By Dorothy de Souza Guedes
The issue: Rezoning 2.68 acres south of West First Street from A-1 to R-P
The Cedar Falls City Council denied a developer’s request to rezone 2.68 acres south of West First Street after two hours of public comments and council discussion during the Feb. 17 City Council meeting.
Watch the full meeting here (displays in new browser tab).
Developer ME Associates planned to integrate the plot in question into a 15-acre area it owns, then build a multi-family apartment complex there. The proposed project involves complicated issues that date back to a still-valid development plan approved in 1994. But, the council voted against the rezoning.
After the Feb. 17 no vote on the zoning request, if developer Mike Morley decides to proceed, he will have to return to the council with updates to the 1994 plan for the original 15 acres. He’ll have to address wetlands and traffic concerns and the council will need to resolve conflicting descriptions of medium- and high-density residential zoning.
How the council members voted and what the vote means
The council voted 4-3 against the rezoning. Voting no were Gil Schultz, who represents Ward 1, Chris Latta, of Ward 2, Daryl Kruse, of Ward 3, and Dustin Ganfield, of Ward 5.
Aaron Hawbaker, who represents Ward 4, and At-Large councilors Hannah Crisman and Kelly Dunn voted to grant the rezoning request. Approving the rezoning would have allowed the council to consider other changes to the developer’s plan, Crisman said.
A no vote takes the project to the plan approved in 1994 with strings attached. The dated plan would need to be brought to compliance with the city’s ordinances enacted since that time including wetlands, subdivision, density and public safety.
“There’s things that need to be addressed,” Schultz said during the meeting, adding that his vote was a rare occasion when he and Kruse agreed on an issue.
Rezoning debate: 2.68 acres of land
The 2.68 acres in question were annexed to the town in 1971 and zoned A-1, Agriculture District, by default, according to the staff memo included in the council packet. The adjacent 15 acres to the south and west of the property owned by ME Associates has been zoned R-P Planned Residence District since 1994.
ME Associates, which has owned the property since 2019, has been working with city staff since October to come up with a plan for the land south of West First Street.
The Planning & Zoning Commission had recommended that council okay the rezoning of 2.68 acres to add to the original 15-acre site. The council packet contains “all written comments” that were submitted to the Planning & Zoning Commission.
Among the attachments is a petition submitted on Feb. 10, of residents opposing the reasoning. That petition, however, does not meet the requirements for an official protest petition to a rezoning, city staff said.
“An official protest according to local and state law requires signatures from owners of 20% or more of the property located within 200 feet of the exterior boundaries of the property for which the rezoning is proposed,” the memo document reads. “In this case the applicant [ME Associates] owns all the property within 200 feet of the boundaries of the proposed 2.68-acre rezoning.”
What the developer wants
Developer Mike Morley with ME Associates requested to change the rezoning of 2.68 acres of land located 350 feet east of Winding Ridge Estates and 450 feet south of West First Street from A1, agricultural to R-P, which means planned residential district. The developer wanted to add this land to approximately 15 acres of adjacent land that has been zoned R-P and build an apartment complex with several buildings.
Morley spoke first during the public comments segment of the Feb. 17 meeting. He touted his company’s record, saying it has developed over 100 schools across the country and planned communities as large as 900 acres as well as much smaller ones.
“We kinda consider ourselves to be community developers,” Morley said.
The developer said he had worked with the city to address the issues of concern raised by neighbors, such as the preservation of the wetlands on the property, density of the proposed development, and traffic safety, among others.
“We’ve done everything we can to make the project less dense and more community friendly, and to try to not impact wetlands and things of that nature,” Morley said.
He commended city staff for their diligence in the process.
“Your staff has been very vigilant in looking at all these issues and requiring that we address all of them before we even got through Planning & Zoning and came to you as a council.” Morley said.
The attorney for the developer, Patrick Galles, of Correll, Sheerer, Benson, Engels, Galles, of Cedar Falls, addressed the council on ME Associates’ behalf. Galles said this was “one heck of a project for Cedar Falls.”
He noted that the residents who purchased their homes in Winding Ridge knew that the zoning was for multi-family medium density when they built their homes there.
“The real elephant in the room is that these folks don’t want to live next to an apartment, “Galles said. “This is a quality project that has been brought forward.”
This a self-contained development, with a dog park, streets, and playground, Galles continued. Among other benefits for the town, Galles listed the extension of Lake Ridge Drive, a major north-south arterial road connecting First Street to the area, which the developer has agreed to pay for. The developer would also remove and replace a leaky sanitary line, eliminating sewage from running across the ground, and install a new water main, new sewer, utilities and fire protection that will serve the development. Galles said Fire Safety had approved the design.
The development proposed by ME Associates would open the area to the east for commercial development, Galles added.
