The future of eight homes is potentially at stake as the Ames community struggles to weigh the welfare of a group of individuals against the needs of a growing city.

The proposed improvement for the intersection at 13th Street and Grand Avenue will affect the front yards, including trees and landscaping, of several homes in the area – in addition to the eight homes singled out for complete acquisition.

On June 12, the City Council approved the beginning stages of planning for the project, which consists of widening 13th Street and Grand Avenue.

Residents of the affected area have not given up the fight for their homes and property.

“We’re just all in limbo now,” said Gail White, of 1212 Grand Ave., who will probably lose her home if the city moves forward with the improvement plan.

White and her husband, Rob, have lived in their house for 22 years, and their mortgage will be paid off next year. She said if she loses her home, she will strongly consider leaving Ames.

White and her neighbors said they would like the city to consider alternating lights at the intersection or alternate routes through the city to reduce traffic congestion.

So far, however, White said city officials have only told them their ideas are “unworkable.”

Aside from efficient traffic flow, a key issue in the discussion about the intersection has been safety.

Brian Vandewater, of 1217 Grand Ave., said he and other members of the affected area care about safety just as much as anyone else, but they did not see it as a problem in their neighborhood.

Vandewater said the concern is legitimate but exaggerated in some ways.

“What is the real purpose of widening the intersection? Is it safety, and safety alone?” Vandewater said.

“Because if that’s the case, their own Web site shows that this is a fairly safe intersection.”

Vandewater is referring to his interpretation of information provided on the city’s Web site,

www.city.ames.ia.us, which includes data and graphs of accident rates at the intersection.

“How do we know how many are not alcohol-related?” Vandewater said.

He and his neighbors mentioned other possible factors such as cell phones and the weather.

The accident data can be found in a Microsoft Word document that can be downloaded from the Web site, in response to questions citizens brought before the City Council in June.

Vandewater said he thinks the real reason for widening the intersection is to bring more people into Ames by allowing more traffic to come through.

Damion Pregitzer, traffic engineer, said the city staff always considers safety first – and managing traffic, rather than increasing it, is the goal of the project.

That does not mean, however, the city does not welcome growth; Pregitzer said people involved in city planning always want to accommodate city growth.

Pregitzer said in projects in which traffic efficiency is a concern, safety is always linked to that concern.

“They’re not separate items,” he said.

Pregitzer said a meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. July 19 in the City Council chambers, at which specific answers to the residents’ alternative proposals will be given.

This meeting will also provide community members with more information about the improvement project in general.

WHKS and Co., the engineering firm for the project, has been analyzing three options proposed by residents, and they will present hard data about the feasibility of those options at the meeting.

These options are putting turn lanes on 13th Street so construction would only need to occur going east to west, splitting the lanes in half along 13th Street, and installing alternating lights at the intersection.

The first option, Pregitzer said, is not likely to improve traffic flow as much as widening both Grand Avenue and 13th Street, and the intersection would still be considered inefficient by the city.

The second and third options, he said, would probably lengthen, rather than decrease, the delay at the intersection.

Residents of the 13th Street and Grand Avenue neighborhood have said they did not feel they had been given adequate time to react to the city’s plan to acquire their property in order to improve the intersection.

Pregitzer said although the project may seem “rushed,” it is still in the planning process, and a company has not even been hired yet to begin the process of land acquisition.

When that time comes, he said, the affected residents will have the option to either hire someone else to make an appraisal of their property and negotiate with the acquisition company, or they may choose to refuse to sell.

Ultimately, however, the decision to either leave the property alone or acquire it rests with the city, Pregitzer said.

It will be at least another year before that process can even begin, Pregitzer said.

During that time, if residents refuse to sell their property, the City Council will have to decide whether to halt the project or begin the process of condemnation.

Pregitzer said there is a possibility of giving “too much lead time” to residents when projects like this are in the works.

The city has had a general plan to improve the intersection at 13th Street and Grand Avenue since 1992.

However, because it has been delayed several times, it never reached a point that enough specifics would have been available to provide accurate information to affected residents.

Even if residents had been notified four years before the intersection had been improved, Pregitzer said, the city and the plan could change enough during that time that a resident who may have moved could have done so based on inaccurate information.

“This is about as difficult a decision as the City Council will have to make,” Pregitzer said.

He said both the staff and the council understand the project will have a significant impact on the residents’ lives, and it is always difficult to gauge “the greater good of the city versus those who are directly impacted.”

As the planning continues, residents of the 13th Street and Grand Avenue neighborhood are not going to give up the fight for their property.

They plan to educate the public by communicating with the media and posting information along the affected streets, Vandewater said.

They are also circulating a petition against the project, which has already collected approximately 300 signatures.