I'm gonna go ahead and call this regular session of the Bloomington Common Council the order here on
December 17th 2025 Will the clerk please call the roll? Ruff Rallo here Piedmont Smith here Stasburg
here daily here Zulek here Rosenberger here. Sorry here. Thanks. I
Great, thank you so much. So I often start on meeting with just kind of a note about something. And
so today this is our final meeting of the 2025 council session. And I just wanna take a minute and thank
city staff this year for all of the work that they've done. And I especially wanna call out, I wanna
call out a few,
folks and I realized that I could like literally call out every department because all of them at one
time or another like kind of like step up and do things no matter which department that they're in but
this tonight specifically I want to call out our public works and our plow teams because we've it's
December 17th. We've had three snow events that have not one of them has happened between eight and
five Monday through Friday.
So and somehow things still got plowed and we could still go so a huge Thank you to our plow teams our
snow removal crew and that also includes not just the folks that are out there actually plowing but
all of the dispatch related folks that are Managing behind the scenes and mechanics managing behind
the scenes and all of those sorts of things that make those things go And I also want to shout out sanitation
because they're still out there early in the morning picking up our our cans in
And I'm really happy that we, if you didn't know, delayed trash pickup by a day this week so that Monday
morning when it was really, really cold, our crews did not have to get out there. So I appreciated that.
that the city did that. And the last category that I want to call out are just administrative staff
members. You know, those folks that organize the calendars, they answer the phones, they keep everything
organized, they make our appointments, they have a lot of connection with residents who call in, and
sometimes it's a little bit
underappreciated. And I want to give a special shout out to our own temporary legal researcher, Christine,
whose last day is officially today in the position that she's been in.
She started this temporary position in May and has done a phenomenal job supporting council members
and also council staff. So a huge thank you to Christine. And I would have gotten her flowers or something,
but she's actually flying somewhere tomorrow and I thought that it would only be a burden to give her
something the day before she flies somewhere.
With that, I'll go ahead and summarize the agenda. We are gonna start out with four minutes for approval
from our four budget hearings this year, August 18th, 20th, 25th, and 27th. Then we'll have a report
time. We'll start with reports from council members, then we'll have a report from
the planning and transportation department about unified development ordinance updates. We've had a
couple of deliberation sessions about that kind of stuff this year, and the planning department has
done some reaching out to the community about that, so we'll hear more about that. We do have a short
report from the committee on council processes for council committees, and then we'll have our first
reports from the public. So that's the first time for the public to comment on an item that is not on
our agenda this evening.
So members of the public will have three minutes to comment on things not on the agenda. During legislation
time, there will be time for people to comment on things that are on the agenda. We will not
have appointments to boards and commissions tonight, because there are none. We have no legislation
for first readings, because it's the last meeting of the year. And that also, though, means that there
are several things for second reading, in one case, actually, third reading.
that we will cover tonight. So our legislation for second readings and resolutions starts with ordinance
2025-19, amending title 15 of the Bloomington Municipal Code regarding removal and impound of vehicles.
This is a third reading for that item. And two weeks ago at our last regular session, we did adopt amendment
one to that. Then we will go to ordinance 2025-20
which is amending chapter four of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled non-consensual towing businesses
and other updates. Then we will have resolution 2025-21, acknowledging receipt of the collective bargaining
agreement between the city of Bloomington and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees for years 2026, 27, and 28. Then we will have ordinance 2025-40, oh, and just as a note,
Yesterday in the packet addendum, there was an updated agenda put out and that resolution was added
in that packet addendum. If anybody's going, wait a minute, that's not the agenda that I'm looking at.
In the packet addendum released yesterday is this updated agenda with that resolution. Our fourth thing
on the agenda after the resolution is ordinance 2025-47, amending Title VIII of the Bloomington Municipal
Code entitled Historic Preservation and Protection to establish a historic district around the Ivan
Adams House,
And then we'll have ordinance 2025-43 to annex certain real estate to the city of Bloomington. And lastly,
we'll deal with ordinance 2025-46 to amend the zoning maps in anticipation of that annexation.
After our legislation for this evening, we will have an additional period of public comment. So if anybody
wants to comment on something not on the agenda and they did not comment during the first period of
public comment, then they can do that then. Any notes on council schedule and then we will adjourn.
So going back to the beginning with minutes. I move that the minutes from August 18th, August 20th,
August 25th,
August 27th from 2025 all be approved Second, thank you. We have a motion to approve the minutes any
councilmember questions or comments on those minutes Great since we're all here in person we can go
ahead and do a voice vote on this all those in favor Please say aye. Aye any opposed Thank you so much
motion passes unanimously moving on to reports from councilmembers Let's go ahead and start down at
the end my left with councilmember. Sorry. I
No report. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Rosenberger. I have a report It's not really prepared
so I just I wanted to I guess debrief very quickly on a Redevelopment Commission meeting that happened
this Monday and talk about a Property that is owned by the RDC a couple of properties. It's called College
Square. It's
College Avenue across from the Atlas bar between third and fourth streets And basically, this is an
awesome property that the city or RDC bought a few years ago and The Convention Center and the CIB basically
thought about making it a hotel and that is still an option I'm sorry. I did not prepare this at all
So we just have to kind of wing it
Okay Okay, I just want to give you a brief summary right and we're looking at making that entire property
a Hotel a host hotel for the Convention Center. It's a really huge. It's a really huge piece of land
It is it is a city block long and so something that we're kind of
Pushing pause on making the whole thing potentially a host hotel, which I think is really exciting I've
been thinking of it kind of as like a mini Hopewell development It is almost a blank slate where we
can we can put a lot of stuff in there that the city needs and residents need Just for example, there's
a similar block on call on college is North College
potentially across from Big Red.
And it has a hotel it has restaurants on the bottom. It has shops along along college It has a parking
garage in it. It has So the seven I think it's a seven-story commercial building and it has potentially
maybe 80 housing units in it So I think it's neat that we have a lot of options for this property where
we can look at housing We can look at affordable housing. I know folks are really on board with getting
more affordable housing downtown. So
It's really a neat city opportunity that doesn't come along a lot, but it's mostly a parking lot right
now and I think that's it. I'm just looking forward to the RDC Well, I think they're not really working
on it right now anymore But the CIB and the county and the city all working together on this To see
what we can really get in that space. Thanks Thank you council members you look do you have a report
no report, thank you. Thank you councilmember Daly. No, thank you Thank You councilmember Flaherty
Yeah, thank you. I also wanted to follow up on recent activity with the Bloomington Redevelopment Commission
because I think there were some pretty Material like choice points around policy and trust and I think
it was a positive outcome even though there was some Challenges along the way. So I just wanted to highlight
some of that as well for the public and just reflection so I wanted to thank the members of the RDC
for their service and for meeting with us along with department directors Cooper Smith and Killian Hansen
during a work session last week and
It was definitely not an optimal set of circumstances and choices that led us to that work session But
hopefully folks learn from it and we can meaningfully involve the city's fiscal body on major financial
decisions in the future Especially where the council has formalized a policy position on the
issue Tangentially, I do have a number of ideas around RDC related reforms, but I will save those for
some time in 2026 I also wanted to specifically credit commissioners Cassidy McRobbie and Meyerson on
for introducing and voting on an amendment to their resolution 25-136 prior to its passage at their
Monday meeting this week. So that resolution, consistent with the clear policy position of the City
Council, confirmed that the RDC does not intend to give away a $7 million piece of property to a private
hotelier in order to subsidize a convention center host hotel. I won't get into the question of whether
a subsidy is needed for a host hotel. That's a different question, but that was the decision of the
RDC at that time.
So this is a $7 million win for the residents of Bloomington, whose tax dollars can now be leveraged
for resident benefits. In particular, affordable housing is a prime option, as Councilmember Rosenberger
highlighted, and there's actually a variety of pathways to achieve that from here, including on that
site or even elsewhere, if we sold that site or traded it with the county government, for instance,
which owns land to the south, some of which actually has relatively affordable housing at this moment.
So this matters because for the past decade, there has been widespread agreement explicitly among folks
involved with the Convention Center expansion that two specific funding sources are meant to cover that
expansion project. And to be clear at that project, the Monroe County Capital Improvement Board,
or CIB, has repeatedly characterized as inclusive of a host hotel. So those two funding sources are
the food and beverage tax and the innkeeper's tax. The former was meant primarily for construction,
while the latter was meant primarily for operations and maintenance.
The county government has also used the innkeeper's tax to purchase land as a possibility for convention
center expansion. So before the city council was willing to agree to appropriate the city's food and
beverage tax proceeds, it made itself very, very clear that its understanding and expectation, consistent
with the decade of discussion on this, was that the food and beverage tax proceeds alone would be the
city's sole financial contribution to the project. To the best of my recollection, and I'm pretty sure
about this, no one with the CIB or other interested parties raised objections at that time.
and said, no, we don't think that's possible, or we're going to come to the city later for other resources.
And so some members of the council in particular were quite explicit that this was conditional for their
vote, or conditioned for their vote. And so we moved forward. We appropriated the funds. Of course,
the convention center is going up right now. But now we face a situation where the city is being asked
to contribute a considerable amount of additional taxpayer dollars to the burden of our residents.
And I think there are lots of good other options. Several media sources, I think, or at least one who's
here with us tonight, did cover a memo that a few colleagues and I sent to the RDC earlier this week
that outlined some of those options. I think it would be a great idea for elected officials of both
county and city government to get together early in the new year to talk about those options and how
to make sure that we're using those two funding sources that have long been identified for the Convention
Center expansion project optimally to achieve those outcomes that everybody wants.
And so, really, that's it. I wanted to update folks on that. I wanted to acknowledge that the RDC vote
was, I think, an important inflection point of some sorts. I think the risks were not just the finances
itself, but also trust from the public, from the city council to the mayor's administration with the
CIB. And based on other things that have happened over the past two years, that's not always been,
you know, our strongest resource. So it would have been a shame to see it go further south.
So with that, thank you again to those commissioners and RDC for their service Thank You councilmember
Ruff I'd just like to take a second to Thank our council leadership council members Stossberg Piedmont
Smith and daily for the work they've done On council leadership this year. It's a lot of extra work
and a lot of times pretty thankless and So it's it's greatly appreciated
Last thing I just want to quickly just say Show some respect and gratitude to the bipartisan principled
stance taken by our Indiana Senate and rejecting a completely Out of line power play In redistricting
the redistricting recent redistricting push
It was coming down on Indiana from outside and just really I had died people from all over the country
from friends of us and and Colleagues from around the country from all different brittle political
persuasions saying Wow Thanks, Indiana Senate I'm proud to have connections with with with the state
of Indiana at this point in time which we haven't always been able to say so
Much appreciation and respect to them to the Indiana Senate for that. Thank you Thank You councilmember.
Oh, I just like to make an announcement that Councilmember rough and I have our monthly constituent
meeting this Saturday at 10 a.m December 20th, we have it by zoom and you can find that link at the
council website which is bloomington.in that gov slash council and You're welcome to join us. We have
Usually very lively intense discussions numerous topics and we're scheduled for an hour But we often
go 90 minutes two hours and councilmember rough me spend the rest of the day on zoom I'm not committing
him but But we we look forward to seeing people there so it's a it's a good time so please come Thank
You councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes
I'd like to just highlight, as I've done in the past, to highlight yet another way in which the Trump
administration is violating the US Constitution that we all have sworn to uphold and that President
Trump has sworn to uphold, but is not doing a very good job of. Today's topic is war powers, US Constitution
Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 11, Congress has the power to declare war.
Even though in early October, President Trump decided that the United States is engaged in a formal
armed conflict with drug cartels, that his team has labeled terrorist organizations and that suspected
smugglers for such groups are unlawful combatants. So basically he's declared war on a drug cartel and
he has killed 80 plus people doing it in violation of international law
the Constitution. I just want to quote a little bit from an article that appeared yesterday on the American
Constitution Society website by Chris Edelson, a professor at American University. Over the past three
months, the Trump administration has effectively gone to war with an amorphous foe.
Although the administration describes this as non-international, i.e. not between nations, armed conflict
with vaguely defined drug cartels, it is in fact a one-sided affair in which US missiles have struck
and killed more than 80 people on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Perhaps most notoriously,
one of these strikes killed two men who survived an initial attack and were clinging to wreckage. Some
experts are concerned that all of the strikes are simply murder.
Despite the broad consensus among international law experts that the US military campaign violates
international law, President Donald Trump has suggested he could escalate the fight, including perhaps
by an invasion of Venezuela. The administration has claimed without evidence that the boats it is attacking
are bringing drugs from Venezuela to the United States. The Trump administration's military actions
also violate US law.
many, many disappointing things about the Trump administration. And I just, I think we need to keep
talking about it and keep pointing it out that this is a violation of law and a constitution that we're
all so proud of. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. I also have a short report. Hopefully it'll be short.
There's a few things that I wanted to mention.
I appreciate Councilmember Ruff bringing up the Indiana Senate and the failure of that mid-century
redistricting vote. I mentioned that a couple weeks ago, and I just wanted to kind of follow up on that.
And I am thrilled that our senators listened to the people of Indiana who, by and large, through surveys
and through calling both Republicans and Democrats and also independents, all were
Predominantly against that move and I'm really really happy that our senators actually listens to the
people in this situation And I wanted to make a note about my constituent meetings as well I'm gonna
change those up a little bit in the new year I've been kind of doing that a little bit trying trying
some different things to figure out how I feel is the best kind of way to
connect in different ways with constituents. So I feel like my the best constituent meetings have really
focused on one person and they're like
concern that they're bringing in that moment. And so instead of having just constituent meetings where
it's like, hey, everybody come to make sure that those people that come with very specific things that
they want to talk about can just make a calendar appointment with me. So there's a lot of tech out there,
I'm sure, that you've used it, where it's like, yes, just schedule an appointment with me. Here's your
time blocks. So it'll be something like that.
ways to do that and to get on my calendar. So look for that in the new year. That's a new tech field
you could say for me. I've never done that before. I know it's not hard. But during the holiday recess,
I'm hoping to set that up.
then I'm gonna take a note to actually talk about council scheduling right now, even though council
schedule time is at the end, because by the end of a meeting, maybe my colleagues aren't gonna be listening
as closely anymore, so I'm hoping that you're all listening right now about my note on council scheduling,
which is that in January we have a couple weeks without regular session meetings, but I'm gonna urge
you guys right now when you're looking at your January calendars to kind of pencil in some reservations
on those Wednesday nights for interview committees.
because interview committee stuff, as a reminder, is changing next year with the new resolution that
Council Member Zulek, I'm pretty sure, is the one who brought that. So that all needs to be rethought.
And I spoke with Clerk Crosley today, and so she also kind of has that on her schedule and hoping to,
you know, in January, get some of those things scheduled. So if we could, as council members, try to
work with that and thinking about our January schedule, that would be fantastic. And other than that,
just to our community,
Happy holidays, all of the holidays. Happy Hanukkah a little late, happy solstice, merry Christmas,
happy Kwanzaa, happy new year, a little early, a little late, all of those things. But happy snow days.
E-learning is almost like snow days, sort of, for some people. So winter can be a fun time. Anyway.
That wraps it up and we are moving on to reports from the mayor, city clerk, city offices, and city
boards and commissions. So we have our planning and transportation director, Hiddle. If you could,
as usual, state your name for the record and it's great to have you here.
Thank you. Good evening David Hittle director of the Department of Planning and Transportation Here
with a year-end update on our housing attainability study slash project To let you know where we've
been and where we're going with this with this important, I think initiative So the project purpose
is to consider potential unified development ordinance or UDO amendments and other housing policy changes
to increase access to attainable housing in Bloomington. And with any changes to UDO or other ordinance
language, you look for your marching orders, really, from the comprehensive plan. You want the language
in the comprehensive plan to guide you to make those changes. We talked a little bit about this in a
little bit more detail at the second of the deliberative sessions, and I kind of quoted from all of
the points in the comp plan that are pertinent.
taper that off a little bit and just kind of cut to the chase and talk about this goal 5.3 that talks
about housing supply to help meet current and projected regional housing needs of all economic
and demographic groups by increasing Bloomington's housing supply with infill development reuse
of non-residential developed land and development
Vacant land if it is at least partially surrounded by existing development and the specific policy that
comes from that says encourage opportunities for infill and redevelopment across Bloomington
with consideration for increased residential densities Complementary design and underutilized housing
types such as accessory dwelling units duplex triplex and fourplex buildings courtyard apartments bungalow
courts townhouses row houses and live workspaces and
Avoid placing these high-density forms in single-family neighborhoods that last sentence kind of just
slams the brakes on the vibe that the rest of the paragraph I think establishes and I'd have loved to
have been a fly on the wall of the Moment that the decision was made to add that last sentence, but
I'm not sure exactly where that came from I think there is a lack of precision in the language there
and I think it's muddles the intention of the previous paragraph for a variety of reasons
Comprehensive plan also includes the climate action plan which does state encourage density and increase
housing options and affordability with the goal of increasing gross density by 3% of 2018 values So
this initiative set out to find out how we can do that how we can realize those particular Recommendations
from the comprehensive plan and so beginning earlier this year about five or six months ago
We established that we would be meeting with a variety of stakeholders neighborhood associations institutions
the university the school district the development community and and talk about variety of issues among
them housing So we met with all of those groups as I mentioned still a few more to go We have neighborhood
organizations scheduled through January and I think one in early February and peer cities scheduled
throughout January as well and
With regards to pure cities. We looked at cities that are a little bit more akin to the profile
of Bloomington than just your typical college towns Bloomington is a relatively small city nestled against
really large University and so it doesn't it's not terribly instructive to look only at Ann Arbor or
Madison or some of our Big Ten
The big ten usual suspects if you will so we expanded that to talk to other cities that have
large universities That are a little bit more can in terms of ratio permanent residents to student residents
that that Bloomington is so we've been adding to this list and Excited to add Bozeman, Montana to it
next week, which is on
a sentence only a planner would ever say, I think. But they're very interesting in that they are a blue
village in a red sea. They are leading the nation in housing reform and zoning reform relative to housing.
And they, fascinatingly enough to me, have a huge influx of population and a median housing price of
a million dollars almost.
If you kind of take the whole thing and boil it down to really a fundamental tension, it's this,
it's good, it's needed, it's desirable for us to optimize residential infill opportunities. At the same
time, another sentence that's true is that off-campus student housing pressures may overwhelm
core neighborhoods. So where there is
Opposition to ideas here. It's coming from those core neighborhoods and really core isn't the right
word It's really more campus adjacent neighborhoods And and we've sort of seen by virtue of the fact
that off-campus housing pressures are so Large and the existing built environment of Bloomington giving
its population outside of the university is not particularly large that there is the potential for this
dynamic that's not desirable to take place and
If we look at our zoning map all of the yellow indicates Single-family zoning. I should say residential
zoning the lighter the yellow the the lower intensity or lower density the zoning the single-family
typologies are allowed so the canary yellow was it basically are two and
Which allows only for single-family dwellings. I'll add the caveat that it does allow for accessory
dwelling units But for a variety of reasons including restrictions on those placed by the zoning ordinance.
There's not a lot of those being built right now So we have about 5,000 plus acres that are in that
category of single-family zoning exclusive
We have 200 acres that are R4 that also allow for duplexes by right. And then we have 1,400 acres that
allow for different types of multifamily. So the overwhelming majority of residentially zoned land in
the city of Bloomington allows only for single family dwellings.
This is the allowed use table which tells you a little bit more about that in detail as you get into
the the mixed-use districts There's a variety of residential and commercial and multifamily uses that
are allowed but the our districts which are essentially the residential districts are very single-family
only heavy Really the goal here with this project is to allow for more diverse types of housing to flourish at least
Give them a fighting chance in the city right now. It's been historically easy to build single-family
dwellings And as of late, it's been easy to build really big mega student development projects But not
much in between so we'd like to change the regulations do more removal than addition to take
away obstructions and obstacles that I think do not rightly curtail the development of this this missing
middle or gentle density type of housing and
We're going to look at a couple different variations here. One of them is the idea of the cottage
development. This is not in Bloomington. This is in Santa Monica, I believe. It's a very common type
of development, previous mid-century and before.
Really the 20s to the 50s. They're also very common in Chicago common in Minneapolis common in a number
of eastern cities We'll have really one of these in Bloomington, which I'll talk about just a little
bit in a moment We do have a slot for this in our zoning ordinance But among its restrictions is one
that says you have to start with a minimum of an acre You have to have a minimum of 400 square feet
of internal green space per dwelling unit
the individual dwelling units are not allowed for sale and They are allowed nowhere by right. So in
order to develop any of these anywhere You need to get conditional use approval from the BZA, which
is a process that that is not without friction This is another example from California. This is an example
from Fishers more recently built that's 11 units, I believe on
1.7 acres so 6.5 units per acre Obviously the land costs are reduced if you're able to put a number
of houses A number of dwelling units on a property like this. They're smaller than normal dwelling units
And so they they tend to be much more affordable to people Beyond those who might be able to afford
a single-family dwelling today, especially in this city Here's Bloomington's example. And this is a
little bit more than just
A cottage development. This is the co-housing project on short street. So there's a lot of cooperative
operational parameters at play here It's fascinating place. I spent an afternoon there and I don't know
if everybody's visited or not but I think if you're able to Sit down at the pavilion and talk to their
founders a little bit about how it's developed and you can kind of experience the actual life of the
neighborhood which I think makes it really really appealing. This is just a quick site plan and
Overview that shows central greens and then the houses flank those greens rather than flanking streets,
which is the typical arrangement This is one in Indianapolis I talked a little bit about it at the last
deliberative session and I'll just repeat that here because I think it's instructive These are two urban
lots 35 feet wide that were consolidated and on which were built six
dwellings They're all single-family dwellings. They're all owned fee simple They are I think 1200 square
feet each three bedrooms and 2.5 baths apiece They are for sale in a two of them. I've sold I think I
And the going rate for those is $271,000, which is, again, you know, we'd love to be able to see houses
for sale less than that, but that's quite a bit less than the median sale price in Bloomington. Again,
smaller houses, smaller lots, less yard, really all, I think, desirable things for a lot of the people
that live here, especially given what we know about the demographics of the city these days. The most
common household is a single person.
Two-person household and the second most common is a single person and together they make the vast majority
of the household types that are in Bloomington And there's just a lot of desire for this type of housing
development and it's just not available anywhere This view from the beginning at the front of this site
Also, we're looking at duplexes and triplexes
And the opportunity to allow them perhaps a little bit more frequently with conditions and protect perhaps
in specific overlay areas This is a duplex This is a duplex that is actually in the the house catalog
that is part of the Hopewell development. So just a little bit of background about that and
Hopewell will be sort of governed by a catalog with a variety of different home types and the person
who buys a lot there will choose from that catalog one of any any one of a number of a dozen different
homes this this is a duplex in that it has a Front unit and then another unit attached that's above
a garage in the back And it's simple architecture, you know, it's it's relatively modest in terms of
its of its
Silhouette and massing, smaller than the average house, and again, small yard, something that I think
we would like to see encouraged here. Where you begin to run into real concerns about these kinds of
housing typologies is existing character of neighborhoods and opportunities for those typologies
poorly executed to compromise that character. Again, we took a quick look at this at the last deliberative
session. I think it's instructional to do it again. But this was 7-11 East Cottage Grove two years ago.
