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Ames Rental Cap and Parking

pdxclone

pdxclone

Active Member
Feb 7, 2007
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Metropolis of Ames
Those students/parents who have not heard about the new rental ordinance that will be voted on by the City Council for the third time tonight are probably going to be disappointed when looking for an offsite next year and beyond. Available house rentals will be scarcer in the neighborhoods near campus. One conspiracy theory is with all the new apartments being built, the City wants them 100% occupied and not houses.

http://www.amestrib.com/news/20180519/another-rental-cap-lincoln-way-doubleheader-on-tap

The SCAN group has pressured Council for the rental cap because of Barbara Pleasants, an ISU asst. professor, who clearly hates students. Student behavior is not going to change because they live further from campus and not on Lynn Ave. Most will probably say, who cares I don’t live in Ames.

Those who visit Ames will care that SCAN’s past and next target is parking. They already pushed for 4 hr/alternate side parking, enforcement increased, and fines raised. Next is game day parking. Ames police has been lax on parking enforcement (except when emergency vehicles cannot get thru) on game days. SCAN is pushing for strict 4 hour enforcement on game days. That means having to move your car during the game to avoid a ticket. A $10-15 ticket isn’t that big of deal but its going up and a whole season adds up. Talk about killing the college game day experience.
 
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pdxclone said:
Those students/parents who have not heard about the new rental ordinance that will be voted on by the City Council for the third time tonight are probably going to be disappointed when looking for an offsite next year and beyond. Available house rentals will be scarcer in the neighborhoods near campus. One conspiracy theory is with all the new apartments being built, the City wants them 100% occupied and not houses.

http://www.amestrib.com/news/20180519/another-rental-cap-lincoln-way-doubleheader-on-tap

The SCAN group has pressured Council for the rental cap because of Barbara Pleasants, an ISU asst. professor, who clearly hates students. Student behavior is not going to change because they live further from campus and not on Lynn Ave. Most will probably say, who cares I don’t live in Ames.

Those who visit Ames will care that SCAN’s past and next target is parking. They already pushed for 4 hr/alternate side parking, enforcement increased, and fines raised. Next is game day parking. Ames police has been lax on parking enforcement (except when emergency vehicles cannot get thru) on game days. SCAN is pushing for strict 4 hour enforcement on game days. That means having to move your car during the game to avoid a ticket. A $10-15 ticket isn’t that big of deal but its going up and a whole season adds up. Talk about killing the college game day experience.
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I have never known Ames Police or the ISU parking division to be lax on parking enforcement.
 
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TXCyclones said:
It's always funny when a community forgets where their money actually comes from.
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Yeah. Not to mention we are at a 50 year high of households that are renting, which makes putting caps on renters monumentally stupid. Roughly 2/3 of households under 35 are renters, so this isn't just a middle finger to students, but a middle finger to all younger adults.
 
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I guess I'm going to play the contrarion here. As a home owner, I'd be unhappy if my neighborhood turned to a bunch of rentals. They typically aren't as well kept up and ultimately it will affect the value of your home.

I will say that the method of restricting rentals seems ineffective, but I can understand their goals. I think they'd be more effective by regulating and enforcing the type of things that make rentals in your enighborhood unattractive rather than limiting how many there are. Things like enforcing the number of unrelated enhabitants, requiring enough off street parking to match the number of occupants, and enforcing nuisance laws would go a lot further to avoid these problems than just limiting the number of these homes IMO.

As far as parking, I feel events such as gameday are what you sign up for when you live there. They didn't just recently build a stadium (recently started filling the stadium but whatever). But if there are cars constantly parked in front of your house every day, that'll get old real fast.
 
Clonehomer said:
As far as parking, I feel events such as gameday are what you sign up for when you live there. They didn't just recently build a stadium (recently started filling the stadium but whatever). But if there are cars constantly parked in front of your house every day, that'll get old real fast.
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QFT. People want to live near the stadium, Hilton and Stephens but don't want anyone parking in the street in front of their houses. Or more accurately they want those spaces available for their friends and family when they come to events at JTS, JHHC and CYSA. There are going to be bigger parking issues on game days if they start restricting all of the on-street parking east and west of the stadium.
 
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Clonehomer said:
I guess I'm going to play the contrarion here. As a home owner, I'd be unhappy if my neighborhood turned to a bunch of rentals. They typically aren't as well kept up and ultimately it will affect the value of your home.

