Cedar Falls council bans single-home conversions

April 29--CEDAR FALLS -- The City Council voted 6-1 to prohibit the conversion of single-family homes into multi-unit rental properties during Monday night's meeting.

Councilman-At-Large Nick Taiber was the only one oppose the third and final reading of the zoning ordinance amendment.

Councilman David Wieland originally asked that the measure be tabled for further consideration by a special task force chaired by Councilman Frank Darrah.

The task force has been contemplating various restrictions on rental properties within the city over the last few months, but the issue of single-home conversions has yet to come up, Darrah said.

Furthermore, he felt the council was ready to vote on the zoning ordinance amendment.

"I'm not sure that passing it or not passing it will have a lot of impact on our discussion," Councilman Frank Darrah said. "... If we pass something and there are unintended consequences, hopefully we'd change it."

Wieland said he was comfortable with taking the zoning amendment off the table after consulting with Darrah.

City Planner Marty Ryan noted that while single-home conversions are rare, an application for one had crossed his desk in the time since the amendment was tabled.

With that in mind, he and Wieland thought it was best to pass the final reading sooner rather than later.

The amendment bans the conversion of single-family homes into multi-unit rental properties in the city's R1 and R2 zoning districts, which are limited to single- and double-family dwellings.

The move stems from complaints about the prevalence of homes converted into rental properties in single-family neighborhoods.

Some people, according to City Planner Marty Ryan, fear rental properties, if improperly maintained, detract from a neighborhood's appearance, lead to population and parking density problems and devalue a homeowner's property.

"What we're trying to do is protect residential neighborhoods, and when we see inappropriate conversions it does have an impact on the neighborhood," he said.

Under the amendment, homeowners can still rent out their homes but can't convert them into multiple units.

"We're not restricting the ability to rent out single family homes, but we don't want to see those homes converted," Ryan said.

Councilman Taiber remained opposed to the measure, saying it might be the first foray into greater rental restrictions being considered by Darrah's task force.

"Are we going to go to the extreme where we'll ban rentals from R1 and R2 and segregate them into a particular residential neighborhood?" Taiber asked Ryan, referencing an idea proposed by rental task force member Fred Abraham, director of the department of economics at the University of Northern Iowa.

"We'll all have to wait and see what the committee recommends," Ryan said. "That's one of the factors on the table."

Darrah's task force hopes to have a complete list of rental related recommendations for the council by mid-June.

In other business, the council approved a three-year agreement with Cedar Falls Firefighters Association Local 1366, which marked the end of contract negotiations for the next three-year period with all three of the city's labor unions.

Each one -- the police, fire, parks and public works -- have agreed to 1 percent wage increases in the first year, as well as 2.5 percent increases in the second and third years.

The unions have also agreed to increase payments toward family and single health insurance policies from July 5 to June 30, 2017.

Kevin McCombs, Teamster representative for police, parks and public works employees, said the negotiations went smoothly and the contracts are in line with state standards.

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