This was 7-11 East Cottage Grove a couple months ago. And this is what 7-11 Cottage Grove is proposed
to be next year. Now, in a lot of ways, this makes sense. This is a stone's throw from the university.
And there's probably good reason to increase density in that particular location.
would argue that this is not particularly successful in preserving or honoring or really recognizing
in any way existing neighborhood context. If you look at some of the figures behind it, it begins to
become apparent why this is happening. This is a three-unit structure. Each unit rents for $6,000
a month. So that's about $18,000 a month in whole.
Look right across the street. This is a single-family dwelling that is that was for rent for forty six
hundred and twenty dollars a month so eighteen thousand one hundred and twenty a month versus four thousand
six hundred and twenty a month you begin to see that the pressures for creating these kinds of changes
Another thing that we are interested in looking at is the possibility of easing path for accessory dwelling units and
This is an accessory dwelling unit actually built in Bloomington. Actually, let me rephrase that. This
is not in Bloomington, but the thing was built in Bloomington. Um, this is from origin studios, which
ships mainly to the coasts. I think they've built one in town, um, but they build high end sort of bespoke
ad use and they ship, um, to the places where ad use are welcomed with more open arms. Um, I think they have,
developed one and placed it in town actually. Interestingly enough, and this is a look inside the warehouse
in Bloomington, the owner has a history in developing housing in developing nations and I think is very
interested in putting together a product that is much more affordable and seeing that being used here locally.
With that idea comes another one which is which is creating opportunities for administrative lot splits
Just look at any one of these. This is this is The idea of the single-family dwelling in front with
an ADU then developed in back You have a single-family dwelling in front in Bloomington It's probably
pretty expensive once you build the ADU and back becomes that much more expensive as a property because
you essentially have two houses on it but if you're able to split off that ADU and sell it fee simple
Either by administrative lot splits by acknowledging that on a corner lot You have two street frontages
or by creating an opportunity for flag lots to make that back lot legal Then you're allowing more people
in infill area, which means you're again. You're using existing pipes existing streets You're not building
new infrastructure. You're not asking the police department to stretch emergency services to stretch
its service area so it's the most cost-effective way of locating more people in the city and
We're also going to looking at subdivision regulations Specifically recalibrating lot dimension requirements
a lot of our zoning districts width and area and other dimensional requirements Are quite a bit greater
than the the lots on which they stand, especially the older lots Which were developed with with less
width with less area And I think one option is to is to make it so that the dimensional requirements
actually match those that are that are built and are not
thrusting those older homes and lots immediately into non-conforming status Also, I think that as I
noted earlier we can make our architectural regulations more meaningful for example right now with duplexes
we have very subjective language telling us to take a look at their porches and their door orientation and
site development in terms of parking, but those don't get us very far. I think in terms of providing
for a truly desirable architectural end product, I think we can do a better job of that. Let's talk
to some local architects. Maybe the idea is to put together a work group to help improve those architectural
regulations so that neighborhood character is not compromised in the way that I think arguably you could
say it is right now.
Short-term rental is it's something that's been talked about At any given time this number has changed
but I'm going to say now that at any given time there are 400 listings in Bloomington that are identified
as Perpetual meaning year-round whole house rentals meaning no one lives in them. They're only used
as literal mini hotels
That number has changed in terms of what we've thought it was, but as I've talked to people in the industry
and looked at the way that AirDNA, which is the main data aggregator for short-term rentals,
how they do it, it looks as though there are about 400 at any given time. It's a big number for houses
taken out of circulation for a city the size of Bloomington. There's not much we can do in terms of
zoning regulations. We are exploring the idea of capping that
Requiring permits and then establishing a maximum cap so that it can't get any greater and then ideally
over time Some of those there through attrition would come back into the housing pool Looking and talking
with with peer cities there are a number of techniques that are employed to deal with with the issue of
I won't call it a problem, because there's problems in a lot of ways. It's a good problem to have. But
the issue of off-campus housing, one of them is to impose separation requirements so that if a home
is occupied by students, then it needs to be separated by a certain number of feet from other places.
That's done in Pennsylvania. Another is to establish a rental density allowance. That's done in a number
of cities in Minnesota, and Carmel and Fishers also did something similar.
I think arguably their motivations are a little bit different. I think in Carmel and Fishers, they are
pretty forthright about it just about just not wanting rentals. Our concern here is the distribution
of student housing, I think. But those are opportunities. Other things that are happening with regards
to housing attainability is we are at the beginning slash middle of an audit process, which is looking
at how we handle our permit reviews and ways for us to become a little bit more efficient in that.
Time is money. So if we're able to do that, it takes away costs of development. The HW stands for Hopewell.
So those are components of the Hopewell program. It's going to be the pre-approved home catalog, which
I think we could extend to use elsewhere in the city, the Lender Developer Training Program, which will
happen next year. The pursuit of advanced building codes is something that I think is next year or the
year after. In a lot of places, there are
amendments to building codes legislative Usually coming from the state that that allows for things like
single staircase designs and Sort of removal of relic fire codes that that no longer Have much to do
with safety but allow for more more efficient development and then the there's
an opportunity to improve coordination with IU. There's really no formal coordination with IU with regards
to how off-campus housing is executed. And I think that that's something that could be done. Other places,
usually the larger cities have very comprehensive formal written agreements with the universities within
them. They can include everything from shared stadiums to mitigating
Mitigating payment to the city for for neighborhood impacts. There's really a variety of things I don't
know that that's something that could be employed here would be employed here, but it's I think it's
interesting to note that those exist Timeline director Hittle. Yes as a note that's been 20 minutes,
which is the period So a couple more minutes, maybe I wrap that up and then council members you can
help me decide Whether you want to have extra time for questions after that. Okay, so
Thanks. This is the end. We're at the timeline. I apologize. I didn't know I was taking that much time.
So our goal here is to come forward with a housing attainability UDO package, which is going to be the
things that we've talked about here and then whatever comes up in the meantime that we will bring forward
for review and refinement and adoption eventually, hopefully, that will incorporate the things that
we've just discussed, and do it in a way that satisfies as many concerns as possible. That is the general
timeline through April. I'd like to complete the first phase of outreach immediately, and then begin
to craft UDO amendment ideas and options, take those back to the public and to stakeholders, and then
through the late spring, refine the draft amendments and initiate adoption.
I'll stop there. Thank you. Um council members. Do you have questions? Okay, we have a couple of questions
up here. So let's go ahead and extend Let's start with just five minutes until 721 Just because we do
have a lengthy legislative agenda council member all Thank You director head home So two housing studies
I'm aware of have indicated that people desire owner occupied single-family homes
Over the last decade or so we've had a disproportionate number of rentals built And at the same time
as you notice we as you noted we've had a number of a thousand or so Homes that have been converted
to short-term rentals so And
So there's institutional investors, there are people who are buying and renting these. Fishers Indiana
put a 10% cap on rentals recently. It's effective January 1st of 2026. Is that something we could explore
to try to maintain the housing stock that we have that people desire? Yeah, that's certainly one of
the techniques that could be employed. It's one of the things that we'll look at.
Again, I think we don't want to demonize student housing. It's good that students are here. And we don't
want to, I think, necessarily follow the same line of reasoning that Fishers did in their employment
of that particular rule. I think that they're relatively forthright in that rentals are a less desirable
mode of residing
than owner-occupied. And I don't know that that's a course we want to take, but that is being utilized
in other college towns as a means of distributing where housing rentals, or student rentals in particular,
are located. So that'll be part of what we're looking at, yes. It is a tool that's out there. It's used
extensively in Minnesota and other places, especially where there are colleges, and it's something that
can be done.
To hear that. Thank you other questions council members who look Thank You director Hiddle earlier in
your presentation. I heard you equate core neighborhoods with campus adjacent neighborhoods Would you
say that that's correct? Yeah, I wrote core neighborhoods But but really there are campus adjacent
neighborhoods green acres for example that you wouldn't really call core so it may be better that the
language I could have used was campus adjacent and
most of which are core, but not all. Thank you. In a town where over 50% of the population is students,
to what extent do you think it's a reasonable expectation for residents who are not students who are
living within a square mile of the circumference of campus that people don't live with students?
To me, every student would want to live near campus. I don't understand why.
I don't think that the expectation should be especially for Campus adjacent neighborhoods that they
wouldn't live near students. I don't think that's reasonable I Think that You know as I talked to the
neighborhoods what I expected to hear was concerns about student behavior and that was really minimal
and as I talked to other other
Peer cities that's one of the things that they talk most about I don't hear as much of that here. What
I what I really hear is that When when this when a lot is repurposed for student housing, especially
if it's redeveloped the thing that is built is Jarringly different from what it replaced or what was
there? So from my perspective, I'm hearing a lot about more architectural standards massing things like
that I don't think that
The idea of trying to remove students from those neighborhoods is a good one. For one thing, if we distribute
them all over the city, then perhaps those that wouldn't have had to have drive to campus are now driving
to campus. More vehicle miles traveled. There's a lot of reasons that we would want them within walking
distance. But it's really structures that are being built for them that I think are really staggeringly
out of place with the neighborhoods that are established.
That have a right to expect something better And when you say student housing, are you referring to
the luxury multifamily homes that are available to everyone or to IU housing? No, I'm referring more
to Not not the mega projects not the high amenities student housing on North North College more to the
the infill housing that's being put into
campus adjacent neighborhoods, like the one I showed you on Cottage Grove, where a house is removed
and a thing that is clearly intended for students that has all the hallmarks of student housing and
is in fact eventually rented to students is replacing it. That's more the student housing that we're
talking about. But it has no legal status as student housing.
Yeah, Pennsylvania does. They've established student housing is a structure in which an undergraduate
lives, one or more. We don't have that here. OK, thank you. And I just have another question. It's not
directed at you, so please don't take it anyway. But the way we talk about students is pretty aggressive.
Do you think that that has any impact on students wanting to stay here and be a part of our workforce?
That's a good question.
I'm not meaning, or certainly hoping that I'm not coming across as talking aggressively about students.
It's not you. And I think that that goes for my department as well. I mean, what is Bloomington if there's
no university? What is the university if there are no students? We absolutely have to accommodate them.
I just think that it can be done better than we're doing it now. Absolutely. Thank you. But your point
is very well taken. I appreciate it.
Thank you. That is technically the end of the time that we had does anybody else have a burning question
that okay So I'm gonna extend for another three minutes till 725 you think that'll do it. We'll try
councilmember Flaherty Thank you. I want to echo and elevate the points councilmember Zulik was raising
it, you know I think there were a number of generalities that don't hold true universally and we should
be very careful about language that tends to stigmatize or villainize some of our residents I hear it
a lot too. What I also heard in those comments was like I
a perspective that's different than what we heard in the presentation, and that brings me to my question
about process. What I see on the screen right now is an anticipated staff process over the next five
months, and I'm curious for what you envision to be the best path for collaboration between city council
members who are legislators and policymakers in our own right, also care very deeply about implementing
the values and ideas and policies and goals in our comprehensive plan and our climate action plan, and indeed,
Collaborated with your staff extensively in the past in order to propose ideas And so where do our ideas
on you do changes related to housing attainability in this project fit into this process? Are they welcome?
How will they be included? Tell us what you'd like to see please and in particular I well I'll leave
it at that and I think some follow-up probably in written form would be helpful to give structure and
clarity to all of us Thank you. Yeah, I do have some ideas and I'm certainly open to other ideas from
the council if there are other
Ideas are processes that would work better I do want the the the coordination and the conversation with
council as we move into this I'm thinking that by March we're going to be able to assemble that packet
that housing attainability udl packet that's going to have probably not just a rote set of language
that take it or leave it but will have variety of options some different ways of incorporating different ideas
mixing and matching some of the mechanisms that we've talked about here and then take it back to the
public and and Council for refinement review further consideration at that point Yeah, and that's that's
about it Thank you. Just a brief follow-up. Would you it sounds like that would set the universe of
the possible with what you propose in March and then we'd be left to refinement and
At a subsequent phase. Would you be open to council members contributing ideas to that universe of things
that is explored in the next phase of public engagement? Yeah, I review and refinement is the phrase
that I wrote And and then my my idea there is that during the review part the beginning part You know
other ideas it we're open to other ideas. So we're not we're not again. We don't want to come
To you or to the public with anything that's pre baked or even half baked We want we want input from
everybody who's interested in providing input, right? I want to make sure we get the input on ideas
that are coming from council members as well Because this has been a point of friction before where
even there's opportunities for future input But we're told that wasn't the right way to do it. So we're
gonna do it a different way This is the different way I'm making sure that we are active and like clear
in the expected process So we don't get blindsided again in the future by the mayor
Thank you. Yeah, and I'll add to that that I think we can put that in writing so that it is more clear
because it's not, as I'm leaving it right now, there's not the clarity that it should have. So I think
we'll do that and then forward it to the council. Yes, sir. Great, thank you. Any other burning questions
that are gonna necessitate an extension of this report time again? Great, thank you so much.
Perhaps there'll be follow-up via email, but I really appreciate your coming today and for your presentation
Next we have I gotta get back to my agenda Reports from council committees committee on council processes
councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, thank you. I just wanted to make
Colleagues and the public aware of a few things that the committee on council processes have been working
on And they are as follows We're looking at moving the general provisions regarding boards and commissions
in the municipal code from section 2.08 executive branch to section 2.12 boards commissions and councils
number two we're looking at allowing for discussion at first reading and
Number three, we're looking at allowing a consent agenda for certain items that require a vote but are
not substantive and or controversial. And number four, we're looking at whether or not we might require
a council member to sponsor each item of legislation that appears on the agenda of a regular session.
So if you have colleagues who are not on the committee, have any feedback, please contact a committee
member. And same for members of the public, if you have concern or interest in these. The committee
is comprised of myself, council members Flaherty, Daly, and Zulick. Of course that committee makeup
may change in January, but I want to make sure everybody knew what we're working on, thank you.
Thank you. Are there any councilmember questions for councilmember Piedmont Smith and the committee
on council processes? All right. Seeing none, we will move along down our agenda to reports from the
public. So this is our first period of public comment. If there is a member of the public who is interested
in making a comment on an item that is not
on our agenda tonight. If you are here in person, you can go ahead and make your way to the podium.
There should be a sign in sheet and you can sign in and then state your name for the record and you
would have up to three minutes. If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand using the reactions tab or
you can send a chat message to the host. And I do see somebody approaching the podium. So we'll go ahead
and start here in chambers when you've signed in and are ready. Is the timer all set? Wonderful, thank
you so much. And begin with your name.
Thank you, Madam President. This is Christopher Emge from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce.
You know, I wanted to talk, I could talk about several different issues that are sort of affecting this
community, but that being the last meeting of the fiscal and calendar year, I want to do a little bit
of reflection from a chamber business perspective. I want to first acknowledge the Council's ongoing
work on outcome-based budgeting. It has been a process, and it's been a very gradual one and at times
challenging.
Slow, but the effort continues to move forward Outcome based budgeting is a noble endeavor one that
strengthens accountability clarifies priorities and helps ensure public resources are aligned with measurable
goals It's not easy. It's necessary and when we have to do less with less essential Also want to recognize
the broader fiscal and council processes undertaken this year Councilmember Piedmont Smith mentioned.
It's I think usually my favorite hour within the council and
The willingness to dig in the details wrestle with Some trade-offs engaged in discussion outside the
regular session has been vital and a really big council benefit. I believe Those additional conversations
whether their committee work sessions or smaller since it smaller settings have helped clarify a lot
of issues before they reach this room and that matters and before I go further I just want to kind of
briefly acknowledge sort of my role in this space with the chamber its work I take
very seriously, but I don't take myself seriously. I generally enjoy the never-ending cycle of local
government, including our brethren at the county, the clash of personalities, the strong opinions, the
long and even longer meetings, and the imperfect process of trying to muddle through this. I do this
work because I want the city to succeed. In fact, as my family have formally begun house-hunting, one
of our non-negotiables is staying within Bloomington's incorporated boundaries.
That's not accidental. This is more than a job, but rather reflects a long-term commitment to this community
that I have confidence in their future You know, I also want to nods the deliberation meetings While
they have not been perfect see last week. They are a step in the right direction Creating space for
the council members to talk through issues with one another and
for the public to better understand the different perspectives strengthens transparency and leads to
better outcomes. I truly believe that these conversations are a very effective and clear way to sort
of visualize and talk about the goals that members want to accomplish in a timely and wise fashion and
that our progress is measurable. This year has not been without our challenges and I hopefully next
year we can get those different disagreements and tough conversations to a better position.
But those disagreements is not a failure in many cases reflects the council cares deeply about the right
thing Thank you for your services. You're navigating a very challenging landscape and I'll see you in
2026. Thank you. Thank you Are there any other members of the public who would like to make a public
comment during this period? Do we have any hands raised on zoom? Yes, there's one wonderful. Let's go
ahead and go to zoom then
When you're unmuted, you can state your name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes
Hi, this is Paul so I Would like to thank council members Rollo Ruff and Stossberg for holding monthly
meetings with groups of Bloomington citizens. I Wish that every member of the council did the same I
also wish that five minutes were allowed for public comments as existed last year. I
Meanwhile, for the past few days, I've been appalled by how many of the sidewalks in Bloomington have
been left unshoveled by irresponsible property owners, thereby leaving hapless pedestrians to trudge
through snow and ice. A large part of the problem is that the current municipal code is outdated. Title
VI covers snow removal. Section 6720 provides details about code enforcement and fines for non-compliance.
The initial penalty is only $50. The second violation is $100.
all subsequent violations occur of a fine of 150. That ordinance was written in July of 2014. The city
of Bloomington analysis found that the median home value in 2015 was $173,000. Over the past few months
in comparison, the median home value was varied between 300,000 and 375,000 depending on when and by
whom the analysis was done.
It seems accurate to say that the housing market in Bloomington has doubled since 2014. Therefore, I
request that the City Council amend the code and double the snow removal fines. Finally, a few days
ago, I was using Google Maps, and I accidentally discovered that the street views of the neighborhood
just west of the stadium are several years out of date. What I saw on my computer screen was the ghost
of a livable, walkable neighborhood.
with abundant old trees and low density houses and businesses with generous setbacks. In other words,
it was a real neighborhood with front yards. What exists today are monstrous mega student development
projects, a term used by the director of housing just earlier this evening. These are ugly four story
buildings that crowd the sidewalks so as to squeeze every bit of profit out of the land.
It is really sad to see Bloomington selling its soul to the paradigm of continual growth. I think we
are actually on the verge of declining university enrollments due to declining birth rates and due to
our friends with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It seems to me that IU probably sees
this coming and they are externalizing their temporary need for housing onto the city.
Absent increasing enrollments, Bloomington does not need more people. We need to figure out how to shield
ourselves from the intrusion of the capitalist marketplace instead of submitting to it and thereby betraying
future generations. This is a long overdue conversation. I think that growth is killing Bloomington,
not nurturing it. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Any other hands raised on Zoom?
I don't see anybody moving in chambers. So we will carry on down our agenda We don't have any boards
appointments to boards and commissions tonight. We don't have any legislation for first readings So
we'll go right into legislation for second readings. I Move that ordinance 2025-19 be introduced and
read by the clerk by title and synopsis only Second, thank you Since we're all here we can do a voice
vote on this
It's been moved and seconded to introduce ordinance 2025 19 all those in favor, please say aye Aye opposed
Thank you. Will the clerk please read Ordinance 2025 19 to amend title 15 of the Bloomington Municipal
Code entitled removal and impound vehicles regarding chapters fifteen point four eight and fifteen point
five to Updating permissible towing and storage charges for authorized towing services the synopsis
is as follows
Ordinance 2025-19 updates the maximum charges authorized towing services may collect when performing
city initiated toes to reflect more accurately the costs associated with towing services and current
market pricing Thank you so much Move that ordinance 2020 2025-19 be adopted second
Thank you so much. As a note, as I said earlier, this is technically a third reading on this item. And
at our regular session a couple of weeks ago, we did adopt Amendment 1, which was included in the packet.
Who's here to present from the city? And of course, last time we had an extensive discussion around
this. So go ahead, please state your name for the record. Good evening. Edina Casamanian, Assistant
City Attorney for the City of Bloomington.
At the last council meeting I had the opportunity to present proposed legislation under title 15 of
the Bloomington municipal code Which distinct from title four covers police and city initiated towing
Tonight we're here again to discuss title 15 and I'm here with police contracted towing companies and
with sergeant Jacob hunter to answer any questions you may have regarding title 15 and
Thank you. I do have an amendment on this one. Does council want to talk about the amendment first or
do you have questions about the ordinance as it's presented to us? I don't see any questions. I'm gonna
pass the gavel to my vice president All right, so we have an amendment just to remind everybody amendment
one was adopted two weeks ago and
And I believe we have another amendment council member Stossberg. Yeah I'd like to move amendment four
to ordinance twenty twenty five nineteen second. All right it's been moved and seconded. Council member
Stossberg could you please tell us what the amendment is about. Yeah. So the amendment that I proposed
last week if you recall I had a concern with two things. I have concern with the storage fees. Twenty
four hours.
And that seems to not be an issue last week in terms of my amendment But I also had a concern about
the business hours not being defined in the the ordinance but like saying that you know additional fees
could be charged outside of business hours, but not having any concept of what business hours would be so
In terms of those two changes, and I included a memo, by the way, in the packet addendum yesterday,
sections two and three of my amendment deal with those two things. And the phrase that we agreed upon
with legal was to refer the business hours to be defined in the police contract.
And that seemed to be okay with everybody and that was kind of discussed last time to actually in terms
of folks who were present said Yeah, like we can work that out and the police department said yeah,
we can make sure that that is in the contract So it's like clearly defined for everybody
And then this the first section of this actually comes at the request of the administration To change
the word officer to member of the Bloomington Police Department in acknowledgement that sometimes non
sworn officers are respondents in different cases including things like vehicular accidents And so they
might be the person
in charge in those situations. And also there was also the question last week. If you remember, there
was another amendment that was never introduced last week that had to do with payment of fees. And those
changes were made because of state code updates. And so this was just another section that had been
they forgot to change that section. So I hope that was clear. So you may have any questions for me about
it. Are there questions about Amendment 4?
To ordinance 2025 19 Okay, I don't see any I Guess we can go ahead and go to the public Is there any
member of the public who would like to speak to the amendment? Just reviewed by councilmember Stasberg
to the amendment to ordinance 2025 19
Anybody in chambers getting up to speak to the amendment And I see a shake of the head from our staff.
