One of the first orders of business for the Dec. 18 meeting of the Clear Lake City Council was to approve the City Administrator Scott Flory’s appointment of Matthew Steding as City Engineer. Steding will start his duties on Feb. 1, 2024, with an annual beginning salary of $120,000. The creation of this position was approved by Council members during a special meeting held Nov. 29 and the job was posted to the city’s website.
In unfinished business, the second reading of the 26+ acre rezoning request from Brandon and Dennis Hrubes of Lakeside Acres was read. This was followed by a motion made by Councilman Bennett Smith to table the rezoning proposal.
Bennett said, “Several of us had a good meeting with the property owners the other day, and I appreciate their willingness to defer this matter for a time so that we can study it further. I just think it’s premature to rezone it at this time, because I think there are some concerns about the feasibility of the project, given its current size, location and mix of housing types.”
After some discussion, a roll call vote was taken with three Council members voting to table the rezoning request until a future time.
In other housing development news Flory asked the Council to start the process of establishing an urban revitalization plan for the Emerald Edge subdivision, which includes both the 32 twin/townhomes Emerald Place Townhome Project, and the 90+ unit Emerald Edge Apartment Project.
In the meeting packet memo Flory informed the Council that the city has been working with PlanScape Partners on a very detailed legal and administrative process and an urban revitalization plan has been prepared. The plan requires the City Council to approve a resolution of necessity and set a date for a public hearing.
Flory said that under the terms of the plan, the qualifying developments would be eligible to receive a full or partial abatement from property taxes following Council approval. Council members were also asked to set a public hearing for their Feb. 5 meeting on the resolution of necessity. At that meeting the Council would consider the first reading of an ordinance approving the designation of the district, with the second and third readings taking place at the council’s Feb. 19 and March 4 meetings.
This was done in accordance with Chapter 404 of the Code of Iowa, the enabling legislation that grants the City the authority to adopt the Plan/Area.
The demolition and interim site work of the former Woodford-Wheeler business, 210 N. 4th St., will get underway soon. The project will entail the demolition of the existing 21,500 sq. ft. building and removal and disposal of debris; removal of existing building foundations; and backfilling and compacting the site. The interim site work includes stormwater drainage and aggregate surfacing to enable the property to be used in the short-term for off-street parking.
The Council authorized the “competitive quotation process” for bidding at the Dec. 4 meeting because the estimated cost of the project is less than the statutory threshold requiring the competitive sealed bid process.
The engineer’s estimate of the probable cost of demolition and interim site work was $160,864. Four bids were received with the lowest responsible bid submitted by Charlson Excavating of Clear Lake in the amount of $168,144. Although this bid was higher than the engineer’s estimate, Flory said the other three bids came in considerably higher.
The project’s “interim-completion” date is Feb. 3, 2024 so that the site will be available for off-street parking for the “Color-the-Wind” kite festival taking place on Feb. 17. The final completion date would be by May 24.
Before the last City Council meeting of the 2023 year ended, Clear Lake Mayor Nelson Crabb thanked Gary Hugi (City Council, eight years; P&Z, two years) and Mike Callanan (City Council, 16 years) for their many years of service and presented them with a token of appreciation.
“You talk about civil service, giving to your community, giving to your society. Both of these gentlemen have done that,” Crabb said.
