Iowa City Council grapples with questions surrounding Forest View relocation

IOWA CITY — The Iowa City Council agrees the city should provide relocation payments to residents of the Forest View Mobile Home Court but specific details of the voluntary program need to be worked out.

Residents of the park off N. Dubuque Street and south of Interstate 80 were promised new homes as part of a development proposal discussed over the last six years, with formal approval in 2019.

➤ RELATED ARTICLE: Forest View residents were promised new homes. What happened?

The approved agreement was for the 73 acres of land to be redeveloped into a mix of housing and commercial space. Displaced Forest View residents were promised first consideration of the manufactured and multifamily housing built on the site, or funds to pursue relocation off site.

But the $200 million development will not be moving forward — and so neither will the promised new housing.

The city is proposing using a portion of its federal American Rescue Plan Act aid to help families find safer and more stable housing before the park closes as is widely anticipated.

“We need to treat this as a matter of extreme urgency,” council member Pauline Taylor said during last Tuesday’s council meeting. “These individuals should not have to continue to wait for what was promised to them.”

The Forest View Tenants Association and the Center for Worker Justice have been meeting with the city to discuss resident priorities for a relocation program. City Manager Geoff Fruin said the feedback was helpful and taken into consideration, but there are differences between what residents have asked for and the city’s proposal.

Residents have four priorities they outlined in a December letter from the Center for Worker Justice to the city:

Staff’s relocation proposal

City staff is recommending a relocation fund available to households who lived in the Forest View neighborhood when the city first proposed relocation assistance on Sept. 1, 2021, which would include residents who moved out in anticipation of the upcoming winter months.

Fruin outlined the voluntary relocation program in a March 17 memo to the Iowa City Council. Eligible households would receive $15,750. Staff’s proposed amount is modeled after the federal Uniform Relocation Act but removes the $7,200 cap for assistance.

“The $15,750 amount is more than double the federal URA and contemplated 2019 Conditional Zoning Agreement maximum replacement housing amount of $7,200, plus moving expenses,” Fruin wrote in the memo.

Staff recommends each mobile home unit represents one household, regardless of the number of adult occupants. Eligible households would be able to access 25 percent of the assistance — just under $4,000 — before relocation and the remaining funds after moving out.

The total investment from the city would be between $787,500 and $945,000 funded by federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

There is an estimated 50 to 60 households living in the neighborhood now, so the number could increase if eligibility is expanded back to Sept. 1, 2021. At the time of the 2019 conditional zoning agreement, there were about 100 households in the neighborhood.

Relocation assistance is an eligible use of ARPA dollars. The U.S. Treasury allows a maximum household income of $40,626 to be considered disproportionately impacted. City staff recommends self-certification of income and a simple method to satisfy proof of residency.

Staff recommends that all households who accept relocation assistance vacate the mobile home park by Dec. 9. If assistance is ready by June 1, households would have six months to find housing and relocate.

The memo notes, however, the land owner could close the park sooner than the city’s deadline.

Who should be eligible?

Council members appeared to be in agreement with staff’s recommendations about the assistance amount and relocation timeline. Where discussion focused during Tuesday’s council work session was on who should be eligible for the funds.

Council members Taylor, John Thomas, Shawn Harmsen and Megan Alter said residents living in Forest View at the time of the conditional zoning agreement in June 2019 should be eligible for relocation funds. Mayor Bruce Teague and council member Laura Bergus indicated support for the Sept. 1, 2021, date staff recommend.

A potential concern for using the June 2019 date is whether ARPA dollars could be used, since that was before the impacts of the pandemic.

Harmsen brought up using March 2020 as a potential date and finding out if there were any households who moved out between June 2019 and March 2020. The state’s first cases of COVID-19 were recorded in March 2020 in Johnson County.

Fruin said staff would have to explore how far back the funds could be used to ensure allowable use of the pandemic relief dollars.

Future of the land

Because of the unknown timeline and complexity of the process, staff does not support making commitments to give Forest View residents rights of first refusal to future affordable housing on the site.

“Setting up further expectations that the City cannot guarantee may provide additional false hope and may influence decisions on immediate housing choices associated with this relocation effort,” the memo said.

No buyer has made a firm offer to buy the land, said Ed Cole, one of owners part of North Dubuque LLC.

Thomas said it is “critical that we don’t lose that sense of vision” for affordable housing. He brought up how the city should consider purchasing the property.

“Do we want to put the fate of this piece of land in the hands of a private developer?” Thomas asked.

What’s next?

Tuesday’s work session was the start of council’s discussion about the relocation proposal. City staff will return with additional information to answer questions raised by council members at a later meeting.

Once the council does come to agreement about program details, the decisions will be voted on in a formal resolution, Fruin said.

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