So nobody online has raised a hand So we can come back to the council. Are there any final comments
on the amendment? Councilmember daily Just thank you. I know we had a really extensive conversation
about this last week and it caused a lot of hand-wringing so
I'm really happy with these changes. Thank you very much. I'm happy to support this Council member Stossberg.
Thank you. I hope by lack of questions and comments others are also willing to support this I want to
send a thank you out to staff legal and the police department who helped refine this language over the
last couple weeks and also our council staff who helped prepare documents things Any other comments
Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on amendment for to ordinance 2025-19? Councilmember
Flaherty. Yes Ruff. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes Stasberg. Yes, Daly. Yes, Zulek. Yes Rosenberger.
Yes, sorry. Yes. Thank you. I
All right, that amendment is adopted by a vote of nine zero and I'll hand back the gavel. Thank you
so much Madam chair, yes Councilmember all or breath. Yeah, I would like to Introduce amendment five.
I'm not sure if this is the time to do it. I've shared that amendment with everybody it It's in your
inbox should be With my fellow council members
think the city legal has Discussed it with Okay, so we have a motion to introduce amendment five that
is in our inboxes And it looks like it has shown up on the big screen right now. Do we have a second
for that motion? Thank you Councilmember off do you want to talk about your amendment? Yeah, very briefly
in talking with
Over the past few days some of the business members involved in in both non-consensual toes and and
the toes Under title 15 that this is dealing with This amendment adds the ability for The towing companies
tone business to have a $25 administrative fee that's
separate from the the physical cost of the physical toe and I think the the amendments entirely consistent
with the whole purpose of the ordinance in that the purpose of the ordinance is to bring fees and rates
up to date and to reflect real costs of doing the toes and Based on my conversations with
doing the toes From the businesses. I became convinced that this They've been there are costs Administrative
costs that are just not captured not reflected by the changes that are proposed in the ordinance out
in the ordinance changes outside of this and not being someone who's
involved in the business I I I won't probably be the best person to Try to answer questions, but I think
during the comment section of public comment. We should be hearing from Folks who will do a much better
job than I could do it explaining as was explained to me over the past several days why This is justified
fair needed
reflective of the reality on the ground and in finally I'll add that my understanding is that both the
sheriff's office for the county who manages the county initiated toes and the IU in Indian University
for their toes explicitly allow in their in their language this a fee 25 dollar administrative fee separated
out broken out
itemized out of the actual toe itself so if Folks have some questions for me. I will I'll try to answer
as best I can at this point But I think we'll definitely be hearing from folks who are professionals
in the business and who will make the case that That this is necessary and fair Questions for councilmember
rough from council members. I
Thank you, how did you identify $25 as the the cost sorry, I can barely hear you How did you identify
$25 as the cost for well in my discussions with the towing businesses my understanding was that was
actually something that When they were initially solicited for input from the city to the upcoming changes
We're going to be worked on and done and introduced This was actually a number and if a cost that was
brought up and Didn't make its way into what we finally saw us in the proposal for the ordinance changes
and at initially my understanding again is initially the the businesses didn't feel like it was something that
They were going to push for harder again, but since that time in the past several months There have
been some changes in state auditing auditing processes of the towing businesses and their toes and some
additional city administrative Demands that have caused them to rethink Not really pushing to have this
as part of the changes this $25 administrative fee
So I think we'll probably hear more about that when people have an opportunity to speak but $25 was
The it might be the number it might actually be the number that the city I mean that the county and
IU also have identified is what they allow or what they what they admit for This fee, okay, but that's
unconfirmed that's not confirmed I
Maybe someone can confirm when we get up, but that's my understanding Okay, thank you. Thank you. Are
there other councilmember questions for councilmember of councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, so the Ordinance
as amended without this new amendment already allows for an administrative towing fee of $25 to the city and
So this would add another $25 going to the towing company. Is that right? It would be both assessed
Yes, so that fee that goes to the city for that I believe that the BPD charges before a person can go
get their car from the towing agents that goes to that's a that's a Charge almost like a tick a traffic
ticket to the city
The the towing business has nothing to do with that that goes that's what you pay the city through BPD
To get the form that you need to take to get your car released. I believe that's my understanding So
yeah, this is separate. This is purely for the administrative burden on the businesses Okay, I have
another question Are there other first-round questions for a consumer? Okay, I I have I
Do you know what these fees are actually for? Yeah, well for example, I do have a couple brought up
for That were articulated to me So for example Plymouth City, so one I'll give one example for the title
15 type toe city
initiated towing versus title for non-consensual private towing so Bloomington City parking enforcement
any tows impounded from Bloomington parking enforcement Must verify amount of ticket accumulation for
release vehicles cannot be released until all parking tickets in collection have been paid in full or
payment arrangements made our business office being the private tow not the city or
Our business office is responsible for getting collection charges collected from set amount from form
emailed from Bloomington City Parking We must have paint copies and confirm paid amounts from collection
agency before vehicle can be released Once we've confirmed this amount requested be paid then we can
release vehicle to registered owner so this is some administrative process that the That the business
undertakes and
That's an example that I was just it was described to me. Is there a fee for acquiring that information
from the city? For acquiring that information. Yeah, like is there a direct fee for the wiring that
I'm like does the city charge the tows company paid the $25 to this to the BPD but for this this is
a There's no payment that the only payment is from the person getting their car
That's not what I'm asking I'm asking so it sounds like it sounds like in that message that you just
read the the tow company needs to
Confirmed that payment was made on those tickets. So basically they have to like look something up So
what I'm asking is is there a fee charged to the tow company? For asking the city for that confirmation
and information and I kind of see the clerk machine over there and I don't know if maybe Because this
is probably like the clerk's office that deals with all of these tickets and things So is there a fee
for that information exchange? we don't always deal with these but
The form that is issued by parking enforcement No, I don't believe that the towing companies have to
pay for that I believe usually the person who's gotten their vehicle towed is responsible for getting
the form from parking enforcement and bringing it over to the towing company so they can verify it parking
enforcement can generally look in
T2 which is the program that we use for parking enforcement and tracking citations and permits and those
sorts of things So it will list the license plate with any citations that have been issued in our outstanding
the form itself lists the amount as posted ticket numbers themselves, which could be problematic if
they appeal those tickets in the Middle of that step, but I think that's something that can be handled
Come back in but there's no fees associated with any of that exchange of information No, okay. Thank you
Other first round questions Comes member Piedmont Smith. You said you had a second round. Um, yeah,
I You know just reading the ordinance It's like there's a fee for this then there's a fee for that and
if this then there's other fee and this is this it just you know starts rattling your brain and makes
it sound like a bank with all these hidden fees
So I'm wondering whether it was considered to add this $25 in to just telling fee so that we don't so
that we have one less fee to list here so that it's more straightforward to the Vehicle owners. Yeah
my understanding and in talking with the businesses was that That would be acceptable
unacceptable approach but less desirable because with the My understanding is they feel like they would
like to have a breakdown so that people see of what what the costs are what what what they're paying
what it's going towards and and that break that breaking out of the administrative component as opposed
to actual physical toe itself is is an important thing for their
Business and their public engagement. I think they felt like with with with their customers or the people
who are they're working with That's my understanding. Okay. Thank you Are there other questions?
All right, I have a second round question to you I'm wondering if there's a staff opinion on this amendment
or I mean we have We have our
City attorney here. We have police department representative. We have representative from ESD any all
of you want to come forward and They're having a debate over there for folks on zoom They're they're
not sure who's who's gonna have to come up and give an opinion on this for me. I
Thank you and Edina Casamania from city of Bloomington assistant city attorney This is new so I haven't
had times to really consider it. So that's my Opinions or any other two companies, so thank you. Okay.
Thank you Other questions councilmember rough I would like to
Make sure people do know it was 11th hour But I did reach out to legal and we did we did have a discussion
and I appreciate your responsiveness to my To my outreach for input from you. So, thank you Would you
like to clarify your No, yes, I did we did talk and so I am aware of it but it wasn't brought up during
any of our conversations and
When we were considering proposed legislation for title 15 in the last, you know few months So I did
explain that to councilmember ruff. But yes, we did we it's new today I found out about it today. So
and we did talk about it just and briefly and you don't have a position on it or an opinion on it or
I Don't have an opinion or a position Okay, yeah any other staff members wanna
If you'd state your name for the record D del Rosa assistant director for small business development
ESD Once again, I Literally just saw and heard about this when I walked into council chamber, so I haven't
had time to review it I would like to have confirmation as to what
And you does as far as there as far as this administration fee so I can have some informed input on
it but at this time because of the Lack of time to review this. I don't really have a position on it
Okay, thank you Any other councilmember questions about amendment five?
All right, seeing none, let's go ahead and go to public comment. So this would be just public comment
related to Amendment 5 to Ordinance 2025-19. Is there anybody in chambers who would like to speak to
Amendment 5? Thank you. Go ahead. There's a sign-in sheet. Go ahead and sign in, and then state your
name for the record. And then you'll have up to three minutes.
My name is Cody Chandler. I own a Chandler automotive and towing. We this fee is allowed to be charged
at IU and county also lets us charges fee they call it a service fee but we are allowed to charge that.
The reasoning for this charge is their specific requirements on release of each of these vehicles. So
these are impounds. So there is an administrative duty on each one of them. For Bloomington parking
we actually determine
The paid tickets the city doesn't do that. We confirm that on our end So we get the form it'll have
a number on it and then we are the ones that make sure they pay the collection So it's on us that they
pay those collection fees on the non-consensual side The record-keeping requirements are separate from
normal record-keeping requirements. We're not talking about the non-consensual side right now because
we're just on title 15 but as far as
On the city initiated that that's the reason why there's specific requirements Thank you, yep We have
another person coming forward in chambers so go ahead and state your name for the record then you'll
have up to three minutes Thank you for signing in Hi
Ken perishkins Westside service and towing here in Bloomington Thank you again for the opportunity to
be able to do some of your towing with the city We appreciate it. I would just like to clarify some
of the fees and charges that you're talking about the $25 administration fee that city Bloomington Police
Department charges
Generally those fees are only charged if there is an initiation of investigation or something like that
So just because your car got towed by BPD Doesn't mean you have to go get a release form from the city
of Bloomington Not all of those fees not everybody gets that $25 fee Only the ones that were
under investigation that they have to investigate or something like that. Okay I'm just giving you real-world
specs of it. If you guys have any questions for me, I can answer that the administration fee for us
to conduct that are a lot with the the city of Bloomington
towing ordinance where they are get city tickets and he was another gentleman mentioned that You we
confirm the fees
That person had to pay for their parking tickets, which means we have to call the city. We sit online
We sit in on hold we wait We have to go from not only from the city to see if they've paid then but
have their tickets also went to collections So then we have to call and find out who the collections
agency is on it confirm with them Then we have to call back There's a lot of hours and sometimes when
the parking tickets and stuff. It can be a real mess the city unfortunately needs to work on
Getting that collaboration a little bit better back and forth between us so that we don't have to do
all the confirming We towed it because you had parking tickets. We didn't go look for it. We didn't
chase you down We didn't do that. The city called us to come and get it because they were in violation
with that being said We as the towing company have to now do all that work trying to get back and forth
No, they did not charge us a fee But there is a lot of time invested by trying to get a hold of all
these people to confirm that they've had all these tickets paid
Personally think there's also more stuff that goes in with it also State regulation requires us to file
a 72-hour notice anytime we tow anything in whether it's whether it's towed in by you guys whether they're
You know, whatever the condition it was towed in those are fees incurred to us. That's not even on here
That's more administration fees that we pay out of our pocket plus the person in the office having to
file those that paperwork
Then if they don't respond after the 72 hours Then we also have to notify the state again and all the
lien holders and everybody else that we have your car or the parent Whoever the lien holder or the title
holder the car car is those are a lot of fees that we incur ourselves That we don't also get to charge
and in all honesty the $25 is cheap, but we're willing to make it at that point A lot of places let
us charge up to 50 to 75 dollars for administration fees. I don't think we're really asking for that
much If you guys have any other questions, thank you appreciate it
Thank you. Do we have any hands raised on zoom right now for this public? Okay, wonderful looks like
we have somebody else in person Go ahead and sign in state your name for the record and you'll have
up to three minutes Hi, sorry, I'm Cameron myself I'm with Blaine's record service in reference to a
question that was asked if there's any direct, you know fee for us to get information from
No, there's not but there are very indirect costs with us. It is a lot of labor. It's very intensive
to Handle the impound process whenever a vehicle is towed by the police And that's the the cost does
not get reimbursed even by the $25. There's title searches Certified letters we have to send out sometimes
two three four five
Per vehicle at nine dollars a piece that come up So the $25 while it is appreciated doesn't nearly cover
the cost, but it would be definitely appreciated in the addition of this You know the the time that
it takes is is a Is a real consideration because we do spend a lot of time in office and a lot of people
to make sure that someone Legitimately gets their vehicle back to the right person especially in a very
student centered town and
You run into a lot of situations where you're dealing with not the registered owner. We have to contact
the registered owner sometimes in a different state So there is a lot of like I said time, you know
when time has value as well So I I fully support the $25 for that reason Thank you Anybody raise the
hand on zoom anybody else in council chambers who wants to speak to amendment five? Right seeing none
that's gonna come back to council
Is there council comments on this? Council member, sorry. I might have missed something. So I totally
understand the argument being made. And then I understood the comments made by the public. Can somebody
help me understand something I'm missing? Because all the examples that were given seem to be not examples
of consensual towing, but rather like when somebody is getting a ticket or something, doesn't that fall
under the next thing that we're talking about, not under Title 15?
Councilmember rough. Do you want to explain why you have that under title 15? Does anybody maybe from
the police? Department want to talk about why these fees might come with a police initiated toe I Think
probably city legal might want to talk about the just reading title five to title 15 title four. That's
what I missed you Well
Let's go ahead and just in case there are other people who also might have confusion about this because
if there's anything I learned as a teacher One person's question is usually another person's question.
I'm sergeant Jacob Potter with the Blompton police And I know from the police department perspective
as far as this administrative fee I know it may help the tow companies when it comes to parking enforcement
and their toes but I can say from the police department's perspective we act we have a form that any
vehicle that we tow under our authority, so if it's not a
What we call a private tow where the owner is actually requesting the tow truck to come get their car
safe from a traffic accident If we tow it under our authority, basically the owner doesn't want it towed,
but we're gonna tow it will fill out a tow form We take that tow form turn into our records department
In order for the vehicle to be released that said individual owner operator has to show up to BPD and
we fill out the rest of this tow form and
which then gets given to them or sent to the tow company for the release of that vehicle. So that shows
the tow companies that per the police department, you are allowed to release this vehicle to them. I
see their argument as far as under parking, because I know there's some frustration with that, but from
the police department perspective, I don't see any reason for the fee itself. Okay, thank you.
Council member, sorry, does that answer your question about the difference between the two?
Other councilmember I I thought that we are on comment, but maybe we any last questions as a question
or comment Okay, any questions? Councilmember P not smith So I don't I'm a little confused by what sergeant
hunter just said so There is already in the ordinance the $25 administrative fee that goes to BPD for
you know the time it takes to
Fill out the forms and and then I believe I heard him say that he sees no reason for the tow company
to have an administrative fee Did did I understand that correctly? And if so, could you please elaborate?
I I just say from the police department perspective because the example given for this administrative
fee we Eliminate that they don't have to communicate with us to wonder whether or not the vehicle can
be released and
We give that form to them and we make sure it's given to them through the citizen or through the vehicle
owner Okay, I see but But the arguments given through the public comment that they still have to make
sure that there are no outstanding parking tickets or other related fines Against that vehicle owner
That's still valid. I mean that that's still that is a that's a valid issue and
When it comes to parking because obviously Parking is no longer with police or under the police department
So from my understanding just from my interaction with the public and the work Parking enforcement say
they tow a vehicle for unpaid tickets The same frustration that you guys that everyone's been told at
council tonight has been explained to me to where it's an issue of them trying to get
Confirmation that all fees are paid to parking We don't have that issue Because we clearly have that
form sent over to the tow company for the vehicle to be released So they rarely have to call us back.
Hey, can this vehicle be released? The frustration that they're having is is the parking enforcement
issue I can't speak to that in their process, but I know from the police department standpoint We are
very open with them as far as the vehicle being released or can it not be?
The administrative fee that you asked about for for us There are key components or key times when we
don't charge that like recovered stolen vehicles So say someone's car stolen and we find it on the south
side of Bloomington We call the tow company to come pick it up. They still have to come to us to get
a tow form Completed or signed saying we're releasing it, but we don't charge that fee for that type
those types of issues
We also have the ability to override that fee so a supervisor can do that For that administrative fee
on our end in case circumstances come up And so on we can always override that But that's the answer
for your if that enlightens you on the $25 fee for us for the city Can I ask a follow-up so Mr. Parrish
was saying that the $25 fee is only charged if there's an investigation in
Initiated is that how does investigation typically that that could be very wide? As far as what can
entail so that could be as simple as a traffic stop say a driver's arrested The vehicles in the roadway.
We obviously can't leave it there So we tow it under our authority We felt the tow form when they come
to pick the vehicle up. They have to pay that $25 fee and
Again, like I said, like the recovered stolen vehicles, we don't charge for that. Other circumstances,
we can override that fee if we need to. But that's typically what those fees would come from.
Thank you. Thank you. Other questions? All right, council members, did you have a comment? Yes,
thank you. I just want to say thank you to all of the representatives from the tow companies that came
out to speak with us today.
Actually was planning on voting no against this but after hearing what you all had to say, I'm going
to vote Yes, so I just want everyone in the room to know that activism works and so does public speaking.
Thank you Thank you, are there other councilmember comments comes number Flaherty Yeah I'm gonna vote
no. I feel some uncertainty about it and the lateness of it I know Colleague is acknowledged is like
part of it and
The challenge with this, including the first time we heard it in 2020, is that we're talking about setting
a reasonable overall level for towing with respect to a set of business decisions that we have very
little insight into. We can talk to folks all we want, but this forum is not a good place to work through
the nitty-gritty of the business costs and what's reasonable. And I guess my view is ultimately we need
to set a reasonable level overall. This is an increase. This is what these ordinances are about.
and how folks run their businesses and how they manage costs, of which there are many, you know,
no doubt, is up to them. And we hope we set it at a level that is viable for businesses to do the business
in a non sort of extractive or userist way, right? And that's the principle, I guess, and I feel like
that's what the fee is about and that's what the update was about. And I'm open to it needing to be
higher than what was proposed in this ordinance coming from staff, but like I am not in a position now
to be able to make that determination with any type of confidence. And for that reason, I don't feel
like I can reasonably vote no. I'm sorry, vote yes on the amendment. So I just wanted to explain my
thinking on it. Thank you. Thank you. Other council member comment on amendment five. Council member
Ruff. Yeah, I know that some staff asked for verification of the IU
The county having allowing a service fee or administrative fee. That's for this exact this purpose this
specific purpose. I'm pretty sure that I'd be surprised if that's not accurate if I've been told something
wrong and if we have one of the speakers Confirmed that one of the towing company representatives Mitch
said that that is the case it is allowed by the city and and I mean by that county and by IU
Plus to mr. Flaherty's point I believe I looked into this a little bit. I believe that the city I mean
the county allows 200 and that the tow cost when the fees are all added up is about two 210 or 215 I
use is the same in our school the cities will be I think 200 at this so it'll be a less and
this administrative fee which I
believe are is allowed by the county and by you brings it actually closer to what the Amount is for
the city. I mean for the county and for iu toast that that's all I want to say. Thanks Thank you other
councilmember comment Councilmember Piedmont Smith Yeah, I'm also uneasy about approving this for the
same reasons that councilmember Flaherty stated
It seems like this is something that our staff is more the staff in not just the city legal department
but the economic sustainable development department who actually works with businesses and would have
a better insight into you know what is reasonable and could verify these these comparisons that we're
hearing tonight. They're in a much better position to make a recommendation and this was not part of
the recommendation that
The city staff brought us in the ordinance itself. So I am quite hesitant to approve it just on you
know the basis of kind of hearsay at this point. Not that I don't trust everybody's you know input tonight
but I it doesn't seem like a solid basis on which to to make a decision. So I'm not sure about supporting
this amendment tonight. Thank you.
Thank you other councilmember comment councilmember Rosenberger Thank you, I Would just like to echo
what councilmember Piedmont Smith said I understand it's just sometimes we have really late amendments
But I do not feel like I know enough to vote Yes on this. So for now, I am a no vote Other councilmember comment
Seeing none, I'll go ahead and take a turn at council member comment. I'm actually I'm also a no vote
on this I think that This kind of
You know in terms of dealing with the parking tickets and the clerk I feel like that's something that
you know as councilmember Flaherty said should be kind of built into other business expenses and then
in terms of some of those other Fees that and and I appreciate the gentleman who spoke with me a couple
a couple weeks ago after the meeting about this and as One of the public commenters said, you know state
regulations require 72 hour notices which means that you know, they might there might be fees, but they
might not accrue until
Multiple hours afterwards and so to be able to give all two companies this like immediate ability to
charge this extra $25 fee I just I'm really opposed to that without any other I mean it it doesn't say
that they need to be itemized to actually meet actual fees that the tow companies are charged for Having
to you know pay money to look up information or
access databases or anything like that. It's just this kind of flat fee. And that, to me, it means that
this $25 could just get dumped on top of every single tow by every single company every time that happens.
And once again, I'm going to bring up what I brought up last week about predatory towing. And I appreciate
that there's some honest tow companies out there. But we also need to remember that there are a whole
lot of predatory tow companies out there. And those predatory tow companies take advantage of
residents, especially our student population, especially our visitor population and especially our population
that Might not be able to very you know carefully and strictly read our city code to figure out all
of these things and to realize that they can complain about inappropriate towing so I am a no vote on
this and I really urge my my colleagues to to not
Approve this additional fee unless there were lots more Lots more places to protect residents in terms
of itemizing and really understanding it and I'll also second the the concern that I think Councilmember
Piedmont Smith mentioned in terms of our staff recommendations and and things Consulting with staff
around this sort of fee issue. So, thank you If there are no other councilmember comments
Seeing none Will the clerk please call the roll on amendment 5 to ordinance 2025 19? Councilmember Ruff
Yes Rallo. Yes Piedmont Smith. No Stossburg. No daily. Yes Zulek. Yes Rosenberger. No, I'm sorry Yes
No Wait a second, I lost count five four zero that was five four Yes passed, right? Okay. All right,
so that amendment passes five to four All right, that brings us back to ordinance 2025 19 as amended I
Are there councilmember questions? On it as amended Is there public comments on it so now this is like
public comment on the entire ordinance As it's been amended by three amendments amendment one amendment
four and amendment five So this you know, this also includes like the original ordinance which does
have some things not that have
Been covered in the amendment. So I see somebody in chambers already signing in Please state your name
for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes Okay, my name is Jacob Padawan. I'm with toe
time towing and recovery. I don't tow for again the police here in this town, I don't other towns, but
I did want to kind of help with that uneven vote that I do believe the $25 administrative fee is a good
thing on that side and
As she was concerned with was slapping that on every single tow these guys Tow cars all the time have
a lot less abandoned cars than paid cars, but at the same time I was hoping to give you guys some numbers.
