Ames P & Z in for payday lending ordinance

Zoning board votes to restrict new payday lenders

March 22, 2012, Ames Tribune

The Ames Planning and Zoning Commission recommended Wednesday the Ames City Council adopt an ordinance that essentially would prohibit any new payday lending businesses in Ames.

There are seven payday lenders in Ames. They would be “grandfathered” into the zoning change as pre-existing non-conforming properties.

The proposed zoning ordinance would prohibit new payday lenders from locating near similar businesses, residential areas, schools, daycares, parks, arterial streets or in highway-oriented commercial or gateway overlay zones.

Commission Chair Liz Beck asked Brian Phillips, project coordinator for the city, to clarify the impact of the zoning change.

“The way that these requirements are constructed, if you apply them to the map of the city … there is no place in the current confines of the city of Ames that a payday lender would be able to locate,” Phillips said.

In September 2011, the council asked city staff to construct a zoning law “as restrictive as legally possible.

Under the current code, payday lending services are considered office use and permissible in any commercial zone.

City Attorney Doug Marek said studies had been done in other communities in Iowa and across the nation that found payday lending services tend to cluster together in one location, crowding out other businesses and contributing to lower property values in nearby neighborhoods.

The council will vote on formal adoption of the ordinance at its meeting Tuesday, April 10.

If the zoning is approved, Ames will join Des Moines, West Des Moines and Clive in restricting the location of payday lenders, which have been criticized by the State Attorney General’s office for predatory loan practices. 

>>Read more about our work to curb payday lenders and keep wealth in our communities.

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