How should our City Enhance our Neighborhoods in Cedar Rapids?

Rick Smith wrote a June 19, 2009 article in The Gazette titled Mound View neighborhood fights decline of properties. There are many challenges that face our core neighborhoods. We have other challenges in many of the other residential neighborhoods in the City of Cedar Rapids. Throughout the City, many taxpayers would say the condition of our streets is our neighborhoods biggest concern. Sadly, for some, it is public safety.

Two events happened around the end of World War II in Cedar Rapids ...

1. After WWII, many properties in what we now call our core neighborhoods of Cedar Rapids were converted from single-family to multi-family. This was brought about due to the shortage in housing in our community after WWII.


2. In addition, after WWII, from 1945 to 1961 or so, the City of Cedar Rapids didn't require sidewalks in new housing subdivisions. Look at many of the private properties around Erskine, Wright or other Cedar Rapids Community Schools build during that era... there are no sidewalks.

There is always a need for balance in our community. The balance between personal property rights and the needs for our community is important. Zoning and use laws have been established for that very reason. We went through a period, after WWII where laws were reduced to establish neighborhoods and respond to the challenges in the housing sector in our community at the time.

Short term the reduction in rules aided our community. Today, high-density housing in the core neighborhoods and the lack of sidewalks in other neighborhoods have come with a price. Now, our City would like to revert back to previous standards that were waived for a long period of time. How do you balance it all, without taking away rights or adding unfairly to the financial burdens of the present day property owners? Private property owners have property rights.

For more information on property rights, visit the Iowa Property Owners Alliance. This group's mission is to ...

“Protect the property rights of private property owners in Iowa and to serve
as a resource for those owners to more fully enjoy the privileges of property
ownership.” - Iowa Property Owners Alliance

One of the greatest strengths over the years in our community has been citizen participation on citizen advisory boards and commissions. However, despite the language in our Local Home Rule Charter, our new Council-Manager government has not utilized the tradition of citizen advisory boards and commissions. A prime example was in the establishment of Enhance Our Neighborhoods, as Council member Brian Fagan has participated in spearheading. How much policy is being placed in the hands of city staff on this very important issue?

Further, the community has utilized a Carver model on governance extremely early under the new form of government, due to our City Manager. Has the City of Cedar Rapids truly established "the board's pre-stated standards of prudence and ethics" that is required under The Policy Governance® Model? In how the Ethics ordinance and the Cedar Rapids Board of Ethics were established for the City of Cedar Rapids, we certainly have our doubts.

Of course, Enhance Our Neighborhoods is more about the core neighborhoods and the Downtown redevelopment planning process, than about Enhancing Our Neighborhoods throughout the City of Cedar Rapids. It is a highly political process under Carver and it does not directly benefit or allow all in the participation process. It aligns city staff too closely in the development of public policy. City staff should implement and enforce city policy. Why don't citizens play a greater role in the policy development discussions for the City Council. We see a greater role with our City Manager, some city staff on occassion and with paid consultants.

What about the infrastructure demands throughout our community of roughly 126,000 people?As Rick Smith's article points out: "Fagan said enhancing the city’s old, core neighborhoods is going to happen."

“It’s house by house, block by block, with discipline and commitment to
the vision of what we want in our neighborhoods,” - Brian Fagan

Our concern is what about the neighborhood needs throughout the entire community? We are concerned about public safety, public works, streets, parks, finances and overall quality of life for all in the City of Cedar Rapids. However, are we representing the entire community in the process?

It would be great to find a way to create an incentive for the market to revert our non-conforming multi-family structures back to single-family or duplexes. The Board of Adjustment appropriately uses a policy to provide for "recapturing" since the property (in the above picture in the Mound View neighborhood) was vacate for 18 months. The city vacancy law on non-conforming properties is 12 months. Further, we shouldn't forget how we got to non-conforming multi-family properties in our core neighborhoods.

We need to enhance all our neighborhoods in Cedar Rapids. Much of that can come from enhancing our infrastructure throughout our community, including better streets. It should be about character the person, not whether the property is owner-occupied or rental. It should be about condition of housing and conforming with zoning and use. There are exceptions at times. We saw that with sidewalks and converting houses away from single-family, when housing was scarce after WWII. But, like with Eminent Domain, exceptions often should be the last resort. Hopefully, we will see our community maintain an appropriate level of balance again soon.

The vision for Cedar Rapids should reflect our community, including our culture. Culture plays a very important role in local government. It indeed played a role in establishing our Local Home Rule Charter. It should be reflected in our City Council and our public policy process.

Robin Tucker