I can tell you that Indiana lean is a company that a lot of us use at least I do now it's a hundred
and thirty dollars to two hundred and ten dollars on average depending on what state that vehicles registered in
That's what every guy here is paying on every vehicle that we have for 72 hours out of our own pocket
So with that administrative fee being slapped on every single car, it's still barely averaging Enough
money to cover just that cost alone for the amount of abandoned cars that we do get so I just wanted
to kind of Stand up for them and let you guys know that that's what it costs. I used to do it in-house
in-house was $100 a year prescription plus a $5 for every single VIN check and
when it comes down to the car being abandoned and you have to put the ad in a newspaper to let the Vehicle
or let the public know the car is going to be up for auction Costs roughly seven dollars and fifty cents
per car to list it in said auction in the newspaper An auctioneer fee to sell that junk vehicle if it
sells at all or not is $75 per car on average and
Junk certificate if the car is left behind and you use indiana lean to file a junk certificate Which
is how we have to legally get permission from the state? to dispose of a vehicle after it's been abandoned
and not sold at the auction that is again another $60 fee occurred by The tow company themselves just
to get rid of a car that's going to bring us back roughly 180 to 260 dollars from the junkyard so we
end up with a lot of
Lot of costs roughly about $600 invested in every single abandoned car So I hope that helps you put
in perspective because you are right. You don't have to do any of these things Until it's pretty much
72 hours. You have to do it within 72 hours So you are right it doesn't have to be done on day one But
the amount of cars that get picked up on day one that pay that fee is how we can afford To do it on
day three for the cars that are not picked up and I hope that helps and
Thank you. Looks like we have another council another comment in here is anybody raised a hand on zoom
Okay, go ahead and sign in Signed in once they your name for the record and then you're very sure what
side service and towing just about the 72 hour I don't think you guys understand the clarification on
that the 72 hour notice means that the owner lean holder or occupant of the vehicle has to have notice
in their hand within 72 hours not filed within 72 hours and
So generally the same day filing when we get the car in is when we send it out Because you have to send
certified letters and notifications to the property the owner of the vehicle the 72-hour notice Which
is required by the state of Indiana has to be in their hand within 72 hours Not just us filing the paper
Okay, so those fees generally are accrued the very same day the vehicle comes in because a lot of these
vehicles are abandoned or they get towed away from an accident they may be
Who knows in the hospital they may have got arrested they may have this the actual owner of the car
may not know That that car has been impounded. It may be the lien holder. It may be the parent. It may
be whoever and If we don't file that letter within 72 hour within the reason and they receive it We
cannot charge more than 72 hours worth of it So if it's there for 30 days before the lien holder finally
comes to get it if they didn't get my letter I get to charge three days. I don't get to charge 33 days. I
See what I'm saying? They have we have to give legal notification and it has to be in their hand within
72 hours Just to clarify some of that. Thank you Thank you another person in council chambers Go ahead
and state your name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes. Hey, I'm Cameron Myzel
again with Blaine's record service. I wanted to clarify just a couple things Councilmember Silsberg
you had an issue with predatory towing. I think everything we're talking about in title 15 is
directed You know, there's a different standard The police are allowing us to do it because we've met
certain requirements You and that the fee that we were asking for it says just to help cover our cost
It is also in line with what the county allows us to charge as well as IUPD I know you need to seek
further clarification, but just another person to tell you that it is as well $25 for those You know,
I appreciate the opportunity to toe for the city of Bloomington and
And it's been really insightful this year being able to learn kind of the different things with the
city, because we hadn't done it forever. So we're back on there, and it's great to be able to do it.
And I just wanted to just... We try to do everything legitimately. And I hate to get bulked in with
people who don't. And I get really, I don't know, just passionate about it, because...
We do try to do everything by the law by the book. We're transparent about our pricing We try to itemize
everything out with us. I understand your concerns because I've seen both sides And I and I completely
understand the apprehension before I was in towing I thought you know tow companies were a bunch of
You know sleazeballs. I didn't know any better But after the last few weeks, you know, our our services
have been so necessary the amount of hours that me and my guys have put in
It's the things that we don't think about you know, and I understand this is the dirty side of it You
know, it's the it's the money no one wants to pay and I get that completely and I understand that We're
just asking to be able to charge what we're worth on the things that the police are asking us to do
Thank you Thank you. Is there other public comments on Ordinance 2025 19 as amended Any hands ended
up raised on zoom
That brings us back to councilmember comment then on the ordinance as amended So any councilmember comment
councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, I I do think that You know, we need to allow towing companies to charge
what it costs them to do the work Overall I believe
This has been a very frustrating thing for me to review as a council member. This ordinance as well
as the next one are on our agenda because I feel like we received incomplete information from city staff
in order to really put this in context and understand all the details. I'm still confused about the
72 hour thing that the state mandates. I just feel like
We were given a very short memo to go with the changes. Then we were given another very short memo that
went with in the packet for this week. And there were several questions that I had raised even before
the first reading or the first, I'm sorry, before the second reading that were not clarified in a timely manner.
And so I find that this whole process has provided the council with insufficient context and information
to understand the changes and to approve the changes. Now that we have drawn it out to a third reading
and there have been a lot of emails back and forth and our staff and legal staff and other people have
chimed in, I do feel better about it.
I do understand it well enough that I feel like I can vote on it but I would ask the legal department
and the related folks in economic development who Speak with our private companies that have licenses
with the city to please be more careful and inclusive in the future I don't understand why for example
the amendment by councilmember rough
was apparently something that towing companies wanted to see and Apparently had stated earlier, but
somehow it didn't get to staff. I don't know what failure of communication there was there and whether
it was anybody's fault, but I I just encourage staff to remember that we are all generalists up here.
We do not know
You know, we don't have parts of Indiana State code memorized. We do not know how towing companies work
usually We need a lot of contacts in order to understand and make good decisions So I just encourage
them to to provide more of that in the future But that said I thank everybody for coming out and speaking.
I have learned a lot and I will be supporting the ordinance tonight. Thank you Other councilmember comment
councilmember Flaherty
Just very briefly earlier this evening when a report was being given about the process committee an
item that was discussed is the possibility of requiring a council member sponsor for all items of legislation
in the future some other cities do that it's something I'm interested in exploring and one of the potential
and Positives, you know that could come from that is getting somebody's eyes from the council perspective
on legislation before it actually comes here and
we could hopefully address a bunch of these issues. You could have questions about, you know, was X
considered, how was this involved? You know, it's not gonna solve everything, but I think this isn't
the only instance in which we've seen, I guess, legislation coming from the administration, no disrespect
intended, but you know, we've really had to tediously work through things at the council level, which
I think is not a good use of everyone's time. And so, that's just a change. I wanna put a plug for it,
because I think this is an example of one of those times this year when we could have benefited from it.
Councilmember comment Councilmember Rallo. Yeah, just to say I appreciate the public coming in and the
businesses and their Informative comments been very helpful Other councilmember comment I'll go ahead
and take a comment then I'm Honestly a little conflicted right now and it seems crazy to be conflicted
over a $25 fee but I really think that it's a
Like it's this philosophical issue for me that if that kind of like administrative fee would need to
be charged then I think that it should be you know, and honestly one of the public commenters said it
that well, they're gonna charge everybody a small fee instead of just charging a fee for the people
that they actually have to look stuff up for and I think that like I really struggle with that as
concept in this kind of situation and I Really struggle with that as a concept in this kind of situation
because somebody could get towed and then literally come back to their car an hour later Call the tow
company, you know, it's required that the vehicle be available within 60 minutes of tow We've already
said hey, they can charge a $75 out of
Hours fee, you know token car gets towed at 11 p.m. They come back for it at 1145 they go meet the person
at at midnight at the soonest possible time that they could get it back and then
You can get slammed with the tow charge the special fee charge, which we didn't actually ask a question
about this But it's like how do we know if they had to do something special with the you know with how
to tow it and then they can get charged with the out of business hours charge and then they can get
charged with this administrative charge even though they didn't really have to do anything for it and
I think that that's extremely problematic that we're
Dumping those charges on our residents and yeah, I acknowledge that this is for like the police initiated
toes So maybe it's a little bit different But I'm not sure that it actually is and one of the goals,
you know is to try to keep these two codes 15 and for an alignment and I think this is a place that
I really have a problem with putting this language into the next one because of the predatory towing
issue which I don't think happens as much with the police contracts towing because the police have contracts and
You know something about this fee could be written into that contract you that like well, you know and
it also sounds like some of the police initiated contacts Contracts have to do with you know, this this
back and forth and person stuff with the clerk's office which you know takes some labor time, but some
of them don't and They don't require that kind of thing. They don't require anything and then we put
it in there anyway, so I'm extremely conflicted right now and
Even though it seems crazy to be conflicted over a $25 fee because I think that it It could really Add
up will say that it could really add up So if there are any other councilmember comments Count number,
sorry I'll just say and I don't know Maybe I'm just I don't know sleep deprived or something but the
the part the part that
that I'm a little lost on in this is the functioning of this ordinance to begin with, is that we're
not setting fees, we're capping them, and I think that in the cases where no fee is mentioned,
like we're not, that any fee could be placed on things if we're not capping them. So I just, I'm maybe
a little lost, I don't know, but I think that what we're trying to do here is actually cap
I mean, maybe it's not the perfect tool but I mean I from the perspective of what's presented to us
the goal is to Is to cap what can be charged and so I think that that's fairly clear So I'll be voting
yes for us. But again, please correct me if I'm wrong because I seem to be lost Thank you Other councilmember comment
I'll respond to that from my perspective. Yeah, it is capping it, but it's also suggesting it. So it
becomes this like, oh, here's another fee that it's almost like you don't think about the elephant in
the room until you
Until like it's in front of you and so like that's that's kind of why I it's like and and in when I
was looking at state code and that's the other thing actually why I'm kind of concerned about that fee
is that in state code and I was trying to look it up during the proceedings and I couldn't I Couldn't
do both things at the same time and effectively look up because state code is can be a challenge but
my memory is that in state code if they charge fees, they're supposed to itemize their fees and So that's
where it's kind of like well
I feel like if we're gonna kind of enter this into our toe ordinance in terms of being able to recoup
some of those fees, then it should be done differently. That it should be done with more deliberation,
that it should be done with more attention and understanding of what state code says about what fees
they're supposed to charge and then how you're supposed to deal with it in state code. Because this
is one of those, it's like our code and state code, they have to follow
and and you know, so I just I really I I'm really concerned about that piece of it as well in terms
of that so and I'm not sure that'll make a difference tonight because the whole thing is it's Probably
gonna pass at this point Would be my guess but I guess I'm I'm concerned about that and I you know if
it does pass like I guess I'm just gonna be interested in talking with staff and legal about that more
in terms of state code and
Related stuff because I think that this is like a clumsy and far too basic way to introduce something
Like this that may have merit especially for some of those cars that are there for a long time But might
also end up being problematic in ways that you know, our legal department didn't have time to really
look at Other council comment All right. Will the clerk please call the roll on ordinance 2025 19 as
amended and
Councilmember Rallo. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes Stossburg. No Daily. Yes Zulick. Yes Rosenberger. Yes.
I'm sorry. Yes Sorry clarity, yes and rough yes Thank you. That passes eight one on to the next one
I move that appropriation. No Sorry Sorry Forgive me. I move that ordinance 2025 dash 20 be read By
the clerk by title and synopsis only Second, thank you. It's been moved to introduce ordinance 2025
20 all those in favor, please say aye I Opposed. Thank you. Will the clerk please read?
Ordinance 2025-20 to amend Chapter 4.32 of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled Non-Consensual Towing
Business regarding updating towing license requirements and permissible towing and storage fees for
non-consensual towing services under Chapter 4.32. The synopsis is as follows.
Ordinance 2025-20 updates the maximum fees authorized towing services may charge when performing
non-consensual towing and imposes additional requirements for licensing and operation of towing companies
within the city's jurisdiction. Thank you. I move that ordinance 2025-20 be adopted. Second. Thank you.
Who is here from staff to present?
Thank you so much. You could introduce yourself for the record and the floor is yours for sure Andrea
de la Rosa assistant director for small business development Department of economic and sustainable
development This these amendments, I'm sorry ordinance 2025 20 of proposes these amendments to introduce
a background check requirement for licensing adding the name of the towing company unrequired signage
and requiring the towing company to
to display its license in a conspicuous fashion to be consistent with chapter 15.48 of title 15 of the
Bloomington municipal code for removal and empowerment of vehicles and also for Bloomington to remain
competitive with other localities the amendments also increase the fees of the fees a licensed towing
company is allowed to charge for towing special treatment and storage and lastly the amendments require
payment of all storage fees for release of the vehicles
Enable storage fees to begin to accrue after 12 hours at the storage facility Thank you Thank you, and
I also have amendment on this one, but maybe we can do questions about the base ordinance first
Do councilmembers have questions about the ordinance as presented? Right seeing none I'll pass the gavel
then to councilmember Piedmont Smith
All right, do we have any amendments to ordinance 2025 20 Councilmember Stossberg. Thank you. I would
like to Move amendment three to ordinance 2025 20 second All right, amendment three has been moved and
seconded councilmember Stossberg, please Describe what this would do. Thank you. I'm Trying to actually
find it in my there we go. Um
So the first thing it does, well, yeah, so the first thing it does in section one is add a section to
the business license application to require that tow companies tell the ESD department what their business
hours are and then kind of stick to them. And that has to do with that fee at the end that they can
charge $75 for
Fee if a vehicle is picked up outside of business hours, so then this defines business hours per the
license request it also says that Offers a minimum amount of business hours of 40 business hours per
week and then having at least some hours on Saturday and Sunday But as otherwise not defined so, you
know one hour on Saturday and one hour on Sunday at a time of their choosing would count toward that
People could be open several hours on the weekends and closed during a weekday because that's not necessarily
prohibited. And I tried to make that language flexible, but also that you need to have kind of a full
slate of business hours. And my understanding is that most non-consensual toes happen on Friday and
Saturday nights. And so I thought that that's why I put in the requirement of the weekend hours so there's
at least some possibility for people to be able to pick up their vehicles
without a fee on the weekend the other thing that that section one does is Kind of make a slight alteration
to the background check that was originally presented As it was originally presented the background
check had to be clear of formal violations from outside the jurisdiction of the city of Bloomington
and I changed the language to be they need to be free of violations from both inside and outside and
the jurisdiction of the city. I tried to also format this amendment. So if people don't like a certain
section of it, then we can strike a whole section instead of just voting no on the whole thing. Section
two is probably the one that makes the biggest difference. So our current ordinance simply says that
the signage needs to be, let's see if I can find,
actual phrasing, that it needs to be posted in plain view and visible to the public at each entrance
and exit. And I think that that is language that's not very specific. So section two of my amendment
adds more specific language to the sign requirements in terms of sign size and material and legibility
and where they're posted. And so it changes the formatting of that just a wee bit too.
Then the next section switches that as it did in the first one the the storage fees accruing after 12
hours back to the 24 hours And then adds the additional line that business hours have to be defined
in the license application described further up Are there any questions for me Any questions regarding
the amendment that was just described
member of Yeah, I wonder if the sponsor knows or has an idea who Would the with the tow operator the
tow business be responsible for Confirming the size of for example the minimum size of the sign and
if they did do a tow and turned out that that wasn't the minimum size was a med of the signage or and the
victim or the person who was towed Came back after would they come after the property owner or the towing?
company did I Think I would have to go back and read through title four carefully in that section So
maybe staff knows this off the top of their head, but I'm pretty sure that the sign requirements end
up being on the property owner and
not on the tow company. And the tow company, there's another section that I think is not being amended,
so maybe if you didn't go back and read the whole tow ordinance, you might not have seen it, that the
tow company is required to do a written authorization, including certain amounts of information. So
that's a piece that, so a tow company doing a non-consensual tow would be in violation if they did not
Properly do that paperwork and tow authorization stuff and that's on them But I think the signage requirement
is on the property owner. Is that correct? To my knowledge, I'm sorry detail Rosa assistant director
for fault small business development To my knowledge that is correct however it is
The tow company's responsibility to provide all of that information for the signage I believe that it
is the property owners responsibility to have all of those out In full view this just kind of solidifies
that with this language Does that answer your question is helpful, thank you I
Any other questions from council members about the amendment? Okay, seeing none, we will go to the public.
Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on amendment three to ordinance 2025-20?
Just the amendment at this time. There'll be an opportunity for overall
Yes State your name for the record and my name is Jake again with the tow time towing recovery here
in Bloomington. We are one of the non-consensual Towing providers and I guess my biggest concern on
the signage thing is not just for me But other companies that are in this particular part of the business
We've put many strains on business owners
that we service to be out in the middle of the night and any weather to be present when They should
be home sleeping just to make sure their business lot is free and clear of cars when the business opens
again I Want to be clear that the state law says under 9-22-1-16 That states that a vehicle may be removed
without any warning or signage if deemed to be interfering with business safety and security
There's usually typically an amendment to a contract where they give us all these written permissions
beforehand. However, currently we are practicing a separate Consensual toe form for businesses. I had
a few people that wanted me to bring that up My other concern is that it regulates signage in the state
law 12 by 18 inches, which is currently what we have I also have reflective signage
Quarter-inch thick aluminum already out there on a lot of properties that are low-lit if it's a gas
station I don't waste my money. They look like a light bulb but What I would like to make concern of
is that to do the signs the way that you guys want I got a quote today from Van Horn that was For 18
by 24 inch signs the way that you want them with reflective Final it's $80 for just the sign and
Per-sign and that doesn't include hardware that doesn't the bolts. It doesn't include posts That doesn't
include construction glue to glue it to a building or anybody's labor to go change all these out And
if you guys pass a sign ordinance change like that, I have somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 signs that
are already out on properties Maintained every year we make sure that they try to be visible and You
know in good condition like like you guys are asking for But to go change these out for the size difference
That's gonna cost me 160 to 175 thousand dollars to make that change instantly as soon as you pass it
I'm one company out of four licensed companies in this town. I Personally think there's way better ways
to make people Understand the rules regulations and consequences for parking where they are and I have
very good ideas for that I just think it should fall down to educating the people coming into the town
better so that they don't make mistakes and if they choose to still
for the better way to put it, be stupid. You know, everybody does park pretty innocently for 5 to 10
minutes. I mean, I've done it. I think my own kid's done it. Yeah, I think everybody's been guilty of
that. My own tow company towed my own kid. I think it's hilarious, and she paid. So it does happen very
innocently sometimes, and as...
Stasberg said she's been caught in that situation. I know that a couple other council members have and
I'll go ahead and comment later. That is your time. Thank you. I'm sorry. What was your full name again
Jacob? Any other public comment on the amendment Do we have anybody online no, okay, we can come back
to council members for any any
Follow-up questions or comments regarding the amendment councilmember Rallo. Did we hear from staff?
Do they have a comment on this amendment and Specifics miss de la Rosa. Do you want to comment on the
amendment? I Thank you for clarifying those prices on the signage I
I do still believe that there needs to be improvements to the signage, but I think that maybe Having
a lengthy period of time to slowly be able to upgrade Might be a fair compromise Obviously trying to
spend a hundred and twenty thousand dollars by July is pretty ridiculous I would think as a business owner
am very much amenable to an extension of a Year two years something to that effect. I'm willing to go
back to the drawing board on the signage Thank you councilmember Stossberg
I want to clarify that so that is one of the reasons why when I wrote this amendment I tried to put
all of the signage stuff into that section to you by itself So that then that could be struck if we
needed to and then keep the rest However, I do kind of have a question about that that sign quote because
the minimum size requirement that is in the amendment is 12 inches by 18 inches and I feel like what
I heard the public comment or say was that he got a quote for 18 inches by 24 inches and
I modified that to be 12 by 18. And so I modified that because the first draft of this, I needed to
run it through the UDO, and I needed to run it through engineering, and I needed to run it through all
of the people who actually put up signs. And so that was where the UDO, there's a whole signage section
in the UDO. It actually looks like,
complicated in some ways because there's like things that you can just kind of do no matter what and
then there's things that you need maybe permission for and maybe you can do it and maybe you can't and
it's a whole long thing. But anyway, 12 inch by 18 inch signs, you should be able to put those up on
your property without having to get any special permission from the planning department in terms of
your signage. And if I'm remembering correctly, you're not limited.
By number so like in theory, I think you could have like a gazillion 12 by 18 signs and You're still
within code which would could be you know, potentially like hilarious but So yeah, I changed that to
the 18 by to the 12 by 18 for that reason But like I said, I mean I put all the signage stuff into one
section so that we could strike that if we felt like that needed to
More than two weeks and that was something we didn't get to discuss this particular ordinance a couple
weeks ago But I was like, oh something needs to be done with signs But there's no way that I have time
right now to do this and then with this postponement. I thought okay, maybe I can do something with
signs and This is what I ended up with. So All right any other comments from council members about the
amendment Councilmember Zulek
Yes, I would be happy to support this with the strike through of section 2 but I can't support it as
is Second I don't think that was a motion. I moved to strike section 2 of amendment second All right,
so we have a motion on the table to
the amendment by striking section 2 Any comments on that wait is that is a motion to amend an amendment
a debatable I think so Okay councilmember Sossberg thinks it is so Any comments on that motion
So I will just say I would prefer to just change the effective date rather than striking all of section
two. But there's a motion on the table, so I guess we have to vote on that first. Do we have public
comment on that? Pardon me? Public comment. Attorney Lanner, is public comment required on an amendment
to an amendment
It seems to me that it's the same topic, so I don't know that we need public comment again. I don't
think that the VMC addresses that. Okay. I think, well, I'll go ahead. Is there any member of the public
who would like to comment on the amendment to the amendment? So that would be striking section two,
which is about signage.
I do want to make sure you guys understand I am in full support of making things more transparent and
obvious and Your name for the record again take a pattern one again with toe time. I do like the idea
of having reflective signage I don't want anybody be missing these signs So really my only concern was
the size thing And if we are going to add the reflective being required, I still have quite a few signs
that aren't like probably 15% of my signs aren't reflective
noticed she I Don't remember a name behind me said that they were open to like a time frame I think
two years is more than fair and I would say the average life expectancy of the vinyl on these signs
When they're reflective is actually about two years anyways, so they should be maintaining those signs
and replacing them as they dry crack and Whatever, so I think that's more than fair time frame. I hope
that helps Thank you any other comments on the amendment to the amendment
Hands on zoom. No, okay. All right back to council any final comments about the amendment to strike
section 2 of amendment 3 Councilmember Stossberg Yes, I think this is a question for council staff Given
the comment by both of those folks
I mean, I would think that there would be a high chance that we would come back with signage requirements
if this is struck. Is it easy for staff to potentially amend the amendment by changing the date under
section two?
