Council discusses parking near new law enforcement center

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

A new county law enforcement center that is projected to be completed in the fall of 2020 right next to the Floyd County Courthouse will need new parking stalls, and that will likely require city action.

That topic came up at a Charles City Council planning session on Wednesday.

The county has acquired properties on the west side of South Jackson Street between Gilbert Street and Court Street, including the former Davico station and two houses. The county will be requesting to rezone the two residential properties on South Jackson from residential to business.

The new LEC building will eliminate some existing off-street parking, so the county has proposed a plan for approximately 55 new off-street parking stalls surrounding the LEC. There is also a plan drawn out for 16 on-street diagonal parking stalls on Court Street, north of the current courthouse.  

City Engineer John Fallis said the center line on Court Street could be realigned and there would be room for two lanes of traffic and the diagonal stalls. He also said there would need to be handicap parking and a crosswalk that could take up three of those stalls.

Some on the council, including Mayor Dean Andrews, seemed to lean more toward keeping the parking on Court Street parallel, as it is currently is, instead of diagonal.

“To me, I’m not real thrilled with the diagonal parking stalls on Court Street, safety-wise,” said council member DeLaine Freeseman.

The county also made a request that the city vacate and convey the South Jackson right-of-way between Gilbert Street and Court Street. There is talk by the county to construct head-in parking near that location. Fallis said that does not meet current city code and he would not recommend it.

“It’s not a good idea traffic-wise, plus just precedent-setting,” said Fallis.

Other discussion by those at the planning session brought up a suggestion that the county could reconfigure the layout of the existing parking lot north of Court Street in order to create more room for parking.

“If they would investigate enhancing their current parking lot, they may gain all those spots anyway without having to violate code,” said council member Michael Hammond.

Reverse-angle parking — where drivers back into diagonal parking so that their vehicles face into the street — came up during the discussion and whether that could help alleviate the issue of backing into traffic when pulling out of a stall.

“The response from the county was they were less than enthusiastic about the reverse-angle parking option,” said City Administrator Steve Diers.

Fallis has been communicating with the county and Curtis Field, an architect and product manager for Prochaska & Associates, about the proposed parking spots.

On another topic, the city has also had talks about what to do about low-hanging branches and overgrown trees and how to address that problem. Diers stated in his report that Street Department Superintendent Dirk Uetz and his crew surveyed trees north of the Cedar River to determine which ones needed trimming.

A city ordinance requires property owners to trim trees so that branches will be at least 15 feet above the surface of the street and eight feet above the sidewalk.

Uetz said that 2,008 trees meet that criteria or roughly 40 percent of all trees on that side of the river. Preliminary talks have suggested a notification could be sent out to households that have trees that need to be trimmed.

Diers said that it would be cost-prohibitive for the city to trim with city staff.

Diers also said that he and code enforcement officer Paul Hughes will be touring the city to access nuisance homes. Diers said he would come up with an updated list and proposal to give to the City Council in the near future.

“We want to look at all of our situations in town and see which ones have the most need and need to be dealt with and prioritize them,” said Diers.

The McQuillen Place and its stalled construction was also brought up toward the end of the session. Council members asked about any updated progress on that front.

Mayor Andrews said that there is a meeting scheduled with the owner and developer of the project, Charley Thomson, and a bank this Friday. Andrews didn’t know what the meeting would be addressing.

“It’s the biggest topic in town,” said Andrews.

Freeseman said that the council tries to stay on top of smaller projects that are going on or currently inactive in town and that the McQuillen Place construction is no different.

“I think we need to lean on that as much as we can through the code enforcement department,” said Freeseman. “We need to be better about that collectively and other buildings around town. We can’t just sit on it like we have been. If we don’t show a lot more care about our community, I don’t know why we should expect anybody else in the community to.”

Other items discussed at the planning session were:

– Diers recommended Pat Callahan to conduct the city’s 2018 goal setting project, an event that is conducted every two years. The Institute of Public Affairs and Jeff Schott conducted the goal setting sessions in the past prior to the budget season. The program has been eliminated at the University of Iowa due to budget cuts.

– Fallis talked about the American with Disabilities Act and how curb ramps and sidewalks need to be constructed or adhered to meet those requirements.