This project was developed to help the Eastern Central Intergovernmental Association (ECIA)/Eastern Iowa Regional Housing Authority (EIRHA) develop a strategic approach to addressing Eastern Iowaâ€s shortage of affordable housing, redeveloping abandoned and blighted properties, including brownfields, and ensuring that community planning and development are driven by the vision of local stakeholders and not external developers. ECIA has been working with the University of Iowa since 2016, through the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities. Law student representation of ECIA/EIRHA grows out of earlier work done by students in Geography and Sustainability Sciences, which looked at the relationship between brownfields in Eastern Iowa and social vulnerability and work done by students in Urban & Regional Planning, who developed an inventory of regional brownfields and conducted preliminary research on the feasibility of a “land bank”.

ECIA/EIRHA believes that the best tool to address this complex web of community development issues is the creation of a regional land bank, a governmental entity or nonprofit corporation that focuses on converting vacant, abandoned, or tax delinquent properties into community assets. Land banks typically have unique authority which enables them “to acquire title to these problem properties, eliminate the liabilities, and transfer the properties to new owners” in an efficient and transparent manner. There are approximately 170 land banks in the U.S., but the ECIA/EIRHA land bank would be the first in the state of Iowa. In most jurisdictions, the creation of a land bank has required the passage of new legislation. The client sought to understand best practices of existing land banks, if new legislation would be necessary in Iowa and what that legislation would look like, as well as understanding other tools and advocacy strategies that could help ECIA/EIRHA accomplish the same goals without new legislation and, potentially, on a shorter timeline.

The Problem

The shortage of affordable housing is often thought of as an urban problem that affects residents in cities like New York or San Francisco. In fact, the lack of affordable housing impacts small town and rural Iowa, as much as it does larger cities. To afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent in Iowa, a worker would have to earn at least $14.57 per hour, yet the minimum wage state-wide is currently $7.25. This means an individual or family must have at least two full-time minimum wage jobs to rent an apartment with sufficient room for a small family. In some of the ECIA member counties, the numbers are even starker: for example, in Dubuque County, a worker would have to earn at least $15.25 per hour.

In ECIA member counties, the lack of affordable units is worse than in many parts of the state: In Jackson County, there are 1,055 low income individuals vying for 70 affordable units (15 individuals/unit) and in Cedar County, there are only 28 affordable units for 610 individuals in need (22 individuals/unit), whereas statewide the ration is typically 11 individuals in need for each affordable unit. When individuals canâ€t access affordable housing, they often forego basic necessities, may be forced to leave the job and the community that they know and, in worst case scenarios, individuals and families may experience homelessness. In 2016, there were 11,860 homeless individuals in the state of Iowa, and approximately half of them were on the street on any given night.

Although there is a shortage of affordable housing, there are numerous parcels of abandoned, blighted or tax delinquent properties in the ECIA/EIRHA region, which could be redeveloped. Vacant and abandoned properties signal to residents and outsiders that a community is in decline. In addition to being a symptom of economic downturn, these properties are also associated with increases in “crime, increased risk to health and welfare, plunging property values, and escalating municipal costs”. Communities and local governments may be committed to redevelopment and reuse. However, there are several obstacles from the statutorily-mandated delay between tax delinquency and foreclosure (approximately two years) to developers†fears of uncertain liability related to the redevelopment of contaminated properties, like former gas stations, factories, or dry cleaners.

In their final report, the clinical law students representing ECIA/EIRHA explored the following questions:

What are ECIA′ő/·ˇ±ő¸é±á´ˇĂ˘â‚¬s long-term and short-term goals?
Does the creation of a land bank accomplish those goals? How?
Of existing land banks, which provide the best models for ECIA/EIRHA and why?
If enabling legislation is necessary, what is the ideal content, structure, and language?
What legislators and stakeholders would support the creation of a land bank? Would they be more or less likely to support other advocacy strategies that advance ECIA′ő/·ˇ±ő¸é±á´ˇĂ˘â‚¬s goals?

The City of Clinton was settled as a lumber community and grew into a thriving manufacturing center. Jobs after high school were easy to obtain with competitive wages and benefits package. Over the past few decades, Clinton has experienced a hollowing out of the downtown, a decrease in the livability from wages at manufacturing jobs, and an overall population decline. A Des Moines register article in March 2017 put a spotlight on the economic challenges facing the City of Clinton and other micropolitan areas throughout the state. The article describes a drastically changing economic landscape in Clinton, where the manufacturing sector has declined as the primary economic engine, followed by dwindling job opportunities, working-age residents, retail activity, and social capital. Recent economic trends are compelling community leaders to evaluate new directions for the community and shift the emphasis away from industrial business recruitment. STEM initiatives, entrepreneurial development, tourism, and quality of life strategies are mentioned as opportunities to build and retain a skilled workforce for a new economy.

An economic development plan provides a comprehensive overview of the economy, sets policy direction for economic growth, and identifies strategies, programs, and projects to improve the economy.

