- So I'd like to go ahead and call this deliberation session of the Bloomington Common Council to order
- here on October 15th. If the clerk could please call the roll. Council Member Ruff. Here. Piedmont Smith.
- Here. Stosberg. Here. Daly. Here. Zulek. Here. Rosenberger.
- Thank you. Great, thank you. So tonight we have a little bit of a different meeting. It's a deliberation
- session, and these take different forms on different days, depending on what it is that we're doing.
- So today we have the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission here to hear a little bit more about
- them. So we will start with a presentation, I believe, from program manager Noah Sandweiss.
- Is that correct? Yeah, so I put together. OK, not yet. I'm still summarizing the agenda. Thank you.
- And then after that there will be a discussion that will be moderated by council members who look and
- we'll have public comment within that and Then we will adjourn. Yes clerk Bolden My apologies to council
- members Rallo and Flaherty. I actually did not call their names for the role So go ahead Flaherty here
- and Rallo Sorry about that. That's okay. Thank you. I
- I didn't look up and look at the screen either, so it's on all of us. Thank you guys for joining us
- remotely. So we will have that introduction by program manager Sandweis and then have the discussion
- moderated by council members Zulek and then we'll adjourn. So Mr. Sandweis, now the table is yours.
- Let's put it up.
- showing up there. Okay, well, first of all, I'd like to thank everybody for being here. We have a really
- good crowd. I particularly like to thank council members Zulek for reaching out. I know there have been
- some members of the commission who've been wanting to have a deliberation session for a while. And I
- believe on city council as well. So the way I had set up this presentation was
- to go through a handful of the general topics that we had discussed in sort of a pre-meeting that cover
- a lot of what we might want to go through in this deliberation session. So if you wouldn't mind, I can
- run through those real quickly and we can use them as sort of a guide for the conversations. Does that
- sound good? That sounds lovely, thank you. Okay, awesome. So one of the topics we wanted to discuss
- was commission appointments.
- how they're made, how to get them, terms. And for each of these topics really to have the opportunity
- for people in either the council or the commission to bring up any points that they think are particularly
- relevant or pressing. Design review process and delegation. There's been some question about who reviews
- what and as I guess we'll find out that sort of depends
- It depends on the codes written up by various historic district committees, as well as state legislation,
- which is more or less the same in this regard as local legislation, just in terms of what staff cannot
- review. There's some cases where certain things are exempt from review in a lot of the time that'll
- sort of be district by district.
- but it also includes some sorts of maintenance. We generally don't review paint color. So there's a
- number of issues like that of repairs and maintenance sort of going off of that point. That's a colorized
- photo. You know, a particularly pressing topic about, you know, the use of materials, timelines for
- doing repairs,
- This does sort of bleed into a lot of other topics like procedure for issuing COAs as well as what is
- subject to review. Demolition and new construction. This is an issue that also touches on our demolition
- delay process, which that is something that Bloomington has that not every city in the state has, so
- that's an area where our code sort of adds something onto state code.
- This also touches on a couple of the things that are, a couple of the types of projects that are not
- reviewed by staff by statute, which include new construction, demolition, and moving buildings. Enforcement
- and incentives, this is something that I know a lot of people have asked about. There is enforcement,
- there are some incentives,
- but I think a lot of people in the commission would like to find ways to sort of tie that more to historic
- districts. We have a great program through the BUEA for historic preservation facade grants. There's
- also a sort of little known assistance program for getting grants for architectural or engineering drawings
- for work on historic buildings that's provided through the commission.
- And then sort of wrapping up with the discussion of other topics that might not be covered by any of
- these umbrellas. So that sounds good to everyone. I think that'll more or less cover what we want to
- talk about. OK. So we'll start at the very beginning if you wouldn't mind. OK. Thank you so much. So
- now it's going over to council members who look for the
- moderate a discussion part and then at some point we'll need to shift into public comment. So I'll kind
- of leave that to some degree in terms of discretion of where you want to put that comment. I think 810
- is a good time to stop then we'll have 20 minutes of public comment. I know there are some people in
- the crowd who are interested in speaking. Okay that sounds great so we'll have public comment at 810
- and I'll help
- Keep that great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all so much for being here. This is Pet project of mine.
- I've been working on for a couple months now. I will just Request that all of the historic preservation
- commissioners the first time you speak if you could give your name for the record for the clerk and
- Just mention that you are a member of the historic preservation commission Thank you. And so like
- Program Manager Sandweiss said earlier, we are gonna start with repairs. And so our first, I guess,
- discussion question, big fan of the Socratic seminar style, but our first discussion question is how
- might the current code impact and or facilitate a person's ability to address needed repairs in the
- event of needed repairs?
- If I may start, I'd just like to read a couple parts of the state and local code that most directly
- address this. So going off of the state legislation, which is, thanks, Indiana Code Title 36, regarding
- reconstruction, alteration, maintenance, and removal of historic buildings and structures and
- the preservation of historic character
- A building or structure or any part or pertinence to such a building or structure, including stone walls,
- fences, light fixtures, steps, pavings, and other signs may be moved, reconstructed, altered, or maintained
- only in a manner that will preserve the historic and architectural character of the building structure
- or pertinence. Historic building may be relocated to another site only if it has shown that preservation
- on the current site is inconsistent with the previous subsection.
- Then moving on to our local code, Title 8. Conformance to statutory requirements for buildings. Historic
- building structures and sites shall be maintained to meet the applicable standards established under
- the state statute for buildings generally, so as to prevent the loss of historic material and
- the deterioration of important character-defining features. Historic buildings shall be maintained to
- meet all applicable requirements established under statute and ordinance for buildings generally,
- including but not limited to Title 16 for residential rental unit lodging and establishment inspecting
- program in the Bloomington Municipal Code. Ordinary repairs and maintenance, nothing in this section
- should be construed so as to prevent the ordinary repairs and maintenance of any building structure
- or site, so long as repairs or maintenance do not result in a conspicuous change in design, form, proportion,
- mass, configuration,
- Building material, texture, color, that depends. I think most districts don't deal with color that much.
- Location or external visual appearance of any structure or part thereof. And certificate of appropriateness
- is not required for a handful of repairs, including ordinary repairs and maintenance as defined in the
- previous section.
- repairs and maintenance designated by the commission or in some cases historic districts under their
- rules or in special exceptions that are granted by the commission. Thank you. Hold.
- So Mr. Sandweiss, you mentioned that the color of the building materials or the paint is not addressed
- in most of the districts. So could you clarify the different historic districts? Do they each have a
- different set of standards that things are reviewed under? More or less, yeah. And this is the way that
- Bloomington does it.
- is that different districts, once they're established, in most cases, this is by groups of people who
- live or own properties in those districts who then nominate them to the Historic Preservation Commission
- will write up their own sets of standards that are then voted on and ratified by the commission. There
- isn't a consistent way throughout the state where every city does this. For instance, in Fort Wayne, there's
- one set of standards for the whole city. Indianapolis is more like us, although their process tends
- to be a collaboration between Planning Department, the Historic Preservation Commission, and
- local neighborhood groups. So I'd say that our process in Bloomington is fairly bottom up and sort of
- federalized, if that's a good word for it.
- And when the commission votes on sets of standards, they may have comments about how appropriate they
- think the degree of review is, but really what they're looking for is consistency with the state law
- and with federally recognized codes for what should be subject to review and why. Also, consistency
- with language.
- which sometimes that gets a little difficult. Thank you. I'll ask a question to the commissioners if
- that's okay. In your review of different COAs, how has the timeline worked for residents and have you
- felt that the majority of people who are bringing requests to you have been able to get the things that
- they're trying to get done done in the timeline that's set by the code?
- I'm Sam DeSeller, I'm the current chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. When things come before
- us, we often have to ask, how long has this been on the clock? We try to put things through as quickly
- as we can. That said, if we don't have enough information, if we
- don't feel like we know what the petitioner is asking, we will ask them to come back. So I don't know
- if I'm answering your question in a substantive way, but we're not here to hold them up. We want them
- to be able to fix their house.
- We want them to be able to add on to their house. We want them to be able to do what they need to do.
- That said, we are given the responsibility of making sure that they comply with whatever guidelines
- that have been set before us, and there's a wide range of those. So in certain districts like Elm Heights,
- it's much more restrictive. In certain other districts like McDowell Gardens,
- much less restrictive. I really like McGold Gardens, they're great. But our job is not to be punitive
- or to stop people from doing what they want to do. It is to help them figure out what works within the
- context of an historic district.
- I recently went to historic preservation conference in Fort Wayne and when I told people that the commission
- met twice a month most people were shocked by that they their commissions would maybe meet once a month
- sometimes less and so we typically offer two times a month where we review things and get feedback and
- to folks, I think only November and December we only have one meeting because Thanksgiving and Christmas
- kind of throw off the calendar. So we, I think just in terms of setting our schedule for reviews, we
- try to be as quick to respond as we can be. There are also some items for more minor alterations that
- are handled by staff and those as a rule don't require a quorum of the commission for approval.
- So those are brought up at each of the bi-weekly meetings, but handled more sort of on a rolling basis.
- Can I ask a follow-up? So which decisions are made at the staff level? Again, this depends largely by
- district. So just a second. Statutorily, there's a handful of things that staff cannot review.
