak: Does that sound okay with this Board? If it does, then I'll get back to...

Stutsman: What? The date?

Bolkcom: The December 16th date.

Stutsman: Oh.

Dvorak: Does that sound OK?

Jordahl: You'll have copies available in the Zoning office, as well as, will you post that on the web-site?

Dvorak: I was waiting until today, yes. We will.

Bolkcom: I think that's fine, and if people want copies of the map we can get.

Jordahl: Can you post that on the web-site?

Dvorak: Yes. I might... I might be able to. Yeah, it takes about 15 minutes to run that.

Bolkcom: I have a copy of the map if anybody needs it.

Dvorak: I can get plenty of copies, but it's difficult to make them in color, though.

Bolkcom: OK.

Stutsman: I have one other comment. Under B under number one... Why didn't you say ag use? It says considers CSR high water table.

Dvorak: Oh. High water table, wetlands, floodplain, non-erodable soils, road suitability, and other sensitive areas...

Stutsman: What does other sensitive areas mean? That just doesn't seem like that flows very well.

Dvorak: Well, we threw that in because of the sensitive areas ordinance that we're in the process of writing. And, we don't have that done yet, so I didn't know how else to qualify that. There may be... Woodlands may be the only one that I can think of, off the top of my head. There may be more than that.

Jordahl: In the original draft of the sensitive areas ordinance farmland was included, and I think that the fact that the study committee has rejected that as a portion of their consideration doesn't mean we couldn't include that concept in a fringe area agreement with Coralville.

Dvorak: How would you like that then? Just...

Lacina: Let's think about that a minute, though. Again, we're discussing the fringe of a municipality projected on a growth-rate of how many years?

Dvorak: The plan itself is 20 years.

Lacina: OK. So, what we may be looking at right now may be an area that in fact Coralville doesn't project annexing for 20 but it may not be the best ag use. I'm not sure we want to promote ag livestock use if in fact that might be commercial industrial. That in time, the next 20 years if they do annex, might have utilization for some other purpose.

Stutsman: It seems like in our land use plan all we talk about is preserving ag land. Yet, in this statement we don't address it directly. We talk about CSR and things. I didn't understand why it was left out.

Dvorak: I think the reason is so we could allow for some development on land that was really pretty good because this is kind of... Just like Iowa City when they annexed their development, it's usually good farmland because that's the direction they can supply waste sewer to. If we put that in saying that we are going to protect the agricultural land that may be in conflict with what the growth plan is for the City of Coralville. I'm not saying it can't be put in. I'm just saying that would be a goof question for the City of Coralville. I do want to say that a lot of this document was written at the recommendation of the City of Coralville because this is their growth area, not all of it, but a lot of it was done with that in mind.

Jordahl: The Comprehensive Plan, the Land Use Plan, envisions fringe area agreements that would alter the nature of what goes on in that in that area. So I think we could include the ag language and then address the question of under what circumstances we envision other types of land use. We're going to have to do this on our own. As we go forward with the Land Use Plan we're going to have to put some teeth in, some details, in exactly how we designate areas as appropriate for commercial and industrial development. What do you think about that, Steve.

Lacina: I was just thinking too the other factors for example, given the water shed that this deals with... I'm not sure you want a lot of chemical use, livestock use... I don't know. Talk to Coralville and see but 20 years is not a long period of time when you look at a municipality and growth. I think the way the North Corridor is growing and we've already seen our 20 year projections blown out of the water after 10 years. That's some of the reasoning.

Bolkcom: This is a good start and I would encourage members of the Board to add, bring some notes to the meeting on the 16th about things you want to change in this.

Lacina: Probably, we should get something to Rick and R.J. so they know by next Tuesday or so... Your meeting is when?

Dvorak: Well tentatively, we have to confirm that with...

Bolkcom: We have tentative time for December 16th for a meeting with the 2 bodies and the public to review the document. Set it out there and get some feedback from people on what's in it. It's not a public hearing, it's an informational meeting. (Inaudible) for the 2 bodies just to discuss it.

Duffy: Did Coralville ask us to have this 2 mile fringe area plan or... This is a little different. Most of the Cities, you work with the City first and they come up with their plan...

Dvorak: That's kind of what this is.

Jordahl: We work together.

Bolkcom: This is a mix of both.

Duffy: Did they ask us to do this?

Bolkcom: This is a mix of both.

Jordahl: I think we asked them to do this.

Stutsman: I think it's in our Land Use Plan too. We're talking about developing fringe area agreements with all these communities.

Duffy: But usually the Cities do it. Like Iowa City, they submit a plan to us.

Stutsman: No, no.

Dvorak: No. I worked on that for over 2 1/2 years. I sat in there every week for almost 2 years.

Duffy: Yes, but still it comes through the City even if you do help with it.

Bolkcom: Anything else on this item? Otherwise we're going to take a very brief break and then we'll come back. Rick, thank you very much.

Recessed at 10:29 a.m.

(Continued in Part 3)