The Ames City Council made zoning decisions affecting residential and commercial development in two areas of the city Tuesday night.

The first of these involved the interchange of 13th Street and Interstate 35, the site of a proposed regional shopping mall.

At the suggestion of city staff, the council opted unanimously to develop the site as a Gateway Overlay District. This zoning designation allows for intensive public input on the guidelines for development of the site, said City Manager Steve Schainker.

“People like to participate in the planning of large areas,” Schainker said. “People realize the importance of this particular site and are interested in its development in terms of design and aesthetics.”

The proposal of a regional mall unleashed debate among city residents in January, when the City Council approved a Land Use Policy Plan map change giving Tennessee developer James “Bucky” Wolford the OK to develop the land. Council members expressed interest in public input in the mall’s development.

To allow for such discussion, city staff will conduct at least six sessions in which stakeholders in the mall’s development can lobby city staff for rules and regulations on the site, Schainker said. These regulations could include issues such as green space on the land or type of signage displayed.

Among the input groups suggested by city staff were an environmental group, community group and business development group. A “kick-off” meeting open to any interested parties will likely be a part of the input process as well.

These input sessions will not be an opportunity for individuals to lobby against the construction of the new mall, Schainker said. The issue of bringing a regional mall to Ames was settled with the LUPP map change, and these sessions will proceed with the creation of a large-scale shopping center in mind.

The public conversation portion of the mall’s development is expected to take a short amount of time, Schainker said, with discussion taking two days. If all goes smoothly in the zoning, subdivision, site planning and issuing of building permits, Wolford could break ground in late summer or early fall, Schainker said.

The council also changed an area of the Land Use Policy Plan map in the southwest corner of Ames. Hunziker Land Development, a branch of Hunziker & Associates, closed sale Friday on a 53-acre parcel of land bound on the north by Mortensen Road, on the south by U.S. Highway 30, on the east by the ISU Dairy Farm and on the west by an apartment complex, said Chuck Winkleback, vice president of Hunziker & Associates and manager of Hunziker Land Management.

The land was previously owned by the ISU Foundation, and, because of university ownership, had no zoning on the Land Use Policy Plan map. None of the land owned by Iowa State when the map was created was given official zoning, said City Planner Joe Pietruszynski, because city staff did not anticipate the university selling the property.

Hunziker asked city staff to zone the area high-density residential, allowing for 14-unit and larger housing complexes, Pietruszynski said.

Discussion arose because the site is across from a proposed middle school and bound to the east and south by more unzoned university-owned land. Several council members expressed concern that the land should be scaled down from the existing high-density housing on the west to single-family housing eastward.

This idea, however would require months of study by city staff before the map could be changed, Pietruszynski said.

Hunziker is ready to begin the zoning process on the parcel it owns now, Winkleback said.

At the motion of Councilman Steve Goodhue, the council approved a compromise, changing the map so the western 75 percent of the Hunziker site is zoned high-density, while the eastern 25 percent is zone medium-density, which allows for up to 14 housing units. This zoning will allow both for immediate development on the Hunziker site, and a gradual move toward lower density housing.