- I'm just going to start with that. It's basically four things, demolition, moving a building, construction
- of additions, and new construction of a new building. The most common things that are reviewed by staff
- are things like solar panel installation or replacement of materials in such a way that wouldn't have
- a major effect on a house.
- starting out a house of structures, you know, appearance or integrity. And it does vary somewhat by
- district because there's some guidelines that are very clearly like we want say windows to be reviewed
- by staff or ones that are say we only want staff to review what state code says staff can review. So
- it varies a little bit.
- So does state code, those four things that you mentioned, that staff are not authorized to do certificates
- of appropriateness for, is that something that state code says, or is that just something that our local
- code says? It's state. OK, thanks. My name's Duncan Campbell. It's state and federal. The state-enabling
- legislation is enabled by a federal statute.
- two levels back that we have to comply with. And if I might just add about the timeline issue,
- in our statute, it says that we have to respond to a C of A within 30 days. If we don't, let's just
- say, well, what has happened on occasion is we don't have a quorum.
- and somebody has already been put back two weeks for a request for new information, let's say, and they've
- come back for the second time and there's no quorum. If the 30 days expire, they get their CFA whether
- we meet or not. So we have a large, you know, quite a bit of incentive to keep the ball rolling. It's
- not the other way around.
- Thank you. Does anyone have anything that they would like to add to the repairs or are we ready to move
- on towards construction and demolition? Yeah. Yeah, when I read this question in the packet, I thought
- it had to do with the cost of repairs and that it might be more costly to repair something
- or replace something in a historic district than a neighborhood that's not a historic district. So can
- somebody speak to that? I mean, I live in a historic neighborhood, and I haven't asked. I don't know
- if this would be something I would have to follow. But if we replace our windows, do they have to be
- the same shape?
- It would have to be custom-made glass panes at this point, so I'm not sure. That could get very expensive
- is what I'm saying. Yes, thank you. This is Sam Disheller again. Each district writes their own guidelines.
- The HBC has the responsibility to enforce those guidelines and to
- And the other part of that that we have to do is keep an eye on repairs, which is something that I feel
- we are still struggling to do. That said, it can be more expensive, but each individual neighborhood
- has the power to change that. We don't have that power. If there is a problem,
- or if the neighborhood feels that it is too onerous to enforce the guidelines as they are written,
- they have, and we encourage them to rewrite those guidelines to better fit the neighborhood and the
- constituency, to serve them. I mean, we are here to serve that neighborhood. We are here to enforce
- the guidelines that the neighborhood writes. And if they change those guidelines, we will enforce those changes.
- So if it is to, I mean, we have power of oversight, but we don't have any money. I mean, we have, as
- Noah mentioned, we have some limited funds for drawing assistance, but we don't have repair assistance
- in large part. So I do understand that many residents are concerned about
- repair costs, that said, they can change that. And the power is seated, vested in the neighborhoods
- and not with us. So if that becomes an issue, I would encourage them to come to the commission and talk
- to us and help us change those guidelines with them. So, I'm sorry, can I ask a follow-up? I have a
- follow-up on the same thing, so go for it.
- So let's say there's somebody who lives in a historic district who is struggling to pay for replacing
- a porch or something that was damaged. And let's say they're in a district that has very strict rules.
- And they can't afford to do the repair or replacement
- while keeping the historic accuracy at the level that the standards are set at. And let's say they go
- to the HPC and the HPC is like, okay, well, if you can wait, you can talk to your neighbors and get
- this changed. So does that end up pitting neighbors against neighbors? Like, what if they have neighbors
- who feel very strongly that, no, this porch needs to be exactly like the porches that are
- for the other historic homes in the district. I just see that this could run into some conflict if you
- have some neighbors saying one thing and other neighbors saying, well, I can't afford that. I hear that.
- I mean, that does happen. I think there are certain neighborhoods that are more, I mean, they understand
- what, and they're more united in what they're after.
- And I think there are some neighborhoods, I've heard some people who have tried to write guidelines
- in more neighborhoods where that's more contentious, where they say that they're trying to herd cats.
- So I hear that. And it can be an issue. Certain neighborhoods do give the HPC
- the latitude to rewrite their guidelines. And we have not done that as yet, but I think that's not a
- bad thing if the neighborhood cannot agree on which direction they want to go. That said, there's churn.
- I mean, we are in an academic environment, and so
- neighborhoods change over time, and what those neighborhoods want and need change over time. And I think
- that it's important to revisit those guidelines and change them. And they are not static things. Also,
- they are guidelines. They're not rules. So the, yeah, bad face. So the commission has,
- the latitude to interpret those. That said, the more specifically the guidelines are written, the less
- latitude the commission has. It looks like Councilmember Flaherty has his hand up, so go ahead whenever
- you're ready. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on the same area of thinking. Thank you
- to the commissioners who've weighed in and to the chair of the commission, maybe, or whoever would like
- to answer, just some follow-ups.
- on that process around guidelines. I believe it was mentioned when they're first written, the HPC, they're
- proposed and HPC approves them. But can you speak more specifically to who writes them, how they're
- selected, what that process looks like? And then also same question basically for rewriting guidelines.
- How is that decided? Is there a threshold level of signatures needed to say we're gonna rewrite the
- guidelines? Is it a neighborhood vote? If it's a vote, is it a majority vote? Like who has to make that decision?
- And then again, who does the rewriting? HPC approves it, I gather, in the same similar process. But
- I'm less concerned about folks not agreeing with one another. That's inevitable. I'm more concerned
- about process and kind of protecting views of all, I guess, or having a process that's not stacked.
- And so I'm curious to hear more about the details there. Thank you. Thank you.
- I will do my best to address that. I'm going to rely on Noah to follow up on anything I leave out. By
- and large, we leave that process to the neighborhood. The HPC, on the initial right of the guidelines,
- we usually ask for volunteers from the commission to sit in with the neighborhood on writing
- those guidelines. And they do multiple drafts.
- I've been on a number of those. I think I have been the commissioner who's been on most of those in
- the last decade. So you can put a lot of blame on me if you want. That said, I feel like my main job
- when I'm listening to these neighborhoods talk about what they want for their neighborhood is to let
- them know what they can do
- what they can't do, what they need to do, and what they don't need to do. There are so many things that
- you don't need to regulate with guidelines. And I encourage every neighborhood to say, we don't care
- about that if they don't care about that. I don't want any more guidelines than necessary.
- I like to keep them minimal. I don't like them to be, I have to make sure that they're not trying to
- circumvent planning and zoning. Because a lot of neighborhoods, I think, take being an historic district
- as an opportunity to say, I don't like what the city is doing. I wanna do something else. And we're
- like, I get that. And there are certain things you can do.
- But there are certain things you can't do because the purview of the Historic Preservation Commission
- is limited and I want them to understand what those limits are. So my role is, I'm a bit of a bouncer
- in that I wanna make sure they don't go too far off the rails. I want to make sure that their language
- is concise
- I want to make sure that they're readable so that when they come back to the HBC, we know what they're
- asking us to do. And clarity, conciseness, all of these things are incredibly important. But I leave
- everything to the neighborhood if I can possibly help it. I will say this looks questionable,
- This language is unclear. I think you should consider this or consider that. But I am not going to ramrod
- them into a certain position on what they want to do for their neighborhood, because it's their neighborhood.
- And I think one of the most important things I've felt as a historic preservation commissioner over
- the last decade is that the
- the power that a historic district has comes from the neighborhood. We do not like to enforce these
- things by fiat. We want them to be vested in what they're talking about. We want them to make their
- own rules. As much as we can have that happen, we do. And if I missed anything, Noah, chime in.
- But maybe between responses, I'd like to just interject and redirect a little bit. That is
- helpful information, thank you. But I'm more interested in the procedural aspects. The neighborhood
- is not an entity per se. There might be a neighborhood association. Those tend to represent some demographics
- or some people in certain types of housing more than others, for instance. There are a lot of challenges
- and we don't really regulate whether those are run democratically. I've dug deep into this before.
- and experienced it in a number of neighborhoods, so I have concerns about the process. So back to that,
- like procedurally, what has to happen for a neighborhood to choose to rewrite its guidelines? For instance,
- is it just a group of individuals who live in that neighborhood and get together and say, we're some
- volunteers, we care about this, we're gonna rewrite them, we're gonna propose it to the HPC, and then
- HPC approves it or not? Or is there something more formal than that? Like, that's the type of question
- I guess I'm looking to understand a little more deeply, if that's helpful, thank you.
- So there's really in general there will be two or three situations in which new guidelines are written
- up when a district is created in which case it's usually going to be the people who recommend a district
- for designation which is going to be people who own property in that district and it may also include
- people who reside in that district. There's at the end of a three year period as a conservation district which
- As some of you remember, there's an option in Indiana code to create a conservation district which is
- sort of a historic district light where rules are only applied really to demolition, new construction,
- moving buildings and additions. So again, that's stuff that staff can't review. But at the end of a
- three year period, there's a ballot that has to be sent out to property owners
- At which point they send in a vote to the city saying yes we want to become a historic district or no
- we want to stay a conservation district. If the majority of people don't have the majority of the property
- owners don't vote no to stay a conservation district then historic district rules will have to be written up.