Relatively easy amendment to an amendment to do on the fly or should we just strike it and then like
deal with bringing it back sometime next year Are you suggesting that the date of July? 2026 would be
Changed July 2027 like I mean, I don't know. So maybe it would be way just like quicker and easier just
strike it and then bring it back but I The motion on the table is
to amend the amendment by striking. And so I'm just wondering about the advisability of striking versus
amending the amendment differently. We could amend it by revising the date as well. All right, is there
a date that Miss Della Rose?
Mr. La Rosa if you could please come to the podium Detail Rossa City of Bloomington, I believe that
2028 I'm sorry. I'm doing the math in my head July 20 or July 1st 2029 I think would probably be the best
I'm sorry dicey 2029 2028 would be the best extension of that that gives two years for sign replacement
of just the regular sign replacement that mr. Padawan had Suggested and then whatever else is outstanding
Okay Okay council members, all right
So far as we're discussing time periods, I don't know who best to ask this to so I'll ask it to you
is What's like the natural? Lifespan of a sign because there's a natural time like you don't leave them
up forever right at some point you update them, right? That's actually funny because I do know a little
bit a little bit about Yeah, it is around two to three years. It also depends on the weather conditions
and we have a pretty
rough environment, even with weather resistant signs, it is around two years. And then because I'm not
allowed to ask the public a question at this time, can I ask you to get the general sense from them
if that's roughly true? Because I think there's something, I think if you're thinking about timeline
and we are saying, hey, we want to update this, it makes sense that you sort of put it on a scale while
they update them, update them to the new thing. That makes sense. I think that's reasonable. Yes.
I can't ask you questions, but. Generally, yes. Even the weather resistance signs do need to be replaced,
and their lifespan in a harsh climate like we do have seasonal climate is around a year and a half to
two years. So if we set it at that, if we set it at- Around two years should be ample time. And now
a quick process question. We're considering now the striking of, but then we're having a conversation
about an alternate approach, which is extending the time period, correct?
Yes. But there's no motion on the table at the moment. There's no contrary motion. So we still need
to vote for this motion regardless. And then, OK, so I would just say, I think I would be amenable if
the ultimate goal is to improve signage for residents as a deterrent around predatory towing, et cetera.
I think I would be amenable to the approach of extending the timeline so that we actually are, I mean,
these will be updated anyways, and so we want them to be updated with an improved outlook. I think that
sort of makes a lot of sense. So I would, in that case, hope that we could maybe withdraw the current
motion, and I would move that we do the other thing, but I won't move until we make a decision about
this first one.
Thank you any other comments before we vote on the motion to amend by striking section two Councilmember
Stossberg If we vote on it, I'll go ahead and vote no on it so that then we can hope to amend it instead
So then we don't have to deal with a whole nother ordinance next year changing that Attorney Lainer,
did you have something to add? We can
insert the new dates and share the a proposed amendment on on the screen for tonight's meeting. If you'd
like to vote on that tonight. Thank you. If this motion fails then we might come to that. Thank you.
Right. What is it not possible to just on the current amendment just
Right. We need a new amendment to amend the amendment. Like we can't just amend the amendment.
We need a new, okay. Cool. Yes. Cool. Yes. And you know, there's a statement in the Bloomington municipal
code that any amendment has to be in writing. Um, so. All right. I think we're ready, um, for the clerk
to please call the roll on the amendment to amendments. I'm happy to withdraw the amendment.
The amendment was made that motion was made by councilmember Daley It's up to you I Withdraw my amendment
to the amendment to strike the amendment. I move that amendment. What would number will it be? Do we
have to do we need a number? I move that we amend amendment. Whatever. What number is it three? I move
that we amend amendment three by adding a period of two years and
Is that right or to July 2028 was that the exploit? Yeah, so I move that we amend amendment three to
reflect a implementation date of July 1st, 2028 All right, it's been moved and seconded to amend amendment
three by extending the deadline for the signage adjustment to July 1st, 2028 Any comments I mean questions
or questions
Councilmember Stasburg for clarity. Do we need to cite section 2 as part of that motion or should I
just say it now that that date is in section 2? Yeah, I think you can clarify that and we'll show this
on on the screen in just a moment. Okay, fantastic All right, should we wait until the motion is on
the screen Yes, we do need Amendments in writing
Councilmember Stosper. Oh This is the time that I can comment or just ask a question I'd lost where
we are. We are at comments. I mean not questions. I'm sorry questions I Would like to give staff the
opportunity to display this so everybody knows what we're talking about Since we're not just striking
something we're editing something
All right, if you could make that a little bit larger. Thank you. Oh, that's super large. All right,
so this is in section two. So if you could scroll down a little bit. So what we're doing here is in
part B, we're changing the effective date. Oh, part A and part B.
to be the part A would be before July 1st, 2028, and part B would be on or after July 1st, 2028.
All right. If there are no other council questions, we can go to the public. Is there any public comment
on this amendment to the amendment? Which just extends the time to comply with the new sign requirements.
Don't see any.
Anybody raising a hand online? Okay, we'll come back to council. Any comments before we vote? Council
member Stossberg. I just want to say that my intention with the section was to better and more clearly
define, honestly for the tow companies, but also for enforcement of this, what posted in plain view
and visible to the public means.
So that then it's easier for the tow companies to comply and also easier for residents and city staff
to determine whether there is compliance. So as the public commenter mentioned I mean it's totally possible
that you have a whole lot of signs that already fall under this category that are big enough that have
big enough font that like have all the stuff in them because I didn't actually change the contents.
requirements Except I think that staff added hours of enforcement there, but I'll bet that those are
often up as well so Just to kind of clarify that concept that there are probably a lot of signs out
here out there that do comply with this but once again like it's the predatory towing thing that that
is really troubling to me generally and so I think the clearer we can make things the better for everybody and
Okay, any other comments on this amendment? Clerk Bolden, will you please call the roll on amendment
one to amendment three to ordinance 2025-20? Sure, Councilmember Piedmont-Smith. Yes. Wait, sorry. Stossberg?
Yes, Zulek. Yes, Rosenpacher. Yes. Sorry. Yes clarity. Yes rough. Yes Rallo. Yes. Thank you All right.
So amendment 3 has now been amended with a vote of 9-0 to change the the date to July 1st, 2028 so now
we're back to Amendment 3 as it has now been amended
Are there any final comments from council before we vote on this? All right, seeing none clerk Bolden,
will you please call the roll on amendment three as amended? Happily councilmember Stasberg. Yes Daley.
Yes, Zulek. Yes Rosenberger. Yes Sorry. Yes Flaherty. Yes rough. Yes Rallo. Yes and Piedmont Smith
Yes. All right. Amendment three has been adopted and I'll turn the gavel back over to President Stossburg.
Great. Thank you. So now I'd like to. All right. Councilmember Ruff would like to move Amendment four.
Is there a second for that. Councilmember Ruff. So I mean all these quick quick. Amendment four does
the same thing that
Amendment 5 for 2025-19 did it does this does the same thing for 2025-20 which deals with non-consensual
toes, so it allows that the $25 administrative additional administrative fee My understanding is that
for the exact same reasons the whole purpose of revisiting or the main purpose of revisiting
the overall ordinance was to bring the fees into line with what real costs were to reflect real costs
and the changes that have taken place since the last adjustments were made and that Particularly when
it comes to non-consensual toes In speaking with some of the operators there they
Since this process was begun and discussions first happened between the administration and staff and
Businesses about updating and changing the structure and fees that there have been some state the the
environment the regulatory environment in the auditing environment of the state has significant has
significantly increased administrative burden on
on the towing businesses. And so this adjustment is again something that would have been argued for
a lot more assertively I think by the towing companies a handful of months ago, six months ago compared
to now. They would argue a lot more strongly for it now.
in large part due to an increased administrative burden of the current environment of monitoring and
auditing of the state of all their work that they do do so again in this case, this is not an area where
I I have a tremendous amount of knowledge, so I will assume that we'll hear from the operators businesses
who will explain more about
what these changes have been and why this Administrative fee is important very important to
their profitability and success of their business model Excuse me, are there questions on was that amendment
for Any questions on amendment for it comes member Piedmont Smith
Councilmember rough on your amendment to ordinance 20 25 dice 19 that was parallel to this one you argued
that the $25 administrative fee was reasonable because Of the requirements the city puts on towing companies
to look up and see if The the vehicle owner has any outstanding parking fees or any other fees so that
wouldn't be the case in
Ordinance 2025 20 because these are not police initiated toes so I'm a little confused that you now
have a new argument for the $25 fee, which is the the state Regulatory environment. Can you expound
on that? Yeah, so it's it's not a Different arguments the same argument. Basically. It's that administrative
costs to the businesses aren't captured and reflected
under What's proposed in the ordinance now and that this $25 administrative fee? Will help
offset particularly particularly increases in the demands that have developed But I think particularly
in the recent past as has been explained to me
state record-keeping requirements from pounded vehicles with record logs authorization forms pictures
keeping documents for years The software that's required for some of the license plating and in VIN,
you know recording events and actually Doing what is it takes to get those numbers? and again, I think
I am hoping we'll hear from
more from the the businesses, but Basically, I've heard their arguments in the past handful of days
and Considered them to be valid Justification for putting the $25 administrative fee on in this section
also Okay, so those state administrative burdens were also there for
Title 15. I don't think it's the same. I think there's a different for a non-conceptual private towing
I think there's some differences and we'll maybe hear about that if someone wants to from one of the
businesses wants to talk about that if they're not the same record-keeping requirements and and validations
required Okay, but they have increased That's my understanding. Okay. All right. Thank you other questions
Okay, I have one, and I think that it's for the attorneys, and I don't know which attorney should answer,
because I know there were two different attorneys on these two different ordinances, and I don't know
if both of them are in the room or not, or maybe one is online, I'm not sure. So I referenced earlier
when we were talking about the first amendment from Councilmember Ruff, that there was somewhere in
state code that I had read that talks about itemizing fees, and I've actually managed to find that now.
that Indiana Code 24-14-5-1 requires an itemized invoice of actual towing charges assessed by the towing
company that can be made available to the owner of the motor vehicle. And one of the things that it
titles there is other fees, including documentation fees and motor vehicle search fees, each fee must
include a full description of the services that were provided. So we're calling this
an administrative fee, but is an administrative fee different from a documentation fee? So in terms
of some of those things from public comment and what I heard last week from, or two weeks ago when I
stayed after to talk to somebody, is yeah, some of these fees have increased to do title searches and
things like that, and there's requirements on notification related to title searches and all of that
category of thing, and those fees have increased, but it sounds to me as though if our code is silent on them,
And so this administrative fee might not even include that fee. Like if that could categorize
as a documentation fee, which is maybe different from the administrative fee, then the tow companies
could charge that exact documentation fee already
Whatever the state, you know, whatever the actual fee is whatever it actually costs them to do those
searches on those vehicles and that putting in this cap on this administrative fee does absolutely nothing
to prevent them from also charging that documentation fee on top of it and any other motor vehicle search
fees because that is
What Indiana code says so this is where I'll once again raise the issue that this is a last-minute amendment
that has not gone through legal that has not been fully vetted with the way that state code is laid
out and I think that it is Incredibly rushed. So I think this has to be a question. So will the attorneys
please weigh in on that part of state code and the fees and the invoicing and how this administration
administrative fee would be
cataloged and characterized and whether you know this actually Encompasses the tow companies then not
being able to charge other fees Yes, good evening Alexandria Pratt with city legal so the way
I'm understanding the the argument here I think is
connected with fees and records under 24-14-8 of state code. There is a requirement there under 24-14-8-2
to maintain the invoice described in this section for a period of not less than two years from the date
of issuance.
That section also authorizes during this two year period, a law enforcement agency or the attorney general
to request those records. So my understanding is that the claim is that this fee would cover this storage
and search under this section. But again, this was not brought to our attention until today.
so I I Don't have any further comment to offer So your interpretation would be this administrative fee
would cover the record-keeping requirements but the argument that I've heard from Councilmember rough
just barely actually was that it covers the actual like fees for things being charged and what was mentioned
earlier in public comment
fees being charged for looking up title searches and things like that to verify ownership of the car
and potentially having to mail documents to the owner if the owner doesn't show up on their own within
a certain number of hours.
I don't think that would apply to this this situation because under the invoice requirement that needs
to be listed as a charge the actual charge that was incurred by the town company Okay, so the defense
of this $25 is like councilmember rough What do you have to say then in terms of the defense of this?
$25 fee in terms of what you already said I didn't mean to imply or suggest that I thought that the
Administrative activities and duties and responsibilities were the same under The title 15 type of toes
compared to the non-consensual private toes my understanding is that there's a very different set of
requirements and duties and that state auditing activities and and other types of monitoring and enforcement
have placed a greater
burden that has manifested in the last half a year that wasn't there before. And that the input from
the businesses about the ceiling or the cost and fees and associated costs would be argued differently
now or asserted differently from the businesses than it might have been a handful of months ago.
Due to the administrative burden that has appeared. Increase, the increase in that. Right. I'm not sure
how the administrative burden has increased because the section I just quoted that requires the record
keeping provision has been enforced since 2019. So yes, I understand and appreciate that.
and but I'm Just speaking for I think business owners who may I hope will speak soon that it's there's
not been a change in the actual requirements of rules, but there's been a change in the environment
under which to the extent to which details and Are expected and required and audited Now compared to before so
That's the change in the environment. That's what I tried to say not not changing necessarily in rules
and regulations, but change in the environment And I understand but I have no knowledge of that. So
and I don't really either That's why I'm hoping we'll hear from some of the operators. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks. Thank you I think that that was we're still in councilmember question area. So are there
other councilmember questions about amendment for
All right, seeing none, let's go ahead and go to public comments about Amendment 4 to Ordinance 2025-20.
So if you're a member of the public who would like to comment, you can make your way to the podium or
raise your hand on Zoom using the Reactions tab, sign in, state your full name for the record, and then
you'll have up to three minutes. Hi there, my name is Jacob Padawan, again with Toe Time Towing and Recovery.
As far as administrative fee, I guess justifications between the differences of what you guys are both
thinking about As far as itemized charges for like you said certified letters Notifications going out
You have to do BMV inquiries that cost money to you, but I do agree with you that Every little charge
should be itemized every step of the way the fur from the first BMV search to
Finding out who the lean holders are and let's say there's a lean holder and a wife and a You know guy
that owns the vehicle. That's three letters. You have to send out So in theory you should be charging
somebody that needs three letters for three letters and charging somebody that only needs one letter
one letter You know what I mean? Like I definitely agree with that as far as the administrative $25
fee. I don't necessarily think that covers any of those other fees I think the administrative idea is more
Related to the administrative requirements to follow these ordinances and state laws. We do get Reached
out to by attorney generals. Sometimes we do get reached out by the city. I know the city required all
four towing companies on the Non-consensual towing thing to provide all of our paperwork for the last
two years that took a whole new employee and my current office staff two and a half weeks to print out all
All of those forms and it was like three huge paper boxes used for that paperwork I mean that does a
lot of time and stuff invested too and there's a lot of those things that you don't see you know what
I mean as far as administrative Goes and if you guys got any questions, maybe I'll come up and try to
answer those two. Thank you Thank you, it's our other public comment on amendment for Go ahead and sign
in state your name for the record job up to three months. Yep
Robert Chandler with Chandler automotive and towing to to clarify what he said on the non-consensual
towing the records that they set when This ordinance was set in place in 2019 Those records are additional
to what state records are so they're civic. So when we are audited like we just were there's a specific
log written off pictures on file every all those items and
are separate from what we would have in our QuickBooks or what we'd have in our other tow categories.
On top of that, we still have to do the state fees. Those are still associated with it. But on these,
the biggest issue is the ordinance has brought separate guidelines, separate paperwork, separate logs
that we have to keep separate. And especially since this recent audit that we had, we are doing those
different now for that reason.
Thank you. Thank you. Is there other public comment on this amendment? Is there any hand raised on zoom?
All right, see no nobody move in chambers. We're back to council members. Is there comments on amendment
for council member Piedmont Smith? Well, I'm just going to say the same thing I said for
for of the previous ordinance and that I Don't feel comfortable Making this decision about administrative
fees on the on the fly and just based on What the the businesses have told one councilmember so I'm
going to be voting no on this amendment. Thank you Thank you, are there other councilmember comments I
I'm also gonna make a comment. I'm also gonna vote no on this. I think that it's preemptive to put this
administrative fee on here without vetting it better and I also Feel to some degree as we've gone through
this that it was some measure of Insider sort of communication that this got up here at all as opposed
to kind of going through
Larger vetting process with legal and ESD. So I'll also be voting no on this Any last comments Okay,
will the clerk please call the roll on amendment for to ordinance 2025 20 Yes Yes Yes Yes clarity
No rough. Yes, Rallo. Yes Piedmont Smith. No Stasberg no So that passes six to three So now we are back
to ordinance 2025 20 as amended There were no original councilmember comments
About it or a council member questions about the ordinance as a whole in terms of the original presentation
of it Has anybody come up with any comments or a question since then? Questions we're on question because
we have to do public comment you um, and I actually do have one if nobody else has one and I Am wondering
in the I have to find it now. I'm sorry. Um, I
towing fees section 432 130 where it Changes the fees for special treatment Who gets like how do you
decide or get to decide whether a vehicle needs that special treatment or not? and who gets to decide
that so and like especially in the non-consensual piece when the the
Vehicle owner isn't actually there Like how does the vehicle owner even like know that that special
treatment was used and how do they know if that special treatment was necessary? Can anybody answer
that for me that's from staff Like I feel like this is one of these answers that like staff should have
asked tow companies so that's why I'm hoping that staff knows the answer this and
Alexandrina Pratt would see illegal. I think there'll be something the towing companies would be able
to address better. I understand. It's technical So I'll just leave them to explain Okay, how that works?
All right Other questions or Let's go ahead and go to public comment then so this would be general public
comment on the whole ordinance 2025 20 as was amended
I was gonna clarify on the hang on. Let's let's wait until our staff is ready for the timer,
please Okay, so go ahead and state your name again for the record Robert Chandler channel I've been
telling to clarify on like the special equipment Actually, it gets undercharged Believe it or not most
the time when you tow a car with no keep in mind. There's no keys to these vehicles most the cars nowadays are
Most of time they're pulled into a parking spot. So the front wheel drift front drive wheels Have to
have what we call dollies or the car has to be spun around on gojacks to access the front a lot of times
there could be a curb interference to where a third set of special equipment that we have to use to
slide it from the curb has to be used and then most these cars are all will drive and
Some of them have electronic emergency brakes, that's been a new thing. Nine times out of 10, I mean,
it's almost 9.9 times out of 10 that the special equipment is to be used. It's very rare to regular
base tow a car unless the keys are accessible. I mean, it's even that nowadays, it's changed dramatically.
Thank you. Thank you. Are there other public comment? Has anybody raised hand on Zoom about this?
Go ahead and continue hearing chambers. State your name for the record. You'll have up to three minutes.
Jacob Patamon with Tow Time Towing again. I'm just going to second exactly what he has. My data shows
the same thing. About nine cars out of 10 do have to have special equipment. And yes, we multiple times
have to use two different forms of special equipment, whether that's dollies and go-jacks or sometimes
it's skates. All different damage-free towing equipment that we have to use.
Really needs to be kept in your guys consideration is this isn't where somebody's broke down at a Walmart
and they're calling for the consensual to with keys. Like you said, this is somebody that's illegally
parked in a vaults parking lot parking garage with a beam on one side and eight inches to the car on
the other and a lot of times believe it or not alleyways Behind the bluebird. We have four lots behind
the bluebird Very very tight. We can only fit out of two of those alleys
I have to stop a whole nother driver from doing what they're doing to come help safely handle a car
on Go Jackson dollies to an alley so the truck can get to it and pull it out the only alley it fits
out with dollies. You know what I mean? So there's actually some cars that the cap actually hurts us
dramatically because drivers have to split those fees, they're paid on commission, they're pretty much
trying extra hard to do something that's not going to pay them and you gotta take the good with the
bad, we do it anyway.
I do want to say that there's also, I towed a Lamborghini Urus twice this year. That's a $450,000 car
with a carbon fiber body kit that was on it. I think that, like I said, you don't get to pick and choose
what you're towing. It could be a dilapidated boat that fell off a trailer and somebody left it in a
parking lot. It could be a car where they robbed the wheels, tires, suspension, hood, motor, transmission,
half the interior, and left the crustacean sitting in a parking lot at Bard Villa. You know, I have probably,
Somewhere north of 130 examples of things that aren't even cars that we've had to remove from a property
from spools of wiring to underground whatever that a bunch of crap is on a Spool that Duke Energy has
and you know, they just leave stuff everywhere in this town there we they parked full bulldozers on
people's properties and I've been asked to pull a bulldozer or a Camper semi trucks. I just got called
to the mall to do a
Semi and trailer completely separate from each other which I can't do but We have to tell a lot more
than college kids is what I'm getting at and there's a lot There's a lot to it. So the special equipment
fees are very important to have and maybe look into Allowing that charge possibly for both of them is
one thing I was thinking about when it was $25 I don't know because I didn't read it, but I think it's
getting bumped up to is it 50 and
on the new ordinance? Yeah, so that's much more in line and fair, I think, too. So I hope that comment
helps. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other members of the public who wish to comment on this? Has
anybody raised a hand on Zoom? Okay, great. Seeing nobody, I think that we're back to council for either,
actually there were no really questions before, so let's go ahead and go to council member comment on
ordinance 2025-20 as amended. Council member, sorry.
Just thank you all for being here for this long. Thank you for this long twice. And thank you for your
contributions. I trust the fact and I should have probably asked just to confirm this.
Asked separately, you know the these rate changes aren't arbitrary I'm very appreciative of the of the
city's work and I'm gonna set establishing them Thank you all for your partnerships and and in this
work and I know that you know Your margins aren't great and you're doing something that sort of helps
the city keep going Thank you for the businesses that you run and thank you for just being here I'm
sorry that we're keeping you so long, but I'll be voting. Yes on this Thank you other councilmember comment
Yeah, I heard the marks my colleague there thanks for bearing with us through a somewhat tedious process
what I heard mr. Chandler's remarks are a Strong case for back in angled parking to save everyone money
in the event you get towed Thank you, we'll just we'll just slide in whatever we want right now and
council come in are there other councilmember comments Councilmember rough Yeah, I just want to thank Mike
my colleagues for you know understanding, you know, sometimes things Do come up late and are worked
through as well as a council member who might be sponsoring something can and I want to thank staff
You know for for also on short notice really helping work up what I thought was fair in terms of improving
the legislation so and
We thank the input of the the community of the community who deals most closely with with this activity.
