Drake Neighborhood Association Board Meeting

Wednesday, October11, 2017

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Polk County Central Senior Center, 2008 Forest Avenue

Board Members Present (X)
X / Ibrahim Ali (12/18) / X / Nadia Alie (12/18) / Michael Christl (12/17)
X / Lori Calhoun (12/17) / X / Amy Clark (12/18) / X / David Courard-Hauri (12/17)
Deric Gourd (12/18) / X / Kristina Johnson (12/18) / Eldon McAfee (12/17)
X / Ashley Parker (12/18) / X / Eddie Robinson (12/17) / X / Nichole Aksamit Purcell (12/18)
X / Jen Sayers (12/17) / X / Mark Schneider (12/17) / X / Todd Slaymaker (12/18)
X / Mark McKinney (NBSD) / X / Jazlin Coley (Drake Student Community Action Board)
Chris Reindl (NBSD) / John Smith (Drake)

Note: All votes are in bold italics.

Introductions. There were multiple guests in attendance.

Minutes: approval of minutes for September. Motion passed.

Financials: Nothing new.

NBSD:Mark—689 calls for service. 21 part 1 crimes, with 3 shots fired. Burglaries are up here (there were 12) and citywide. Remember, if you’re leaving for more than a couple of days, let your neighbors know, use exterior lighting, and take precautions to ensure that it doesn’t look like your home is empty. A pedestrian was killed crossing the street on the 4100 block of University Ave, after getting off a bus. There was discussion about crosswalks in the area, which is being studied. A resident complained about Drake student parties near her home on 27th Street; she felt that there should be more patrolling in the area.

Parks and Rec: Came to give us a presentation and to solicit input on neighborhood parks. The City puts about $6.4 million per year into improvement for parks (total parks budget about $13 million). The average DSM resident pays about $129 toward the parks budget. There is a wide variety of parks in the city, including open air shelters, dog parks, pools, golf courses, fishing ponds, a soccer complex and softball. There are 76 parks total, and over 500 miles of regional trails. Projects for 2017: Improve Evelyn Davis Park fitness equipment, Ashby Park, Bill Riley Trail railroad bridge replacement, Fairmont Park construction, and more. They’re always looking for more volunteers. You can find out more by following them on social media or going to their website.

Property Updates:

  • 2221 University Ave Project. Abbey Gilroy from Neighborhood Development Corp. Their hope is to move down University and improve sites east of this one. They currently have a half-acre site at that address (it’s fenced). They’re looking at a 2-story building with wrought iron fence along the 8 ft sidewalk. They’ll be doing 1-bedroom residential units, $850-$950 per unit. 19 parking sites for 20 units. They looked at doing retail at the site, but parking won’t allow it. They’d like to rezone from R1 to NPC. They’d like to get started this November.The siding would be a mix of lap siding and hardy panel, like on Forest. Mark moved that we convey support to the City, Nichole seconded. Motion passed with seven in favor, two opposed, one abstention.
  • University Avenue Project. Jen—they are currently working on the hotel portion of the project, looking at two types: local boutique or small chain. That’s all she had so far.
  • Liquor License for 1159 24th Street: Jen supported the change at P&Z, provided that they just sell to patrons and that the language is such that the site can’t be turned into a tavern if Tobi leaves.
  • Some people purchased a 4-plex on 1517 23rd Street without realizing that the zoning had been lost, so they applied for rezoning. Jen did not support the rezoning at P&Z and it was denied. We will be working with them to see if we can come to a reasonable solution.
  • Dave Clason came to speak about an 11-plex at 1120 26th Street. They’d like to bring it down to a 3-plex with an apartment on each floor. Down the road, they’d like to take off the back, which is rotting out, and convert that to parking. They came to ask if they considered buying it, would we support converting it from 11 units to 3. He thinks that it would be hard to convert it fully to a single-family, because he thinks it’s too large. KJ said that several board members went to the site and did not feel it made sense to have it be a 3-plex.

Drake:No report.

Old Business:

  1. Survey: Lori—she wants to get the results to the Board in November.
  2. Des Moines Neighbors Meeting: no report.
  3. Business Partners Program. Amy—if you know anyone, let Amy know so that she has a way to get in the door for a conversation.
  4. Marketing: Nichole—They hope to have the video pulled together in November so we can unveil it at the December pot-luck. Next newsletter will go out in November as well. She’s still looking for “good neighbor” nominees.
  5. Tree Planting: Nichole—they still need volunteers; you can find a link on the Facebook page. 9 am at Grace United parking lot on October 28th. Drake students said they might be able to help.
  6. Community Garden: Eddie—there’s a lot of produce; over 2000 lbs of tomatoes, 500 lbs of pumpkins and squash, and more. He will need volunteers to help clean up—maybe in a few Saturdays. They do need a new tiller.

New Business:

  1. None

Announcements:

  • The last farmer’s market is tomorrow—bring cans for the food pantry. There will be music.
  • Drake Park playground equipment: They think it will be resurfaced in October.
  • Josh Cox from Drake reached out to KJ about whether the DNA wanted a private group tour to look at the exhibits about architecture at Drake and across Iowa. If you’re interested, let KJ know. If there’s enough interest, we’ll set something up.
  • KJ got an e-mail about mattress disposal. At the end of the school year, sometimes there is difficulty getting rid of mattresses. It costs $20 to get this company to recycle mattresses, so we might want to send out a blast about that.

Meeting adjourned 8:30