Coralville refuses to match higher offer for Edgewater Drive home

CORALVILLE – The city of Coralville may have lost its chance to buy the last home along flood-prone Edgewater Drive.

The City Council Tuesday night failed to agree to pay what Mark Brown was asking for his home at 723 Edgewater Dr.

The city had offered Brown $200,000 for the home, and he was ready to accept that until a former neighbor made a competing bid of $220,000 after seeing a Gazette story last week about the pending deal.

City Attorney Don Diehl recommended the council match the offer, which Brown said he would have accepted. But the motion failed after the council split 2-2 on it. Tom Gill and John Lundell voted for the $220,000 price, while Mitch Gross and Bill Hoeft dissented. John Weihe was absent.

“Personally, I feel like it seems like an 11

^th

-hour deal,” Hoeft said.

The council then voted to make an offer of $200,000, but Brown said after the meeting that he'd take the one for $20,000 more.

“Wouldn't you?” he said.

Failing to purchase the property would be a blow to the city's plans to clear the neighborhood of homes, although some council members suggested that if the home changed hands they would be interested in trying to condemn it to gain ownership.

The 2008 flood caused extensive damage to many of the 27 properties in the neighborhood, which is along the Iowa River just south of the Coralville Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. All of the owners but Brown had taken buyouts.

Brown, age 58, doesn't want to leave the home he's lived in since 1971, but said he agreed to sell after the city indicated it could use eminent domain to try to take the property. He lives in the home with his companion, Rea Bayyat.

Edgewater Drive is being turned into an earthen berm topped with a trail that will be finished next month.

If a residence remains on Edgewater Drive, the city would have to maintain access and utilities to it.

The competing offer came from the Sales family, a former neighbor who was interested in again having a home on Edgewater Drive and was more willing to fight the city than he was, Brown said.

Joel Sales, 52, of Idaho, confirmed his family had made an offer on Brown's home with the hope of returning his father and mother, John and Joyce Sales, to Edgewater Drive. He declined to say more Tuesday night.

Brown said he was simply interested in getting the best deal for his home.

“It wasn't anything I instigated,” he said.

Mayor Jim Fausett, who didn't have a vote on the matter, recommended the council pay the $220,000.  He said Coralville traditionally has avoided using condemnation.

Brown's home was assessed at $83,650 before the flood and has a current value of $97,060, according to the Johnson County Assessor's Office. City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said last Brown was receiving so much more for relocation expenses because he's still living in the home.

Brown said he and Bayyat will continue to live in Coralville.