So thanks to everyone Thank you other councilmember comment That's my rosemary hi, I want to say also
thanks for being here and then I just wanted to say in general Sometimes I don't talk that much because
there's so much other talking that I opt out So I just want to put that out there. I am paying attention.
Thank you. I
Thank you other councilmember comment All right, I'm gonna be really short and say I My question about
that special treatment wasn't because I was quibbling with the concept of Needing special treatment.
I just wanted to understand exactly what that meant. So I appreciated understanding the Damage free
aspect in terms of you know, how you have to get vehicles out and
I also appreciate the city attorney's Contributions in terms of understanding that administrative fee
and what is supposed to cover a little bit and so that Clarifies things for me Better for this ordinance.
I had to think about it for a little while which is why I voted no earlier But I will go ahead and support
this as even with that $25 administrative fee kind of I'm still not sure that I
love it. And that's where it's just like I can see like, okay, maybe an administrative fee is reasonable
based on the title of Indiana code that the attorney read in terms of that
record storage, but that requirement has been there for a while, so shouldn't that be factored in somewhere
else? And so that's the part that I'm like, I feel like that should be factored in somewhere else in
terms of the cost of doing business. And also 25 seems sort of arbitrary to me still. So I'm still not
a huge fan of that. But if anything, we can always amend this title again.
It proves that that $25 is not a good number. So I'll be supporting this as it stands currently Any
last councilmember comment Great, then will the clerk please call the roll on ordinance 2025 20 as amended?
Councilmember Zoellick. Yes Rosenberger. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes clarity. Yes rough. Yes
Rallo. Yes, you month Smith. Yes Stasberg. Yes daily. Yes Thank you. Thank you. So that passes nine
zero Onto the next and I do want to note that this is the resolution that got added on the agenda yesterday
I Move that resolution 2025 dash 21 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second
Moved and seconded introduced resolution 2025 21 all those paper, please say aye. Aye opposed.
Thank you. Will the clerk please read Resolution 2025 21 resolution acknowledging receipt of the collective
bargaining agreement between the city of Bloomington and
and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees for calendar years 2026, 2027,
and 2028, and pledging fiscal support. The synopsis is as follows. This resolution presents the collective
bargaining agreement negotiated between the Executive Branch of the City of Bloomington and the local
2487 American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
also known as AFL CIO asked me Council 962 to the common council of the city of Bloomington Monroe County
Indiana for their review rather than approval and to inform them in detail of the fiscal implications
of the CBA. By passage of this resolution the council acknowledges receipt of the CBA its opportunity
to make inquiry and expresses its support to fund the same. Thank you. I move that resolution 2025 dash
21 be adopted second.
Thank you. It looks like we have deputy Marinette waiting to present if you could state your name for
the record and on the floor shores Gretchen app deputy mayor. I'm very happy to present to you our AFSCME
contract negotiation I won't reiterate everything that's in the memo in the interest of time since we
have folks who are still waiting but I will say that we had a very productive bargaining session all
year and I'd like to thank our partners in AFSCME and all the department heads who
Did a great job of gathering input from 200 AFSCME employees across three different divisions to inform
our agreement Just to give everyone a sense of the timeline we began at the beginning of the year We
conducted a salary study together some market information and compared to the current salary rates We
began our negotiation meetings with AFSCME in July and held about 10 meetings with them to go over the
contract line by line It's a very long contract
It was approved by union members by a vote of 82 to 7 on December 2nd The cost of implementing this
contract was fully covered in the budget that we've already presented and that you've already approved
and passed for 2026 so no further appropriation will be required We will bring an amended salary ordinance
in January that will include the new pay schedules for the different roles
The significant points of this particular contract it includes a five flat five percent increase in
That you had already proved across all positions for 2026 3% cost of living for 2027 and 2028 we did
a significant amount of work on the pay grades and tenure steps for apps me they had many many pay grades
23 if you compare to the entire civil city has 14 and that covers in the civil city that covers roles
from an entry-level position all the way up to the controller and
people supervising millions of dollars and hundreds of people the apps me positions do not
include supervisory or financial responsibilities and so we we wanted to Make sure that we weren't spreading
too thin across too many grades. We also improved their tenure steps. That is the most significant impact of
Most asked me members of this is that instead of it taking in the example I gave in a particular role
It would have taken 25 years to get essentially a $4 an hour raise
We have shortened that schedule so that they now reach the midpoint of their salary after five years
and for most AFSCME employees that means they will not only receive the percentage increase we discussed
but they will also By the end of the three-year contract have moved up one or two steps in tenure, which
is a significant increase
kind of hidden pay raise the only employees who don't benefit from that are the people who are already
at the max of the tenure scale who've been working for the city for 35 years and that's only about six
people we also increased on-call pay a few certifications some shift premiums and for convenience for
administration and ease for employees change some funding that we would give employees to reimburse
them for equipment costs to
Siphoned we don't need to it's a lot of paperwork to administer. They know what equipment to buy We
can just give them the money and they will more efficiently purchase their own gear for that I'm happy
to answer any questions that you have about the process or about the changes that have been made Great.
Thank you so much. Are there any questions from council members about this? I
I have one question actually because the resolution one of the things that spells out is that the council
is aware of the fiscal implications and so basically you say there aren't any fiscal implications next
year because it's already like built in but I just want to want to clarify that step because the tenure
steps like because like the 5% was built in but is the tenure step like that piece also like built in
somewhere already? Well the tenure step it is it is
We don't have to allocate any additional money for tenure changes that will happen in 2026 when we create
our 2027 and 28 budgets and then we'll Have to allocate, you know Salaries accordingly wages accordingly
to cover those but for 2026 budget year like we're all set. They're all set. Great. Thank you any other
questions Great, let's go ahead to Public comment then if any member of the public would like to comment
on Oh Council members, sorry
Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Knapp. Just a question about whether or not there are within the
contract, within the CBA rather, are there agreed upon staffing levels with different branches or with
different entities within AFSCME? I don't believe so. I mean, the salary ordinance that we'll bring
to you I think spells out
Pretty sure correct me if I'm wrong on this someone who knows better How many roles are at each title
is that correct? Yes, but then does the city commit? Good evening council Jessica McClellan city controller
the AFSCME contract doesn't have a number of positions, but the salary ordinance does I
And the salary ordinance will come to you in January and every position will be divided out into what
department is in and how many positions the city's currently has in that Think how many employees the
city has in that position, but we're not committing within the within the CBA We're not making a firm
agreement for example that we will staff with some or say anything like that Just saying on a year-to-year
basis that foot absolutely correct, and that's a good point. Thank you so much Thank you. Any other
last questions?
I want to jump preemptively to public comment again. All right, so now we can move to public comment
I think on resolution 2025-21. If there are members of the public who would like to comment on this
resolution, you can make your way to the podium if you're in chambers or raise your hand using the reactions
tab on Zoom. I don't see anybody moving in chambers. Has anybody raised a hand? Okay, I think that brings
us back to council then. Any council members have any final comments?
Councilmember Piedmont Smith Just thank you to the negotiating team and asked me leadership and I'm
glad we came to a good resolution Other councilmember comments I'll just quickly second that and also
say that I really appreciate the tenure step apart and really appreciate that idea that you know, you
don't have to work for 20 years in order to get a
$4 that it takes a little less time. I think that that is a little bit more rewarding and Could then
potentially retain talent better and I think that that's really important because it costs a whole lot
to train people so Council member sorry, I just want to give kudos to the administration particularly
dr paycheck and our Well
departing controller. But to all of you, I think this is worth noting that this is the third contract
negotiation, right? I mean, we did police, fire, and now the AFSCME in the space of essentially a year.
at least the reports that we're getting are that, you know, they were very positive, that everybody's
very happy. We had a unanimous support of the police union, et cetera. And I think that that's a really
good indicator, right, of something that we've set out to do as a city, which would be, you know, what's
the word that you use, top-tier
Of choice employer you say it better, but you know an employer of choice And and I just really want
to commend the the administration for handling it I think so smoothly also to counsel Margie Rice just
thank you very much for for doing this so well And and appreciate this resolution. Thank you Thank you
any other council member comment Fantastic will the clerk please call the roll on resolution 2025 21
Councilmember Rosenberger. Yes. Sorry. Yes clarity. Yes Rough. Yes, Rollo. Yes, Piedmont Smith.
Yes Stasberg. Yes, Daly. Yes, Zulek. Yes. Thank you Thank you that passes unanimously 9-0 on to the
next I Move that ordinance 2025 dash 47 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only
All those in favor, please say aye aye opposed. Thank you. Will the clerk please read Ordinance Ordinance
2025-47 to amend title 8 of the Bloomington Municipal Code entitled historic preservation and protection
to establish a historic district regarding the Ivan Adams House historic district Bloomington Historic
Preservation Commission petitioner
The synopsis is as follows. This ordinance amends chapter 8.20 of the Bloomington Municipal Code inside
a list of designated historic and conservation districts in order to designate the Ivan Adams House,
parcel number 013-065800-00, Lades Lot 28, located at 115 East 12th Street, City of Bloomington, Monroe
County, Indiana, as a historic district.
Built in the mid 1920s, the Ivan Adams House is a craftsman California bungalow that retains a high
degree of architectural integrity. The house is associated with Ivan Adams, one of the most prominent
local stone carvers whose work can be found in significant and recognizable sites around Bloomington
and the United States. Thank you. I move that ordinance 2025-47 be adopted. Second. All right. Who is
here to present ordinance 2025-47 for us?
Come on up state your name for the record and then the floor is yours Thanks, Noah Sandweiss historic
preservation program manager for the city of Bloomington Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development
The property at 115 East 12th Street qualifies for local designation under the following highlighted
criteria and
found in ordinance 9520 of the municipal code for historic significance 1A, having significant character,
interest, or value as part of the heritage, development, or cultural characteristics of the city, state,
or nation, or is associated with a person who played a significant role in state, local, or national
history. The petitioner in this case is the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission, and the property
in question is located at 115 East 12th Street,
which will be referred to from here on out as the Ivan Adams House. 115 East 12th Street is a gable
front, one story California bungalow that retains most of its original features, but has been resided
with wide asbestos board. The house was first owned between 1927 and 1945 by Ivan Adams and his wife
Gladys. Ivan ranked among the most prominent local stone carvers
whose work includes the Bloomington Courthouse World War II Memorial, the IU Seal at Foster Quad Dorm,
contributions to the columns and frieze of the Fine Arts Palace for Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition
in 1933, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., the 21-foot statue of
Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital at Indian Hill in Camden, New Jersey, and various other statues, the Virgin
Mary and Catholic Saints,
for institutions around this country. A monumental statue of his marks the grave of Gladys and himself
in Rose Hill Cemetery. Adams' Herald Times obituary in 1968 describes him as one of Monroe County's
most famous stone carvers. And in 1977, local carver Ronald Wampler described him as, one of the greatest
stone carvers in the area I've ever known. After Adams moved out, the house was rented for the next
30 years to a number of tenants.
most of whom did not stay longer than several years. One of the most prominent occupants was Robert
Quirk, a professor of Mexican history and an editor of the American Historical Review. He was a recipient
of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award for debut books by historians and lived at the address from 1955
through 1956. In 1977, this house was the first Bloomington residence of James and Susan Butler, founders
of the Butler Winery.
From 1987 through 1991, Thelma is the residence of opera student Judith Barnes and visiting lecturer
in Spanish, Anthony Kerrigan. Kerrigan won the National Book Award in 1975 for his translation of Miguel
de Unamuno's The Agony of Christianity and a senior fellowship in literature from the National Endowment
for the Arts for a lifelong contribution to American letters in 1988.
He was the first to translate the Spanish writings of Jorge Luis Borges into English and taught at both
IU and Notre Dame while living at 115 East 12th Street. Judas Barnes is the founder of the Vertical
Player Repertory Opera Company in New York. For a property to be eligible for listing under this criterion,
several conditions must be met. Firstly, in most cases, the person associated with this property must
have made their significant accomplishments
at least 50 years ago. And secondly, the property must be associated with this period in their life
or career. Anthony Kerrigan has been widely acknowledged for his contributions to Spanish literature.
However, there are other properties associated with his career from more than 50 years ago. So it would
be difficult to make the case for designating the house in which he lived from 1987 through 1991. Susan
and James Butler established one of the early Southern Indiana wineries, as well as the Indiana Wine
Grape Council.
They left this house in 1982 when they established their own winery and their contribution to local
history is more closely associated with the Butler Winery property. Stone carver Ivan Adams lived at
this property for a good part of his productive career while he participated in carving of public and
religious monuments, both locally and nationwide. He's locally recognized as one of the most prominent
carvers in Southern Indiana limestone history.
particularly as the number of sculpture carvers dwindled post-war. He moved in 1946 to 2921 South Rogers
during the latter part of his career where he built a house and workshop, neither of which is still
standing. The exterior of the building at 115 East 12th Street has been fairly unaltered from its original
appearance and is an excellent example of a 1920s California bungalow. I'm just going through some examples
of some of his work both
Locally and nationwide Thank you Is that the conclusion of your presentation that is okay. Thank you.
Mr. Sam Weiss I'm giving the gavel back to President Stossburg. Great. Thank you so much Are
there councilmember comment or questions for mr. Sandweist? Councilmember Piedmont Smith I
In my experience, I find this an unusual request in two ways. And I want to ask you if there have been
other precedents that I'm just not thinking about. For one thing, there's only one criteria that's met.
And for another, it's a single house that's neither notable nor outstanding. Do you know whether there's
been precedent for one or both of those qualities in getting historic designation?
So the contributing category, our rating for a historic property means that it's not identifiably eligible
along architectural criteria for listing. You know, the category that's selected here in Bloomington
Municipal Code 1A most closely corresponds with
the National Register of Historic Places criterion B for association with significant individuals. There
are lots of examples of sites that are associated with significant individuals that may not have a high
degree of either architectural integrity, which this does, or outstanding architectural significance,
but are nonetheless significant because of their association with individuals who have made
a significant impact in state local or national history or are associated with events or broad patterns
of history that may not be apparent from their immediate exterior appearance. But I mean, I know you
haven't been with the city all that long, but do you know whether there have been other cases where
we've approved a single building that is only contributing? Yes.
Yes, there have. There have been. Can you think of any examples you could share with us? No. Well, what
was that? Right, there's one nearby, 700 North Walnut. Shoot. Another one that comes to mind, actually,
my parents' house, 1033 South Ballantine, was nominated for, in part, architectural significance. I
believe the nomination also included reference to
its significance for urban planning in post-war Bloomington suburbs. And that was just a contributing
structure. Right, that was a contributing structure. There have been some other contributing structures
that have been nominated and since reevaluated as notable. A couple examples that come to mind. There's
a property, I believe, is it First National Bank? No, not First National Bank.
The bank building on Kirkwood that was designated and I believe 2023 that had been listed as a contributing
building initially when that was Passed as a local single building historic district I believe the ordinance
amended it to be a notable property that one was listed for its architectural significance primarily actually
Thank you. Are there other councilmember questions? I have one then So when we had the Historic Preservation
Commission here and we learned about like the process and and that kind of thing How does that translate
to one property where it's?
So the way it's been explained to me, it's like there's a committee that decides on the rules, essentially.
And then everybody has to follow them. But it's just like one person and one property and a single owner.
It's not a public structure in any way. It's like, how does that translate in terms of who gets to make
the rules and who ensures the rules are followed?
You know, one of the things that I've heard as well, the person who might live in a historic district
and not realize it, and then they make a renovation, and then a neighbor says, oh, hey, you needed to
go. You know, it's kind of like reporting others. But in this case, like, who's going to enforce this?
I mean, how does this work? So there are dozens of, I believe, dozens of individually listed
Buildings as historic districts in Bloomington There really isn't a line drawn in city code as to what
you call a district Whether it's you know a single building or multiple buildings When it comes
to Notification of property owners, you know, there's several points at which that happens Of course,
it happens during the nomination process at a couple of points when the property is up for a vote with
Historic Preservation Commission to forward to City Council and then again ahead of the City Council
vote to pass the ordinance also Annually notifications are sent out to property owners or owners of
properties within hysteric districts in the city of Bloomington so that would also include owners of
single property districts or owners of properties within single property districts I guess to answer
the second part of your question
when Alterations to single property districts are being reviewed I always defer to the Secretary of
Interior standards for the treatment of historic properties And that's sort of the nationally recognized
set of standards That's used For say for instance federally funded projects or projects on federal buildings For
best practices in the treatment of historic properties so that has a recognized set of standards and
you know, we have a commission as well that staffed with people who have a background and expertise
in the areas of architecture and history and historic preservation, so You know whether it's a district
that has its own set of guidelines written by residents or the city or whether it's an individually
listed building
There will be criteria laid out in the packet to sort of show the work For how a determination is made
Okay, thank you other questions All right seeing none we'll go ahead and go to public comments on this
if there's a member of the public who would like to speak to
Lost my ordinance number again ordinance 2025 47. I see somebody making their way to the podium already
Go ahead and sign in state your name for the record and you'll have up to three minutes If you are online,
you can go ahead and raise your hand using the reactions tab or send a chat message to the host And
let's go ahead and start here in chambers. Thank you. Hi, my name is John Butler I'm the owner of this
property and
I 100% support the designation of this property as a historic district Ivan Adams was an exceptional
carver and Preserving his memory is important to the cultural heritage of this city And it's a modest
home It's a thousand square feet. It's a very sort of unobtrusive structure and I think that's
Partly why it's so important that we save it because a great person lived in this small house and that
we shouldn't necessarily measure the greatness of our citizens necessarily just by the houses that they
live in and so, you know this is
One small building but it helps tell the story of Bloomington in Bloomington's history the stone industry
Was one of the major industries in Bloomington and for over about a hundred years It was probably really
the driving force of the local economy and in the stone industry a very small percentage of the people
who work there were actually carvers there were cutters people who made dimensional stone and
But there were very few carvers people who made statues and finery and Ivan Adams was one of the best
to ever do that And so if we can hold this house up As an example of where you know a modest place that
a great person can come from I think Bloomington will benefit so thank you for your time Thank you for
your consideration and please vote. Yes, and let us continue this legacy of
And educate future generations Thank you, are there other other public commenters go ahead and come
on up Sign in and state your name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes Hi, my name
is Sam de Saller and I'm currently serving on the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission
Here to voice my support of the Ivan Adams house become a new historic district is proposed by HPC and
Also supported by the new owners. Mr. Butler I don't have much additional to say as Noah's presentation
and mr. Butler statement has covered most salient points, but Not as a commissioner, but as an architect
in a long time resident of Bloomington I note that the process of this proposed district is
Imparted direct response to our by neighborhood raised residents to counteract development pressure
a number of houses in the neighborhood This neighborhood alone including 7-eleven East Cottage Grove
Shown earlier this evening in the presentation by director Hiddle of the Bloomington Planning
and Transportation Department Over the last several months been either slated for demolition or already
demolished. We see a lot of these in front of the Commission
As Director Hittle already noted, what's replacing 7-Eleven Eaves Cottage Grove, though more dense and
more lucrative for developers, is incompatible with the neighborhood. It removes an entry-level housing
from the market and perhaps more importantly, replaces the fabric that makes Bloomington Bloomington.
And I think this house is a stellar example of that in its simplicity and its form. It also removes
entry-level housing from the market and perhaps
Until there's some meaningful form of design review for new developments more properties like 7-eleven
East cottage will be built not more or some more single-family homes will be bought by developers and
taken off the market I support ad use of rental caps smaller lots and houses infill aggressive design
review for new housing and buildings in Bloomington and also obviously historic preservation and
I have time I think I do I'd like to make another plea to both you all and to the mayor's office To
fill the vacancies on our commission and Confirm those members still willing to serve HPC was made aware
last week that one of our voting members will have a conflict starting in January and won't be able
to help us maintain quorum and we won't have enough members to legally meet if Current members are not
confirmed and barely enough to make quorum if so and vacancies are
are not filled. We have a couple that have been empty for over six months. Please do what you can. And
thank you. I hope you approve this petition. Thank you. Are there other members of the public who wish
to make a comment? I see a couple of people starting to move. Are there any hands raised on Zoom? OK,
let's go ahead and continue here in chambers. When you get over there, please sign in, state your name
for the record. You have up to three minutes.
Hi, my name is Amy Butler. I'm a new owner of this house as well with my husband. I wasn't going to
speak because I tend to get emotional about this subject. This house was going to get torn down in August,
beginning of August. We saw a demolition sign on it. I own the house next door to it. Actually, a friend
of mine, he died last year and left me that house. And I was devastated to see this little yellow house
have a demolition sign in front of it.
But I wanted you to know that I am very hopeful that you will let us, if you vote for this, I mean,
no matter what, we're still gonna take care of this house as best we can and make Bloomington proud,
but I would really like you to give us the opportunity to help Bloomington's cultural heritage and,
you know, designate this. You know, the man did amazing work and stuff all the way from California to New York.
You know, the square in Bloomington, the beautiful kissing couple on the building at Atwater and Third.
I really would like you to go look at that sculpture. In relief, it's like two to three inches of limestone
that he carved the kissing couple in. It's amazing. And you should see the size of the limestone blocks
on the back of the house. They are huge for this teeny little house. But anyway, I wanted to thank the builder
that gave us the opportunity to buy this house from them once they realized it was going to be culturally
designated. They gave us the opportunity to buy it, and I really appreciate that. And I want to thank
my friend John, who left me the means to be able to purchase the house from them so that we know that
it's going to be taken care of well. And I want to thank our neighbors, especially James Ford, for his
support in this project, trying to save this little house. But my husband grew up in this house,
Amazing Carver lived in this house and I think it's something that's worth saving and you know marking
is culturally significant for the town But anyway, I thank you for your opportunity to do this Thank
you Other public comment go ahead and come on up You want to go ahead and sign in and state your name
for the record you have up to three minutes I have to sign in
My name is Karen Duffy, and I sit on the Historic Preservation Commission as an advisor appointed by
you. Thank you very much for that. And I just want to really underscore what Dr. Butler said about the
cultural heritage importance of this. We're all quick, I think, to point out the importance of the limestone
industry. We understand that it was
foundational, that's an unintended pun, but to the economic growth and development of our community.
But we've been very slow as a community to recognize any individual workers. And here, I think when
this house came up before the Historic Preservation Commission, we recognized that we had an opportunity
here, a rare opportunity to
do just this to Bring attention to an individual worker as dr. Butler said again carvers are at the
top of the Scale I guess you'd say the hierarchy of workers the most highly skilled within the limestone
industry and this was not just any carver he was a carver's carver recognized by other carvers and so
and his work is appreciated across the country as well as in Bloomington. So now this opportunity is
before you and I urge you to support it as we did and correct this lack. Thank you. Thank you.