- And at that point, you know, that would also have to come from residents and property owners of the
- district. But, you know, oftentimes these do come from neighborhood associations, which again, like
- you were saying, council member Flaherty are separate from the city. So those aren't something that,
- they should have rules and guidelines, but they are sort of independent entities.
- There are also some districts that will say that they want a review every so often like Elm Heights
- has written into their guidelines that they want a review at the end of 10 years of their district guidelines
- and I believe they have written in that they want that done by members of the neighborhood association
- and if that's not done then by members of the Historic Preservation Commission.
- Right, and all of these would be subject to the same review process that DeSolar was discussing. Okay,
- thank you. Maybe just the smallest follow-up, the Elm Heights example is helpful, but in the absence
- of that, who initiates a rural rewrite? Is it the neighborhood association by default, even if it's
- not spoken to? Is it any collection of individuals? Is there some type of
- ballot or have we not encountered that scenario? I guess I'm following up on this because it was mentioned
- by the chair that rewriting rules, for instance, is an option. And I'm curious if that's not spoken
- to in the guidelines already. Is that happening? How does it happen? I don't mean to take up the time.
- You can also follow up individually with me if I've taken too much. So thank you. In some guidelines,
- it is specified that if a certain proportion of property owners initiate a
- ballot to change the guidelines, then that'll initiate the process again with the HPC for a rewrite.
- But that isn't something that's either in our statute or rules and procedures. So oftentimes that does
- end up falling to how different historic districts want to self govern.
- Thank you. Hi, thank you. This was actually my question too, so I kind of maybe want to try to ask it
- again to see if, I guess from what you said, Sam, I got the impression that a group in the neighborhood
- could say, oh, we don't want to custom fit windows. Can we look at our guidelines, for example, right?
- And like, can we look at them and do a rewrite or an edit?
- Procedure for that for neighborhood residents to come together to say we want to rewrite our guidelines
- without anything else Making that happen Does that make sense We don't have a consistent procedure for
- that unless anybody else Can
- Think of any past instances. It is neighborhood by neighborhood and it is, you know, they are self-governing,
- but you know, we are totally open to any individual neighborhood or historic district to come forth
- and rewrite their guidelines. Could I add something? And maybe if there are public comments later, there
- are representatives from neighborhoods who could speak. I think that's the first time you've spoken.
- Can you state your name for the record?
- I'm sorry. Go ahead. When there are public comments, there may be some people from neighborhoods who
- could speak to how they have evolved these guidelines. My experience over 30 years of this is that the
- people who generally initiate the designation come out of the neighborhoods. The commission doesn't
- go looking for neighborhoods to designate. It comes from the seat of the power that be in that neighborhood.
- Those neighborhoods have their own leadership rigors. I don't know what they all are, and I doubt if
- they're all the same, but the people who are the leaders in those neighborhoods are the ones who tend
- to come forward for designation. The extent to which they're taking public votes or have referendum
- at every move they make is, you know, I have no way of knowing that, but my sense from working with
- neighborhoods and to evolve guidelines is that
- They are representative people who have led the fight to be in a historic district. And they have, in
- my experience, always included the referenda in the neighborhoods that they work in. And once they design
- those guidelines, they take them back to the neighborhood for approval. Does everyone in the neighborhood
- participate? No. Will they ever? Absolutely no.
- but the people who do care the most about it tend to be the one who come forward to try to get the job
- done. We're responding pretty much to what they bring us. We're not going out and trying to get it to
- happen in a certain way. Okay, so it isn't a perfect process, but as I said, the people in the neighborhoods
- just speak better to how they've done it than we could probably.
- This conversation has addressed some of the things that I was concerned about too in terms of economics
- and one of the, I don't necessarily want to go backwards too far, but one of the definitions that's
- in our local code is the definition of economic hardship, but I couldn't actually find that anywhere in code.
- that that's considered. And I feel like what I just heard was like, well, basically economics aren't
- ever considered and it's up to the neighborhood to consider it. And that's frankly sort of concerning
- because if you have, you know, in any neighborhood, you're gonna have varying levels of income and varying
- abilities to pay for things like new windows or repairing,
- you know, storm damage or other sorts of damage like the porch example or anything else that might happen.
- And so I guess the question is, you know, does that economic hardship concept actually appear somewhere
- in code? And if it doesn't, then why do we have that as a defined word in the chapter? And then,
- you know, is that ever considered when rendering a judgment?
- Like when you guys get to decide something, like roof tiles and whether or not a roof tile is the right
- color or the right shape, do you ever go, oh, well, these roof tiles are very, very similar, but one
- is more historic and also costs three times as much. The other one probably looks the same from a distance.
- Does that come into it at all?
- Anybody want to answer that? Yes. Could you state your name and use a microphone to... Oh, sorry. Bernard
- Cross. Bernard Cross. There have been at least three situations that I can remember where the issues
- of cost has come up. Windows, roof tiles, as you mentioned. There was an issue where we were looking at
- I think the roof tiles made up of a different material and we actually formed a subcommittee to examine
- the feasibility of replacement materials that were in appearance and I suspect in quality sufficient
- enough to be a viable replacement. So there have been occasions where we have looked at replacement
- materials and
- in those occasions specifically because the persons concerned have made a complaint for want of a better
- word that to replace with the original materials would be cost prohibitive. So in those three situations
- that you can think of, did you guys say, okay, the less expensive or the more attainable in terms of
- cost option is okay?
- If my memory serves me and please don't hold me to it, I can remember one where an allowance was made
- and I think in the other an allowance was not and the petitioner was required to replace it with historically
- similar materials.
- I'd like to address that a little bit further. I think there's nuance. I think it depends in large part
- on what district we're talking about and also the level of historic importance of that particular structure.
- I think that the commission is willing to give a lot more latitude with contributing structures as opposed
- to notable
- or outstanding structures. So in large part, it depends on how important that building is and how stringent
- the guidelines of that particular neighborhood are. So there's latitude there, and when there is, we're
- happy to give it. And when there's not, we do toe the line. I have another follow-up, too, about one
- of the other things we were talking about.
- procedures of like rewriting the district guidelines. And so the neighborhoods themselves end up voting
- on the guidelines before it comes to you to vote on the guidelines. So if the majority of the neighbors
- voted on it, but it voted positively for it, but it was say a relatively even split,
- does it ever occur to you guys to make them rewrite it to like, like is there a required percentage
- say of neighborhood, neighbors that you wanna like buy into this or is it literally like one vote is
- enough? Because I could just imagine a super, super duper split neighborhood and maybe in fact we have
- them. So is there a requirement that like a minimum percentage of
- the neighborhood vote be positive before you guys approve their guidelines? I think there's a majority,
- there's a positive vote, and we do always encourage neighborhoods to go back and go back and go back
- because the more buy-in a neighborhood has, the better off they're going to be. I mean, we are not wanting
- to encourage
- you know, contention within their neighborhood at the, you know, at the expense of having an historic
- district. That's not our mission. Well, and I'm thinking about the rewrites, though, too. Oh, the rewrites?
- Yeah, because that's more, I mean, that was where the conversation kind of started was, well, what about
- those rewrites? What if there's, you know, a homeowner that wants to replace their windows?
- and can't afford and so then says, hey, let's figure out how to rewrite these and there's a really even
- split or roughly even split with only. The big issue that I've seen recently with rewrites is not having
- enough people involved in the rewrites. I think that, I mean, I'm. So do you have a minimum requirement
- of participation then for rewriting?
- I want them to be concise. I want them to be, you know, as far as how many people sign on to them, we
- rely on the neighborhood for that feedback, for how many people have signed on to them, how contentious
- they are. We don't, you know. So there's not a written kind of,
- your guidelines, any kind of minimum standard of participation for neighborhoods to like a clear majority
- because there is a clear majority that people have to disagree with becoming a historic district.
- That's true. And I guess I'm so is that a state guideline that that 51 percent have to disagree in writing
- or is that something local? Yes, that is state. OK, so it's like a negative kind of
- But in terms of the rewriting of the guidelines that again is something that the neighborhoods You know,
- they write into their guidelines or don't and many don't so we you know, we No, no, we don't we do not
- require that as far as I'm aware I
- talk about in the event of someone can't afford to make that repair do is anyone aware of any state
- or federal grants that would enable them to do so or how could the city better support people to make
- those repairs so I went over a bit of the incentives that are available specifically for historic
- preservation in the city of Bloomington they do come with some limitations for example the
- Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association has a grant that's available to nonprofits and businesses within
- the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Zone, which roughly comprises of downtown. It's like all funds, it's
- a limited fund. But that is up to $10,000 per application per facade. So that's not chump change when
- it comes for taking on some major projects.
- The Bloomington Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development also has some grant programs for
- homeowners. Those are mostly for life safety and essential repairs. I think one thing that would be,
- or a couple things that would be particularly helpful that I've heard from people in the commission
- are, you know, funds available for repairs in historic districts. And then also,
- having more resources out there on the city website about how to conduct repairs and how to find qualified
- repair people for projects that take more specialized work. I've since added to the historic Bloomington
- page on the website a link to a number of
- materials from the National Park Service about how to conduct repairs retrofits and other kinds of kinds
- of adaptations to historic buildings But if there's some way that the city can also help put people
- in touch with local resources I think that would be incredibly helpful As far as opportunities for homeowners
- the state of India had
- The state of Indiana has a tax credit program for homeowners who own properties in state or nationally
- registered historic districts, which qualify if they're, you know, meet a, and Duncan may know this
- more specifically, but if the cost of the repairs meets a certain threshold, they can get a tax credit
- in exchange for conducting them.
