- I'd like to call this regular session of the Bloomington Common Council to order. Thank you for being
- here. Will our Honorable Clerk please call the roll. Yes, Council Member Flaherty? Here. Stossberg?
- Here. Piedmont-Smith? Here. Zulek? Here. Asari? Here. Daly? Yeah, here. Yeah, yeah. Rollo? Here. Ruff?
- Here. And Rosenberger? Here. Thank you so much.
- Tonight's agenda is posted on both of the doors. There's a handful of copies there if you'd like to
- see it It's also posted online, but it includes approval of December 17th 2025 regular session minutes,
- which have been amended It reports from council members the dr. Martin Luther King jr. Birthday celebration
- commission and the committee on council processes as well as a report from the hiring committee There's
- also three items of legislation for second reading ordinance 2020
- 2020606 resolution 2020605 and resolution 2020606 There's no legislation for first reading and there'll
- be two times for public comment for anybody who wishes To comment on things that are outside of things
- that are on our agenda We'll now come to minutes for approval the December 17 2025 minutes as amended.
- Are there any motions? I
- I move that the minutes for December December 17th 2025 as amended be approved second All those in favor
- signal by saying aye. Oh, sorry. Are there any corrections? Just a quick correction. They weren't amended
- when you made the motion So they're just the minutes is resubmitted to you as resubmitted. Thank you.
- Are there any other corrections? Okay motion in the second all those in favor signal saying aye All
- right, any opposed?
- The minutes are approved, and we'll now move on to reports, and we'll begin with reports from council
- members. Does anybody have a report? Council member Stasberg. Is this when I'm supposed to do the budget
- letter? Because are we still having two sections of council member report? I thought you'd do the budget
- letter during committees, but your choice. Okay.
- It really doesn't matter. I'll just go ahead and do it now since I already talked about it. So in the
- first packet addendum that was sent out I think yesterday, there is the I will say final draft of the
- letter to Mayor Thompson from the whole council about budget priorities for 2027.
- Y'all gave me comments on it last week and then at fiscal committee on Friday. We also commented on
- it So if there are no other concerns Or if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer those and
- address those. Otherwise, I would love a motion to go ahead and Submit this to the administration Are
- there any questions or comments for councilman Stasberg otherwise, we'll have
- All right. Are there any motions? Go ahead I will make the motion to submit the letter of budget priorities
- from the council to Mayor Thompson Fantastic. There's a motion in a second any discussion Seeing none
- all those in favor of submitting the letter is written say aye any opposed that motion carries nine zero
- All right, um any thank you so much councilman stossberg for for working on that. Did you have a report
- further further?
- I just want to mention for the public that I did write an open letter to the to the community around
- around Hope Well, I submitted that I emailed it directly to multiple people I thought about trying to
- get it in the packet, but I just did not have time to make it fully accessible So that was a thing but
- it is Publicly linked and it's also on bloom docs and if anybody who has not read it is interested in
- it Just let me know and I'll send it and then I do have my
- Councilmember like individual meeting slots at two weeks actually on April 14th
- But I think that this is our last council last regular session before those so if you're interested
- in having a little one-on-one 15-minute meeting with me about anything at all You can find the link
- to sign up for that on my public calendar And if you're not sure how that works if you email me or call
- council office I would be happy to help you with that. So those that time I have set aside is between
- 1130 and 1 on second Tuesdays right now So again, that's April 14th, and that's my report. Thanks
- Thank you so much. Any other reports, colleagues? All right, seeing none, we'll now move on to a report
- from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Commission. Doctor, take it away. Well, I'm
- not a doctor, but I wish I were. Maybe one day. Thank you. Good evening.
- I'm James Sanders, and pleased to present the 2025 Annual Report for the Martin Luther King Birthday
- Celebration Commission. Today, we'll reflect on our accomplishments over the past year and share plans
- for the future. Our commission consists of seven members who are focused on organizing and supporting
- programs that commemorate the annual federal holiday, including the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
- Celebration,
- the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award, volunteer service initiatives such as A Day On, Not a Day
- Off, and the 40 Days of Peace. Our charge is to promote and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King
- Jr. through activities that celebrate his birthday and promote diversity, inclusivity, and racial equity
- within the community. This year, we have worked hard to produce our 32nd annual commemoration of Dr.
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- create engaging activities for children at major community events, and build strong partnerships with
- new and established community partners by supporting their programs and events. In 2025, we achieved
- several key milestones. For example, we produced
- The 2025 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday celebration in collaboration with 16 local stakeholders,
- welcoming over 200 attendees and collaborating with 16 local, I'm sorry, and are raising over $9,000
- in sponsorships. We collaborated with Bloomington Volunteer Network to encourage community-wide volunteer
- service during the 40 days of peace, which took place from January 21st through February 28th, 2025.
- We created the Educational Black Inventors Trivia Game for all ages and shared it with the public at
- 10 major community events. We marked Remembrance Day, the anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, by
- reading Martin's big words to elementary school classes at Bloomington Montessori School.
- These efforts have raised Bloomington's collective awareness of the impact of the civil rights movement
- on our day-to-day lives, and we are proud of what we've accomplished. Looking forward ahead, we have
- exciting plans. We aim to host, in collaboration with community partners, one to two programs per year
- outside of our annual birthday commemoration event.
- support the Monroe County NAACP's Freedom Schools Project, create original education materials examining
- Dr. King's six principles of nonviolence and demonstrating how to apply their lessons in real-life scenarios.
- Produced during 2026 and 2027, a six-part series of community conversations reflecting on historic
- demonstrations of King's six principles of nonviolence from around the world.
- We anticipate challenges such as decreases in annual programmatic sponsorship from local businesses
- and individuals. However, we are optimistic about the opportunities they present. We see potential for
- deeper connections with the Monroe County NAACP, the Neal Marshall Black Cultural Center, the Black
- Humanities in the Midwest Project, and Resilience Productions.
- We invite you all to join us at our next commission meeting on Wednesday, April 22nd, from 6 to 7 p.m.
- in the Allison Conference Room at City Hall. Your involvement is vital to the success of our initiatives.
- We currently have two vacant seats on the commission, so we also invite you to apply to join the commission
- by visiting bloomington.in.gov slash MLK.
- Please mark your calendars and be a part of promoting and honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King
- Jr. in Bloomington. And with that, I'll accept any questions that you have. Thank you so much. Are there
- any questions from colleagues? Any comments?
- I would just like to say that this year's celebration was fantastic and really the, I think you did
- a fantastic job also of highlighting the diversity of voices and work that's been done throughout the
- city. And I love the way that the celebration in particular is expanded beyond just the day, but of
- service and other things, but really, I mean, the report showing that you're working all throughout
- the year to keep true to that legacy. And we're just so grateful for the work that you do for the city
- and the representation
- That you do for the city. So so thank you very much councilmember daily Everything that councilmember
- sorry said and I just want to say it is just such an infectiously joyful event that I always Love going
- and celebrating So thank you for all of that. I know it's a lot of hard work. So, thank you What can
- we do as a council to support you guys better? It's thank you for asking that I agree It was a magical day
- This year, we had to plan around the IU bowl game, so not only did we get an early start, we got a late
- happy ending, so that was great. The way you can support us really is by coming to our events and programs.
- I know a number of you already do.
- But for you all and the general public who don't normally attend our events, we will be glad to see
- you Thank you so much, thank you any other questions a councilman Stasberg
- Thank you, this isn't a question so much as I just wanted to highlight again those two vacancies because
- I just peeked on onboard and there aren't actually any applications in for those vacancies to be able
- to consider in terms of one of those appointments as a council appointment and one of them as a mayoral
- appointment but I just really want to strongly encourage people to apply for those vacancies because
- this is an important commission and I don't know Mr. Sanders if you want to
- just tell the community a little bit about what is actually involved in serving on the committee, taking
- this opportunity to be like, well, how many hours a month commitment is it or anything like that? I
- kind of just want to give you that opportunity to convince people to come and join y'all. Well,
- thank you. In the true spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, we would love the participants or any potential
- participants to have a heart for service, first of all.
- The commitment, I guess, per month is about a couple of hours. We, one, have our meeting, and then there
- are things that we email and communicate back and forth on, especially during the time we're planning
- our event. So me, I've been on the commission for a few years now, so I usually offer three hours a
- month just for official things, but...
- if, honestly, the hours are countless, depending on how much you'd like to be involved. And so, that's
- where that spirit of service comes in, you know, with caring about the events and also the time between
- the events. People who are familiar with the MLK Commission know that we have one flagship event a year,
- usually, but as the years have progressed, we have gotten more into the 40 Days of Peace,
- volunteering at the black market during black history month and also Juneteenth events and so like I
- mentioned in the annual report We are just hoping to to build and foster those partnerships around the
- community Great, thank you. I want to emphasize that's less than an hour a week on average So that's
- a pretty low commitment if anybody's out there on the force apply. I
- And in exchange if you sign up right now, we will keep this meeting short. We promise Moving on thank
- you so very much we'll move to What is what is next council committees and please if we first will have
- a report from the committee on council processes councilmember Piedmont Smith Yes, thank you. Let me
- just find my addendum here with the
- Information there was an addendum that went out yesterday with a report from this committee that is
- comprised of two parts First we have a document with our recommendations for a standard procedure now
- that we passed ordinance 20 2605 which was to allow discussion at first reading So That is just kind
- of a step-by-step
- Of the procedure that we recommend the underlying assumptions are first of all that there will always
- be a presentation of legislation at first reading And that there will be a discussion and public comment
- as well at the first reading of legislation and our second assumption will be that once we agree on
- this procedure and
- From this point onward, we will have robust communication with the public and city staff about our new
- procedures so that everybody understands that it's a change, that we will have presentation,
- public comment, and discussion at first reading of legislation, not just at second reading as we have
- so far. So I won't go through all of this, but I would open it up for feedback before I go on to point
- number two of my report.
- So hopefully my colleagues have had a chance to take a look at this And of course if there are other
- members of the committee who want to chime in So let's first look at procedures for discussion of ordinances
- at first reading Any feedback does this look good do we are we okay with what was proposed to the left
- and to the right
- I'll just say one, which I think we had a similar conversation when we passed legislation. I wonder
- if we should assume that we are always going to read something on first introduction. I mean, I think
- that the Council
- Retains its its right to not and and I do think that that's important a like as as it is that you know
- We don't have to hear something on the second time it's in front like we you know We get to choose when
- when we hear things and I do agree though with the with the sense of setting a certain expectation You
- know to the public but a but a you know, I I think that it's an important tool I'm here for you know
- for for council to be able to
- decide I mean otherwise otherwise that vote is is you know, it's somewhat irrelevant if if we're if
- we're kind of gonna move with the inertia that a thing would be read, but that's a minor a minor thing
- but So Yes, we would retain the right to either not introduce the item Are you also saying that you
- could envision us introducing it but not discussing it? I
- Yeah, for example or just or just reading it by its synopsis and moving on or you know, there's lots
- of different things we could do but I'm just saying that you know, we I Don't know. I'm just saying
- that that we shouldn't I don't I don't want to lock into a process of saying we you know, it's introduced
- we read it and it happens I think is Yeah Councilor Sasberg so in terms of like posting this procedure
- would you like the
- committee to kind of make a note there of like well What would happen if the motion to introduce the
- legislation? There was a no vote then what happens? What happens if on the motion to discuss the legislation?