Looks like we have somebody else moving in chambers, getting ready. Has anybody raised a hand on Zoom?
Okay, let's go ahead and continue here in chambers. Thank you for signing in. State your name for the
record, and then you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, my name is Daniel Schlegel. I'm also on the HPC,
but I'm also director of the History Center here in town. And I just wanted to say, if you just take
a moment and think about the last time you were in a museum, and then narrow that to a history museum,
and then narrow that
to how much you read there. I'll admit, I don't read everything at a museum, and I work at one. But
my point is, being able to go and see a house like this, although most people, I'm guessing, aren't
gonna go inside, but being able to see the size and scope of that and realize what someone was able
to accomplish after living there, makes an impact. No one's gonna stop by there and read a plaque. That's
not exciting.
you can't conceptualize something like that. If anyone's traveled to Europe and you've seen some of
the buildings they have that are literally out of the pages and illustrations of what the Middle Ages
look like, those buildings are still standing. When you get to go inside those and look around and you
can start to visualize and understand who lived there, what they did, it makes a much larger impact.
And this might be a single building, yes,
But for what we have at the History Center, we have very little about workers. We don't have much on
the carvers. But something like this is something the city of Bloomington and Monroe County can be proud
of because of what he's accomplished. After learning about all the great research Noah's done, I've
tried to go out and see what's local. I haven't been able to go to DC and show us what Noah's told us
about. But being able to go there and see that, I have a much greater appreciation for all of that.
So it's just something to consider. Obviously, I'm gonna urge you to vote yes for very good reason.
But at the History Center, we have a research library. And when people see and read about something
like this and this stone carver that lived at this house, they've gotten curious about their own, whether
they're a longtime or newer resident. We had a whole house, I think it was four young ladies from IU
that were sophomores, juniors, that came in just to research their house because they wanted to know
more about it.
No one is famous as this, but the fact they were curious enough that they came in to see it was fantastic.
And I encourage more people to do that, because you might be surprised at what you learn. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any other public comments on this ordinance? Hands on Zoom? Great. All right, let's
come back to council then. First, any lingering questions that popped up because of public comment?
Councilmember Piedmont Smith Sorry, it took me a minute I knew I had one in here Is this house in a
neighborhood that could become a larger historic district Yes Yes, this property is located in an area
that was surveyed by the state of Indiana as being potentially eligible for a larger district and
Called the cottage Grove neighborhood and that's currently being explored right it is Okay Is there
any reason to Why why don't we just wait and since there's no imminent demolition Why don't we just
wait until we can approve the bigger neighborhood? You could I mean what I would say is this building
is being nominated on its own merit it was nominated by the Historic Preservation Commission
prior to any inkling that there would be an effort to nominate the larger neighborhood and You know
also we don't know what the end result of that process will be Could be lots of outcomes so I would
urge the council to judge this property on its own merit Okay. Thank you Thank you. Any other questions?
Right seeing none, let's go ahead and go to a council member comment. I
Do any council members want to comment on this ordinance? Councilmember Rallo Well, I'm very happy to
support this I really appreciate being brought forward by Mr. San wise in the in the Commission It's
an interesting discussion because yeah, I mean, you know typically
We're looking at architectural significance in this very modest home, but it reflects our local heritage
and it reflects It really demonstrates the cultural value of structures. So And it really enriches our
sense of place so And it's very appropriate since this community was shaped and grew with the limestone
industry One value of of hearing petitions like this is as
that I learned so much about about history in this community and and so I'll be enthusiastically supporting
this and thanks for everybody that was involved and and in making it happen Thank You councilmember Zulek
Yes, thank you. So this property is in the small but mighty district six So naturally I have had the
wonderful opportunity to meet with the butlers at length and I'll second a lot of what councilmember
Rallo said But just on the the personal side like these are people that put in the work in terms of
community engagement They knocked every single door that's in the proposed Cottage Grove conservation
district that was previously discussed like they have done the work for this project and so I just
Want to commend you both and mr. Ford who I've also met with so thank you And I'm happy to support this
Councilmember daily Thank you. Yeah, I'm also happy to support this. I love I love when the historic
preservation issues come up before us I was a student of history and so these just kind of you know
tickle my happy spot and I think I think you guys did a great job with
All the research and the information you provided with us, it's fascinating. I love being able to help
preserve such important parts of history and of Bloomington. So thank you very much for all the work
that you have all done with this and for bringing this here and for hanging out so long with us tonight.
And I'll definitely be voting yes, so thank you. Other council member comment? Council member Flaherty.
Thanks. Yeah, I really appreciate this.
proposal and the discussion tonight. Personally, I'm a little torn, and I'll just try to explain. I
think the contributions of Ivan Adams as a stonecarver are significant and meaningful, and I think preserving
that cultural heritage is also important. I think there is a variety of ways to do that, and what I'm
grappling with here is what I would characterize as the less traditional path to historic preservation,
which is not based on architectural significance, but based on some type of historical significance.
that criteria and city code says has significant character interest or value as part of the development
heritage or cultural characteristics of the city state or nation and that's not what we're highlighting
here, but rather is associated with the person who played a significant role in local state or national
history and I guess like definitionally, that's sort of like true here, but the word association like
That could mean a lot of things and I guess I'm just not sure that I
someone of cultural or historical significance living at a place on its own without more is, for me,
like a sound criterion or a basis for historic preservation. I did hear remarks about the importance
of saving a house and preventing new development and things like that, which I understand where that's
coming from, and I actually appreciate the family, who obviously personally has so much at stake and
cares so much about this property too,
has been able to purchase it, and in any case, will be able to preserve it for their own memory and
enjoyment. But again, I think, to me, those considerations actually drift away from the purpose of historic
preservation, which isn't to prevent development or keep duplexes out. That's not what historic
preservation's actually meant to be about, at least in my opinion. And so when we talk about preserving
history in Bloomington, I just don't think that,
designating this house as historic Rings true to like there's a disconnect. That's all And so just trying
to make a principal decision based on how I think about things and I'm actually not a hundred percent
sure how many of it But thank you for the opportunity to at least think about it that way Thank you
other councilmember comment Councilmember rough Yeah, I have to disagree that that there's a disconnect I
the limestone industry We need we don't need to talk about that's meant to this community what the history
of that is and and this person Living in that house during productive years of his engagement with the
with the industry I mean this romanticize it a little bit but I think he imbues the the house and the
property and then in the area around there with
what he did and what he was. I grew up in Malak Heights on the north side of town and in the 1960s,
1960s, seems like a long time ago when I was a young boy, there was a master stone carver who lived
around the, down the street and up. His name was Harold Elgar. And we used to go up there as little
kids because he would have in his yard little limestone frogs and animals that he would
place around, they were all over his property. And we would go up there and we'd go all through and
around the house and see him looking out at us and I'm sure happy, but that's part of when we designated
Malak Heights, historic neighborhood, that's part of it. So I just don't think there's, I think there
is a connect.
Thread that goes through an individual where they live in a specific house and then out from there into
the community Through the history and into our future if we preserve it. So I'll be very happy to support
support this Thank you, excuse me other councilmember comments Hi, thank you for all these comments
thanks for everyone for being here tonight it's getting late we're not close to done I
I do not plan to support this tonight. I do I am grateful for all the research done I think with artists
a lot of the time their legacy is Preserved in their work and I do love that Ivan Adams has work throughout
Bloomington and the Midwest and the country and I think that Is a tribute to him and I I don't see a
strong connection to preserve where he lived and then would maybe
Strive somewhere and do work. I think too for me. It's a very slippery slope in Preserving homes where
people live who contributed something to our community that is of note. Thanks Other councilmember comment
I'll just very quickly say then that that I'm I
Not supportive of this this evening for a lot of the things councilmember Flaherty and councilmember
Rosenberger just said but also kind of the bigger issue that I feel like it's this interesting precedent
and I guess for me personally It's like I have a pretty high bar that you have to leap over for me to
go Yeah, I want to I want to call that a historic preservation district and to just meet one of those
standards is really
just is gonna rarely probably make it no matter which one of those things that it is. I agree that there
are other ways to better kind of mark the memory and the significance of his artwork. And I don't see
his artwork represented somewhere around this house. And the precedent of doing that, I think that it
is the really, really slippery slope
I think that that it wouldn't be great maybe to to start going down that and secondly currently this
house is owned by people who are going to Use it effectively I'll say and in the state that it's in
and take care of it and all that kind of stuff I also kind of hesitate to like put these kind of shackles
on it into the future as well without a larger kind of district so
That's I guess how I feel about it any last councilmember comment before we go to a vote All right,
I'm not seeing any so will the clerk please call the roll on Result or ordinance 2025 47 Councilmember,
sorry. Yes clarity no Rough yes
Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes Stasberg. No Bailey. Yes Zulek. Yes Rosenberger. No Thank you that passes six
to three So
Recognizing that it's late. I kind of want to give council members a couple minutes to get some wiggles
out but I also want to recognize that it is 1030 at this point and Yeah, so if people are good with
just keeping going I know that this is a long legislative agenda tonight and I'm super duper sorry about
that next I Move that ordinance 2025. Yes. Do you need to vote under the
Just for each one we should probably do roll calls for introductions or well, we'll see how it works.
Yeah, maybe I'm sorry just on introductions. We have to make sure that we have two-thirds majority on
introductions I move that ordinance 2025 dash 43 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis
only second
All right, it's been moved to introduce ordinance 2025 43 We're gonna try a voice vote and see what
happens all in favor. Please say aye aye opposed Nobody is opposed. So thank you. Will the clerk please
read Ordinance 2024
I'm so sorry, I lost where I was. Ordinance 2025-43, an ordinance annexing certain real estate to the
city of Bloomington, Monroe County, Indiana. The synopsis is as follows. This ordinance pursuant to
a voluntary annexation petition annexes the real estate commonly known as 2005 West Corey Drive, Bloomington,
Indiana, a parcel located outside of but contiguous with city boundaries. Thank you.
I move that ordinance 2025 dash 43 be adopted second. Thank you. Who's here to present tonight? Wheeler
City Assistant City Attorney Thank you Yep, we can hear you go ahead. Thank you for introducing yourself
for the record. Thank you. Yes. Thank you Happy to be here happy to talk about this tonight. This is
a petition for annexation the controlling statute is Indiana code for dash six dash three dash five
point one and
This type of an annexation is often referred to as a super voluntary, but it is a voluntary annexation.
To be eligible for this type of a voluntary annexation, the property in question must be located outside
of, but contiguous to the city. And looking at the statute, this particular section of the code, contiguous
means that the annexing property shares at least one eighth of its border with the city.
Under this particular statute, the way to initiate a voluntary annexation is to have filed a petition
for the voluntary annexation of the property, and that petition needs to have three things going for
it, which is to request an ordinance annexing the property. It must then be signed by 100% of the property
owners, and it must contain a header on the signature page that states, quote, petition for voluntary
annexation into the city of Bloomington, Indiana, close quote.
So when we're doing this, I know there are going to be some folks that are going to come up and want
to argue against this. They can argue against it, but they cannot remonstrate. I think it's important
for the Council to know that. So there won't be any remonstrating against this annexation. It's not
available by this statute. However, there is an appeal that can be taken. If Council were to approve
this annexation,
then an appeal could be sought. But the only issue on appeal would be whether there was contiguity.
And in this case, I think you're gonna find that there is contiguity. So there won't be any grounds
for an appeal. So the facts on this case real quick are that on October 22nd, 2025, Canyison LLC filed
its petition with the clerk for voluntary annexation requesting that an ordinance be adopted.
to annex lot two in Cory Lane Estates, which is commonly known as 2005 West Cory Drive. And he's asking
to annex that particular property into the city. He's eligible to do this because the property is in
fact located outside of the city and it does meet the one eighth contiguity requirement. The property's
perimeter totals 433.57 feet.
The property shares a border with the city that measures 126.04 feet, which greatly exceeds the required
one-eighth contiguity requirement. One-eighth contiguity would have only needed 54.19 feet, so we're
well above that requirement. The petition does meet statutory requirements. It did request the ordinance
be passed. It did, and it is 100% of all property owners who have signed. Kenyus and LLC is the only
property owner.
This property was signed, I'm sorry, the petition was signed by William Kanye Womate, who is the president
of Conyersen LLC. These facts are supported by the warranty deed which came with the petition. That
warranty deed was recorded with Monroe County Recorder's Office on July 30th, 2024, showing Conyersen
LLC as owner.
and articles of organization filed with the Secretary of State Corporations Division shows that William
Kanyuwamathai is the president of this corporation. The signature page does contain the necessary header
language, and so the petition does meet all necessary statutory requirements.
There are a couple of other statutory requirements that need to be met, and that is the council would
have had to first adopt a fiscal plan before it can consider this annexation, which as you recall, you
did do back on December 3rd. And then city council must also conduct a public hearing within 30 days
of the petition being filed, which again, council did do back on December 3rd of this year. With this
petition properly filed, the fiscal plan adopted by resolution and all other statutory requirements met
then City Council may adopt an ordinance annexing this property into the city. The ordinance as proposed
properly declares that the property is contiguous with the city. The petition is signed by 100% of the
owners and that the property is annexed into the city. That form of ordinance I think is appropriate
and city legal does recommend that the ordinance be adopted as written. I'm happy to try and answer
questions if there are any. Thank you.
Thank you, are there questions from council members about this ordinance? No questions. I do have one
actually because this was brought up during the public hearing that the roadway that this is actually
connected to because in the, let me find it, in the petition it said that the real estate is contiguous
to public highways and public rights of way, but technically that road isn't a public right of way,
But earlier, or like higher in the document, there is a deed that seems to say that they have an easement
or right of usage of that road because they're part of the Coraline Estates. So can you just kind of
clarify that little bit of legal language? Is that problematic in any way? There isn't anything in the
statute that requires the property to have that contiguity with a roadway.
What the contiguity that's required is that it be one eighth with the city. It just happens that it's
sitting on a roadway. It's unfortunate that it mentions it as a public roadway. It is a private drive,
I believe. I think that's accurate. But that does not change the statutory ability for the property
to be annexed. It's not,
of importance as it relates to whether or not the property can be annexed. Okay and is it correct that
that property does have an easement though for that private road as part of the original like deed stuff?
Because I was trying to read the deed stuff and understand that. So I would have to sit down and read
that section of the, well I'd have to read the deed again. I don't recall the language and what it says
on the deed as to whether it's got an easement to use that
private drive, but it is part of that whole neighborhood. If it was going to become a landlocked property,
it wouldn't be too hard to get a court to order that the owner of the property could use that road.
Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions? All right, let's go ahead and go to public comment on ordinance
2025 43 if you're a member of the public who would like to make a comment You can go ahead and make
your way to the podium if you're online you can raise your hand using the reactions tab Thank you for
signing in so much You can state your name for the record and go ahead and start when you're ready My
name is Jay Nelson And first of all just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do
something I want to state
But my grandmother Liz at 2009 Coraline the wooded lot beside her home addressed as 2005 is the subject
of this proposed voluntary annexation and future duplex At your last meeting you adopted the fiscal
plan resolution for this annexation I understand state law requires that step but I'm asking you to
look more closely into the physical physical reality on the ground before you go any further and
First drainage and stormwater There's a pipe under quarry lane that directly connects the grass basin
on the north side of the street with the wooded basin on the south side Those two areas function as
a drainage system regardless, which way the water happens to flow at any given storm Bloomington's own
stormwater rules in title 13 and the stormwater design manual expect development proposals to map out
existing drainage patterns runoff directions and outfalls to
Prove that they will not increase flooding or undermine public infrastructure, and I don't believe that's
been done yet If this wooded lot is cleared and filled and paved for duplex with parking You're concentrating
more water into a very small basin tied to one crossroad pipe If that pipe ever plugs fails or simply
cannot handle extra volume the city will own that problem once the land is annexed That is not theoretical
issue for us. It would be in my grandmother's front yard. I
Second karst and substrate subsurface stability Bloomington and Monroe County sit in a well-documented
karst region with map sinkhole areas and sinking streams The lot in question already already behaves
like a bowl Cutting the trees adding a structure driveway stormwater facilities without a site specific
Geotechnical and karst study is a serious risk for the future residents and for the city's utilities
a sinkhole or other subsidence under a driveway
Sanitary line or that crossroad drain will be far more expensive than any tax revenue the single lot
can generate third neighborhood pattern and zoning Cori Lane is a short dead-end Street with one Single
family with single-family homes this one parcel would be the only city lot on the street and the only
duplex under Bloomington Udo duplexes in low-density residential districts are supposed to go through a special
Conditional review including a neighborhood meeting and the BZA scrutiny Because they can be incompatible
on lots with this When the subdivision was first built the developer had the easiest cheapest opportunity
to build here They chose not to and left this wooded this strongly suggests. They understood the site
as marginal and unbuildable because the drainage surface issues Just please vote no on this. It's not
the right thing to do. Thanks. I
Thank you. It looks like we have a line here. Go ahead and sign in and State your name for the record.
You'll have up to three minutes Even council members, my name is Paul post resident on the street in
question I would also agree with mr. Nelson asked you to vote no on this tonight what I'm gonna do is
point out the ludicrousness of the whole concept of annexing this one lot on our street and
As I stated before that area is island for as part of the greater annexation efforts by the city which
is under litigation currently We're still following all of that It just seems a little odd that what
hasn't been mentioned tonight is the only reason we're here is because the owner Just wanted to build
on the property and couldn't connect to the sewer lines. We have city utilities I pay more for city
utilities than everyone else because I'm technically in the county and
It's all he wants to do is hook up to the sewer, but we won't do that because of the litigation that's
still ongoing. It would make much more sense to let all that go through the courts and have an actual
final answer to that before we decide going further with this one lot creating a headache of logistical
problems. We've talked about all the things of having just one city lot on a street of non-city lots.
So I'd ask you to vote no on this. It just doesn't make sense right now There's there's several things
pending that I think would make more sense to you know, let us get a final answer on those Thank you
Thank you Has anybody raised a hand on zoom? Okay. Let's go ahead and continue here in chambers Come
on forward Please sign in state your name for the record and then you'll have up to three minutes. I
Hi, my name is Joseph Chan and I live on the property right adjacent to this parcel in question and
You know, we bought this property, you know, it's a starter house And we bought it with a great peace
of mind. There was a great excellent wooded area I didn't really pay much attention to it until it was
brought to my attention Just a few weeks ago actually where I
noticed that someone was trying to build on develop on this storm drain area and I couldn't help but
notice, Hey, wait a minute. My, my property drains directly into this place. So even if it does get
annexed or it does, and all of the zoning does get managed out, um, that provides, that presents a,
a legal trouble issue where now
Am I supposed to change my properties so that it doesn't drain into this? And there's a bunch of other
properties that drain into this. And it's only going to cause a bigger issue in the future, perhaps
not immediately, but the Karst question is certainly something that I feel like the gun is being jumped on.
And with so many lingering questions that Mr. Nelson has brought up, it behooves us to take a minute,
step back, and think about what are the implications of even annexing this in the first place. And there's
just a lot of questions that keep coming up,
What about the parking situation? It's almost half an acre, but if you pave on it and you have to raise
it up because there's a lot of incline on this property and the Access from the easement is also at
an incline as well. I know this because I walk past it every time I mow my lawn And it's it's quite
steep and the most level access point it touches my
property. So am I going to have to worry about people, the construction or surveyors coming out of my
property to survey this land? Who knows? But that's the concern that I have as someone who is going
to be directly affected by this development and annexation, whether it goes through or not. Yeah, so
I yield to the rest of the time. Thank you so much. Is there
Looks like, is there another comment? Yes. OK, good. Go ahead and come forward. Please sign in and state
your name for the record, and you'll have up to three minutes. Hello. I'm one of the other residents
in the same street. Can you state your name? Oh, right. Magda Andrade.
So yeah, I'm one of the other residents on that street. And yeah, I live pretty close to that zoning
location, that place that is in threat of annexing and rezoning. So I have a few concerns when it comes
to that property. So as Joseph has said, there is an incline there, and our storm drains go into there.
But the other concern that I have is that they are, if it is with the intention of,
Deforesting and building the duplex it can cause a really big risk on the neighbors Yeah on all of us
and the reason is Well based on what I read from the the notes here there hasn't been any addressing
on any environmental inspections or anything about the possible cars that there is so without giving
them the permission to
rezone and annex without Doing any of those inspections. Well, of course, you're just giving them all
the leverage to do as they wish to build the properties But then again, there's going to be
fewer opportunities to take any regulations or any safety checks for whatever is going to be building
there and then furthermore construction also performs a lot of perturbation and a lot of including the
weight of the concrete and
every material equipment used can actually put a risk on the load that the structure has. And yeah,
furthermore, if that place is deforested, it does come at the risk of further enhancing erosion, which
could then again be dangerous for our homes nearby. Yeah, it will make our structures look
Lose integrity when it comes to the actual changing of the property. So there's risks of erosion and
of course the whole Conversation about the storm drain and yeah, so I come from a standpoint that I
personally think it's a safety risk and I would please ask you to vote no Thank you, so anybody else
in chambers who would like to make a public comments I
Okay, while somebody is walking over, have any hands been raised on Zoom? If you just want to give me
a big wave when that happens, or if that happens, that would be great. Here in chambers, please sign
in, state your name for the record, and then you'll have up to three minutes. Hi, I'm Leslie Ruiz, and
I'm sure you're tired of hearing from me, so I'll be brief. I have serious concerns about the impact that
Building on this property and I'm aware that this is annexation and I understand and this is just my
first Ability to kind of voice my concerns about it, you know I have plenty of more flooding videos
and pictures from my basement and all of the fun things and I'm dealing with water on my side already
and I'm really concerned about what the impact of them building there would look like and what legal
issues that might bring up anyways, I know that there's
you know, common enemy stuff with water here in the state of Indiana, but there's nothing built there
right now. And if they do build there and it does impact my property, I don't know what recourse I have
at that point. So here I am at the very beginning of this process, just trying to be heard because I
do really have concerns. I think, you know, I know my neighbors have lots of concerns too, but I think
that I am probably the one that would be most impacted by
everything there. And, you know, I already have a loan for the basement that I had to fix because of
water. And so I just have large concerns over that. And again, I'm aware that that might not be what
you can hear right now, but I just feel like I need to say that at this point. I guess I also have concerns
about parking, like I said last time, and whether there's an easement or not for the road. Does that
easement include parking? What does that look like?
Because I cannot imagine that there could be a duplex there and more than one car parked in a 15-foot
driveway There on that property. I just cannot see it. So they will be using that road. They will be
parking on that street that You guys don't have any authority over that would be our responsibility.