- And that's done through the state DNR. OK, thank you. I'd like to follow up on the changing
- of the guidelines. I've got a concrete example from the Garden Hill Historic District. It's in their
- guidelines. One of the sections at the very end, it's the process for how you would actually rewrite.
- And so I'll just read it out for you. If changes are desired in the guidelines, they shall be drafted
- by the Garden Hill Historic District.
- The neighborhood organization shall report its findings to the Historic Preservation Commission. All
- property owners in the district shall be notified of the proposed changes in the guidelines. They will
- be given copies of the proposed new guidelines and notice of the time and place of a public hearing
- on the proposal. The neighborhood organization shall provide a system whereby all property owners have
- the opportunity to cast a vote on the proposal.
- If 51% or more of the ballots return to approve the changes, the new guidelines are forwarded to the
- commission for discussion and approval. Thank you. Thank you for that, Jeremy. It's a bit of a bummer,
- that voting system, right? Because that's the same voting system that changes a conservation district
- to a historic district that
- 51% of actual property owners have to vote against it, where you won't even, you'll never ever even
- get 50% of property owners voting, pretty much. I mean, maybe Elm Heights, but it's, so those guidelines,
- the procedure changes even honestly set up to fail. Well, I think for this one, to revise, it's 51%
- of ballots returned approve the changes.
- What you're talking about is the change from the conservation district to historic district. Fifty one
- percent have to come back approving it of all property owners. Just the vote. Oh great. OK that is great.
- That's a regular vote. That's a regular way to vote. Yeah.
- Except, okay, great, okay. Do you all ever, I'm just gonna keep going. Do you all ever take like best
- practices then from like Garden Hill and suggest them in other guidelines? So like something like that
- could be added to potentially all the districts? Yeah. We would not complain at all about that. And
- a lot of the districts at the end will have procedures for here's how we change our guidelines. Yeah.
- And we often, when a new district is proposed, we'll say,
- look at this statistic, look at that. And we give them a lot of material to look at, so we can't force
- them to accept any of it, but we'll put it out there.
- For anyone listening and also just for anyone who might not know all 13 of the historic preservation
- districts guidelines can be found on our city website if you look up points in historic preservation
- districts, they're all linked together and Each one is about 20 to 30 pages and it's clear but it's dense and
- a constituent reach out to me and ask about how demolition through neglect comes into play and how we
- might safeguard against that. So I don't know that much about that, but I'm hoping that some of the
- commissioners can share their experience with it. I think this is something that the commission has
- been struggling to address
- and you can correct me if I'm wrong, because you've been here longer than I have. Forever. Forever.
- I mean, we understand preservation, but maintenance and lack thereof and the enforcement of lack of
- maintenance is something that we are still wrapping our heads around. That said,
- It is one of the two main responsibilities of the commission and it is incredibly important because
- if you don't maintain it, it's gonna go away. And there have been multiple properties that have just
- decayed through intentional neglect and have been allowed to be demolished and that's not okay. And
- I am hoping, you know,
- This is something I, you know, I'm beating the dead horse, right? This is something I, most every meeting,
- try to talk about, try to bring up, try to say, which properties are endangered? How do we fix this?
- And, you know, we are under the umbrella of hand and they have eyes out on the street, but we need more
- eyes out on the street and we need more people to come and say, this property is endangered.
- This is an issue, because we can't look at everything. But it is vitally important that we address these
- things and we address them in a timely fashion so that we can catch them before they go too far and
- before they are lost. And we have already lost multiple properties through inaction. And that lies at
- the feet of the commission. Well, I have a suggestion.
- We could kind of do a social media campaign for if if someone notices in their neighborhood that a house
- is Not falling apart, but you know on the verge For perhaps they could submit a you report and and that's
- an anonymous way to do things that might work I have actually asked for that to be added to the city
- website and that has not happened yet, but if you have any
- you know, influence there. I would greatly appreciate getting that up there. I'll see what I can do.
- Thank you. You're welcome. So I just wanted to add a little more about demolition in historic districts
- and demolition by neglect. So generally, deterioration resulting from neglect by the owner over time
- is not considered as a factor when the commission votes to approve a demolition.
- That being said, there are often instances or occasionally instances in historic districts where a property
- is required by a new owner who cannot put it or demonstrates that they cannot put it to a reasonable
- economic use, in which case it may be demolished. This can also happen in the case of disasters where
- a building is damaged to the point that there's
- Again, going back to the definition of hardship, no reasonable economic use from that building. There
- is also a process in state and local code for demolitions of buildings failing to receive certificates
- of appropriateness. It's a somewhat long process that basically tries to see if there's an opportunity
- for somebody else to acquire the property who may be able to repair it.
- I have not seen that come up before I don't know if somebody's been on the Commission for longer has
- It has come up you know, this is a really I Really appreciate this forum, but just some of these issues
- are so complex from the standpoint of somebody who's practicing historic preservation over a lifetime
- basically that I
- I fear that we're getting simple answers. Neglect is a strategy on the part of many people who want
- to either get rid of that property in order to supplant it with something from which they can make more
- money or they simply can't afford to do anything about it and they abandon the property. We don't have
- that problem as much as we used to because frankly people in Bloomington have gotten wealthier and wealthier
- and property values have gone up and up.
- It's much less of a strategy Let's say that it would be in a big city where whole buildings and whole
- blocks of buildings are abandoned simply because you can't pay the taxes on them anymore That that's
- neglect, but it's not we're who's going to place the blame on that person and a lot of the discussion
- so far has been about cost and about the sort of the difficulty of maintenance which
- is a real difficulty, particularly if you're economically stressed. And if you're economically stressed
- and you're living in a historic district, the implication seems to be that it's even a greater stress.
- But I don't find that that's actually true. Almost all the applicant, I mean, we evaluate, adjudicate,
- if you will,
- requests for changes to property that come directly from the owner of the property. We're not going
- out to people and saying you need to change your windows and you're gonna have to spend this much. People
- are coming to us and saying we would like to change out all of our windows and our guidelines say if
- your windows are in good shape and they're the original fabric you should keep them. So now we're up
- against this somebody wants a brand new product and we're supposed to protect the historic product.
- It's a much more complex interaction than just what's it going to cost. We're trying to maintain and
- protect historic meaning in a community so that people can appreciate it. And because it's considered
- in the public welfare to do that, that's why we're regulators. That's why we have police power.
- It's not it's not just a matter of does it cost more. It costs more every year to maintain your house.
- You know if you've maintained one for any period of time you know that this is true. And so we you know
- we don't we don't adjudicate general maintenance for that mainly for that reason that we're not going
- to we don't care when or how you clean your gutters. But if you're going to have if you don't if you
- neglect your gutters and you're going to have to change them that's where we come in.
- So it's a very convoluted issue where you're trying to regulate some people for a standard that is a
- social and cultural standard that has been set. These ordinances weren't written by us. They were written
- by all of us. And so we're in the unfortunate, if you will, position of having to work with our neighbors
- and not make them mad and still take care of the things that
- The public has told us we should be taken care of. So I would say of all my years on the commission,
- and I've been active on it since the early 90s, I can't count on one hand the number of people who have
- gone out of the room mad. Do they have an expense they didn't expect? Maybe. But mostly people we help
- take care of their property in the best way that we know how to. That's our success.
- And so I I'm confident that you get complaints from your constituents and I'm sure that they may have
- things to complain about. But in general that's not my impression of how well this works. I think it
- works really well. Could the guideline process be more democratic. Probably. And that's really up to
- the neighborhoods who are conducting it. But we don't control the cost of things and we don't make people
- replicate historic fabric.
- That's just not ever done. That's not in the code. Sorry, I just, you know, I just felt like I was getting
- down to brass tacks when nobody had talked about the whole picture. Yeah, I can understand that. I wanted
- to follow up on what Councilmember Zulek was mentioning that, you know, could there be some way to report if,
- if a home or a house in a historic district is being neglected and is falling into disrepair. But what
- legal authority does the city actually have to do anything if that's the case? Or would it just be the
- power of persuasion to talk to the property owner and try to get them to be nice? In the historic
- commission's rules and guidelines document,
- Article 7 maintenance that talks about neglect and or lack of care. And so it gives a process for if
- we receive a report, then it lays out three steps for then what would happen where the commission would
- contact the property owner. They would have 21 days to respond. They can then appear before the commission
- to present plans or evidence of upkeep.
- and make an argument that no, we actually are trying to maintain it. And then the commission would consider
- the evidence. And if they find that the building's condition constitutes a threat to the historic fabric
- of an area where the building is located and move forward, then the commission can forward the findings
- to the city's legal department for appropriate legal action. And that is what it says. Okay, thank you.
- Where are you reading that from? I'm sorry.
- This is the, it's on the Historic Preservation Commission's website and it's the rules and procedures.
- Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. And Commissioner Campbell, thank you for sharing that experience. Other
- commissioners, would you like to share anything about your experience on the commission or your approach
- to historic preservation?
- If you want. I was going to say I've said I've asked this before in front of city council meetings.
