Section 403A.3. Powers.

  Every municipality in addition to other powers conferred by this or any other chapter, shall have power:

  1.  To prepare, carry out, and operate housing projects and to provide for the construction, reconstruction, improvement, extension, alteration or repair of any housing project or any part thereof.

  2.  To undertake and carry out studies and analyses of the housing needs and of the meeting of such needs, including data with respect to population and family groups and the distribution thereof according to income groups, the amount and quality of available housing and its distribution according to rentals and sales prices, employment, wages and other factors affecting the local housing needs and the meeting thereof, and to make the results of such studies and analyses available to the public and the building, housing, and supply industries; and to engage in research and disseminate information on housing and slum clearance.

  3.  To arrange or contract for the furnishing by any person or agency, public or private, of services, privileges, works or facilities for, or in connection with, a housing project or the occupants thereof; and, notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this chapter or in any other provision of law, to agree to any conditions attached to federal financial assistance relating to the determination of prevailing salaries or wages or payment of not less than prevailing salaries or wages or compliance with labor standards, in the development or administration of projects, and to include in any contract let in connection with a project, stipulations requiring that the contractor and any subcontractor comply with requirements as to minimum salaries or wages and maximum hours of labor, and comply with any conditions which the federal government may have attached to its financial aid of the project.

  4.  To lease or rent any dwellings, accommodations, lands, buildings, structures, or facilities embraced in any project and, subject to the limitations contained in this chapter with respect to the rental of dwellings in housing projects, to establish and revise the rents or charges therefor; to own, hold, and improve real or personal property; to purchase, lease, obtain options upon, acquire by gift, grant, bequest, devise, or otherwise any real or personal property or any interest therein; to acquire by the exercise of the power of eminent domain any real property subject to section 403A.20; to sell, lease, exchange, transfer, assign, pledge, or dispose of any real or personal property or any interest therein; to insure or provide for the insurance, in any stock or mutual company of any real or personal property or operations of the municipality against any risks or hazards; to procure or agree to the procurement of federal or state government insurance or guarantees of the payment of any bonds or parts thereof issued by a municipality, including the power to pay premiums on any such insurance.

  5.  To invest any funds held in connection with a housing project in reserve or sinking funds, or any fund not required for immediate disbursement, in property or securities which banks designated as state depositories may use to secure the deposit of state funds; to redeem its bonds at the redemption price established therein or to purchase its bonds at less than such redemption price, all bonds so redeemed or purchased to be canceled.

  6.  To determine where slum areas exist or where there is unsafe, insanitary or overcrowded housing; to make studies and recommendations relating to the problem of clearing, replanning and reconstructing of slum areas and the problem of eliminating unsafe, insanitary or overcrowded housing and providing dwelling accommodations for persons of low income; and to cooperate with any state public body in action taken in connection with these problems.

  7.  To conduct examinations and investigations and to hear testimony and take proof under oath at public or private hearings on any matter material for its information; to administer oaths, issue subpoenas requiring the attendance of witnesses or the production of books and papers and to issue commissions for the examination of witnesses who are outside of the state or unable to attend or excused from attendance; to make available to appropriate agencies, including those charged with the duty of abating or requiring the correction of nuisances or like conditions or of demolishing unsafe or insanitary structures within its area of operation, its findings and recommendations with regard to any building or property where conditions exist which are dangerous to the public health, morals, safety, or welfare.

  8.  To, within its area of operation, enter into any building or property in any municipal housing area in order to make inspections, surveys, appraisals, soundings or test borings, and to obtain an order for this purpose from a court of competent jurisdiction in the event entry is denied or resisted.

  9.  To exercise all or any part or combination of powers herein granted. No provision of law with respect to the acquisition, operation or disposition of property by public bodies shall be applicable to a municipality in its operations pursuant to this chapter unless the legislature shall specifically so state.

  10.  To cooperate with the Iowa finance authority, to participate in any of its programs, to use any of the funds available to the municipality for the uses of this chapter to contribute to such programs in which it participates, and to comply with the provisions of chapter 16 and the rules of the Iowa finance authority promulgated thereunder.

[C62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §403A.3]

2006 Acts, 1st Ex, ch 1001, §39, 49

; 2007 Acts, ch 54, §34

; 2015 Acts, ch 29, §49

Subsections 2 – 4, and 7 amended