- There was a no vote. So are you saying like that that should be like written in? procedurally to Certainly
- not my call. I'm just I was just I'm just reacting to you know, as as was asked for the feedback a you know, I
- I don't feel very strongly about this. I'm just saying that we've had multiple times where that was
- a tension point. I've said even when on the bad receiving end of that motion, I maintain that it is
- something that we can do as a council. I think that it's worth just being clear that there's not the
- assumption that everything that's put before us gets read and gets
- Debated that way. I mean, I think I think it is a proper assumption to say that we intend to read most
- things on first thing But you know just yeah, so just a little nuance there. But again, I don't feel
- super strongly about them I think that that could maybe get added into one of the notes And then that
- could yeah Okay. Thank you Any other thoughts or comments Okay, seeing none you want to move to the next one
- Thank you. So the second part of my report from the committee on council processes is Proposal for a
- new requirement that each piece of legislation whether it is an ordinance or a resolution have a council
- member sponsor And on this one we do Request that a vote be taken so that the committee knows whether
- there's a majority support for the concept so that we can
- Move along to actually revising our code to require that So our reasoning for making this recommendation
- is First of all, we think it would improve communication between council members and the mayor's
- administration earlier since there would also there would always be a council member who would have
- to sponsor legislation so they would have an earlier view of it and
- It would help to ensure that the legislation is clear to a layperson and doesn't leave out crucial context
- or information necessary for the council to make an informed decision on it. And it would also just
- in in the broad context put council members in control of bringing legislation forward. So it would
- be kind of a way for for us to control our calendar. Not that we would hold legislation back but that
- a council member would have to Be ready to also move forward with it So we don't have you know the details
- laid out yet We wanted to throw this out to see if there was general support for the idea So I'm I'm
- open to two questions about it and then we could maybe have a motion Questions or thoughts
- Again, I'm happy to share my night. I mean, yeah, let's try it out. Yeah, Councilor Morello.
- think that We didn't specifically talk about that in my view it would be assumed that the council member
- would support it and Not just put their name on something that they wouldn't vote for but council members
- Nostra I think that we did talk about that and that one of the things that we talked about was each
- department having kind of one two three kind of go-to list so if say like
- Kind of like go to councilmember wasn't in support of it or maybe just wasn't available then they could
- go to a second person so that then and and and Kind of like the the last fallback would be going to
- council staff to be like hey I'm trying to do this thing like which councilmember can you connect me
- with to make sure that that as Councilman Piedmont Smith said that we don't hold up legislation but
- that we make sure that
- I mean there there should be at least one councilmember on board with with anything that comes because
- otherwise it's just like a moot point The person could just offer a caveat That you know, they believe
- that it should be heard by the council, but not necessarily supportive Thanks
- I also think, you know, I mean, you know, Councilmember Zulak could say, I will sponsor anything, right?
- Like so, just as an example, I'm not saying that you would say that, but I'd just say, hey, you know,
- anything you guys want, feel free to put me as a sponsor. So I guess the question really is whether,
- you know, what we hope to achieve with the mechanism and whether the mechanism is designed to achieve
- the thing that, you know, that we're sort of designing it to do.
- Because maybe one way to think about it is currently those who attend the scheduling meeting essentially
- sponsor everything that comes before us already. So just wondering, maybe you want to, I don't know.
- I don't know what it is that we're trying to design this to do is the question, I think, building off
- of. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I think one thing we wanted to ensure was that the work of sponsorship, not
- that it's going to be a huge amount of extra work, but it is some extra work.
- And that work should be spread out among council members. So we did we were concerned about you know,
- just that happening saying oh Well, we'll just give everything to the council president and have that
- person sponsor everything that's why we we had kind of a first draft idea of having this go-to list
- of which department legislation for which department would go to which council members and that could
- be related to their other roles like
- I'm on the waste reduction board. So maybe anything having to do with sanitation could come through
- me because that makes sense because I've dealt with a solid waste stuff. So, um, you know anything from
- planning maybe could go through the council member who served on the planning commission. Um, we really,
- uh, do intend to, to spread that work out and kind of, uh, one thing that council member Zulek had mentioned
- that the Indiana general assembly actually has a limit on the number of bills, any one
- Member can sponsor and so if we if we see that oh my gosh, they're always going to the same person And
- if we find that's problematic, then we might consider those kind of limits as well To that I also want
- to add if we all remember the
- rate change not that one the rate change that came last year with CBU and that Part of my experience
- with that one really felt like we were asking questions That because the folks at CBU like knew so much
- of the inside baseball about some of those things But we didn't that then it's like we were bringing
- up new things. So that's kind of what what
- Number two here on the says is helping to ensure that legislation is clear to a layperson and doesn't
- leave out crucial context which may be you know, I mean we Voted that down. I think it was totally voted
- down as opposed to postponed indefinitely and so it's like that kind of thing that I'm kind of thinking
- like okay, we can avoid that by having a Layperson council member for lack of a better word say, okay.
- This is an interesting idea. But what about this that somebody who is You know in it all the time might not
- think about needing somebody needing a resource for an explanation about All I was gonna say was we
- brought it to the full council just to see what other council members were thinking and so I think that
- We're not exactly defending like any specific piece of legislation, but we're more looking for feedback.
- So I'll just put that out there and
- So Normally, it's the the leadership the council that creates and regulates the schedule of the council
- In coordination with the mayor's office and Kirk Bolton It will be then the duty of the council president
- to find sponsors To find sponsors up to the administration and
- I mean this probably goes back to what I was saying before that Normally sponsors are available for
- for presentation Would they with the then fall on the sponsor council sponsor to be part of the presentation
- of the legislation And see actually to that to that point I think that it makes a lot of sense to have
- to actually tie
- Council sponsorship to council support so that to your point about translating right that it's actually
- you know There's a council member who is also going to be advocating for this and this isn't precludes
- You know thing having three sponsors or four sponsors, right? Five I mean if we really know that that
- probably would be difficult But you know them but you know, I think I think yeah I think generally we
- should go in this direction and and see you know, right right right the legislation and and let's talk about it
- Yeah, I just want to clarify We wanted the feedback so that we don't just have something that we Try
- out for a couple meetings and then because this is a change in code. So so if the the feeling right
- now is Not really but let's try it out then we'd rather know that now I also want to add to that I
- Idea that I mean we put sponsor on here, but I think maybe it would be more appropriate to co-sponsor
- Sure because because that does have to do with like presentation kind of stuff because you know Even
- if you're a councilmember sponsor and even if like you can interpret some stuff like it's way better
- for the actual staff involved with it to like talk about the whole thing so Maybe categorizing it as
- a as a co-sponsor Would be better Awesome
- All right. Anything else from council processes? Please go ahead. Well, I just wanted to note I I was
- not envisioning that the sponsor would do the presentation. So I think that, you know, that's there's
- some flexibility there if we want to involve the sponsor if the sponsor wants to be involved, we could,
- you know, I think what we write in code
- should not be highly detailed. And then I suppose the sponsor could decide whether they want to be part
- of the presentation or not. That's my view. But at this time, unless there are other questions or comments,
- I guess I would ask if there's a motion. What type of a motion are you looking for? The one that's in
- my proposal.
- I Mean I'm on the committee, but I'll go ahead and motion to That the committee on council processes
- proceed with legislation to require councilmember sponsorship of all items of legislation Second,
- all right. There's a motion in the second for them to continue this work all those in favor say aye
- any opposed That motion carries eight one What would you
- Did you want more discussion? I would have preferred a roll call, but I suppose it's clear Can I can
- I do a roll call sure I don't know who actually said yes Yeah, but I don't know if everybody else said
- yes, so I would like to roll call them. All right. Will the clerk please? do a roll call Yes councilmember
- Flaherty, yes Stasburg yes Piedmont Smith
- Yes, Zulik. Yes, sorry. Yes, Bailey. Yes, Rallo. No Right. Yes Rosenberger. Yes That motion carries
- eight one All right. Excellent. Is that everything from special?
- Thank you so much a really quick thing from hopefully quick from the hiring committee I hope you all
- saw so we we we approved the Our draft of the job description and then submitted it to HR processes
- They've sent it back with comments and so to to two matters for tonight is is both to approve
- As amended or if you want if you want the hiring committee to continue to liaise with HR on anything
- And then I have a second motion that I that I need but first first this question that everybody get
- a chance to see the comments by HR and Were there any questions? Please councilman Sasberg
- Verify that all of the changes were redlined because there were two of those job descriptions that actually
- went out one in the Addendum yesterday and one in this afternoon And so I was trying to read through
- those going like what are the changes the change the change in the second was was a very minor one There
- was a note Justifying extensive note on the first one that had a justification that went beyond Sort
- of explaining why is that a 12? and
- The HR said that that was not not completely accurate and so they the second one just had the definition
- to be just the accurate reason In the packet, can you see the the notes or can you only see the redlining?
- I only see the redlining. Okay. I don't know if I'm just not I Only see redlining. I don't know if other
- people also only see redlining or if that's me and my computer Could you only see the redlining and
- not the notes?
- Well, that's a problem. So let's I think we're going to have to delay this until Unless I mean I can
- describe I can describe how about I can describe what the what the notes say because but you've did
- not read it well in the Does it say something different than the memo from human resources?
- Nothing is oh, yeah. No, it's in the memo. Sorry. Thank you The memo just says the pay grade will remain
- at grade 12 as is consistent with the city attorney's pay correct and
- So in terms of the redlining with those two actual things about that changed the red line is all the
- same Okay, I was like I'm really different here. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Flaherty From director
- paycheck the section just referenced to the bullet said reference forthcoming about the State statutory
- requirement that the council's attorney may not be compensated a higher rate than the city attorney.
- And so I was curious if we have that reference also
- You wanted to clarify the city attorney. Is that corporation council or is that a different role? That's
- the Second so yeah Audrey's position. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I thought thank you Any any word on
- the reference or is that just something and and now I'm realizing as we're saying as we're talking through
- this that I have made a clerical error and and for for the public's benefit I'm
- collating all of our documents to put in our packet, fairly bad at it. And then those are helpfully
- being put out by the clerk. I was supposed to update the memo, not the letter. Nothing changed in the
- actual description. The memo is where they changed that reference. They just took out that reference
- and just said the first line. Sorry.
- Oh, is Dr. Paycheck here? Thank you. Dr. Paycheck walked in just on time like an angel from heaven.
- Will you come and tell them how bad I am and just make it better, please? I take full responsibility.
- That's okay. Hi, everyone. Shar Paycheck, Human Resources Director. We had a revision to the memo, not
- to your job description,
- Just to the memo the memo had language that basically said the city attorney pay Could not be more than
- the I think it's like the attorney and the legal's office But we wanted to make sure that we were accurate
- in that language in the code the code actually says the appropriation for your staff cannot be more
- than the appropriation of
- for like positions in the legal office. So we just wanted to be a little bit more clear in the language
- that we put in the memo. So that was really the only changes that we had to the memo. We didn't change
- anything to your red line to your job description. You didn't have significant changes anyway. So we
- just tweaked it a little bit as HR would normally do, but that's all we did. Everything else we understand
- and we approved.
