Students can keep couches on their porches for at least another two weeks.

The Ames City Council decided Tuesday night to postpone a proposed ordinance banning indoor furniture on “unenclosed porches” after Councilman Herman Quirmbach, 4th Ward, motioned for an amendment. Quirmbach asked that the ordinance be reworded to enforce only against indoor furniture that remains outside overnight.

“I think we have drafted language which goes further than we intended,” Quirmbach said. “I have heard from a number of students who want to sit out in the sun and want to know what the harm would be in that. Frankly, I don’t have a very good answer.”

Councilwoman Judie Hoffman, at-large, proposed the ordinance in February at the request of neighbors who live west of campus.

“The reason we are doing this is because we have a combination of people living next to each other who are of different standing,” Hoffman said. “These neighbors are very happy to live next door to students but are not too wild to have couches and chairs to look at on an ongoing basis.

“I know of furniture that [has] been sitting out all winter and [the occupants] don’t seem to feel it should be moved.”

Hoffman said she wants Ames residents to “get along well with each other.”

Ames Mayor Ted Tedesco said the ordinance will now have to go through three more hearings.

Tedesco also said city staff is working on a different maintenance ordinance for both residential and rental units.

“That ordinance, if passed with appropriated language, would deal with the community as a whole and encompass [the outdoor furniture] ordinance,” Tedesco said.

City Attorney John Klaus said city staff has started researching the maintenance ordinance.

“We want to get input from those who receive complaints, those who administrate such ordinances, those who would enforce the ordinance,” Klaus said. “Right now we’re in a second draft and I suspect there will be more before we’re done.”