- But if you want to create incentives to help people restore their historic homes please do because that's
- really where you come in. That's not something that we can do. So if you if that's a concern and I don't
- I don't see why I wouldn't be it's in your hands. Thank you.
- Commissioner Duffy? Yes, Karen Duffy. I can also talk as someone before I was on the commission. I was
- a volunteer in my neighborhood who worked on guidelines. And we absolutely made it as democratic as
- we could. We invited over and over again, please join our committee. And you know what it's like to
- try to get people to join a committee.
- People who are willing to work will join. And it's a small number. But we got 10. And they represented
- different points of view. We welcomed that. We wanted that. We incorporated those different points of
- view. And also, as Sam said, there's always a person from the commission who comes
- when you're working on the guidelines to keep you on track and basically kind of help you do what you're
- supposed to be doing. And in our case, we were told, please do,
- consider, we weren't told we had to do it, but seriously consider adding at the end a procedure for
- revising the guidelines. And I'm sure that's done in other neighborhoods too. Sam was our advisor and
- he definitely brought that to our attention. So then as a member of the committee, I'm not a voting
- member, I'm an advisory committee.
- member, but I can back up what Duncan said. I've seen very few people upset with their experience at
- the commission. I've also seen examples or instances where the commission has saved people money in
- terms of these costs by basically some
- The contractor has told them they have to do this or that and the commission had said, well, you know,
- you can actually, there's a simpler solution here and suggested a simpler and much less costly solution.
- So, just to add that, it does happen that way as well.
- Ever so often, we get persons who, usually because they've committed some violation, express ignorance
- of, usually at the time when they purchase their property that it's in the historic district. I would
- like to see a system set up, something more formalized,
- I know that when deeds are recorded or titles are recorded, at some level during the purchase process,
- that information is given to that homeowner. And that information should include the responsibilities
- that that owner would be expected to live up to, now being the owner of historic property. I don't think
- that there is a system in place to formally notify a homeowner that the property that they're now purchasing
- or trans, you know, being the recipient of a transfer is in a historic district. And I believe that
- we could do something about that. So ignorance will no longer be an excuse. Thank you. Mr. Sandweiss,
- do you have any
- Suggestions? Well, I'd definitely like to second what Commissioner Cross said. You know, finding ways
- to better notify people when or before they acquire a property because, you know, that's also an issue
- for whoever is selling the property because it can become a legal liability if somebody's not informed
- about a condition about a property that they own by the person that they purchased it from.
- I also just wanted to add that as of this year, I believe 90% of the COAs that we've received have been
- approved by the commission or by staff. And that statistic is more or less in keeping with other cities
- that I have been looking at. And again, part of what that is, is that people will look to the guidelines
- first and then come to the commission
- Generally when they have a good idea of something that they want that they think is going to pass Like
- to follow up on Commissioner crosses comments at the Conference that I mentioned I went to recently
- Fort Wayne did a presentation on all the different ways in which they've implemented did
- notify people that they have historic homes and then also so like the the city knows when those properties
- are sold and so there's a good way that they can facilitate a back-and-forth and then I also think there's
- some updates that are either been implemented or going to be implemented on real estate disclosure forms
- where there's a section where I think you have to say it's a historic home or not and so that can create
- issues if you know
- The seller or the real estate agents are marking those boxes, but I was going to talk about that at
- our next commission meeting So I agree Just want to give other commissioners the opportunity if they
- would like to share anything Talk about something that doesn't work very well We have under plant in
- our planning department
- We have an agreement on the demolition delay ordinance that anybody who comes in and requests a demolition
- permit on a structure or building that is in the historic survey automatically gets that request for
- demolition reviewed by the Preservation Commission. So all of the buildings that are in our survey, which are
- not all not not the districts but ones that are considered eligible to be historic districts. What's
- hundreds more are are if they're if if their owners request demolition we're supposed to review it.
- We only really have two options. One is to let the building go to demolition or send it to council to
- designated as a historic district.
- Most of these buildings, I'd say, somebody can correct me, are probably in the contributing category.
- It would be in the contributing category, not the outstanding or the notable category. So they're not
- immediately, it's not immediately obvious that they would be eligible for historic districting. They
- may be significant as in,
- adding to the street front of their neighborhood, or they may be old enough, but they may just not be
- meaningful enough to warrant your designation, because you're the body that designates ultimately.
- And also, we get so many demolition requests now. When I first started in this regulatory business,
- all the requests for demolition were partial.
- somebody needed to fix a porch, or take out a dormer, or replace some doors, or now 99% of them are
- for full demolition. And that's all because of pressure on the real estate. And we can't justify sending
- every one of those that comes into us to you for designation, that's all you'd be doing, is turning
- them all down probably, but you know. But we're somewhat overwhelmed
- by demolition requests, which when we initiated the demolition ordinance 20, 25 years ago, we never
- anticipated this kind of pressure on the real estate in every neighborhood, and as you know, downtown
- and on the outskirts as well. So we have to almost by default close our eyes and say go ahead, and I
- would say we meet
- We meet two times every month. And I don't know, Noah, on average we have four or five demolition requests
- per meeting. That's probably the average, certainly not the maximum. And virtually all of them go to
- demolition. So you do the math. We're demolishing hundreds of perfectly good buildings to reevaluate
- the real estate on the part of the owner. That's basically what's happening.
- Go ahead. And just let me conclude. So that's a problem because we're losing, if you, as I do, believe
- in something called sustainability, it's a completely unsustainable situation where we are destroying
- perfectly good fabric, historic or not, perfectly good buildings, just to reevaluate the real estate.
- and it's moving the ownership of our real estate out of our hands, and it's destroying tracks
- of neighborhoods piece by piece. Melody Dusner from Historic Preservation, and I just wanted to jump
- in here because I felt like this is something that I could add a little bit to. I am a brand
- new commissioner. I started in February, and this is my absolute least favorite part
- the job is having to vote on these demolition requests. And I say that especially as someone who has
- not managed to become a homeowner in Bloomington. I can't afford to own a home. And so watching small
- house after small house disappear that way. And yeah, the lack of sustainability with that kind of constant
- destruction.
- That's really been a real sore spot for me. And I hope we can continue to work toward ways to address
- this that also recognize the quality of smaller homes that may not be architecturally super, super unique.
- And they may not have belonged to somebody really famous, but in fact, they're
- more characteristic of Bloomington because they belong to ordinary folks who lived here and worked here.
- And how do we recognize those as worth preserving? Right now, we don't have a tool really for that category.
- And so I think a lot of us would really like to see one. I want to say something that I meant to say
- at the beginning is thank you. We've been asking to meet with you all for
- over a decade, and I am so grateful that we're having this conversation now. I think that the HPC and
- the Common Council has a number of overlapping goals, and one of them I think Commissioner Duesner just
- mentioned, and that's affordable housing. I think some of the things that we do on the commission and
- with zoning are at odds to
- How do we make more affordable housing for entry level housing for people? And these old houses that
- are small and in these neighborhoods that are not exactly downtown, those are prime real estate for
- new home buyers, but they're also, because of zoning in some cases, prime real estate for developers
- who want to come in and tear these down and build
- larger duplexes and triplexes and multifamily housing. So I think taking a hard look at the housing
- stock that we have and evaluating that in terms of what do we have, what's sustainable, what's affordable,
- and where do we want to grow is something that is incredibly important. And I think the other issue
- I wanted to touch on was
- This commission has a number of different viewpoints. I think we work really well together. I think
- we come from a lot of different backgrounds. And I think we desperately need your support. We are, I'm
- gonna make my plug, which I made to you earlier. We are struggling to make quorum, so the quicker you can
- get the mayor's office to give you candidates and approve them and get us a full slate of voting members,
- we would be so grateful for that. So whatever you can do to make that happen, thank you. Go ahead. Are
- there parts of Bloomington that are particularly hard hit by these demolitions that you could speak to?
- There are some members in the audience who I think will speak to that during public comment, but there
- are neighborhoods that are ripe for development. There's a neighborhood called Cottage Grove, which
- is west of campus, east of college, sort of around 11th, 12th, thank you.
- That's one. I think Bryan Park, south of Bryan Park is another one that's going to come up any time
- soon. Daniel, chime in. The closer to IU, the better. Yeah. Anything close to IU, especially around
- the stadium. And I think there are neighborhoods that are actually pretty well self-regulating. Like
- we kicked up Green Acres six, eight months ago, and I think
- I mean, I was a dissenting vote on sending that up, but I think that's actually one that has a very
- thin slice of multifamily zone, but it's doing pretty well self-regulating at the moment, but anything
- around the university is at risk, both from developers and in some ways from the university. I mean,
- you look at what happened in Elm Heights a couple years ago,
- where the Jacobs family bought up a bunch of houses in Elm Heights and wanted to turn it into a center
- in the middle of a neighborhood. That's a problem. If I may add my voice to the previous three commissioners
- who were speaking about demolition delays. I've lived in Bloomington for 10 years and I think last eight
- I've lived in
- one historic district or another. I loved old houses and the idea of buying a cookie cutter, you know,
- mass produced house in a subdivision is an absolute nightmare. I've renovated a few simply because I
- like it and I need a hobby. So it's an expensive hobby.