- Thank you so much, do you know the code section by chance of the citation I'm just curious to actually
- read it and see One more time. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. Do you have a citation for the state code that
- you're referencing? One moment I Think I followed what you said. I just wanted to read it You want to
- know the actual code
- Is that what you're saying? Yes 36 for 9 so 36 for 624 attorneys and legal research assistants for the
- council office 36 for 620 is it 36 for 6 for 624 Okay, the legislative body may hire or contract with
- competent attorneys and legal research assistants
- Terms it considers appropriate and then thirty six four nine explains appropriations for salaries of
- attorneys and legal research assistants employed under this section may not exceed the Appropriations
- for similar salaries and the budget of the City Department of Law. That's what we were writing to confirm
- got it and the conclusion from HR is that this position is a
- Similar to the city attorney position. Is that right? And not the corporation council position Definitely
- not the corporation council position some similarities to The assistant city attorney I feel like that is a
- Detailed discussion. I don't know if you want to go into the detail about some of the differences I
- feel between those two positions I can also say that I feel like there can be some continued discussion
- on the actual Responsibilities that are outlined in this city attorney job description But I understand
- that this is the way the position has been filled with the last two incumbents I understand that
- You need some support and that you're ready to move forward. So I understand that But I just want to
- say I think that there is room for further discussion On the way that the job description is written
- so that everybody feels like we are on the same page and aligned with the state code Got it. Thank you.
- You're welcome Any other um consular Salzburg
- Actually have two more. So one is you said in your memo. Thank you so much, by the way for being here
- I appreciate it that you guys changed things systematically from essential and non-essential to primary
- and secondary But in the job description, it does not look like the non-essential secondary got changed
- to just secondary So was that just like an error that that didn't get?
- Do you know what I'm talking does anybody else know what I'm talking about where you're talking about?
- I just have to make sure I Think in our practice we changed it to primary and secondary because sometimes
- we had a Misinterpretation that non-essential meant you don't really have to do those things and you
- do Yeah, and so it should be primary and secondary. It's not
- Okay, well it should be primary and secondary and so when it's posted it will be posted as primary and
- secondary not essential and not I mean, that's fine I just figure there's a typo because yeah essential
- secondary didn't get changed the secondary. Yes Sorry about that or non-essential secondary, but essential
- primary did get changed to primary. So I was like wait Yes, sorry, and the other question that I have
- is in your memo. It said that it needed to get That you recommended adding demonstrated ability to it
- Effectively use Google workspace and Microsoft office including word processing spreadsheets presentations,
- etc to support daily work functions And I didn't actually see that added So did that actually get added
- somewhere and that I missed it or it like wasn't in a red line That's why I asked if everything that
- had been changed was redlined because I didn't see it in a red line Without having the job description
- in front of me. I'm sorry. I don't really recall I mean if you want it to add that
- than it could be added. I'm happy to go back to talk to our talent manager to see if there was anything
- that was missed. I'm hoping that that wouldn't be anything that would hold up you proceeding with this,
- but if I can get some questions answered as quickly as possible, I will.
- Don't want it to hold up getting an approval of some kind tonight So I think that we can make a motion
- to make sure that that's added in if we as a group care about Making sure to kind of follow
- the recommendations from HR around the job requirements The hiring committees meeting tomorrow so so
- if you know if one of the things we can have on our agenda is to just make sure we you know Clean it
- up, etc. And that they wrote in the memos while the process will involve, you know spell checking and
- the like Yeah
- Okay, are there any motions? No, please go ahead I moved to I Moved to approve the position description
- for the council administrator attorney as amended second. There's a motion in a second any discussion. I
- And please customer Sasberg I would have to vote no on that right now because as it's written It's not
- right because non-essential secondary should be secondary and then the word stuff hasn't been written
- in so yes, it's not as written can we either make a different motion or amend that motion to Maybe empower
- the hiring committee to implement the changes as recommended to the to the job requirements by HR and
- Include the red line and also the items notice to be different or something like that I Withdraw my
- motion Do you want to go ahead and make sure you want me to make a motion instead? Okay. Okay, so I
- would move that we That we empower the hiring committee to
- What did I say before that we empower the hiring committee to make changes to the petition to the position
- description as presented in the red line and as are reflected in the HR recommendations in the memo
- There's a motion in a second any discussion All right seeing none all those in favor say aye Any opposed
- any abstaining
- That carries nine. Oh, thank you very much. Now the second thing a very brief thing and we needed a
- motion we need to amend the emotion that we did last last meeting in terms of Deputizing the hiring
- committee to engage with external council, etc because legal says that it needs to include figures including
- hourly rates and an amount that the that were not to exceed in terms of spending and
- And so I've asked a consumer daily to make that amended motion. That's okay with everyone I Move to
- authorize the hiring committee to identify and contract in coordination with appropriate city processes
- with external vendors professional service providers or temporary legal counsel
- Necessary to ensure uninterrupted functioning of the council office and support recruitment efforts.
- The results shall not exceed five thousand fifty thousand Dollars and we'll have a maximum hourly rate
- of four hundred dollars second There's a motion and a second any discussion I'm councillor Stossberg.
- Is that in the budget? Yes great
- Is that maximum hourly rate of $400 comply with the? What? Director paycheck just mentioned. Yeah, we
- looked at a broad range So this is both capturing hourly and what could be temp people and but we looked
- at a broader range of You know different law firms that we've contracted with and you know the rates
- range sort of dramatically and so just wanted to give space for that
- depending on the type of needs that we might have. And then the 50K again is also, if we end up hiring
- somebody for a sort of longer term temp position, we have 30K in our budget already, but then start
- having salary savings from vacant staff positions. But then also just to trigger, if that goes on for
- too long, that we have to come back to council and reauthorize that position.
- I have one more question, or actually go ahead, I saw Council Member Rosemary. I was just gonna say,
- I think 400 for billable hours can be kind of low, so if you all run into issues, I would be happy to
- change it, because I just think it can be. And we looked at a broad range, and this fits within how
- the city is contracted. Yes, please.
- I guess my other question or kind of follow up to that without my having to do math or necessarily go
- like well how many hours a week does that mean like How long do you think that? Maximum is gonna manage
- to sustain did you like speak with like city legal at all in terms of that kind of like consulting?
- Yeah, I think it was just enough of a runway and and again We have we'll have lots of different options
- as we talked about the last the last meeting so I think it's really contingent on on
- You know which path we pursue but we'll have a better sense after after the hiring committee makes make
- some decision about direction Okay, thanks. Thank you so much. All right, there's a motion in a second
- all those in favor signal saying aye any opposed Any abstaining that motion carries nine? Oh as well.
- Thank you very much We'll now move to any appointments to boards and commissions. Do we have any? Sorry
- I'm sorry. We now move to the most exciting part of today's agenda, which is public comment on things
- that are not currently on the agenda. You'll have three minutes to speak from the public mic. If you're
- willing to, please say your name for the record and most certainly sign in. For those of you online,
- you can raise your hand and we'll acknowledge you. Same rules, three minutes, et cetera. I will play
- music when that time is done. Is there anybody in the room who wishes to make public comment on things not on
- Agenda take it away. I Think you should be an entertainment good Evening, my name is Claudia Brink.
- I'm a longtime Bloomington resident. I'm also a pro bono consultant focused on affordable housing and
- I want to talk about modular housing and I have five reasons for why I think modular housing should
- be considered by the council and
- But before I give you my five reasons, I want to say very clearly I have no personal or financial interest
- in anything having to do with modular housing. Okay. All right. So the first reason is modular housing
- is 15% less expensive than traditional stick-built housing. The second reason is that modular homes
- can be built year-round in a climate-controlled factory.
- The third reason is that modular housing conforms to all Indiana code requirements for stick-built housing
- and actually they are more stable because they are built with two by six supports instead of two by
- fours. Also in Bloomington, we have a local builder that is committed to affordable housing and they
- have built over 96 modular homes in nine years.
- the same vendor has also been constructing between 12 and 14 homes in the Arlington Commons Land Trust
- and working with the Summit Hill Community Development Corporation already and The last reason why I'm
- asking you to support modular housing conceptually is that it is better for the environment when their
- Modular homes are built in a factory any waste material is not thrown out It is recycled into the next
- house that is built. So it's very good for the environment. It's affordable and
- It could be built much faster. It could be built all year round. Thank you very much Thank you next
- person in chambers
- Good evening, council members. My name is Joe Davis. I live at 530 South Washington Street between 2nd
- Street and 1st. I discovered yesterday, after returning from running some errands, that the city of
- Bloomington came in and took away from the front of my house my cooking firewood
- and they removed the composted leaves that I used to mulch my engineered raised garden beds. I was set
- up in front of my house with my computer, with my lawn chair, and my radio was on on my front porch,
- and while I was gone,
- the city employees through the Brighton Bloomington Project under the auspices of the Board of Public
- Works, not the Board, of the Public Works had taken away my valuable property. It took me all of last
- afternoon and much of today
- to find out who was responsible and accountable, and that is Public Works, that is the city of Bloomington.
- These items were very valuable to me. They constituted both real property and my personal, tangible
- property as well.
- They were taken away, I have found out that they are likely have been compromised at this point and
- mixed with other composted debris. I asked the city of Bloomington to give me, I requested that the
- city of Bloomington bring back my materials and that they do so as soon as possible because any time
- that goes on,
- is leading to the degradation and the compromise of my materials. I also stated that the city needed
- to make me whole, and I wanted a public apology for taking away my property. And that if I didn't receive
- this and some other compost or replacement materials, I would file with
- Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Kerr to start criminal proceedings for trespass, theft or conversion and other
- violations of my property rights. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you Is there anybody online
- who has a comment? Okay person online and then we'll come back
- in chambers Kevin Keough, do you hear me? Now we can go ahead miss Keough
- At last Friday's Fiscal Committee meeting, it was announced that the external auditors and the State
- Board of Accounts will be presenting on April 2nd, tomorrow, the audited financial report along with
- the federal grants audit report. As you prepare for tomorrow's executive session with the external auditors,
- I want to emphasize the importance of timely financial reporting. We are now 15 months past the 12-31-2024
- fiscal year.
- From a professional standpoint, timely financial information is essential for effective governance.
- When financial data is significantly delayed, decisions about the city's future are based on outdated
- information rather than current conditions. I encourage the members of the council to ask the auditors
- a fundamental question. What factors contributed to the length of the audit cycle? Specifically, was
- the timeline driven primarily by the auditor scheduling or by the timing and completeness of the information
- provided by the city?
- In the accounting profession, this is referred to as audit readiness, whether books are closed,
- reconciliations completed, and supporting documentation available early in the process. Understanding
- this distinction is key to identifying where improvements are needed. Also, please ask the auditor,
- did the agreed upon audit fee need to be increased compared to the original contract, and if so,
- how much, and what was the increase directly attributable to the delay?
- I would encourage the Council to consider how the timing and consistency of financial reporting aligns
- with the City required disclosures to current investors associated with the City's outstanding municipal
- bonds. Ask the auditor about the impact bondholders who rely on timely and consistent financial information
- and find that reporting is delayed or instances where previous issued figures require clarification.
- Ask how those factors
- are reflective in the City's federal required audit information filings and disclosures to investors.
- This is not simply a compliance matter. It's about maintaining confidence in the City's financial stewardship
- that allows the City to attract investors to fund the City's futures needs. Finally, I would encourage
- the Council to consider how financial controls operate beyond the audit itself.
- Recent public reporting indicates that a $95,000 contract was fully paid while certain deliverables
- may still have been in progress months later. Situations like this raise important questions about contract
- monitoring, payment authorization, and verification of performance prior to the disbursement.