The plan developed by the graduate students serves as a foundation for economic development of the Clinton Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is the whole of Clinton County, with emphasis on the city of Clinton, Iowa. The plan approaches economic development through supporting area businesses and workers, while simultaneously enhancing quality of life for residents. This approach requires the plan to capitalize on Clintonâ€s assets and simultaneously overcome its weaknesses. In doing so, the plan identifies courses of action to provide greater opportunity and thereby prosperity, which are the ultimate goals of economic development initiatives.

The plan provides a set of economic development goals tailored to the future needs of Clinton. Strategies and action items to guide progress accompany each goal, and each action item is assigned to specific organizations to oversee implementation. Performance metrics are also included to measure progress towards the goals.

In Spring 2018, the University of Iowa School of Urban and Regional Planning, in cooperation with the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities, offered its second Iowa Community Storytelling Project. The purpose of the Iowa Community Storytelling Project is to use the humanities and the arts, specifically storytelling and videography, to create stories about a specific place in Iowa.  The project was support by the University of Iowa’s Iowa Digital Engagement and Learning (IDEAL) Initiative.

The Mississippi River Region in eastern Iowa, which consists of Jones, Jackson, and Dubuque counties, features the heritage of Grant Wood as well as a picturesque, hilly terrain whose bluffs meet the Mississippi River.  The Region is dotted with small towns that are complemented by the Dubuque metropolitan area.   

The overall goal was to use these stories to portray to both residents and the broader public the richness of the Region, not only as a place to visit, but also as a place to live.   Graduate and advanced undergraduates in urban planning, the social sciences, the humanities, the arts, public health, and education were invited to join the class.  The starting point for these stories was the “experiences” conveyed by the Regionâ€s Grant Wood Loop website. Teams of students worked with the instructor and with the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities to produce professional quality films as well as to gain a greater appreciation for the challenges and opportunities faced by Upper Midwest communities and regions in Iowa.  “Travelogues” such as this will help both residents and visitors to develop a sense of place within the Grant Wood—Mississippi River Region which will inform planning for that region and its communities.   

Each group of students in the class used the Grant Wood Loop website to develop a route or transect through the Region that enabled the group to sample a portion of the region.  Students then took the opportunity to film the route, visit places featured on the Grant Wood Loop website, and talk to people who live or work in the Grant Wood Mississippi Region. The results are the three short videos, each of which tells a story about the Grant Wood Mississippi River Region.

Artist Ali Hval was selected by the Office of Outreach & Engagement to design and install a mural for an exterior wall located in downtown Clinton. She recruited fellow artist and MFA student Marina Ross to provide assistance. The project was made possible by a collaboration between two university outreach and engagement programs, Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities (IISC) and Arts Share.

The completion of their mural was marked by a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 6th, 2017. A permanent plaque was added to the mural and includes Hval’s artist statement, which reads: “This design is an abstraction of the Sunset on the Mississippi River. Just as a river connects cities to one another, this mural connects people to the City of Clinton.”

UI Art faculty member Tameka Norris served as faculty advisor for the project.

East Central Intergovernmental Association (ECIA) is the regional Council of Governments for the eastern Iowa five county region of Cedar, Clinton, Delaware, Dubuque, and Jackson counties. As a 28E organization and a public non-profit, ECIA seeks to develop communications standards to convey their services and accomplishments to their member communities and the general public in their region. ECIA did not have a communication plan and aimed to establish consistent standards among the agencyâ€s programs for how the organization communicates via email, website, Facebook, Twitter, meetings, press releases, phone calls, letters and memos. Communication standards also help ensure all stakeholders receive the correct and necessary information. A robust and effective internal communications plan provides a baseline for staff in assisting communities throughout the region to adopt similar plans.

Maquoketa (pop. 6,112) underwent a major transformation that stemmed from goals set during the Vision 2020 process in 2013-14, a community-wide strategic planning process with extensive public input and data analysis. The three major goals identified included: 1) Downtown Revitalization; 2) Recreation, Arts and Tourism; and 3) Retaining and Attracting Business and Professionals. Since then, the community has undertaken several major projects and initiatives that improve the environment and celebrate the communityâ€s cultural and natural assets. Maquoketa wanted to build on this momentum to increase tourism to the city. Its location is ideally suited for weekend trips for individuals and families to enjoy the many attractions the city offers.

As part of its revitalization program, the city needed a marketing communication plan that would pave the path to increase tourism through the marketing of the city and its many attractions. The marketing communication plan developed by the students included new branding for the city and the process to implement the tactics of the plan by the civic and government stakeholders. The Marketing Institute team worked alongside a stakeholder committee that would be comprised of local civic and government leaders. The team pulled everything together in a communication plan that recommended marketing tactics to increase tourism (while also increasing internal and external positive perceptions of Maquoketa), as well as brand implementation.

Pocket neighborhoods are small, planned, residential communities featuring community-building amenities in common space, such as an outdoor grilling area, common garden, and edible landscaping. Civil & Environmental Engineering students designed a pocket neighborhood for a particular site, including management needs and cost estimates. The design includes small single-family homes, amenities, sidewalks, on-site storm water management, and more. ECIA will use the design as a benchmark for working with communities in their region on the development of pocket neighborhoods that provide unique and affordable housing options that appeal to new families and residents.