- A very expensive hobby. But again, I share my commissioners distress in having to vote to send to demolition
- a number of these perfectly good houses. What you would also find, and I think
- In my experience, certainly within the last five years or so, one of the motivators for communities
- to seek historic districting is to protect these neighborhoods from developers because they like their
- neighborhoods, they like the character of these neighborhoods that they live in, and even one multifamily
- 25 unit apartment building can just change the entire character of the community in which they live.
- And it is unfortunate that that is the process that they are left with to protect their neighborhoods.
- So I would like to see
- more protection being afforded to these neighborhoods that we're speaking of, primarily because of the
- contribution that they make to our broader Bloomington community. I believe that that's sufficient.
- And like Duncan said, a number of these buildings aren't individually unique.
- But as a collection, as a group, they make the neighborhood unique. And you can't keep cutting pieces
- off of it, then you won't have a neighborhood of any character anymore. I was actually just going to
- make a suggestion. I don't know if you're planning on three minutes per person, but that would only be seven
- I don't know if you want to go to public comment and then maybe come back if there's more time, but
- I don't know. Just a suggestion. Yeah, absolutely. I do just want to wrap up that part real quick. So
- what I'm hearing from many of you is that we're looking for an alternative to approval of demolition
- or designation by council. Okay. I will put that down as an action item.
- Thank you. If anyone doesn't have any burning questions or comments to make, I think. Can I say something
- about membership? Please do. The first thing on our list was qualifications of commissioners. And I
- don't think we ever talked about it. I think you skipped it over and started with something else.
- I've been a commissioner, a voting and an advisory member off and on for, like I said, since the early
- 1990s. And I helped write the ordinance that we're working with now, and I'm pretty proud of it. I think
- it's one of the best ones in the state. And I think it functions largely as we intended it to. But the
- thing that, and Sam alluded to this, not only do we need rapid reappointments, but we need qualified
- And when we wrote the ordinance in chapter two of the Bloomington Code, we put under the composition
- of the commission this sentence. The membership shall include individual members with demonstrated expertise
- in historic preservation activities.
- To the extent available in the community, the commission shall include professional members from the
- disciplines of architecture, history, architectural history, preservation planning, archeology, or other
- historic preservation related disciplines such as urban planning, American studies, art history, American
- civilization, cultural geography, and cultural anthropology. We have a lot of people with these
- qualifications in this community.
- And the better the commission is and the better it meets these standards, the better it functions. And
- I've been on some pretty lame ones and some really great ones. And we're pretty consistent, but it really
- helps to have qualified members. And as far as I'm concerned, everybody at this table is qualified.
- But it hasn't always been that way. And we are suggesting a standard by which these appointments can be made.
- So please pay attention to it. Absolutely. And for anyone listening who would like to apply, if you
- just look up Bloomington Boards and Commissions, there is a form for just any board and commission.
- Make sure that you click Historic Preservation and talk about some of those qualifications that our
- lovely Commissioner Campbell just mentioned. With that, I think we can move on to public comment.
- and we'll start in chambers. Our public comment section will be. Actually, do we want to let people
- sit down at that chair? Public comment so then they're part of the circle. Absolutely. So if you want
- to make a public comment in chambers, there's a chair down here at the end and there's a microphone
- right there next to Mr. Hackard. So if you want to make your way from the podium down there and you
- can sit at the table. Ma'am. Yes.
- So if you're in chambers and you would like to make a public comment, you can make your way to that
- chair. Please introduce yourself for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes. And if you
- are online right now, if you could raise your hand using the reactions tab or send a chat message to
- the host. Oh yes, and there should be a sign in sheet right there too if you want to sign in for your
- public comment as well, please. Are you ready? Is the timer ready? How much time? Three minutes.
- OK, I want to talk real fast. I'm from McDowell Gardens. My name is Elizabeth Cox-Ash. And I've been
- involved with historic preservation for over 30 years. I was one of the architects that did Bloomington's
- first historic conservation district, which was McDowell Gardens. And we selected our guidelines committee
- based on the population. We had 12 members.
- Three of them were landlords. Three of them were homeowners. And three of them were business owners.
- That's how we did our guidelines initially. When we were elevated to full historic district in 2014,
- again, we looked at our population to select who would be on our committee for our guidelines. And we
- had more homeowners, so we had more homeowners there. But we also had landlords.
- business owners, and homeowners. We took everyone's ideas and wrote them all up. And as far as what
- you had done in the past, you had drafts. And we had at least 20 drafts both times. And we put them
- up to a vote. And that's how we did our things. Our historic, anytime anyone wants changes, want a C of A,
- They talk to our executive committee, and then we get them on our neighborhood association meeting.
- And we meet not every month, but when we do meet, whoever shows up, then we look at what the homeowner's
- wanting to do, and then we decide and put it up to a vote. That's just how our neighborhood does things.
- We are known as historic light.
- And that's because we're not as strict as some of the neighborhoods. We kind of look at whoever the
- homeowner is. This is their cost. So this is their expense. And so we give them a lot of latitude. What
- makes Bloomington unique? Our kit homes, our stonemason homes, these are unique.
- I've been kind of looking around at other places throughout Indiana, throughout the Midwest. And each
- area reflects what the homeowners built. So if we destroy these historic homes, we're destroying what
- makes Bloomington unique. Bloomington is not Fort Wayne. It's not Auburn, Indiana. It's not Indianapolis.
- Each place looks different.
- Please, whatever is decided, please keep Bloomington unique. That's it. Thank you for your comment.
- Has anybody raised a hand on Zoom wanting to comment? Yes, we have. OK, let's take one of the comments
- from Zoom. And in the meantime, people, a new person, can come on over and sit in the chambers comment seat.
- Thank you. My name is Richard Lewis. I live in the Prospect Hill neighborhood where similar to McDowell
- Gardens, we became a conservation district in 2008, voted to renew that in 2011. But then through a
- discussion between a state attorney and a city attorney, we were told, no, we didn't qualify to renew
- because of the balloting. There were different interpretations. So we were kind of thrust into the position.
- of becoming an historic district. So in early 2014, we formed our own new guidelines committee to work
- on the parts, migrating from a conservation district to an historic district. We were fortunate that
- we had 15 volunteers to serve on that committee, which out of a neighborhood of maybe 400 households
- was a fair turnout and representative from people who were very hardline preservationists to people
- who wanted to be as hands-off as possible.
- I ended up being the chair of that committee and I am grateful that we, all 15 of us were able to reach
- consensus on every item we talked about, which was great to really tool things and forge things together
- in our committee meetings. And then we were ratified in fall of 2014 as an historic district. And similar
- to what Elizabeth said, we're sort of an historic light because
- We have such a range of economies in our neighborhood and we want people to be able to make practical
- renovations without undue hurdles. And much like McDowell Gardens and some of the others, most of our
- neighborhood has houses that qualify as contributing, very few outstanding, very few notable.
- So for us, it's a sense of preserving a streetscape so that you can look down a street and see a similar
- streetscape to what would have been there in the 19 teens or 20s. But that still allows people to add
- on to their homes, you know, building up or out and back because we primarily want to preserve that
- public way facade that contributes to the streetscape and its architectural character. Our design review
- committee, I think, has worked very well with homeowners in the neighborhood. Just last week, the HPC
- approved a new
- an entirely new construction in our neighborhood that was on a lot that had been vacant for a number
- of years. Our sign review committee, which does not have the power to approve or deny something just
- to make recommendations and hopefully assist the homeowner, we also made our recommendation for that
- to move forward. It's nice to know that we can partner with homeowners in our communities, sometimes
- make suggestions that make their lives easier or more practical or more aesthetic.
- Um, and I gotta say, uh, just looking at the screen here, it is so great to see a conversation table
- with city council and the HPC together. So I do thank all of you and salute you for, for bringing this
- conversation together. Thank you. Please come over and sit in the chair. If you want to make comments
- are like, yes, you.
- So please sign in and then state your name for the record, and then you'll have up to three minutes.
- I'm Bill Vowles. I'm with the Near West Side Neighborhood Association. I've lived in the neighborhood
- for over half a century. And ours was one of the oldest neighborhoods in town and also one of the newest
- historic districts.
- It also was developed as affordable housing back over 100 years ago. And when we were developing our
- guidelines, we were very careful to make sure that we were not making the preservation of our neighborhood
- unaffordable. We do not require particular materials in almost all cases. I think the only thing we
- specify is no vinyl siding.
- I would even go for vinyl siding, but that was not the side of the group, the committee's decision.
- I was on the committee that developed the guidelines as one of the commissioners here. And before the
- changes in zoning came up, I never got,
- request to buy my property unsolicited. I have, in addition to my own residence, two rental properties
- in the immediate vicinity. And the neighborhood was always very diverse. We were the only neighborhood
- that black residents could buy our own homes in for
- about half a century, the first half of the 20th century. We've also had diversity in the types of housing.
- There's always been a scattering of multi-family in among our single-family small homes and a few large
- homes. When the proposal for zoning changes happened, I started getting unsolicited requests in the mail and
- on the phone from developers wanting to buy my property. When that was defeated several years ago, the
- request stopped. When it came up again, it started again, and I get them on a regular basis now. These
- are people who do not live in the neighborhood. They don't even live in Bloomington, although they often
- give Bloomington addresses. If you check up on it, you find out they're from somewhere else. Who really
- are interested in
- I'm turning this into high-density rental housing that will cost more than the rents that I'm charging
- for my tenants and will actually be a detriment to affordable housing in Bloomington. So the use of
- our neighborhood historic preservation commission is, I believe actually,
- making housing more affordable. Thank you. Thank you very much. If you could make sure to sign in, that
- would be great. If there are other people in chambers who would like to make a comment, we're gonna
- go ahead and take one of the ones from online, and then while that's happening, we can do a chair switch
- in chambers. So let's go ahead and go to that second online commenter. When you're unmuted, please state
- your name for the record, and then you'll have up to three minutes.