- I would encourage the council to use this upcoming audit discussion to better understand how these types
- of transactions are reviewed, what controls are in place, and how exceptions, if they occur, are identified
- and addressed. This is ultimately a governance question. Timely, accurate financial reporting supported
- by strong underlying processes is foundational to transparency, accountability, and informed decision
- making. And I hope that most of you council members are able to attend that executive session tomorrow.
- Thank you so much. Look forward to also seeing the the annual comprehensive financial report actually
- published on the city web page, too Looking forward to that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Keough
- I'm back in the room. Mr. Rousseau. Hi Paul Rousseau Thank you for the time I routinely I'm routinely
- unable to attend the meetings of the Transportation Committee because they meet on Monday evenings and
- So I would like to make some comments here, especially while members of the executive branch are present.
- Six months ago, a 10-year-old girl was struck by a motor vehicle as she tried to cross the intersection
- at Smith Road and Morningside Drive. The driver was a young man who ran the stop sign because he was
- preoccupied with his cell phone. The statement of the daughter's mother on Monday evening was heartbreaking.
- She said, and I quote,
- Immediately after the crash, sitting in the hospital ER, watching my daughter repeatedly vomit up the
- blood she had swallowed from missing teeth that were knocked out on impact, I was overwhelmed with guilt.
- I had failed to keep my daughter safe, end quote. But in fact, she had taken measures to ensure her
- daughter's safety, and she had also wisely balanced safety with the need for her daughter to gain a
- measure of independence, which is important for childhood development.
- That is why her daughter was wearing a helmet as she bicycled a few blocks to her friend's house. Imagine
- what would have happened otherwise. Head injuries can be easily fatal. The response of the committee
- and city employees on Monday night was to discuss all the possible ways to make the intersection safe
- with engineering improvements. About 16 years ago, the University of Utah published a study that they
- conducted with a driving simulator, which is similar to the aircraft simulators used in pilot training.
- A large group of volunteers were each tested with no impairments, tested while distracted by a cell
- phone, and tested after drinking alcohol. The study found that even with hands-free technology, drivers
- distracted by a phone conversation were identically impaired to those with a blood alcohol level at
- the legal limit. Texting, which is arguably even worse, was not even part of the research, even though
- that is what distracts most drivers today.
- How do we change the behavior of those who drink and drive? Is roadway engineering our primary mechanism?
- Of course not. We use enforcement, and the offending driver either changes behavior or loses the privilege
- of driving. Where is the enforcement in Bloomington? Last night the police chief spoke about property
- crimes, but he had nothing to say about the epidemic of moving violations by distracted drivers.
- Motor vehicles injure, maim, and kill people. If we are serious about public safety, then we will allocate
- more officers to traffic, and if necessary, fewer to property crimes. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Please.
- Good evening. My name's Emily Niasse, and I wasn't expecting to come here tonight. I don't usually have
- Wednesday evenings open. This is the first one, and I was planning to go home and read a book and have
- something nice to eat and, you know, rest and stuff. But I stopped on the way. I got a ride over here
- with, it's my fault the mayor was late. I was gonna say, it was my fault. She stopped to pick me up.
- I'm limping.
- I was on my way home to Trail View and we naturally ended up talking about where she was going, which
- was to the city council meeting, and to talk about Hopewell. And I thought I'd take a minute to say
- we built our house in Trail View neighborhood. We were one of the first two houses built in 2015. We
- were women-built. Best party ever.
- It's absolutely phenomenal. So I've been, we've been in our house for 16 years now in our affordable,
- safe, accessible community. Now we have 34 homes in our neighborhood. And Hopewell, I hope, will be
- very similar to a lot of the wonderful things about living in Trailview. It is, our houses are,
- relatively small. They are close together. We know our neighbors very well. The pandemic tested that.
- We rose to the test amazingly. We have beautiful gardens and safe places for children to play. When
- there are traffic safety issues, we deal with them as a community, as there are, of course. And I hope
- that as Hopewell
- gets planned and pushed forward. I hadn't realized that the word affordable really had an option of
- coming true here. I mean, Trailview is a habitat neighborhood. There are a lot of things that went into
- making that affordable. But Hopewell could be truly affordable. But also that
- in that planning, many things take over the process and that I hope in consideration will still be what
- folks who need affordable housing need most. Of course, things need to meet code. Things need to be
- legal and safe and well planned. But to stay affordable, take into consideration what they need first
- for it to remain affordable, not get too expensive.
- and that many other things are... That's your time. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to remind everybody
- that during this session of public comment and the other one, please only talk about things that are
- not on the agenda. It is your first time, though, so I receive your comments with such joy. You know,
- it's an acquired habit for most of us. Anybody else have a comment for things not on the agenda?
- Anyone online? There'll be plenty of opportunities. Anyone online? All right, thank you so much.
- All right, we now move on, and there will be another time of public comment if you did not comment during
- this section that you'll be able to comment at the end of the meeting. We'll move on to appointments
- to board and commissions. Do we have any?
- Police council members look no appointments, but we do have some removals Unfortunately the appointment
- that we made last week for Kerry champion to the Historic Preservation Commission We heard back from
- Kerry champion who said that they are no longer able to fulfill the time commitment for the Historic
- Preservation Commission so I will and I guess I'll just do both at the same time drew Heron did receive
- his final notice from deputy clerk Crossley
- That he will be removed from the Historic Preservation Commission if we do not hear from him and we
- did not hear from him Clerk Bolden. Do you have anything to add about Drew Heron? Just that a letter
- was sent to him. He didn't respond by the due date which was actually oh Goodness the 31st yesterday
- So yeah, thank you. And so with that I'm I
- Move that we remove drew heron and carry champion from the Historic Preservation Commission happy to
- answer any questions There's a motion in a second any discussion comes from Stossberg We actually have
- to remove the person who we appointed last week who said that they can no longer do it. They can't just
- resign Because I mean we don't usually actually officially remove anybody who resigns but we have people
- who resign and leave empty seats and
- Please come clerk clerk Bolden Do you want to complete the motion that you're voting on because Drew
- Heron was not the person that you were discussing about removal You just you did both both of them.
- Okay, then They didn't accept the appointment That you made last week, so we don't probably be the better
- way to clarify I I mean
- It doesn't seem like we need to remove them Okay in that case I withdraw my motion and I would like
- to move that we remove true Heron from the Historic Preservation Commission There's a motion in a second
- any discussion Seeing that all those in favor say aye any opposed any abstaining that motion carries
- nine zero Thank you very much. Are there any other appointments boards and commissions? I believe not.
- All right, we have no legislation for first reading anybody want to introduce something I
- Great. We're moving now on to things for ledges legislation for Not first reading in this case second
- reading. Are there any motions? I move that ordinance 2026-06 be introduced and read by the clerk by
- title and synopsis only second There's a motion in a second. Is there any discussion? All right, all
- those in favor say aye aye any opposed
- And I'm assuming what I'm stating so that's a eight eight zero one it passes Oh flirty's gone to hey,
- I'm not counting. Well seven seven one It doesn't matter
- Yeah ordinance 2026 dash 06 to amend the city of Bloomington zoning maps by rezoning a 6.3 acre property
- from residential urban lot r4 and residential multifamily rm within the transform redevelopment overlay
- which is tro to plan unit development pud and to approve a district ordinance and preliminary plan the
- synopsis is as follows This ordinance amends the zoning of the property from residential urban lot and
- residential multifamily within the transform redevelopment overlay to plan unit development
- Thank you very much. I move that ordinance 2026-06 be adopted. Second. All right, this ordinance is
- before us again. We'll give a little bit of time if the petitioner had any sort of remaining thoughts
- or things that they'd like to say. We'll have time for Councilmember questions and then we can move
- to our continued discussion of reasonable conditions. Take it away, Mayor Thompson.
- Awesome. I want to just say that I was not entirely late just because I was picking up Emily. I also
- watched a rocket launch and it reminded me that we can do really hard things.
- And I acknowledge that sometimes, hard things don't go well, and sometimes, we take the scenic route.
- But I am excited to be talking about Hopewell again today. And we've... I have spent much of the weekend
- talking one-on-one, two-on-one, et cetera, with various folks about Hopewell.
- And hope while we really tried to do things differently and engage council early We had a meeting on
- December 15th just to get input based on the map as it was looking at that point Along with
- the considerations and at that point I invited council to remain engaged through Plan Commission and
- because it does get to a point where it's expensive to change things and it causes great delays. We
- really got almost no feedback at that point. And I fully respect the input of all of our elected
- representatives of our city's residents.
- And I join you in the spirit of moving Hopewell forward. And it's in that spirit that I want to issue
- a challenge of my own this evening. I call on every council member and myself to conduct a series of
- meetings throughout the month of April to pound out the final details of Hopewell's initial phase. Our
- staff team will prioritize this.
- And I would ask that you do the same. To maximize the input and ensure that we use our time allotted
- with the urgency that this deserves. The urgency that is felt by people wanting to find attainable housing
- here in our city. Including using your next deliberation session and any added meetings that might be
- needed in order to hammer through all of these details. We remain open to collaboration
- and to finding ways forward that meet the needs of our residents, both current and future. I believe
- that if we do that over the next month, that we can, as one city, finalize a mutually agreed-upon strategy
- at Council's first meeting in May. And to that end, I would...
- Encourage you to use the balance of this meeting of the time that you had planned to spend at this meeting
- proceeding through the discussion and Giving us something meaningful to take back to the RDC if there
- are considerations that they need to make It's hard to get quorum there in response to things that the council
- is requesting. And we have Allie Quinlan-Thurman on the line today. She is prepared to go through the
- various reasonable conditions and offer some background and hopefully inform the discussion. Thank you.
- Mayor Thompson, can I just clarify one thing? Sorry, thank you. So is, maybe this is not a necessary
- clarification, just, I mean, I'm dense. Are you proposing that, are you asking us not to vote on this,
- not to vote on this today? Unless you plan to vote without, unless you plan to vote
- For the PUD in a way that does not materially change what has been submitted, I would ask you not to
- vote on it, because we would need, especially given several reasonable conditions that are gonna cause
- a change to the map and change to the cost of the homes, if those were to pass, we need to go back to
- the drawing board and pencil things out, and we need to talk to the RDC.
- Thank you so much. Any other council member questions? Here, Council Member Stosberg. I'm not sure if
- this is a question for Mayor Thompson or a question for I think that we, the council, have
- legal representation online right now, is that correct? Correct. I think our people from Clark Quinn
- online, if you are, yep, they are as well. Hello. So if we could maybe stop that screen share, that
- would be great. And I also want to mention that anything that, any presentations
- Should have been submitted already to council and should have already been posted on board for the public
- as well And I find it frustrating. This is the second meeting
- That that had a presentation like this that then wasn't already in the packet and that's kind of a deviation
- of procedure and I would appreciate it if We could actually manage to follow that council procedure
- But getting back to the question that I have for legal the end of last meeting it was basically, you
- know this legal dispute between whether the reasonable conditions were reasonable conditions and whether
- we could pass them at all and I'm interested if our our Representation that we have contracted with
- now could weigh in on that matter of these reasonable conditions. Thanks. I
- Sure, and thank you. Just a brief introduction. My name is Clark Kirkman, and with me I have Kelly Shaw.