I will say that the method of restricting rentals seems ineffective, but I can understand their goals. I think they'd be more effective by regulating and enforcing the type of things that make rentals in your enighborhood unattractive rather than limiting how many there are. Things like enforcing the number of unrelated enhabitants, requiring enough off street parking to match the number of occupants, and enforcing nuisance laws would go a lot further to avoid these problems than just limiting the number of these homes IMO.

As far as parking, I feel events such as gameday are what you sign up for when you live there. They didn't just recently build a stadium (recently started filling the stadium but whatever). But if there are cars constantly parked in front of your house every day, that'll get old real fast.
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You would be right about rental condition but for the fact that Ames has a rental code that goes far beyond what a single family house condition needs to be in. Every 2 years the units are re- inspected. Ames just hired another inspector so I expect the inspections to get tougher.

We have been trying to buy a house in Ames for the past 8 months. None of them under $200k would pass the rental inspection.
 
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pdxclone said:
You would be right about rental condition but for the fact that Ames has a rental code that goes far beyond what a single family house condition needs to be in. Every 2 years the units are re- inspected. Ames just hired another inspector so I expect the inspections to get tougher.

We have been trying to buy a house in Ames for the past 8 months. None of them under $200k would pass the rental inspection.
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Correct me if I assume wrong, but if this law passes, wouldn't it help lower the cost of buying a home since investor demand would fall? I would think if you want wanted to live in a home near campus you are thrilled by this rule
 
I don’t see prices going down because of the new assessor system they started using last year. Everyone uses that inflated price to justify their asking price even though they haven’t done one thing to the property. The assessed value isn’t real market value nor does it factor in whether is can generate revenue. It is a seller’s market and I don’t see the demand going down any time soon; therefore prices aren’t going down because those who rent now have no reason to sell. They will be able to charge more because the supply is being capped.
 
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pdxclone said:
I don’t see prices going down because of the new assessor system they started using last year. Everyone uses that inflated price to justify their asking price even though they haven’t done one thing to the property. The assessed value isn’t real market value nor does it factor in whether is can generate revenue. It is a seller’s market and I don’t see the demand going down any time soon; therefore prices aren’t going down because those who rent now have no reason to sell. They will be able to charge more because the supply is being capped.
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Hmm, there seems to be a lot wrong with this post. Market value is market value, plain and simple. I think the potential changes could help you out actually.
 
mapnerd said:
Hmm, there seems to be a lot wrong with this post. Market value is market value, plain and simple. I think the potential changes could help you out actually.
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Re-read my post, there are already more buyers than sellers. Your assumption is this is because investors are buying everything up. This is not true since it is too costly to bring all the properties up to the rental code.

Review the City Council meetings on this and you will see SCAN paraded up a bunch of people in favor of this because they didn’t like the student behavior in a singular instance. They are not trying to get affordable housing in their neighborhoods because that would hit them in their own pocket book.
 
I would hate to see the backyards of homes in my neighborhood turn into weedy gravel parking lots.

I prefer the the house down the street not have a big “You honk-We drink” sign in the front yard.

Those issues coud be addressed regardless of rental status.
 
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Clonehomer said:
Things like enforcing the number of unrelated enhabitants
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The restriction on number of unrelated tenants is no longer allowed, thanks to a change in Iowa law.

And that can be a good thing. For a time, I lived in a 4 bedroom house (4 legit bedrooms) that had 4 actual parking spaces. However, the city of Ames only allowed us to have 3 people living there because we were all unrelated. Ridiculous.

The other thing that's happening more and more in Ames is parents buying a house for their kids (and friends) to live in while they're at ISU, then selling the property after everyone graduates. So, that's not technically a rental.
 
theshadow said:
The restriction on number of unrelated tenants is no longer allowed, thanks to a change in Iowa law.

And that can be a good thing. For a time, I lived in a 4 bedroom house (4 legit bedrooms) that had 4 actual parking spaces. However, the city of Ames only allowed us to have 3 people living there because we were all unrelated. Ridiculous.

The other thing that's happening more and more in Ames is parents buying a house for their kids (and friends) to live in while they're at ISU, then selling the property after everyone graduates. So, that's not technically a rental.
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Was not aware of the state laws, that's good to know.

I'm not as concerned with parents purchasing houses with their kids staying in them. There is typically more of a focus on upkeep and responsibility for those. Primarily because those houses need to be sold later and there is an incentive to keep housing prices high. We've lived near several of these when we were still in Ames.

I guess another thing these neighborhoods can do to protect themselves is to setup HOAs with covenants to manage the undesirable effects of rentals. Not sure if they can enforce parking rules on public streets, but other items such as "you honk, we drink" should be controllable.
 
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