- Hi, my name is Wendy Brescht and I live in Elm Heights in the same house that I grew up in. Moved here
- in 1963. Pardon me, I'm just parking my car, I was driving. Yeah, I've been happy for the historic
- designation in Elm Heights because it has helped to
- slow down a little bit, the rental creep, which has kind of gone already past me, but I keep track of
- rentals, rental prices, rentals, I don't own any rentals, but what I see is that older homes,
- smaller homes, existing homes, especially, are renting for not very much.
- when a home is demolished, when another property is built, whatever, it's not something that can ever,
- you know, when it's either plexed or when it's done, something like that, which is easier to do,
- of course, without the historic commission. And I have seen the same thing, that they are considerably
- more expensive.
- When those small houses are demolished to make way for a bigger rental or for a bigger whatever, they
- can no longer be owned and it removes really important housing from Bloomington. I think what I've seen
- is that the newer built rental properties are inherently unaffordable and no longer good for
- owner occupation. I think it's important to have attainable housing for
- families for working people and that is our existing housing. What I've seen is that when other housing
- is, when they've been demolished, other housing is built, each unit will cost more than the original
- house. A one-bedroom will cost more than the original house. I also wanted to ask about a rental agency
- that is buying up homes in my area and historic homes as well, a large federal just around the corner
- for me, beautiful brick federal,
- really good shape, windows were in good shape, everything was in good shape. They added, they immediately
- changed all the windows, they're now nylon. They redid a lot of the, they added two bathrooms, two and
- a half bathrooms, I think, which are not, which we couldn't find any permits for. And I'm wondering
- how did they get away with this? How is that possible that that doesn't,
- somehow flies under the radar or something. I'm just a little concerned that that is, that students
- like, this is a person that rents to a lot of sororities, a lot of things like that, and that students
- like new and landlords like easy. And I think that's something that needs to be considered when,
- you know, there needs to be some kind of oversight for when rental landlords buy up historic homes.
- Thank you. Let's go ahead and go here in chambers. Maybe you've already signed in. Please state your
- name for the record and yield up to three minutes. Thank you, Madam President. This is Christopher Emge,
- Sunny Slope resident and an employee at the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. First of all, I'd
- like to thank Council Member Zulek for putting this on. I've learned quite a bit. And Commissioner Cross,
- who's taken my phone calls and questions on historic preservation quite a few times.
- I am not even an expert or remote in that. I'm not even good at self-preservation. But a couple of things
- I have noticed is that all architecture is not created equal, at least on the eye of the beholder. And
- a lot of examples we've seen so far have been like 1920s, 1930s. But when you start creeping into like
- 1960, the architecture, I'm gonna use what I heard as in council chambers, I don't know, two years ago
- with the CVS building,
- and then had across the street was the old National Building, which is the Posh Hotel. They used a shell
- built around 1960. And I'm thinking maybe keep one of those, but not both as architectural representation.
- This is kind of the balance I think it's important that the Preservation Commission keeps in mind. I
- live in Sunny Slope, and I'm thinking about the character of it. And I'm like, well, if you demolish
- some of these, it's not the same as some of these very quaint
- working class homes you see more in the center core than say the south side. And so as we try to increase
- our population and probably going to be confined to our current boundaries, we have to make some of
- these sort of trade-offs. I don't know what they are. I don't have an art history background to make
- any sort of assessments on this, but we have to sort of look at this on what we want to keep and what we
- don't in some of it. Not all of the architecture, I don't think, at least aesthetically, from my point
- of view, is created equal. And it's something that I think the preservation commission, I hope, keeps
- in mind that not everything has to be kept forever. Having a representation of this architecture style
- might be enough to keep some of the history, but not all of it. Anyway, I thank you for your time. I
- thank you for an excellent discussion tonight. Appreciate it.
- Thank you, thank you for keeping time, even though the timer is not up on the screen right now. Do we
- have anybody else on Zoom that would like to make a comment? Okay, we have another Zoom commenter,
- so yep, I see somebody else coming in chambers, so while they're getting settled, let's go ahead and
- take that Zoom commenter, if you could introduce yourself for the record, when you're unmuted, and then
- you'll have up to three minutes. Is our timer gonna go back on again? Okay, great, thank you.
- Yes, good evening. My name is Jeff Richardson. Thank you so much for doing this this evening. I've learned
- a lot. I live in a 1950 house limestone ranch in Elm Heights.
- I'm happy to say that our neighbors, we have some beautiful homes next to us. We've had three new neighbors
- just move in within the last few months. They all have kids. So I know there's an image of Elm Heights
- aging rapidly. There are some of us that are elderly, but we have a lot of kids now in the neighborhood
- and more on the way. And so that's very exciting. One of the things that concerns me is
- In some circles, this discussion, not tonight, but generally about historic homes and the preservation
- thereof is somehow people who are either for preservation and therefore anti any kind of affordable
- housing and that there's two camps. And in fact, I think most of the people that I know of here, we
- had a neighborhood gathering the other day with about 100 people show up pretty spontaneously.
- We're all concerned about affordable housing. In fact, I'm living that belief in converting our basement
- into a studio apartment. I'm happy to say we didn't need the money, but we knew that people needed housing,
- and so we converted our basement into a studio apartment. We've had other neighbors have done the same.
- Just down the street, we have an ADU and others underway.
- And so I think we get it. But so I'm just arguing that both can be true. You can want to preserve some
- of the integrity, the beautiful history of our neighborhood and other older parts of the city and before
- affordable housing. I will note that what was said earlier about some of the older houses going to ruin,
- especially with elderly people not able to keep them up. And we have a good example of that on first
- and Henderson.
- I'm not getting into the debate about whether the house should have been turned into a duplex or not.
- I think frankly, that's fine. But I do think that's a prime example of someone who probably an intervention
- would have helped keep that house in good shape. And it may or may not have been demolished in the long
- run. I basically feel that we have a lot that draws people to Bloomington. Having historic district
- and historic home was one of the reasons we bought in this neighborhood.
- We love Bloomington. We love IU. We love being here. And part of the reason for that is the beauty of
- these neighborhoods and the welcoming and loving character of these neighborhoods. So thanks for listening,
- and thanks for doing this tonight. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Let's go ahead here in chambers.
- Hopefully you've signed in, state your name for the record, and then you'll have up to three minutes.
- Hi, I'm John Butler, and I'm in the potential Cottage Grove historic conservation area. I want to address
- three things. First of all, you may wonder why people would want to create a historic conservation area,
- why property owners would seek out an extra set of rules that they would have to live under. And I think
- the answer is very simple. It's stability.
- Our neighborhood is facing destruction. We are under threat from every direction. We currently have
- four houses that have been slated for demolition. And this is of a group of about 100 houses. And this
- is just right now.
- Surrounding us, houses are being taken down every week. And when I attend these historic preservation
- committee meetings, the houses that are being voted on are houses that I know. So the reason is stability.
- We don't want to see the destruction of our neighborhood. Number two, you've talked a lot about
- affordability. And as homeowners, we don't want to make things more expensive. And that's why we're
- looking towards a preservation light model.
- where we attempt to preserve the neighborhood without pushing forward undue costs onto the people in
- the neighborhood. Finally, there's an affordability issue that goes beyond just repairing your houses.
- I'll just speak directly to our neighborhood. When a house is torn down, it's usually getting about
- $1,000 to $1,100 per bedroom per month.
- It is being replaced by a structure, and I'm not going to say house, by a structure which is getting
- about $2,000 per bedroom per month. These more structures that are being built, we're not creating affordable
- housing. Actually, we're doing the opposite. We're destroying affordable housing. And there's a lot
- of people in Bloomington who are getting pretty upset about the
- way these zoning laws have affected their neighborhoods and their chances of ever owning a home. We're
- competing with people from across the state, investors and developers, just to be able to buy a home
- in our own community. And, you know, the Historic Preservation Commission deals with these demolition
- requests all the time. I don't know if the city council is aware of the sort of scale
- of this problem, this housing crisis that's affecting the state and the city. Thank you. Thank you for
- your comment. Is there anybody else on zoom? Okay, there's nobody else on zoom. Is there anybody else
- in chambers who would like to make a public comment tonight? Go ahead and make your way. Yep. Somebody
- just just be like upfront and assertive and come and sit in the seat and sign in and then state your
- name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes.
- Hi, I'm Matt Sutton, proud Bloomington resident, former voting member, advisory member of the HPC, former
- deputy state historic preservation officer for Utah, and archeologist, and various, interested in old
- things. Listing, I wasn't gonna comment, I was just gonna listen, but I can't help myself.
- Thinking about the time I spent on the commission and listening tonight, I kind of hear four things
- that I think are, that I've noticed are worth examining. One is, and this was a little new to me, I
- wish I'd thought of it before, the neighborhood, the process for a neighborhood group to ask
- for a designation probably could be better defined.