- We're attorneys at the Clark Quinn law firm here in Indianapolis. I would like to thank President Asare
- for inviting us to help out in this project. I'd also like to thank Margie Rice for working with
- President Asare to contract with us on such short notice and to get that engagement signed. We were
- asked to review what the scope of the council's authority is to impose or adopt reasonable conditions
- when voting to adopt a plan unit development or PUD and what the potential limitations of that are.
- I did submit a memorandum that I believe has been added to the packet for today's meeting. I won't go
- into the whole memo as we've submitted, but our review of the relevant laws is that Section 1512 and
- the 1500 series is what governs plan unit developments. Section 1512 is the
- gives power to the legislative body expressly to allow adding reasonable conditions when adopting a
- PUD ordinance. It's specific and distinct from the legislative body's ability to generally adopt or
- reject a proposed rezone that's in the 600 series of the zoning laws.
- The plan commission conducts the review of the PUD district ordinance in accordance with 1511 and then
- that's then sent over legislative body in accordance with 1512. It's true that neither statute nor case
- law really defines what might constitute a reasonable condition. And to the extent that
- something might be reviewed later on. I think a court would review that under the general arbitrary
- and capricious standard that's articulated in the Misty Woods case, which has been brought up, I believe,
- at previous meetings. Speaking of Misty Woods, so that case has been submitted by the
- the city on behalf of the RDC. The issue in the Misty Woods case had to do with whether the council
- in that one actually voted to adopt a rezone, but it came out of the plan commission with some R1 and
- some R2, and the council decided, well, we only want to go with R1.
- and what the Court of Appeals said is that, well, that change in the zoning classification constituted
- an amendment. Crown point, the Misty Woods case is distinguishable, we believe, from what we're dealing
- with in this instance in that that case did not contemplate the 1500 series, did not contemplate plan
- unit developments. It had to do with a general rezoning matter.
- The only case that I'm aware of that talks about the 1500 series is the case way back from 2004 in the
- Indian Supreme Court story in Bed and Breakfast, which really just talked about the difference between
- a condition and a commitment in which a condition is something adopted by the legislative body, does
- not have to be recorded, just has to be publicly available, whereas a commitment is entered into with the
- property owner, it's added to the parcel and it runs with the land. Speaking of commitments, the IC
- 36-7-4-1015 talks about them and subsection G of
- 1015 states that the following, and this has to do with adopting commitments. It says the following
- types of conditions as authorized by this chapter are not considered commitments and are not subject
- to subsection B. Subsection, sub-area three of that says, a condition imposed upon approval relative
- to any other development requirement that must be met before any other secondary approval may be granted
- or building permit may be issued under this chapter. To the extent that there is anything in state statute
- that defines what might be a reasonable condition in the 1500 series, I would submit that that statement,
- any condition imposed upon an approval relative to any other development requirement would be a good
- place to start.
- And with that, I think Kelly and I are happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. Councilmember
- Flaherty? Thank you for sharing your legal opinion that the Misty Woods case is distinguishable and
- that in the 1500 series, we would be looking at probably an arbitrary and capricious standard to determine
- if reasonable conditions are in fact reasonable. Can you describe a little bit more what type of factors
- would go into that analysis?
- if a court were to assess a given reasonable condition? I think a court, as a gentleman, would look
- at the overall goal of the project, whether the project, whether that condition would further the project.
- There was a statement that the city
- put in its memorandum. This comes from a Nebraska statute that says, you know, a reasonable condition
- might be deemed necessary to ensure the planning and development is compatible with adjacent uses of
- land, will not overburden public services and facilities, and will not be detrimental to public health,
- safety, and welfare. Now, I'm not sure that that language is, you know,
- Specifically applicable here, but that might frame some of the Factors you asked you ask about Just
- a follow-up on that particular point would things like city policy documents city policies and city
- code city plans things like that be relevant to what might be considered reasonable for the sake of
- a reasonable condition Certainly ordinances on the books would be considered You know informative of
- reasonable reason ability yes
- Thanks Any other any other questions or comments Comes counselor Rallo and then I'm counselor daily
- Yes, thank you. Just to be clear. So what we what was referenced last week the case of Crown Point versus
- Missy Woods was is not applicable to a PUD because We're evaluating PUD You said it was a rezone a 600 series
- So they're distinguishable in that regard. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say that it wouldn't bear on any
- discussion at all. I mean, it does analyze zoning law. But what happened in the Misty Woods case did
- not concern a PUD. It was a general rezoning from
- from an agriculture used to R1 and R2, the council decided they didn't want any R2. They passed it saying,
- well, we're going to make the whole thing R1. The court said, well, that's amending the zoning ordinance
- as passed. If you review the entire Misty Woods case, you will not find mention
- anywhere of the words reasonable conditions Thank you Any other questions or comments I Have a question
- mr. Kirkman if Whether So because the petitioner here is the RDC and being represented by the mayor and
- and city legal, what would the process of withdrawal look like? So, I mean, I know we've had some discussions
- before about if we were to, for example, if we were to pass certain things, you know, they would have
- a right to withdraw the petition rather than, for example, have it voted down or voted up with conditions
- that they didn't want to accept. But yeah, how, in your opinion, would that even work
- Well, I would... I mean, it is somewhat unique, and it might be something that would need further review.
- I do think, yeah, the fact that the petitioner is also the person who would be signing the ordinance
- makes things more complicated, and... yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other comments?
- Please point of order. I guess are we what phase of Deliberations are we in we were about to have a
- presentation from a further presentation from the petitioner Though I was unaware that they had a PowerPoint
- But I don't know if Ali would like to present without the PowerPoint to give in the accessibility
- Point-of-order this made and then and then we were going to move into discussion of the RC's got it.
- Okay councilmember Sussberg asked that this happened and okay Yes, so so I think at this point and thank
- you so much We may have further questions as we go on but thank you for for for answering this initial
- round of them both of you and we'll move back I think if
- Ali, our friends from Flintlock, if you're still there, if it's okay because of the rules about accessibility
- that have been objected to, I think it sustains. We didn't receive the PowerPoint, so if you could present
- without it, that would be most in line with our custom and rules. I'm happy to do so. We were receiving
- questions from council members up until about an hour before the
- the session so it would have been challenging to provide all of this in advance, but I'm also happy
- to run through verbally if you don't mind not having graphics to explain some of the points. Thank you.
- Thank you so much, Ms. Thurman. Yeah. As we adjust my screens over to do that. I was going to start
- with talking through what we are really looking at tonight and some of the decisions before us tonight.
- This is a fully vetted by city departments code compliant plan that has also gone through plan commission
- and one round of conditions already. There was really extensive coordination as referenced earlier,
- including engineering, fire, sanitation, and planning. A lot of what we wanted to talk about is the
- trade-offs of what some of these potential changes would yield in the plan overall.
- As we've heard about and I know we'll be talking about a lot today, the conditions also need to be tied
- to project impacts, not to general policy goals.
- I'll bring a little bit of information as well, just as somebody who works with cities a lot, working
- through land use questions, who sat on permissions previously. The essential nexus and rough proportionality
- and the arbitrary nature is something that we see a lot of cities talk a lot more about from a federal
- level. The case law that we hear most frequently referenced, two cases that happened to rhyme, although
- they were unrelated, Nolan and Dolan established the precedent of
- Conditions have to be related directly to the impact of a project, the rational nexus of the reason
- for the condition, and that also we need a rough proportionality of the cost of the condition has to
- be directly related to the impact of the project itself on a city.
- As we look at the conditions, I believe and I was going to recap briefly where I think we are. We were
- receiving, again, feedback right before the meeting. Trying to get all on the same page of what we think
- that we are, where we think we are on council conditions. My understanding is that our condition 1,
- the use unit table adjustments has been approved by council and has no complaints from the applicant.
- That condition 2, the phasing plan has been provided and is resolved.
- Condition three, my understanding is, has been removed the ADU owner occupancy requirement. I believe
- that RDC's attorney is going to speak to condition four, the permanent affordability at 50%. I believe
- that our proposal would be the 25% that is required by the UDO, the 15% base and the 10% PUD added requirement.
- Condition five's permanent affordability, my understanding has been removed. Condition six,
- the sustainability, no gas allowed in the neighborhood that it has to be all electric. My understanding
- is that the applicant has voluntarily agreed to that, but that the city would not be able to legally
- require that. Condition seven, the sustainability requirement to meet lead silver or a similar proposal.
- I think we can talk a little bit more about details there, but that we would propose meeting the model
- energy code, which is in the UDO currently, that increasing the standards over those required in the
- UDO would be an arbitrary exception because it's not required of other similar projects. And so we believe
- this would be legally classified as an amendment that would require reworking the costs and affordability
- metrics of the project.
- Conditions 8, 9, 10, and 11 are something that might be helpful to referencing PUD exhibits to graphically
- show, but the six-foot minimum sidewalk is not possible within the neighborhood without losing. We've
- got a graphic that we can show you of if we have a 60-foot wide right of way, which is extending back
- to a six-foot tree plot, which is condition 10, and a six-foot sidewalk, which is condition 8.
- Because we can't widen into the building in Block 8 and we can't widen into existing homes in the southern
- part of Block 10, we would need to take all of that extra space on both sides out of the edges of Block
- 9. So we lose approximately 14 homes.
- In condition eight, which I think is what Mayor Thompson is referencing, would require some redesign
- and would likely need to come back through plan commission. It would have cost impacts that are pretty
- significant as well as dimensional impacts that are very different than fire and engineering already reviewed.
- The 10 foot minimum sidewalk condition in item condition nine is not possible without losing three accessible
- units. Those could be converted to a non accessible unit, but the dimensions of the accessible units
- would require that we would lose three of our accessible units.
- And then sort of general conversation about, you know, anytime we're widening sidewalks, right? The
- five foot sidewalk to a six foot sidewalk doesn't feel like a big change. It's only one more feet of
- concrete. But it is a 20% increase in impervious area. And so it does have an impact and would need
- recalculation for stormwater, you know, both runoff and then it coordinated stormwater area. And then
- condition 11, we did want to bring some
- concerns that the proposal to what to narrow the lanes to 12 feet. There's a 16 foot proposal and 12
- foot proposal. Both of those violate fire code. They would require adding significant costs to require
- fire sprinklers and so those are some numbers that I can run through in depth if that's helpful. Condition
- 12, the Roger Street right of way widening would require demolition of the existing building and it
- also would reduce parking and underground stormwater storage.
- I think we had some concern that that would really be seen as a legal taking of that building. Condition
- 13, we understand, is likely to violate state law and not be allowed. We were not planning to address
- it. Running through, I think the things that might be most helpful to run through verbally are condition
- for 50 percent of homes being required as permanently affordable,
- That we really wanted to discuss with you guys that there are trade offs to each one of these decisions
- right so that we the more requirements that we have the fewer homes that we can have and the higher
- the costs are and so you know with.
- With fewer homes, we end up with higher cost per homes. But we also want to talk about what a lot of
- the proposal and what a lot of the changes in the PUD also are providing. As we talk about percentages,
- we, by right, as an R4 neighborhood, have about 28 homes that we can put in. 15 percent of
- 28 is significantly fewer permanently affordable homes than the 98 that can be provided in the current
- proposal. Even the 25 percent permanently affordable of our larger number is
- almost as many homes as could have been provided to begin with. And so, as there are really two ways
- to approach affordability and homeownership, you know, permanently restricting a smaller number of units
- or producing a larger number of homes that are attainable by design, we'd really like to propose doing
- both, but proposing doing both within the statutes of the current UDO.
