Editor’s note: Noah Hackbart currently serves as the Director of Governmental Relations for Northern Iowa Student Government.
The future years of College Hill were looking hazier after the Cedar Falls City Council moved to rescind, or send back, the previously endorsed Imagine College Hill! Vision Plan in a tight 4-3 vote at their Oct. 16 meeting. However, ten days after the Council’s decision, Mayor Rob Green vetoed the rescinding. Green has only issued three vetoes in his time as Mayor.
This plan was item 13 on the Council’s resolution calendar. Normally, unless items are requested to be removed for further discussion by Council or community members, the entire resolution calendar is passed after one roll call vote. However, Mayor Green pulled the item to be discussed separately. The Council allowed public comments, with people from the University of Northern Iowa, The College Hill Partnership, and community members speaking in favor of keeping the plan as is. There was no one at the meeting who spoke in favor of rescinding the plan, although some council members vaguely recalled receiving concerns from constituents.
UNI President Mark Nook spoke in favor of keeping the plan during the meeting. “I’d like to point out that this is a vision plan. It’s not a construction plan, it’s not a zoning plan, it’s a vision plan. It gets on paper the feelings of the community members that are most impacted by this neighborhood,” he said.
“There’s no plan that will make everybody one hundred percent in agreement,” Nook added. “There are things about this plan that the university would rather not be in there quite that way, but it’s a very workable plan and what we see is the importance of the redevelopment.”
The Imagine College Hill! Vision plan was initially adopted by the City Council on May 3, 2021. The plan was crafted by a consulting firm working with community members, the University of Northern Iowa, and the College Hill Partnership. The nearly 100 page document is a report meant to bring about ideas for development on College Hill and its surrounding neighborhoods through urban design options, business and dining ideas, affordable housing and frontage type recommendations, walkability and biking studies, parking and transportation proposals and site analysis. It also includes implementation options for these ideas.
In an interview with the Northern Iowan in September, President Nook expressed hopes that College Hill could one day provide the entertainment and services that currently bring many students to downtown Cedar Falls.
“If we had an area that the people of the Valley would love to just come hang out before a show or before a game and it was reasonably close, that would be great. The Hill is in the right location to do that, it just has to become a place where people know how to park their cars and know how to access the businesses there, and then have the certain kinds of businesses and support structures that are needed to have the community to come in,” he said.
At last week’s City Council meeting, however, some members expressed concerns over the size of the projected vision plan area and its reach into other neighborhoods in the city. Some members discussed rescinding the plan, but coming back and looking at areas in it that only cover the College Street and Hill areas with a few surrounding streets near the university. In planning and zoning terms, these smaller districts are R4 and C3 districts.
3rd Ward Council Member Daryl Kruse mentioned, in regards to the size of the initial vision plan, “There’s a lot of inaccuracies there that we would have to clean up with the committee in a discussion. I like the idea of rescinding and then coming back with a referral at the end of the meeting to focus on … C3 and R4 which is the core of the College Hill area.”
However, 4th Ward Council Member Simon Harding, expressed support for keeping the plan adopted as is, saying that the concerns brought up were too centered on minor details.
“If you’re that against it and you want to rescind it and call it by another name, that’s fine to me, but we’re really just arguing about semantics,” he said.
Mayor Green also seemed to agree with points made in support of keeping the plan by Council Members Harding, Dunn and Schultz. There were also concerns by members that rescinding the plan, only weeks before an election, would cause confusion amongst city staff and the community. The November city elections will bring three new members to the City Council and a new Mayor. Notably, two of the City Council’s three outgoing members voted to rescind the plan.
In his closing discussion remarks, Mayor Green mentioned that, “As we take this vote, I ask the Council please keep in consideration the two major stakeholders that are here tonight. We had a very lengthy discussion, a plea basically, from President Nook at UNI speaking for the campus and from Miss Crisman at College Hill Partnership.” After nearly an hour of discussion with questions for city staffers and public comments, the City Council voted.
On the morning of Oct. 26, Mayor Green issued his decision to the Council and on social media, vetoing the 4-3 vote by the City Council to rescind the Imagine! College Hill vision. Part of his statement reads, “In nearly four years as mayor, my philosophy has been that a mayor should use their veto power only when they genuinely believe that a proposed decision is detrimental to the community’s interests, threatens the democratic process or checks and balances and when the issue is of significant importance.”
Mayor Green cited a number of concerns he had with the decision, listing them out after his initial remarks. These concerns included the timing of the decision so close to an election, community and stakeholder responses and perceptions, the lack of strategy in place to replace the vision plan by the Council and Council misconceptions that the document is a policy commitment or zoning document.
Should the City Council wish to override the Mayor’s veto, they would need a 5-2 vote to do so. Their next meeting will be held on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. at City Hall. More information on City Council can be found at cedarfalls.com under the City Council tab or all of their meeting livestreams can be found on YouTube or Cedar Falls Channel 15. Documents regarding the Imagine! College Hill vision plan can also be found on the city’s website or at collegehillpartnership.org with other information about the organization.