“There is a housing need of this type in the City of Cedar Falls, plain and simple,” he said. “This is the right project for the right location.”
“If you look at the definition of medium density, we fall within that…. We have come up with the best plan for this area. It is zoned properly, it is ready to move forward. If the folks at Winding Ridge give it a chance, they will be greatly amazed at what a wonderful project this can be for the benefit of all citizens of Cedar Falls.”
What neighbors want
Cedar Falls Mayor Danny Laudick encouraged public comments and also explained the role of the city staff in the process, saying that their job is to make sure the process is followed and that projects comply with ordinances.
The lawyer representing Winding Hills HOA, which has about 60 members and nine residents spoke in opposition to the project.
Rezoning this to R-P is not consistent with the master plan, Eashaan Vajpeyi, an attorney at Ball, Kirk & Holm, of Cedar Falls. He said the master plan calls for medium density residential but the intended use of this is to build a high-density residential development.
“You are being asked to listen to a bird that quacks and call it a tiger,” Vajpeyi said.
“(This is) not an innocuous zoning request to be voted on and have the development and the site plan and the subdivision dealt with later. One directly enables the other. Because we know the intended use,” Vajpeyi said.
Neighbors are concerned because rezoning would not be consistent with the 2012 comprehensive plan, he said.
“They are not out to raise pitchforks against every development so they can have a free, bigger backyard,” Vajpeyi said. “They have serious concerns and legitimate feelings of being marginalized.”
That’s why the HOA had to hire him, he said. He said City staff are looking at a tiny sliver of the code, in exactly a certain way, and through a specific lens, although not necessarily with “nefarious intent.”
He read the definition of medium density and said that the proposed development fits in the high-density definition.
“You have an overlap here,” he said, referring to both definitions.
Residents addressed the council to express their concern for the protected wetlands, the density of the proposed development and traffic safety. For instance, if allowed per ME Associates’ most recent plan, the number of apartments planned wouldn’t be in compliance with the site’s original zoning of medium density and would be built next to a single-family homes subdivision, they argue. Further, adding hundreds of new residents would negatively impact traffic along West First Street, commenters said.
Kamyar Enshayan, a former council member and the recently retired executive director of UNI’s Center for Energy and Environmental Education, said he is “just a citizen who wishes to help the city better protect the natural areas of our city.”
He is not a neighbor to the project and offers no opinion on the rezoning, but his concerns refer to the impact of the proposed streets and parking lots in the project on the wetlands contained in the parcel, Enshayan said.
“The size of the wetland has nothing to do with the quality of the wetland,” he said, referring to earlier statements made by project supporters that the wetlands are of lesser quality wetland, small in size and there has been sewer spill across the wetland.
“All of Iowa’s wetlands have been degraded. They have been plowed. They have been sprayed. They have been drained. But as a nation, we are restoring our wetland because we’ve learned that they help up in extreme rainfall events. Protecting every bit of water absorbing capacity of the land means that the City of Cedar Falls is more resilient during huge rainfall events,” Enshayan said.
He continued, “All I ask is that again, regardless of whether you approve or not, with whatever development goes in this site, it can accommodate this wetland and protect it and still build around it. And as our ordinance allows and states so, thank you for your service to our community.”
Another commenter, Winding Ridge resident Atul Patel, said the issues don’t just involve the four households on Winding Ridge Road that abut the proposed development. He said he had collected 400 signatures and has yet “to find a single person that says this is the right project – high-density project – to happen next to a low density project.”
“We are not against the project by any means… We are talking about citizens who just want to live in harmony,” he continued.
“The developer needs the project, the city needs the project, but there are better options,” Patel said.
The residents he spoke with aren’t arguing that they didn’t know about the older development plans for the acreage, Patel said. However, the city has changed during the 30 years since the original plan was approved. The developer argues that its revised planned development is great for the city, but he and those who signed the petition would like the plan restructured because high-density next to low-density is often unsuccessful.
“If this development goes through, how can a future developer get told now?” Patel asked the council.
A neighbor on Winding Ridge, Tom Nagel, made a similar comment. He said “liberties” have been taken in interpreting the code to allow the use of the commercial area to be cordoned off but still be used in the density calculations.
“It seems like almost everywhere there’s a turn to bias toward the developer,” Nagle said. “If we’re going to rezone it and open up the can of worms for the amendment to the R-P, I would like to see the amendment to the R-P more in line with the comprehensive plan.”
Neighbor Cameron Lee who bought his property on Winding Ridge Road about four years ago, also addressed the council. He said he did his homework and learned that the land adjacent to his was zoned R-P and that there had been a couple of attempts at development.
“In terms of site lines … my house is going to be ground zero,” Lee said, referring to the planned development.
“I would ask that this go back (to Council) and we continue to work on it,” Lee said.