- We also do support long-term affordability. The question is really how to do that in a way that preserves
- both access and economic mobility. It's not a policy preference, but that we do with experience and
- affordable homes have some concerns in the overall trade-offs that would be required to get to 50 percent
- of the buy-write homes. Those have an impact on the long-term ability of the market rate homes to appraise
- at normal values. They also likely have an impact
- on nearby homes, appraisal values, and that a mixed income neighborhood long-term is always a good idea.
- Percentages that are typically seen in those kinds of neighborhoods are more like a 25% advantage. Could
- you slow down a little bit? I am not able to keep up with the speed of your presentation. Thank you.
- Happy to do so.
- We can switch into condition seven, which is our sustainability condition. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
- you Yes, thank you. Thank you All let's be in order for a moment. I'll just clarify one thing that and
- thank you so much miss Thurman for your patience and your thoroughness The we have a rule in this body.
- I don't disagree that we should be showing the PowerPoint I don't disagree that that that
- You know, we don't always need to be subject to rules. Somebody could motion to suspend a said rule
- if you want. Nobody has. And so, at the moment, we are bound by those rules, and the person made the
- right motion, saying, hey, you know, we didn't receive this before. That's the way that we operate.
- And until others, they move otherwise, we won't do otherwise. And so, I may agree with you, but I'm
- sorry that we have to sustain the position. I agree.
- But you know unless my unless my you know Thank you Yes, yes, please Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you. All right, miss miss Thurman if you could continue and it may be also useful as
- as if to the council members when when we discuss the any of these reasonable conditions unless someone
- wants to make other motions, you know, we may be able to
- discuss a little bit more. I think the overarching point here is that there's some weight to each of
- the conditions. I think we're following that much, I think not in the precise detail of each of them.
- But if you could continue, please, that'd be wonderful. I'm so sorry and thank you for your patience.
- Happy to do so and here to help. We really are grouping conditions eight, nine, and 10 together. If
- that is a helpful way for everybody to think about them,
- They work together as the whole site is really a Tetris block. Sidewalks as a six foot minimum generally,
- eight feet we're serving as frontage, tree plots six feet wide. So those changes together are referenced
- as being necessary to uphold the transportation plan. But we did work closely with staff during the
- design phase of this.
- with the realities of creating a compact walkable neighborhood. The plan prioritizes shorter blocks,
- lower driving speeds, internal pedestrian spaces, and is within compliance of the transportation plan,
- which was something that was heavily discussed throughout the design because the transportation plan
- itself does anticipate flexibility in neighborhood street design. There are extensive charts of variations
- within streets reflecting existing right-of-way, existing building, existing reasons,
- that a street couldn't be the entire full section. It in no way anticipates that every street can be
- made exactly to match. And as we've referenced previously, and I think shown previously, the section
- of neighborhood residential streets, which is the one that applies most to these sections, states, and
- I'll read quoting here, that many existing neighborhood residential streets are quite narrow in width.
- In order to preserve neighborhood fabric, existing streets shall not be required to conform to these
- cross-section standards. Priority for neighborhood residential streets is on maintaining calm streets
- that create safe and comfortable environments for walking, even if there are no sidewalks. Further in
- the transportation plan and the dimensions that are proposed in the PUD did come from specific coordination
- with engineering and the transportation requirements.
- The shared street typology that is referenced in Figure 15 provides for something very similar to the
- lanes, a shared street with no centerline, 20 to 22 feet in width, with no dedicated bike facilities
- and optional on-street parking and other facilities.
- within descriptions of the pedestrian zone and the greenscape furnishing zones. Both of those reference
- narrower widths are possible. The pedestrian zone section references that the ADA, the Americans with
- Disabilities Act, requires a minimum four-foot pedestrian zone and that that can be applied using engineering
- judgment and should account for a minimum one-foot shy distance from any barriers. The transportation
- plan does anticipate up to a four-foot
- Yes Comment on the floor. Yes, I move to suspend the rules and allow miss Thurman to present the slideshow
- Second there's a motion in a second any discussion councilman Rostos Berg It's not a rule that you can
- suspend it is part of our council procedure at this point that is
- Presentations are supposed to get submitted by Monday before the meeting and I'm sorry if you all think
- that I'm just being pissy About this but starting pretty darn soon It is actually going to be a requirement
- that we can't show anything up there on that screen unless it has already been posted somewhere publicly
- And I know that that has been made clear. I know that that's been made clear in our documentation from
- our council attorney before she left what the procedures are. And the fact that our administration can't
- manage to abide by our council procedures is one of the serious problems that I think we have right
- now in this city. And there is a reason why we don't have any full-time council staff right now in our
- office. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Slasberg.
- Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Flaherty, thank you We this has come up before
- including when members of the public have wanted to share Materials that they sent in and we did not
- allow them to I I am sympathetic to what I'm hearing but at the same time I think having special rules
- for the mayor and not for other people is a problem I think actually this entire petition is kind of
- like that. So I
- I'm not going to support the motion. Thank you. Any other comments? I might just say that to me there's
- a contextual argument, which is namely the content that we're receiving is very difficult to receive
- without visual help. I think that
- We could if, I mean, the mayor asked that we extend this to May 1st. I mean, if May 6th, I mean, we
- could postpone and have the conversation in depth that way. But I do think that there is a context that
- I think is beyond just the fact that it's the mayor. I don't think that we need to pigeonhole that into
- this argument.
- Order, please all right any other comments I Might have to use my gavel tonight how exciting okay, so
- that's there's been a motion in a second Can we call for a roll call please
- Yes Yes Yes Yes No No That motion carries five for
- Sorry, okay, we need a two-thirds majority to suspend our rules, so I'm sorry that motion fails So miss
- Thurman, please continue Please councilmember Stasberg, please suggest instead of having this presentation
- right now where it feels like I
- Miss Norman is is going through the reasonable conditions instead Maybe we can start with the sponsors
- of the reasonable conditions and actually like introduce them one at a time in order to talk about them
- or potentially have a motion to discuss the reasonable as opposed to like I move to adopt a reasonable
- condition whatever say I move to discuss reasonable condition whatever and then we can talk about it
- and maybe that will be easier for
- for the public and for council members. Heard. I am in agreement. Let's do exactly that. So, Ms. Thurman,
- on standby, we last left off. We have 13 reasonable conditions. Reasonable conditions. Please, Council
- Member Flaherty. I generally agree that it would be productive to talk about them, you know,
- and all that. I also have, like, general questions about the petition. Would we want to handle those
- first? Questions for the petitioner?
- or its representatives? I think seems appropriate. Okay. The first one is just a question for, I guess,
- Corporation Council or whichever attorney is here representing the RDC, is the legal interpretation
- of the, I guess, the RDC's representative that the council cannot pass reasonable conditions that you
- don't agree to or at all
- And who's the you know RDC? Thank you Dana Kerr as assistant city attorney assigned to the Redevelopment
- Commission the legal department for the city and as a representative legal representative of
- the Redevelopment Commission We do agree that reasonable conditions may be imposed by the council on the PUD
- We do respectfully disagree with council's representation of what is an amendment and what is not an
- amendment and so therefore what my Intention to do tonight is as we progress through the reasonable
- conditions is to give a very short synopsis of my Legal opinion of each one not to go down a rabbit
- hole on each one to argue but just so that we have on the record what
- our legal position is on each one, so that, should that be necessary in the future, it is on the record.
- But I believe that anything, and our legal department and our colleagues that we have contacted believe
- that anything that changes the text, drawings, exhibits directly, altering the language,
- adding additional requirements that are substantial things of that nature are amendments to the PUD
- that are In permissible and the reasoning is that the PUD is the ordinance it's like what they were
- talking about going from a
- Going from the a1 to r1 and r2 and only going from an r1 What you do in a PUD is you're creating your
- very own? ordinance zoning ordinance for just this Little 6.3 acre parcel you're creating your very
- very own zoning ordinance So anytime you change that text or those drawings or those cross sections
- You're changing that ordinance and so that's impermissible
- To unilaterally do that. I'm not saying that it can't be done through a agreement by the petitioner,
- but unfortunately the petitioner due to the circumstances that it's a Redevelopment Commission a five-member
- Commission, you know can't be here in this kind of setting so my belief on steps forward could be that if
- It's a reasonable condition and I believe a couple that passed were within that that realm then that
- you have the power to do that the Redevelopment Commission can't say we like it or dislike it. It's
- just what you impose but when you come to an amendment the redevelopment could have an opportunity if
- Guess my suggestion would be that the council in those situations Proposed that there be an amendment
- to the PUD and that that go back to the Redevelopment Commission who meets Monday night not that they
- could get through it all on Monday night maybe but to let the redevelopment go back look through what
- the amendment would be and actually vote on it and
- and make a determination of what the As any petitioner would For instance in the misty woods case the
- petitioner could have said in that first meeting No, I want r1 and r2 only and then so the council at
- that point had the choice of either adopting as presenting giving both or denying it
- so after it went to the Redevelopment Commission and they either Agreed to do the amendments or not
- then it would come back to the council and the council would say okay Well, they agree with these but
- they didn't those or they agreed to all of them So we're okay and you would be able to either accept
- it or denied at that time so but again my I
- I believe you have learned at council, when we spoke today, it was obvious that this isn't tested in
- court. So there's not, we may be right, he may be right, I feel very strongly in my position. Reasonable
- conditions are not defined, but amendment is very easily found in the dictionary, in the Black Laws
- dictionary, in amending text and adding text of substance and deleting text of substance
- Amendments and the PUD ordinance is the zoning ordinance for that particular Zone, so that's why I strongly
- feel that that's what it is. So Anyway, so that's why I would like to with each one give my legal opinion
- on behalf of the REC Thank you so much, mr. Kirkman and then and then councilman Flaherty
- Yeah, I did just want to have a brief response to what Mr. Kerr just said. Talking about with the PUD,
- we're creating our own small ordinance for the 6.3 acres. And if you change anything, then that's an
- amendment. I would submit that that interpretation or that does not take into account
- the express authority to adopt reasonable conditions in 1512, which is the PUD scope of authority, the
- statutes that create the ability to create a PUD. It's different from amending a run-of-the-mill zoning
- petition. Again, I cited in
- earlier presentation that 1015 G3, which again states that it defines a condition imposed upon approval
- relative to any other development requirement that must be met before any other secondary approval may
- be granted or building permit may be issued under this chapter. Those are not considered commitments.
- Those are considered conditions to the extent that there's a definition of reasonable
- I think development requirement was used in Mr. Kerr's presentation there multiple times. I think that
- we're trying to shrink what is able to be called a reasonable condition. Then one last thing, just briefly
- with Ms. Thurman's presentation, multiple times there was some talk about takings and exactions.
- suggest that what is actually on the table here is actually somewhat unique in that the city owns the
- land. It's owned by the RDC. We're discussing what to do with this property and what to adopt on public
- land. Takings, of course, are taking of private property for public purpose. I'm not sure that taking
- law would actually apply in this specific context. Now, if we're talking about a PUD over some privately
- owned land, it might be a different story, but in this case, this is entirely publicly owned land. I'm
- not sure exactions and taking analysis really applies. Thank you so much. Council Member Flaherty, then
- Stasberg. I defer to Stasberg. Okay, Council Member Stasberg.
