Schools factor into Iowa City housing debate

The City Council Nov. 15 will continue its discussion on affordable housing, likely with an eye toward Iowa City schools.

At a work session a couple of weeks ago, the council began the process of choosing where certain types of affordable housing should be located. It's a controversial topic in Iowa City – and many other communities – and council members asked for data to help them make the decision.

They also said one of their main priorities is to not saturate certain neighborhoods with affordable housing, which may have a negative effect on the neighborhood and area schools.

City staffers have since met with school officials to discuss the subject. Schools Superintendent Steven Murley said that the district would prefer the city avoid clusters of affordable housing and that ideally every elementary school would have students from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, Jeff Davidson, the city's director of planning and community development, said in a memo to the council.

Murley said research shows low-income kids do better in schools with that type of diversity and if they attend their neighborhood schools, Davidson wrote.

As the city continues the debate, one of the ideas from the council was to use elementary school boundaries when studying housing in neighborhoods.

But those boundaries change often, so city staff said they instead could develop a system that would display demographic data for a particular location that is suggested for an affordable housing project and the surrounding area, Davidson wrote. School officials also liked this idea, he said.

Council members will be asked for their feedback at Monday's work session, which starts at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 410 E. Washington St.