Neighborhood group corroborating with similar sized cities to address affordable housing gap
Hunter
03/29/22
A neighborhood group plans to recommend new zoning to the Iowa City City Council to increase housing density.
The Daily Iowan reports that the Iowa City Neighborhood Services Division recently received a $33,000 grant from the Reinvestment Fund. The company works to fund local government projects around the country, and Iowa City got the grant this month after their initial application was submitted in 2016.
Tracy Hightshoe is the director of the Iowa City Neighborhood Development Services Division. She told the DI that the funds will target low-income neighborhoods near Taylor Drive, Taylor Street, and part of the South District.
Hightshoe says there’s a gap between people who can’t afford to own their own home but don’t want to live in a large apartment complex. She’d like the City to rezone those areas to accommodate townhouses, duplexes and smaller scale multi-familiy dwellings.
Iowa City plans to collaborate with Eau Claire, Wisconsin and Henderson Nevada as they also received similar grants and have the same issue with affordable housing in a city that is both rural and urban.
Representatives from the three cities will visit Fort Collins Colorado in the near future to see how the zoning codes work there.
The newspaper adds that in the fiscal 2023 budget plan and in the Iowa City City Council’s Strategic Plan, the city has invested over $5.4 million to add affordable housing to the city, with an annual deposit from the City Council’s budget of $1 million to the Affordable Housing Fund.