CC approved for sustainable community 3-STAR rating

Report evaluates town on economy, arts, environment

By Kate Hayden

khayden@charlescitypress.com

After two years of data-driving effort, Charles City is now a 3-STAR community, the city announced Monday. The rating comes from the national nonprofit STAR Communities, which evaluate participating communities based on 44 subcategories of sustainable social, environmental and economic practices.

Charles City is the first community with a population below 25,000 to be rated with STAR in the nation (with an estimated population of 7,500, according to STAR) and the fourth community in Iowa to be rated, behind Des Moines, Davenport and Dubuque. The validation will be used to help Charles City develop framework for upcoming goals and evaluations, City Administrator Steve Diers said.

“We’re always trying to be forward-thinking, and thinking for the long-term,” Diers said. “This is a nice recognition of the things that we’re doing and the things that we’re going to do.”

The city’s strongest ratings came under Economy and Jobs, with an overall score of 53 out of 100, and Education, Arts and Community with an overall score of 39.8 out of 70. The town earned a  combined score of 217.4 points out of eight broad categories, edging it just over the required 200 points to reach level 3-STAR.

“It was pretty exciting and a great relief too, because it’s been a big project. A lot of effort, data collection and pondering,” Diers said.

The town scored well in subcategories like Business Retention and Development, but received low points in subcategories like Housing Affordability and Historic Preservation. Some of that data reading is due to time limits on submitted items, Diers said, such as in Historic Preservation: Potential assets to the study that are more than three years old may not count in every subcategory, such as the Charles Theatre. The full score report for Charles City is available online at https://reporting.starcommunities.org/communities/69-charles-city-iowa.

Beginning with the city’s introduction to STAR in January 2014, community members in offices across the city pulled together to provide the data for this report, Diers said. The town spent $1,500 per year for the first two years as it worked toward certification with STAR, and will continue with a yearly $500 maintenance cost for the three-year certificate.

“For a community our size, fairly small in terms of the communities that have been involved in this, we don’t have a sustainability department. We have one full-time person and myself, helping as I can to do this. It was really a community effort,” Diers said. “Various developers in town (reported) on what they’re doing and how they’re doing it so we can assemble that data and plug it in.

“(STAR) never really said it, but they kept their eye on us, wanting us to do well so we could be develop a small town model,” he added. “As this develops you’ll see something that’s more specific to smaller towns, and we may have had a part in helping to deliver that.”

The next level, 4-STAR, is available to communities rated between 400 – 599 points. Charles City’s current rating will last three years, Diers said.