C.R. council won’t allow pier-built homes in city

CEDAR RAPIDS - The city won't modify its zoning ordinance to allow builders to build homes on piers and forego the “continuous and complete frost-protected foundation” that local rules now require.

On a 5-3 vote, the City Council last night rejected a request from a couple of builders to change the city's current building standard. In the process, it seemingly brought to an end a yearlong push by builder Randy Dostal and others to get permission to build homes on piers.

Dostal, owner of Thomas Dostal Developers Inc. of Cedar Rapids, argued last night that the pier construction design he intended to use in Cedar Rapids had been “competently and professionally” analyzed by engineers as a sound construction method for use in Iowa. He said pier construction would allow builders to cut the cost of new homes because they could avoid the cost of a conventional foundation and basement. Dostal has said the pier option could be used in city neighborhoods outside the 100-year flood plain that were hit by the 2008 flood.

The zoning change, though, would have allowed pier-built construction anywhere in the city. Council member Kris Gulick said he might support such construction in an area zoned specifically for pier-built housing, but he could not support mixing it into neighborhoods with conventional home construction.

Colleague Monica Vernon said she thought builders other than Dostal might use the change in city's frost-protected foundation requirement to build sub-par homes.

One concern about pier-built construction in Iowa is what the state's severe freeze-thaw cycle might do to the integrity of piers. Council member Don Karr said Cedar Rapids has plenty of examples of what winter does to the city's streets, and he forecast similar problems with what he called “deck homes.”

“We don't need to lower our building standards,” he said.

Council member Tom Podzimek, a carpenter and contractor, dismissed the concerns of Karr and others and concluded that pier-built homes can be engineered to work.

Mayor Ron Corbett said commercial buildings are built on piers, citing the new Human Services Campus building in downtown Cedar Rapids. But Karr said those piers in large commercial buildings are typically driven into bedrock, not just a few feet below the ground surface as in home construction.

The city's own planning and building staff recommended against pier construction. Vern Zakostelecky, a planner in the Community Development Department, told the council he had talked to his counterparts in five of Iowa's large cities and found pier-built homes there “very rare” and planners skeptical of the building design.

Gulick, Vernon, Karr, Chuck Wieneke and Justin Shields voted against the pier-built design. Corbett, Podzimek and Chuck Swore voted for it.

Wieneke said the staff had put a lot of time into the study of the issue and he hoped the council now would “put it to bed.”

Linda Seger, president of the Northwest Neighbors, asked the council not to experiment with a new building approach in flood-hit neighborhoods that have worked hard to get back on their feet.

“We want to come back, but we don't want to come back with just anything,” she said.