- that it seems a little vague to me and it could be better defined in code. The second thing, and this
- was something that was very frustrating to me on the commission, issues like the cost of historic
- preservation, the economic impacts of that, the sustainability of housing, the density of housing, the
- affordability of housing, those are things that
- fall sometimes on the historic preservation, but we weren't the experts to figure that out. That,
- to me, was scope creep when we would start to talk about that, because it really, to me, those are not the
- specialties of people who are on the Historic Preservation Commission. So I think some other way, some
- other policy mechanism for considering those things would be a very valuable thing. They're relevant,
- they're important, but you don't want to ask historic preservation specialists to figure out affordable
- housing plans. It's just not the purview. Third is, we've heard this several times tonight,
- There's really no options on a demo delay other than demo it or designate it. And it really does need
- some kind of middle ground. I have thoughts on that, but I got 41 seconds. And then the last, and I
- think probably the biggest, is that the code, as it is put together, is all stick. All stick. There's
- going to be a cost, a time you have to spend, et cetera, et cetera, and no caret.
- And I think preservation is best done when there are incentives for it. There are federal incentives,
- but there are no, and they're pretty obscure, but there are no city incentives. I could not talk my
- neighbors into designating a district because I got no good reason for it. Thank you. Thank you so much.
- Has anybody raised a hand on zoom? Is there anybody else in chambers who would like to make a public comment?
- Go ahead and make your way to the chair. Be assertive and upfront about standing up. Make sure to sign
- in and state your name for the record, and then you'll have up to three minutes. Hello. My name is James
- Ford. I live in what is Cottage Grove, will be Conservation District, we hope. I really want to just
- respond to Matt Flaherty's first concerns about voting and who makes the decisions.
- I don't know who matters to you. I'd like to hear from you. Do you think that people who own a house
- in Bloomington but live in the Bronx and never come to Bloomington, does that matter to you that they
- are in part of the process? What about a student who comes and moves into our neighborhood who could
- potentially be a voter and vote you back into your position? Do they matter, even if they're only living
- in our neighborhood for one year?
- Do we involve them in the process? Do we actively reach out to the 90% of our population, which are
- renters, student renters? What about people who own properties and rent them out, but they don't live
- in the neighborhood? They live, say, out of town. One person owns 10 properties. Do they count as 10,
- or do they count as one? And what if their properties are separated into LLCs,
- LLC is ten properties are they four votes ten votes one vote I don't know and I'd like to hear from
- City Council what you would expect our guidelines to look like and say well we want you to We want you
- to survey all the renters and all the property owners Even though they don't live in the state even
- though they don't live in in the neighborhood That's all I really want to say. Thank you
- Thank you so much. Is there anybody else in chambers? Go ahead. Please sign in and state your name for
- the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. My name is Tondra Radawan. I am a, live in a,
- uncategorized. I don't live in a neighborhood district because we don't have one yet. We're
- not a neighborhood. I'm a little bit south of Bryant Park. And I guess for disclosure, I also assist
- this commission at times taking minutes. I don't have any decision-making authority. I just take the
- notes and do my best to make sure they're accurate. I guess I wasn't really going to speak, but I did want to.
- after the previous speaker mentioned the makeup of this town being potentially 90% renters. I do think
- that is a little bit high. But I do want to say that I don't think that it is all student renters. Many
- of the people that rent in this town are not students. They're families.
- their professionals that can't afford to live here that may have been trying to buy a house here and
- they haven't been able to for a long time. I know that in the makeup of my neighborhood, I was fortunate
- enough to buy a home. I've always wanted to live in an older home. I live in a 1920s Victorian home
- that I was able to buy because it was completely run down and my landlord that also had 20 properties
- was trying to get rid of that one because of the cost of the foundation and the cost
- of the roof and the cost of repairs were so much that he wanted to get rid of that one. I think that
- seeing our neighborhood changing over the 10 years that I've lived there, there used to be families
- that lived across from me, wonderful people, one person that had raised their
- their children, their grandchildren in their family home. And that house was bought, it became a rental,
- after that it was all divided and it's an Airbnb. The house next to me, another wonderful family. That
- same owner that was in a bidding war with other friends of mine that were trying to make it a family
- home, bought the house next to it so that family had to leave. Wonderful tenants for a year,
- and a half, that is now an Airbnb, and then the house behind it that was a garage has been converted
- to an Airbnb.
- I would like to have stability in my neighborhood. I would like to know my neighbors, but I can't know
- them if they're just different people every two to three days, and I'm not sure if that's anything that
- this council can address. I think that more people that are wanting to be invested in their neighborhoods
- and in their homes and if they're landlords and they don't want to pay for what it takes to restore
- their home, they could use some of that rental money that they're taking from their renters and use
- that to pay the fines and restore
- their homes and preserve the neighborhoods in those ways. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Is
- there anybody else in chambers who would like to make a comment this evening? I don't see anybody jumping
- up. Has anybody raised a hand on zoom? Great. Okay.
- Thank you to all the public who commented on this topic this evening. Bringing us back, I think, to
- Councilmember Zula, how did you want to close the discussion? Well, I have my next steps action items
- written out. I can read them, if you'd like, from the notes that I've taken. Number one, we need a more
- consistent approach to reporting houses that we notice might be.
- risk of needing demolition. We need an alternative to the demo delay apart from council designation
- designation or approval of demolition. And we need a more formalized system of informing potential home
- buyers of the historic nature of their property. Am I missing anything in terms of action items and
- things that we've discussed asking the mayor for getting the
- I'll do my best on that Yes qualified Yes, and I guess I'll just conclude by saying I think this is
- really productive and I want to thank everyone all the HPC members and then it looks like Sam has something
- to say to Thank you again for hosting this and we would invite any members of the council who are interested
- to Attend one of our meetings to see what we do. We're there every second and fourth Thursday at 5 just
- on the hall
- can also be accessed over Zoom. And thank you for all of the people who are in the audience who came
- to speak or who just came to listen. Are there any council members who want to make any closing comments
- about anything that they've heard tonight or respond to anything public commenters brought up? Council
- Member Aralo.
- Well, yes, I just want to thank the members of the commission for coming and sharing information and
- their experiences. It's been very interesting and productive for me. Maybe this is too general a question
- right now, but it was brought up, I think, a couple of times. If there are certain things, certain aspects
- of our zoning code that is of particular concern,
- for protecting historic structures and maybe affordability as well, I would like to know. If you want
- to mention it now, that's fine. If you'd prefer to email council, that would be great because it is
- within our purview to perhaps address it and remedy it and change code. Again, thank you.
- If there's anyone who would like to share anything right now, I'd be interested, but we can reserve
- that for email exchange too. Thank you. Thank you. An entirely different meeting that we would need
- to have. I think so. In favor of keeping time, I would say we should keep that either to email or have
- another one of these lovely productive meetings. Are there other council members who want to make any
- closing comments?
- Council Member Piedmont-Smith. Yeah, I also want to thank the members of the HPC who came and the people
- in the public who came to speak with us. I think this was a really interesting exchange and really brought
- to light some things we need to work on. I think I do want to mention one thing that I don't think is
- really in the HPC's purview, but that I heard tonight and that I agree is a concern and that is really having
- feedback from everybody who lives in a neighborhood or who lives in a neighborhood maybe more than 10
- months because there are a lot of people who rent and who rent long term and I'm concerned that they
- are not being brought into the process when historic preservation is discussed. So that might be something
- just to talk to hand about, maybe talk to our Angela Van Roy or other neighborhood liaisons about. So
- thank you.
- And thank you to Council Member Zulek for organizing. Thank you. Are there other Council Members who
- wish to make a comment?
- Okay, I would also like to thank everybody for coming and thank you to council members who look for
- organizing. And I also wanted to address one of the public commenters, Wendy, whose last name I missed,
- I'm sorry, who mentioned some concerns about permits and the people that she'd seen maybe some renovations
- in her neighborhood and couldn't find permitting for them. That if you have questions or concerns about
- that, one option is to file a you report because that will automatically kind of filter into the right person
- You can file those anonymously or if you attach your name to it and email then you'll automatically
- get like updates on it But if you file it and on it anonymously and then just take note of the report
- number You can look that up later and kind of follow along with what they said You could also call the
- planning department and ask them directly and just be like hey, what's going on with this? I actually
- did that last year about something. I was like, hey, this street is closed. What's going on with that
- and they generally
- kind of know, and if they don't know, they can be good at getting back. So I wanted to address that
- as a concern because there should not be large renovations happening under the radar. But it is also
- one of those realities that our planning and enforcement staff can't just be constantly driving around
- this town up and down every single street all of the time checking for things like this. So it is kind
- of incumbent on the public to go like, hey, I'm concerned about this thing that's happening.
- And I also just want to show some appreciation for all of the public commenters that we got tonight
- that there were lots of interesting things that lots of folks had to say from their perspectives and
- I'm really glad to hear that there's you know from the different historic districts represented this evening.
- and from members of the public that they were very deliberate about their committee groups and their
- committee structures and trying to make sure to be inclusive. And I would hope that all of the committees
- are like that. But my guess is that they're not necessarily like that. And so that would be an aspiration.
- So if there are no other closing comments from anybody,
- I'll just say that our next regular session is next Wednesday night at 6.30, and we are adjourned. Thank you.