I Don't know But again, thank you for hearing me and read my emails Thank you Thank you
Anybody else in chambers wish to make a comment I see somebody else moving and I don't see a wave from
staff So if you could make sure to sign in and then state your name for the record and also if you know
if you've spoken here about this tonight if you forgot to sign in just Make sure you go and do that
so that we have that for the record. Thank you Go ahead when you're ready to start with your name. Thank
you Good evening. My name is lieutenant Ray Reyes retired Navy naval officer
Also resident on Cory Drive Just to reiterate I've seen her property and and it does attain a certain
level of flooding Coming from the other side literally two years ago Flooded so bad. I literally saw
two beavers Set up shop there. I am NOT making that up. I have any of you seen seen this property Beavers
actual beavers with the tails the whole thing swimming
That's how bad it can get, almost encroaching into her basement. Have any of you seen the property?
It's not quite as big as this room. The road is literally there. He's gonna have to fill this hole in.
No one's seen a picture of it at all, anything? It's just a horrible idea. My neighbor, Paul Post, as
he told you, it doesn't make any sense. It really doesn't.
It's just a horrible not that we don't want the property there or neighbors or anything like that. It's
just it just Physically as an engineer myself, it doesn't make sense is you know, he told you as a builder
It's it's just a horrible idea and that's all Thank you any other comments public comments about ordinance
2025 43 And I didn't see away from staff so that brings us back to council
Did public comment bring up any questions that council members would like to ask council members? Sorry
is Attorney Wheeler still on the call? Hey, hey To two quick questions. Are there any known infrastructure
deficiencies in the area that would require city investment? On the property itself, yes No
And the question that's come up again and again from residents in the area nearby, if there were some
material pains put on them or their properties, what recourse do they have? Should we, does the recourse
change if we were to annex this lot?
Annexation doesn't have any impact on the recourse that property owners would have that they're adjacent
or in the neighborhood. The development or not of this property does you know whether it gets developed
and if there are any issues as between the property owners it doesn't matter whether the property was
developed as a property in the county or developed as a property in the city.
What changes is that if we annex the property, then the property owner does have the opportunity to
connect to the water and sewer, which is available in Corey Lane. So it does make it a little bit easier,
I think, for the property to get developed. But all of these issues that are being brought up are issues
that would be brought up at the time of considering the zoning, considering the
the planning department looking at what's going to be developed on the property. These are issues that
get hashed out at that time. And then common enemy was brought up. The common enemy doctrine in the
state of Indiana would apply whether this property gets developed in or out of the city, in or out of
the county. So all of these issues just are not, they don't impact whether statutorily this property
can be annexed.
Thank you. And then the final question as a follow up to that, there was the point brought up about
conditional uses of duplexes in low density areas. Can you speak a little bit about that and how that
would apply here? Because I know we have a second piece of legislation following this about rezoning
that place. I'm not well versed in planning and zoning.
Would not be able I'd be shooting from the hip and probably getting it all wrong. So I I refrained from
Trying to answer those because I'm just not educated in the matter then I guess I see one of our planning
staff members who probably has been waiting here for questions like this and would invite Mr. Grulick
forward to maybe address that question about zoning if possible, please state your name for the record. I
Thank you Eric really development services manager So yes with the conditional use approval for development
on this. This is when we'd have a little bit finer tooth to look at any impacts to any regulations at
the city of limited utilities has the
Requirements that the UDO has so they would be required to submit I think we've talked about at least
a little bit from the last time and in the plane Commission hearings and in the packet The cars feature
possible cars feature that might be on the property. So that would have to be evaluated There are trees
that are obviously on the property that could be subject to our tree closed canopy
preservation requirements You know the lot was planted as as a legal lot of record So it was not there
are lots that were set aside in here. They have large easements on there There were several sinkholes
that were identified within this development when this was in the city and came forward for subdivision
approval in the 1990s
There were easements that were placed for identified sinkholes this particular feature on this thing
was not identified That doesn't mean that it's not that now, but that's something that we've identified
with them that we'll have to evaluate You know if they come forward for development So yes, we would
review it for any requirements within the udio If it's annexed and comes forward for development
Thank you so much. And so just the final question on that note, is it, am I correct in saying that should
we annex this plot lot today, there's still, that doesn't guarantee that the thing would be built. There's
still a whole mechanism that needs to, that the developer would have to go through in order to make
sure that all of the things that you just discussed were either ameliorated or planned appropriately.
Yes, so so annexing this doesn't guarantee that they can do everything that they want, you know Obviously
the zoning code has a lot of layers to it that guide what can and can't happen here setbacks environmental
preservation features So all those things would have to met as I mentioned was planted as a legal lot
of record So it is entitled to some development of some sort and if there are variances that are required
then that is something that the Board of Zoning Appeals would have to hear and
Review with a development proposal. Yeah Thank you any other questions from council members Councilmember
Rosenberger Hi, yes made potentially for the attorney unsure some of the public comments were about
how this would be the only Property on that street that is annexed because it's a voluntary annexation
could other properties on the street also do voluntary annexation
Each property that's outside of the city would have to go through the same examination that this property
did, which is to look and see whether or not the property has at least one-eighth contiguity with the
city's boundaries. Looking at the neighborhood, I would think that the properties that are running along
the same side of the street,
as the property in question for this annexation, I think all of those properties probably meet contiguity
because they're bordering the city's boundaries. So they would all be eligible. And then it's kind of
like a domino effect. Once those properties become annexed, then the properties around them can start
to look to see whether they have contiguity with the properties that have just become annexed.
So it's kind of, it can be that. It can have a domino effect, but that always presupposes that other
people would be interested in becoming part of the city. I don't know if that answers your question
very well. I can try again. That was good, thank you. Thank you. Other questions from council members?
Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and go to council member comment. Do council members want to comment
on this ordinance? Council member Piedmont-Smith.
Yeah, I just want to thank the residents who came out both tonight and at our last meeting to talk about
this. I just want to, I think you made a lot of great points, especially about the environmental issues,
the flooding issues. But at this point, we are only, we have a petition from somebody to be annexed
and we have to evaluate it based on just the criteria in front of us, which are, you know,
that it's one-eighth contiguous to the city, which it is. And so all of these questions about what should
be allowed to be built there, what's the environmental, the geological decision as to the karst area,
what are the stormwater impacts of building there, all these things come later. We can't consider those
if it's not part of the city of Bloomington.
This is really just the first step. And we have to act on this petition. We can't just say, it would
be pointless. Before we vote yes on this, it would be pointless to invest lots of time in environmental
examinations and site plans and all that. We have systems in place to examine all those and to be very
careful about not building in a
Feature and to avoid stormwater runoff problems. We have very Detailed requirements about that, but
that comes later right now. We're only Looking at whether they meet the qualifications to be annexed
So I just want to be clear about that and I think they do and so I'll be voting. Yes Thank you. Are
there other councilmember comments? Councilmember rough
Yeah, I did visit the property. And to me, it's pretty obvious that the majority of the property is
a literal water conveyance channel. And in order to build on that thing, it's going to take a significant
amount of modification of the grade of pretty much the entire site.
not necessarily the main reason I'm going to vote no on this, but I'm in agreement with Mr. Post. I
don't think it makes any sense to be annexing this while we're in the middle of this annexation fight
where this administration seems to continue to want to throw good money after bad, in my opinion, in
this whole annexation business. And I don't want
throw this little bit into the mix and confuse it even more. If this can be developed someday, well,
after everything gets sorted out. And I don't really think it's particularly developable anyway, if
you go out there and look at it. But if they're entitled to something and they want to do it now, then
deal with whatever county regulations they would have to deal with.
So I'm gonna be voting no. Thank you, Councilmember Daly. Thank you. I'm just not convinced that annexing
this property is in the best interest of the city or the residents of Corey Drive. I agree with what
Mr. Post said as well that it would be, and I wrote this down because I liked the phrase, a headache
of logistical problems. I think that is,
Probably pretty accurate for this location. I'm just you know, the annexation and the sewer and and
how it's going to affect the neighboring properties So I agree that this doesn't make sense. It's not
the right move right now let everything else play out in terms of the rest of the annexation question
and then Talk about it then but I think right now. I'm I'm certainly not in favor of this voluntary
annexation Thank You councilmember Flaherty Thanks
I broadly agree with Councilmember Piemont-Smith's points and will be voting yes, but I wanted to go
a little further on this concept of like how this fits into the broader questions around annexation
and so It's the utilities current policy that we don't grant sewer connections for new properties outside
of city limits Because we used to do that and have people sign it, you know We used to do that and annex
people at the same time. It was a pair and
That was incredibly inefficient from a legislative standpoint. So then, we started getting people to
sign contracts saying, look, I'm going to be annexed in the future. I know I'm going to be annexed in
the future. I'm going to get my sewer now. And when it comes time to annex me later, I'm not going to
remonstrate. Then, we had a lot of folks challenging the validity of those contracts. And the state
took likely unconstitutional, in my opinion, as a lawyer, unconstitutional action to invalidate those
contracts, which is against both the state and federal constitution.
And so now we find ourselves in a situation where the city's policy about connecting the sewer has changed.
So this property actually can't be developed, is my understanding, if it remains in the county. And
my colleagues are right that whether it can or not with respect to karst features, et cetera, is like
a separate question from this inquiry. And so to play it out on the lawsuit front, I don't know exactly
where everything is at the current moment with the different areas that were intended for annexation
or attempted to be annexed in the lawsuits.
If in fact this area of the county is annexed, then this will be immaterial. It's all gonna be annexed.
If it is not annexed because the invalidation of our contracts is upheld by the state, then I don't
imagine utilities policy changing and in fact will be in this exact situation where this is exactly
the type of annexation that will be needed in order for this or any other property to be developed.
So it's like in both cases actually this annexation still makes sense in my opinion.
So, you know, yeah, I guess it's just like this. I do think this whole area of the county should belong
in the city. I think it's reasonable. I think it was aligned with expectations for a long time
and contractual agreements as well. I know not everybody has those agreements, but lots of folks in
different areas did. And it was a long-standing understanding between county and city governments that,
you know, eroded over time. I don't need to get into all that anymore, but like,
I don't know. I think that is relevant to the picture here but not to the not in the same way that my
colleagues have expressed Thank you other councilmember comment Councilmember Rallo I share the sentiments
of councilmember rough and councilmember daily. I I Don't want to rehash the entire annexation debate
except to say that the decisions pending and I would I
Prefer to wait To see how that manifests rather than do this Incrementally at this point, so I'll be
voting no. Thanks Your councilmember comment All right, I'm gonna go ahead and take a minute then I
Will say I largely agree with councilmember Piedmont Smith and largely agree with councilmember Flaherty
And I will be supporting this I also
Like I want to talk for a minute about the zoning stuff. So I'm the planning Commission representative
for council on the city planning Commission and so like I've seen a lot of this and I and I heard from
a lot of you guys at the planning Commission meeting related to the zoning of it and I have a whole
lot of faith like in terms of the the concerns that you guys have like totally legitimate, right, but
I have a whole lot of faith that
This isn't just like, if we annex it, then these people can do whatever they want. They can build whatever
they want there. That's just not the way it works. And I appreciate, I can't remember your name right
now off the top of my head. I appreciate that you were like, I just want to keep on talking about it
and every chance I have to be like, I'm really concerned about this drainage piece. Because yes,
do that. Because clearly, there's some clear concerns about drainage pieces. I think with developing
that, it might actually, potentially, because they would have to be required to deal with drainage
Maybe it could even help the drainage if there was approval and I think that there is maybe an if back
there somewhere but I don't think that that's necessarily relevant with the With with this step that
we're taking tonight. I also though want to point out again, which I pointed out at Plan Commission
And I think that I heard councilmember Flaherty correctly saying well if they could connect to sewer
then they could develop this property right now and I'll tell you they can't actually because the county
Downzoned this zone earlier this year. So a year ago by right somebody could have built a duplex on
there, you know the sewer issues aside with with Connecting to County sewer and then earlier this year
They they down zoned it and now it is not actually a big enough lot to build anything so Whether or
not somebody should be built on it I mean there's like a lot of politics back there and and and and
they didn't just
Down so this lot it was entire sections. We're in a housing crisis So to take something completely off
the table before it's had environmental review before it's gone through any of these steps and just
say oh We're not gonna allow anything to be built here ever Because it's too small. I mean I I get real
concerned about that. So I
I'm going to be supporting this. I'm also really supportive of you guys continuing to come out as it
goes through whatever process and planning it ends up having to go through to build anything at all
on there. Because those environmental reviews, all those things, they have to happen no matter what
gets built there. Even if it's something like by right, which maybe will be a single family home, it
would still have to jump through all those hoops to make sure that flooding wasn't going to be an issue
to make sure all of those concerns that you have are going to be addressed.
Any other council member comment before we call the roll. Great. Let's go ahead and call the roll on
ordinance twenty twenty five forty three. Council member Flaherty. Yes. No. No. Piedmont Smith. Yes.
Sasseberg. Yes. Daily. No. Zulek. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. That passes with a vote
of six to three. And so we have one more. Try it again.
I move that ordinance 2025 dash 46 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only second
Let's go ahead and try a voice vote on this and see what happens. All those in favor. Please say aye.
Aye any opposed Thank you very much. Will the clerk please read? Yes, just for clarification. Who was
the second? Councilmember Zulek. Thank you
The ordinance 2025-46 to amend the Bloomington zoning maps and zone property currently in the Monroe
County jurisdiction to residential medium lot R2 in anticipation of voluntary annexation regarding to
2005 West Corey Drive. William, I apologize for my pronunciation, Wamatai petitioner.
Synopsis says follows this ordinance recommends that the property at two zero zero five West Cory Drive
be zoned residential medium lot r2 if the voluntary annexation is approved Thank you, I move that ordinance
2025 dash 46 be adopted second Thank you. So that annexation was approved which makes this ordinance
applicable There is an amendment to it
Why don't we go ahead and do the amendment first councilmember Zulek? Yes, I move that amendment one
be brought forward for ordinance 2025 dash 46 second Councilmember Zulek, would you like to talk about
your amendment? Yes very quickly it it is nothing but the correction of instead of an individual this
is under an LLC, which I do believe is Under the sole proprietorship of
Individual but it is just an update from the name to can use cognizant LLC Thank you, are there any
questions for council members who look about this is sort of a bookkeeping issue Great is there any
public comments about the amendment that's Clarifies the petitioner to align it correctly with like
other documentation and
Is there anybody on Zoom for public comment? Okay, thank you. Going back to council then, any comments
related to this bookkeeping change in amendment one? All right, seeing no comment, will the clerk please
call the roll on amendment one to ordinance 2025-46?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. That passes eight
zero. Councilmember Flaherty out of the room going back to the ordinance as amended. Now do we have
a presentation from staff.
State your name for the record and then the floor is yours Thank You Eric Grulick development services
manager so this resolution in this case Reflects a recommendation from the Planning Commission for the
zoning for this property Should it be annexed? So as it was decided and voted to be annexed and Zoning
obviously has to be given to the property So the property is currently in the Monroe County jurisdiction
planning jurisdiction and is
Zoned our ES which is a residential one. It's a very large lot Lot type it's a one acre lot size is
what the county has it Zoned as the minimum lot area as I mentioned a little bit earlier This was when
this was approved as a subdivision in the 1990s within the city It has a zoning designation of RS the
RS zoning district had a minimum lot size is 7,200 square feet and 60 feet and
So all of the lots that are within the subdivision reflected what the zoning code had at the time And
so fast forward 30 something years now You know that 7200 square foot 60 foot lot size equates to the
r2 zoning district The comprehensive plan that the county has as well as the comprehensive plan I'm
sorry the the comprehensive plan that the county has which is called the Monroe County urbanizing area
plan reflects their comprehensive plan and has a
as mixed residential This is very comparable to the property to the south of this that is within the
city that our comprehensive plan has designated as neighborhood residential Both designations encourage
a mix of housing types Talk about location adjacent to facilities In is predominantly single-family
in nature of both the zoning districts
So the Plain Commission's review and guidelines for this were a pretty easy Correlation in terms of
what the zoning should be for this So r2 as I mentioned reflects what the lot size is sizes are within
this neighborhood And so that was the Plain Commission's recommendation by a seven to zero vote To recommend
that this property be zoned r2, which is the residential medium lot zone district so with that I'm
Happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions for mr. Grulick
councilmember? Oh Yes, I'm glad you covered the compatibility If this as this property will now be annexed
by the decision of the council Any sort of Petition for development there Will require site inspection
by your department
So there are you know, there are a couple different development possibilities. So a single-family residence
Assuming that it would meet all of our requirements. We just need a building permit If the owner comes
forward with a duplex and that is a conditional use So they would have to have a neighborhood meeting
that would go to the Board of Zoning Appeals Regardless of either scenario it has to meet the
udio requirements for setbacks the environmental features would have to be evaluated you know, as I
mentioned we've already let the property owner know that
The karst feature or the potential karst feature will need to be evaluated There are trees that are
on the site that would be subject to our tree preservation requirements So there's a myriad of regulations
that would apply regardless of whether it's a by-right or conditional use I see. Yeah, I I think I remember
walking this property back in the 90s when it was part of the city and the Environmental Commission
and I remember large sinkhole so anyway, the point is is that
You'll you'll be mapping that sinkhole Yeah, we've already done of it and then the setback that would
be and then any developable land will be Essentially evaluated by your department. Yes. Okay Okay.
Thank you. Thank you other questions for mr. Grulick All right seeing none let's go ahead and go to
public comment on ordinance 2025 46 as amended and
So again that this this ordinance has to do with zoning this particular parcel into the residential
to lot Go ahead and come forward sign in state your name for the record You'll have up to three minutes
If you're on zoom and you want to comment you can raise your hand using the reactions tab or send a
chat message to the host Go ahead when you're ready. Once again, Jay Nelson in regards to zoning. I'm
not sure what can be done with this but
This whole entire road our single-family homes to then annex it and then slap in where we're gonna throw
a duplex in it Just doesn't really make sense. But being a builder and knowing that property as well
I don't see how it's physically possible to throw a duplex on there let alone allowing that to be a
Possibility, I believe is just the wrong way Just kind of a comment on this annexation
And the rezoning I just think is backwards If I want to DNX myself, I wish I could do that, right? But
it doesn't seem like there's a possibility to do that But you can annex a property and just jump all
over it But to even see that if it's buildable and what we're building on should probably be a first
step here in my concern before you're annexing anything or assuming the responsibilities of that land
But rezoning this if you do consider doing that it would be great to have some kind of caveat or restriction
Where it would be to a single family and there would be for the drainage issues or something that might
be done I don't know what's in your purview your power here to address those things and obviously you're
hearing nothing but Concerns because there are concerns
The builder didn't build on this lot for a reason and promise you as a developer and a builder myself
I would have built on that lot if I had the opportunity. So there's something going on here So I'm just
you know, putting the cart before the horse is kind of silly on some of this And it's I don't know.
It's a little backwards to me and it's unfortunate that we're not Going out there doing our due diligence
first before we're making decisions on mute
items And I really believe that this is going to be the case with this subject of being annexed over
and He's not going to be able to build on it. What's the point until the whole litigation is? All done
with annexation and then you know, maybe something else is done in the future But I don't ever seeing
a property on here. It shouldn't be rezoned. It shouldn't have been re annexed. So
Thank you. Are there other members of the public who would like to comment on ordinance 2025 46 as amended?
Has anybody raised a hand on zoom? All right, not seeing any other public comment. Let's go ahead and
go back to council. Any questions that came up during public comment? Seeing none. Any comment from
council members before your vote?
Yeah, you know, I understand that the current zoning being or in the county's urbanizing plan, it's
mixed residential and that is similar and consistent with what this proposal Would be but you know and
I respect that and I appreciate the thought that's gone into that from staff and in the planning
commissioners but I just think this thing is
Bassack words and wrong-headed and I don't want to be associated with the yes vote in any aspect of
it So I'm going to vote no on this, too Thank you any other council comments Councilmember Piedmont
Smith Well, I disagree I think that this is being done in a logical order First we voted on whether
to annex it now that it's annexed it needs to
to be zoned in a certain way. So we know how to apply the UDO. A UDO, may I remind everybody, that has
very strong environmental protections. So before anything is built there, there will be an analysis
of the geography and the topography and nothing built within 25 feet of the sinkhole. So if nothing
can be built there, then that'll be the result. But we got a piece of land now. We have to give it a
zoning category.
Um, so I don't, I certainly don't understand why my colleagues thinks colleague thinks this is back
ass words. I mean, this is a voluntary annexation. This has no impact on the legal case of our attempted
involuntary annexation. This is one property where the owner would like to be annexed has been annexed
now. So we're just going to leave this unzoned. It doesn't make any sense.
Thank you other councilmember comment comes member flirty sort of briefly agree that like I think this
is I appreciate the perspective that We have like a cart horse issue and that there should have been
like environmental review first and I just I think it's the opposite I really do think the first step
here is annexation and zoning and then you look at what specifically can be done or not and It might
be that the outcome is nothing is built here and nothing can be built here and like if that's the right
outcome based on our
City laws then like that's the outcome it should be and that's perfectly acceptable. That's fine Like
nothing will look wrong will have happened if that's the outcome. It's just like the thing running its
course So I appreciate that someone wanted to be annexed and that we are learning the process of voluntary
annexation because it might be One of the primary ways we're annexing for the foreseeable future Thank
you other councilmember comment Right seeing none. Oh councilmember Allah
Mr. Gerlich quick question Discussion I guess so I've been commented very much tonight. So take privilege
and talking a little bit So mr. Gerlich the r2 designation to single-family home conditional use for
more intense plex, right is is that a
Does that go before the BZA or is that? Yes, so conditional use for a duplex would go to the Board of
Zoning Appeals. Okay. All right. That's the clarification I need Thank you Seeing no other councilmember
comments. I Had a second quick follow-up comment councilmember rough. I Just wanted to clarify Of course
it I agree that would make no sense I agree with my comment colleague that would get no sense to leave
the property total unzoned but
I'm assuming that it's gonna pass It's gonna be approved The other thing I want to clarify was So it's
just kind of a protest vote making a statement that I do think it's it's bass backwards And that's what
I wanted to my other comment was it's a fishing reference bass backwards Thank you unless there are
other comments if the clerk could please call a roll on a
ordinance 2025 46 as amended Councilmember Rallo. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes Stasberg. Yes daily. No Zulek.
Yes Rosenberger. Yes Sorry. Yes
Yes breath no, thank you that passes seven to We are finally done with our legislative agenda this evening
y'all We are down to the period of additional public comment If there are any members of the public
who would like to make a comment on an item not on the agenda This is the time that they are welcome
to do so if they did not comment earlier at the first period of general public comment
Anybody would like to make that kind of comment in chambers, please make your way to the podium if you're
online Please raise your hand using the reactions tab or send a chat message to the host. I Don't see
anybody moving in chambers has anybody raised a hand on zoom fantastic Council schedule I already noted
please think about your calendars in the last two weeks of January for interview committee meetings
that are gonna
Be figured out the 1st of January meeting and otherwise our next regularly scheduled meeting as our
organizational meeting on January 7th and Happy holidays and we are adjourned