- kind of a follow-up sort of question and thought about this. Well, one thing, I don't want to spend
- our time right now necessarily having this legal debate because it's pretty clear to me that our council
- representation and the city representation differ on this subject. But there is clearly a way through
- it in terms of approval by the RDC of anything specific if we need to get to that point. But one of
- the things that I just want to bring up
- Mr. Kerr in terms of like what you just said about the PUD and what you said was changes to text and
- text amendments and a PUD is both a map amendment and a text amendment and The case that was cited earlier
- my understanding, you know, so I'm not I'm not the lawyer, right? So I feel like I'm asking this partly
- for all of you other people out there who are also not lawyers Okay, so the case cited earlier. It was
- a map amendment
- And so state law was saying, okay, council can't change a map amendment, can't amend a map amendment.
- But state law does say that we can amend text amendments. So when we get things from the plan commission
- that are text amendments, council can make actual changes to them, to the UDO, and can make amendments
- to them. And that is part of how I'm viewing this reasonable condition thing, is that it would not be
- okay if we wanted to change the map
- but we're not changing the map. We are looking at the rules around the map and that is a text amendment.
- So I guess I'm interested in hearing from both attorneys their thoughts on that kind of difference in
- terms of this PUD being a text amendment and a map amendment versus other things that come from the
- plan commission which are usually either or.
- Section 1505 C states that the legislative body shall adopt and amend a PUD District ordinance in the
- same manner as a zone map change So it's section 608 a zone map change not as own text change of 607.5
- So it is a map change just like the Misty Woods case Where that amendment is not allowed unilaterally
- and so what do our attorneys say to that?
- So I would say that it's both. In this case, it's a map change and a text change. And we do believe
- that the reasonable conditions come in the 1500 series, which is to do with both because this is a PUD
- and it involves both. But it's different than just a map change, just a rezone, because the 1500 series
- provides specifically that reasonable conditions are allowed.
- Thank you customer Flaherty Thank you. So Mr. Kerr, you described a variety of things that you think
- would not be valid reasonable conditions Are you aware that the City Council and previous mayors have
- signed? Legislation consistently for the past at least four decades that have reasonable conditions
- that would in your opinion not be valid reasonable conditions I have I understand that I
- have not, in this limited time, have the opportunity to go back and read them. I do understand that
- in the Summit case, the petitioner was here to agree to it, just like in the Misty Woods case in the
- first hearing, the Misty Woods agreed to go ahead and just go with R1, and their attorney representative
- told the council that they wouldn't show up to the second meeting
- If they were just going to go ahead and just do the r1 and make no other changes They were okay with
- that. So they acquiesced to doing that change I did not go through the others If they did it and it
- was an amendment without the petitioner agreeing to it Then all I can say that it was incorrect. It
- was contrary to the law. I'm Just sorry. That's my opinion on it
- And I stand by my opinion. And I do believe there are reasonable conditions, things that help specify
- and identify. For instance, there's the issue of affordability that's going around. And I had, because
- I believe changing to 50% is a change in the text. It's changing 15 to 50.
- I believe that is an amendment. And so I presented an option where it could be a reasonable condition
- because it utilizes a part of the code, the PUD code that is the qualifying standards that adds that
- additional 10% on. And since the PUD itself did not specify which manner they were using to reach that
- qualifying standard,
- Then the council has every right to impose on that PUD This is the way you're going to meet that standard
- if you're going to get that extra ten percent And so that is a reasonable condition because it aligns
- with the PUD ordinance and it was silent in the PUD and so I believe that that is a reasonable condition
- that this council could say again whether
- the RDC likes it or not, that the RDC must do for the PUD. So again, I don't want to get into legal
- debate either. I know you guys don't. I just want the opportunity when these come up to state my legal
- opinion so that we will have that preserved on the record. We appreciate you. Thank you. I just wanted
- to clarify for the affordability
- the affordable housing portion that Mr. Kerr just talked about. So I think we're in agreement that the
- PUD itself actually does not clarify what standard affordable housing is going to be in the, I'm sorry,
- is going to be required. And per the UDO, there are specific requirements for affordable housing
- criteria that have to be in the PUD that are not there. And so I think we're in agreement with that.
- I think what Mr. Kerr is suggesting as their amended reasonable condition is exactly what the requirements
- are under the UDO. However, the reasonable condition that the council has proposed also is in line with
- the UDO. It just exceeds the requirements.
- it goes beyond what the UDO requires. So I just wanna clarify that both proposals are in line with the
- UDO and one of the reasonable conditions for the PUD, the PUD affordable housing has to be adopted for
- this PUD to be valid under the UDO. But I would argue that the council's proposal is just as reasonable
- as Mr. Hurst's proposal.
- Thank you so much. If I could and I try my best not to, you know, I just want to keep the bus running.
- But I think the conversations that we're having are hindering the
- useful conversations that we want to be having about the substance of the reasonable conditions and
- indeed whether or not there are any effects of them. I think beyond the sort of semantics of the law
- here, and I don't mean to be reductionist in saying that, I'm just saying that I think there's a couple
- of things that are very clear, which is we have the right to make reasonable conditions, you have the
- right to withdraw them and or take other types of actions afterward, but
- We need to be able to weigh these reasonable conditions in relation to what it is that that the effects
- are going to be and so can I can I ask that we move on to to either discussing them and or you know
- taking taking what the mayor said and you know if we want to postpone this and and have a Conversation
- in some different way like let's do that council members you look Thank you. I'm curious to what my
- colleagues think about the
- Using our April deliberation session to discuss this. I think that it would make more sense to go Reasonable
- condition by reasonable condition in a deliberation session than it would to introduce them all independently
- here, but I'm neutral I Think there is also the option of us discussing them prior to taking up votes
- today as an example. I mean, so but yeah Other other thoughts or comments to what's been said councilman
- Stasberg. I
- I would prefer to discuss them tonight and that's why I was kind of like, you know We don't have to
- necessarily introduce them to adopt we could introduce them to discuss And then I think it could be
- a really similar discussion to like a deliberation session I think what were you supposed to do deliberation
- session on sidewalks in April and I know that we could postpone that but I was also looking forward
- to that so if we could do that tonight to get a feel of where to go between now and whichever next meeting
- we discuss it would be great and I do have like
- One other general question. That's not about a reasonable condition. That's also not about this topic
- Okay, okay, please ask it and then it is sort of legal but it's not about this legal topic it's about
- covenants and restrictions because last week councilmember rough kind of took off his reasonable condition
- three because it was like well we we can put the ad ownership stuff under like a neighborhood covenant
- or restriction and I guess I was wondering like the
- Ordnance itself says that there doesn't need to be any kind of ownership requirement over ad use and
- if you put something in a neighborhood covenant that says it does there does need to be that kind of
- requirement like which of those two documents like rules that like our neighborhood covenants so powerful
- that they can overrule zoning ordinances I Don't like whichever lawyer wants to answer that for me.
- I'm good with That was withdrawn so I haven't spent
- Anytime on it. I apologize. So I would need to go back and look at that I could probably do it quickly
- and come back with that answer but Happy to let your counsel. Okay, does does Clark know Clark?
- I'm sorry. I don't remember your last name. I certainly don't have a you know, a hundred percent answer
- You know a covenant is You know, I mean something that a landowner accepts privately that runs with
- the land You know, I mean there's there's like
- legal nonconforming. I mean, there's all sorts of different things that can impact what is basically
- on the ground legal, right? If a covenant was in place in 1955 and a zoning ordinance is plopped on
- top of it, I think the covenant would control. If there's an existing zoning ordinance and something
- were to be accepted by a property owner that is not in conformance with it,
- Not sure it would have much legal effect Curious about the answer to that I was talking with councilmember
- rough about that over the weekend and I I just I just don't want a colleague to like withdraw something
- that matters and
- To them if they don't know for sure whether or not it would have an effect. So that's all we don't we
- don't need to continue Same effect either way, so let me look at that and get back to you on that one
- But I will say for these others. I promise it'll be a very short quick paragraph Thank you. Okay would
- so so we have adopted I'm sorry. Let me pull back up where we are and
- We've adopted a reasonable condition one and two. Reasonable condition three was withdrawn to the point
- just made and we're now on reasonable condition four. Though happy to do these in any order, but if
- we wanted to stay with the same order, are there any motions or anything else? Councilman Stasberg.
- Move to discuss reasonable condition four. Second.
- There's a motion and a second any discussion all those in favor say aye any opposed any abstaining that
- carries It carries things go ahead councilmember Rosenberg Did you say you want me to go you start go
- ahead apparently supposed to start with this proposed reasonable condition
- This essentially is the permanent affordability reasonable condition the original ordinance commits
- 15% to permanently affordable and 50% to just generally affordable And the PUD requirements as already
- mentioned actually require 25% at a minimum to be permanently affordable but the other piece of
- So like the PUD like as it is right now is not in compliance with that and so that's where it's like,
- okay either we need to get it into compliance or we need to as a council kind of accept an adjustment
- to that compliance because there's a qualifier within the UDO to adjust it and so I'm personally not
- interested in adjusting the permanent affordability part the other part of what the P the UDO says though
- is that it has to be permanently affordable through deed restrictions and
- As has been discussed as has been presented that deed restrictions might cause some problems with modern
- banking and it reduces some flexibility and so the other part of Compliance with the UDO is that well
- if it's not deed restrictions, then that's also an adjustment And so this reasonable condition goes.
- Okay. Well, it could be deed restrictions or ground leases like the Community Land Trust I think summit
- was mentioned earlier by somebody or
- Number three says another legal mechanism for permanent affordability is subsequently approved by the
- council in an amendment to the to the PUD like at a future time and in the spirit of The collaboration
- and cooperation etc, etc I I think that you know in the press release earlier that in the week that
- I signed on to you know, the the 50% is certainly has some flexibility there in terms of of
- finding.
- Point that we can all agree to and think is attainable and then I'm also willing to have further discussions,
- you know Assuming that we postpone like full consideration of this until a next meeting or early May
- is suggested about those other legal mechanisms and Potentially putting them in here with more specification
- for approval But I just feel like I need a little bit more information about that especially since part
- of what we would be doing here is
- Like adjusting this requirement that has been in the utio. Thank you comes from sasper customer Rosenberger
- Hi, thanks. I'll just do kind of a general add-on more at a higher just a broader level that Part of
- the impetus of this as councilmember Stossberg says was to bring the PUD into compliance with the utio
- requirements And then of course it did go farther with that 50% number
- The original PUD did say 50% affordable housing. So one kind of take on that is we switched that to
- permanently affordable housing and then another perspective is that this is a very unique opportunity
- that we have that as the city we own the land and We can sell it we can give it away we can keep it
- and it is something where we can
- Require and provide more permanently affordable housing at lower AMIs and still make numbers work. And
- so I Kind of saw it as an opportunity to do more where we might potentially not have that same opportunity
- with a private developer so it's just kind of the spirit of the PUD and hope well in general and just
- kind of like following a lot along the Spirit of why hope well was bought in the first place Thank you so much
- Colleagues any questions for your colleagues, please councilmember Piedmont Smith I just didn't want
- the the last paragraph of this Reasonable condition to be overlooked and that's so in addition to requiring
- 50% of dwelling units to be permanently affordable Is it true this question for the sponsors that also
- It takes that 50% says 15% Must be at Affordable for households earning at or below 90% area median
- income and 35% Must be affordable for households earning at or below 120% area median income.
