The Iowa Court of Appeals upholds the dismissal of the Rompot District Railroad Court lawsuit

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld a district court ruling allowing a 12-track, 200-car rail yard operated by Cargill to continue operating in the Rompot neighborhood of Cedar Rapids.

The decision, which residents and local advocates have contested for years, has drawn sharp criticism from the community and their legal representatives, who say it sets a dangerous precedent for future zoning and land use cases in Iowa.

Operational from 2021, the railyard is adjacent to the residential neighborhood of Rompot, replacing what was originally intended as a prairie pollinator area.

The rezoning has fueled concerns about increased noise, pollution, property devaluation and environmental impact.

The neighborhood’s legal team, led by attorney Jim Larew, argued that the rezoning violated the area’s core principles and ignored the needs of the community.

“We argued that based on the legal precedents with which we were familiar, we could find no comparable case in the history of the state of Iowa,” Larew said. “What used to be a quiet, lovely neighborhood is right next to this noisy rail yard.”

Chief Justice Sharon Soorholtz Greer, writing for the appeals court, emphasized that the city had demonstrated reasonable grounds for its decisions.

“Although the neighbors do not agree that the changes are beneficial to the public good, they have a remedy at the ballot box,” Judge Greer said in the court’s opinion.

Larew also criticized the appeals court’s reliance on election remedies for aggrieved citizens, saying, “The appeals court’s reasoning suggested that citizens could go to the polls as if they had a remedy for, ‘what, pick a new city ​​council or something?” Well, that’s not practical.”

Cargill has operated in Cedar Rapids since 1967 and has justified the rail yard as essential to its operations, claiming it reduces downtown train traffic and keeps its corn mill competitive. The City Council echoed those sentiments, citing economic development goals and Cargill’s commitment to restoring nearby acres as pollinator habitat to alleviate environmental concerns.

However, opponents see this justification as prioritizing corporate interests over community well-being.

“When Cargill sneezed, the city of Cedar Rapids got pneumonia,” Larew said.

He added that the railway yard, which directly adjoins residential houses, reflects an inequitable distribution of industrial burdens.

Residents, including former state Sen. Rob Hogg, a 20-year neighborhood resident and lead plaintiff, expressed dismay at the city council’s approval of the project.

“The city council has done something that under Iowa law will be considered unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious, discriminatory or illegal,” Hogg told Iowa’s News Now in 2020.

Neighborhood opposition was strong from the start. In 2019, residents formed advocacy groups, including Protect the Prairie Park Corridor, to challenge the rezoning and sale of city-owned properties to Cargill.

Kerry Sanders, a spokesperson for the opposition group Build Trails Not Rails, articulated the community’s frustrations in 2020: “We are against the methodology the city is using to force this project on a community that has made it very clear to them that we do. I don’t want to.”

Hogg and his wife Kathryn, along with other plaintiffs, now face the decision to appeal the decision to the Iowa Supreme Court.

“My clients haven’t trained me yet,” Larew said.