IOWA CITY, Iowa (KWWL) - A moratorium that has prevented property owners from applying for new rentals in Iowa City neighborhoods close to downtown and the University of Iowa could soon be repealed, after council members took the first of three votes Tuesday.

The city has been looking for a way to govern its landlords ever since the state legislature passed Senate File 447 in 2017, which prohibited cities from regulating building occupancy based on familial status.

This map shows the neighborhoods affected by the moratorium; ones the city felt had too high a concentration of rental properties.

"We're just trying to make sure that the neighborhoods are safe, decent and healthy for everyone," Tracy Hightshoe said, neighborhood and development services director for Iowa City.

The City Council has said the moratorium, which went into effect in May 2019, was never meant to be a permanent solution and city staff prepared for its expiration through the end of the year.

Hightshoe says her department was concerned with the effects of landlords turning single-family homes into multi-unit dwellings.

"The infrastructure of the neighborhood was meant for single family," Hightshoe said. "Landlords were paving the whole backyard (for additional parking). And when they exhausted paving the backyard, they paved the front yard."

The city is also hoping to attract a more families to these neighborhoods, to balance them with the highly mobile student population.

"This neighborhood used to be filled with kids, filled with families, filled with everything," Ann Madsen said, who's lived in North Iowa City for 70 years.

Hightshoe presented the steps NDS had taken to address these concerns at a council meeting in December. They included new protections on private spaces like yards, as well as measures to stop property owners from turning shared living spaces like living rooms into bedrooms.

KWWL reached out to several property management companies in the area for comment but none responded.