After 40 years, downtown development still key issue for Iowa City council

IOWA CITY - On Nov. 3, Iowa City voters will take to the polls, marking the 40-year anniversary of Iowa City's 1975 shift from a 5-member council to its current, 7-member makeup.

As that 1975 vote approached, with Iowa City facing a major transition that came in the form of urban renewal, members of the community picked sides and geared up for an election that would see all seven council seats filled at once.

'Urban renewal was a huge issue at the time, it was a very contentious issue that divided the community. It was how the downtown was ultimately going to be developed,” said John Balmer, one of the former council members elected that year. 'There was equal fervor on both sides of this. Once the council was elected, it was a very broad base of the community.”

Following rules adopted in 1975 after the 10-year review of the City Charter, Iowa City's council shifted from a 5-person, all at-large member representation to four at-large council members and three district representatives. All seven seats were up for vote that year and nearly 8,500 voters turned out at the polls.

Carol deProsse, who was re-elected in that election, said the issues of development had already been turning into a huge talking point in the community even before that vote.

'From my perspective, 1973 was a definitive year leading up to the election in 1975 because that was the year that I ran as a nearly unknown, having only moved to Iowa City in 1972,” deProsse said in an email. 'I ran then opposing Urban Renewal because I saw it as a bonanza for developers and not much for the business people that were to be displaced.”

The Nov. 4, 1975 Iowa City Council election saw 14 candidates, with eight running for four at-large seats and two running for each of the three newly created district seats.

The two at-large candidates who received the most votes took 4-year terms while the next two filled two-year spots. District A and District C victors took four-year terms and the District B winner received a two-year term. This created the staggered election terms still present on the council.

It was that new 7-member council that created the urban renewal model for downtown Iowa City, which bid out individual properties to developers. The other option being considered at the time was to give a single developer the entire downtown area.

The decisions made by that council greatly shaped the downtown atmosphere - largely the pedestrian mall - that Iowa Citians still see today.

Now 40 years later, it seems only fitting that the local debate surrounding the 2015 city election once again focuses largely on downtown growth and development.

'You have two distinct groups running and two very different philosophies vying for the city's electorate's votes,” Balmer said.

deProsse also noted the ironic similarities.

'I do see similarities in that developers and their backers on the city council have too much sway in terms of how the city develops,” she said. 'This is especially true with the frequent gifts of TIFs ... that the council bestows for downtown development.”

While deProsse has been critical of the city's use of TIF in the past, Balmer, on the other hand, said he approves of what he described as a careful and calculated approach to development by the current council. 'We're going to have some dynamic times ahead of us, so that's why it's important for us to continue,” he said.

In the end, the 2016 council will be the next group of Iowa Citians to take on the development dilemma and continue to shape Iowa City.

l Comments: (319) 339-3175; mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com