- Is that right? That that's right. Do you want us to talk about that a little bit more? That's right
- This is where so one of the reasons for the 90% is that The newer updated UDO has the 90% requirement
- and so we were looking at that as something that while this PUD does not Need to do the updated requirements
- They do exist and this
- council did decide that 90% AMI was what we really needed in the city. So it made sense again that because
- the city owns this land that we could do that and we could ask for it. And I would say another point
- is that 120% of AMI versus 90%, it really is looking at pretty different income levels where 120% AMI
- tend to buy on the open market currently. And so it's people who can potentially buy a home, but maybe
- could use some assistance, but tend to opt for market rate instead of affordable. And so the 90% would
- really get to some portion of the population of people who cannot buy a home without it being permanently
- affordable.
- Just some examples, I guess. I talked a little bit with Summit Hill Land Trust that said they can also
- go up to 120% AMI there. The highest AMI they have sold to is 105%. And the lowest with subsidy is,
- I think I would have to look at my notes, it's just on a different page, but about 48% AMI at the Land
- Trust. Thank you.
- Thank you, this question is also for the sponsors I'm just wondering if you've met with local lenders
- and if you have a plan to circumvent their concerns on financing homes with deed restrictions Yes, I
- talked to Summit Hill Land Trust today and they were very helpful this is about ground leases specifically
- so we have two local lenders that are lending to projects like this and
- Fifth Third Bank in German-American, I guess it's okay to say all that. And there's a national lender
- that works with low-income communities, TOMO, T-O-M-O. This is a little more specific to the land trust,
- but it was talked about that it can be difficult for banks to sell their mortgages on the secondary market.
- At least with the land trust, it is certified by Fannie Mae, and those mortgages are being sold on the
- second market. So Fifth Third has been selling them from the beginning, and German American recently
- started selling theirs on the open market.
- Can I can I add to that? To add to that answer I mean that's one of the reasons because you
- asked specifically about deed restrictions And so one of the reasons why deed restrictions is on there
- is because that's what's actually in our UDO right now So it's not like we're saying who we have this
- preference for deed restrictions. We're saying this is what's currently in our standard So we should
- allow this thing that's currently in our standard to be used as an option but we should also allow ground
- leases and then number three were also open to other things and
- And so all of those are encompassed. And yes, I have actually met with a local lender to talk through
- some of these things. And I would say I still don't feel like I have a convincing argument for sure
- that all of these other methods are absolutely going to work. I do think that the deed restrictions
- have been problematic, which is why the original version of this number four, I was not a co-sponsor
- on because I wanted this third other legal mechanisms option.
- Because I think those other options are important. I just Want to explore them more temporarily explore
- them more before I just say like yes go and do those things Okay follow-up question from councilman
- Zulek, yes, I have a follow-up for the attorneys I'm just I'm not as familiar with lending or financing
- as a home as I do not own one but I was just wondering if if
- only allowing very specific lenders to help with home buying and homeownership, if that would hinder
- anyone's ability to continue to engage with the free market. Anyone with a law degree that is representing
- the city? Can you repeat that? I'm not sure if there's really a legal answer to your question.
- I was just wondering if Hindering people who are buying homes with the deed restrictions to one or two
- potential lenders If there are any legal issues with that because this would There are only a couple
- as we just heard lenders who are willing to engage with this type of home buying And I'm sorry if I'm
- not using the correct terms. I am truly doing my best I am just wondering if there are any
- legal complications with that
- I can't say for certain that there would be access to mortgages. I think that that's the world we live
- in. It's something we can research if you'd like me to do further research on that. That would be great
- because I don't want to box
- Future home buyers into a situation where they can only work with one or two companies when there are
- others available Thank you Thank you Does the so I appreciate the structure of the Reasonable condition
- I guess in my mind whether we're doing permanent affordability or one-time affordability is basically
- just a policy choice and whether we choose to leverage the land value or not
- And I appreciate that there's, I guess, flexibility here of two options that we're aware of that are
- used for permanent affordability and the possibility of a third, but if we don't know what it is yet,
- respecting that we need to, you know, actually know what it is in order to be able to prove it, so that
- needs to come back to us. I think I generally agree with that. My question actually is about the ground
- lease approach, though, which is, does that require deed restrictions when you use a ground lease approach
- to ensure a point in affordability or My gut is it would not but do we know the answer to that? I Don't
- know the answer to that I I would think the same thing you are leasing the land and you're buying the
- home with a mortgage I guess though because these are permanently affordable. There would still be an
- income. Oh It's a crown the lease so income limitations for the AMI part
- That's not exactly what you're asking. I mean it might be a qualification to be able to be eligible
- to buy the home That's on the you know ground lease right but not a restriction of the mortgage itself.
- I mean, I don't know I'm This is also a time for discussion. We and so we might want to talk about whether
- we want to open this to other parties also, so Love love to hear from miss Thurman if available I
- if anybody else had any comments, please feel free. Ms. Thurman, are you still there? I am. We'll have
- a time for public comment as well. Thoughts on this one? I think our main...
- questions on this one really had to do with the way that we are limiting, you know, that we have affordable
- home buyers upfront and we are limiting a larger number of them being able to build equity in their
- house and resell at market values. And so from a practical standpoint, I think, I think there's a lot
- of really good questions that you guys are having of
- What's the right mechanism? Can somebody get a mortgage for that house? Is it gonna work? And I do think
- that that is something that I feel really comfortable the RDC has had very deep conversations about,
- and that is not necessarily land use time that need to be tied up in the PUD. To your point, the city
- is controlling that process. There are really aligned values in this is intended to be affordable housing.
- The exact mechanism, a deed restriction is tricky, limiting the number of
- Available ways that you can get a mortgage for a home does limit does create friction in the project
- and limit some things for home buyers, but that there are mechanisms. That are practiced and will work,
- so I think everybody is very much on the same page about the goals of that, but the 50% rather than
- 25% I think does have some concerns.
- In terms of what that will do overall to comps for resales that the, you know, at least half of the
- homes will have at sale point a below market value sale and that that will likely negatively impact
- the resale value of the market rate homes.
- which will have negative impacts on affordable home buyers who've purchased as a qualified home buyer
- upfront, but now can't sell their house at what would be considered market value, even if there are
- not affordability limitations on that specific house. So I think there's some concerns.
- About that, what the follow on impacts might be of a 50% permanently affordable, but there it does sound
- like there's strong alignment of there are going to be ways to find mechanisms that work long term that
- are flexible and that this project also has a lot of work.
- with lenders. We've had a series of lender roundtables working through exactly how these will
- be underwritten, what kinds of loans can be used. We heard really strongly from Plan Commission. There's
- a banker on Plan Commission about the deed restriction as a concern for a typical mortgage from a local
- or regional bank.
- Thank you so much. I actually have a question, both for the sponsors and for you, Ms. Thurman. Maybe
- first for you, which is, you know, this is not a new idea and obviously reflective of the actual requirements
- in our code for PUDs, so that I think we've been clear on.
- But in in your work in other places And then similarly here, I mean have like we're thinking about Because
- it's not a new idea. We also have lots of natural experiments to see how this how this works. So so
- What evidence do you have of the results of? deed restrictions for permanent affordability
- As you're saying, it's not a new idea, but there's not a clear front-runner nationally yet as a mechanism
- is going to be my short answer. There are a number of communities that have iterated on something someone
- else has done previously with some changes. My feedback would be, I'm in a community that is working
- on getting a community land trust set up that has thought a lot about it. I'm sitting on that committee
- every week talking through exactly what the numbers are and how it works.
- there are a lot of things that have been tried and there is not a single method or structure that I'm
- aware of that has become a national front runner that is recognized as the answer. So it tends to have
- a lot of complexity around both state law and your local banking environment, as well as the exact price
- points and mechanisms and who you have to operate the program long-term. So finding qualified home buyers,
- in a timely manner so that in an original affordable home buyer who has perhaps gotten a job in another
- town, perhaps they're getting married, they're selling a house for a reasonable reason, they need to
- be able to also trust that that resale process is going to be timely and not negatively impact their
- own normal life function. That process of
- what organization is running that transaction management, ensuring that the seller, that original affordable
- home buyer, is selling the home in a timely manner to another qualified home buyer has typically been
- the mechanism that is most challenging for communities to maintain long term.
- And so that's, I think, where we've seen the most national experimentation, might be one word, around
- finding the right mechanism that is simple, that lasts, that is easy to maintain 15, 20 years down the
- road. And so some of the challenges around the deed restriction
- both there are obvious banking challenges with that. One of the other challenges is it's not flexible.
- Once it's been put onto the deed, it can't be removed. And so if the system 15 to 20 years down the
- road is not working, you are locked into that deed restriction that is permanent. And thank you very
- much. And also to the sponsors, that question as well, but then thinking specifically, I mean, we both
- said we talked to Summit and I'm interested in like,
- What's the market looking like in terms of Summit sales, resales? Are there empty lots? What's the market
- signals that you're seeing from Summit? And also happy to hear from Director Killian Henson, for example,
- or anybody else who would know that.
- Councilmember Rosenberger should probably take most of that but what I wanted to add to that was I mean
- part of what Ali just just said about like well There's not a clear national front-runner and we don't
- really know and and that's one of the reasons why I don't want to bake something in here for sure in
- that kind of way and why I have some of that reticence and and want to want to understand and research
- that just a little bit more but councilmember Rosenberger was the one that did the most liaising with
- summit land trust specifically and
- And then I see I think mr. Ferrer. Well, let's let's hear from councilmember Rosenberger then then to
- you that do you sorry? Okay, I the question is What we're proposing what's happening at the land trust
- I mean, I do more than I could but I guess I had a conversation today so I can just relay some of that and
- But of course, I mean Nate worked there. So he's got more intimate details My conversation today was
- at seven affordable homes have sold there and some market, right? There's 29 lots left I don't know
- what over what period of time I think it's been two years is where Nate could Talk about that to you.
- That's a fair
- I hope I have the right information to so Nathan for executive director of Summit Hill Community Development
- Corporation and the Housing Authority So we set up started setting up the Land Trust about three years
- ago had our first sale two years ago There are 12 homes built. There's two underway Of the 12 homes
- built seven are through the Land Trust We use the ground lease model
- We do not have covenants when we use a ground lease or deed restrictions The ground lease serves that
- purpose We have struggled greatly with lenders. It's not a model. It's not a conventional model and
- We're fairly conventional area so We have that's been a the bulk of our work is finding lenders who
- will do the shared equity lending or
- Allow the essentially provide a mortgage without the owner owning the land so
- Then both to to ever it's everyone here and and then and then a broader question Do we have any evidence
- to suggest that the mechanisms that we're proposing in this reasonable condition are? Substantially
- going to change the outcomes of the market dynamics that we're already experiencing in other places
- where we put it in place and then my follow-on question potentially from his Thurman is okay, so then
- we all want permanent affordability I think that the moral argument is really clear and so what is the
- best mechanism for us to
- To achieve what it is that we want to do and so so so the first and then happy to hear the second idea
- Sure, my mind just went blank there's a bunch of things running around in there So first question first
- question again, sorry Do we have any evidence to suggest that doing this and hopeful is going to be?
- Substantially different than doing it in another place in the city if we're struggling in Summit Hill
- well first I
- There have been struggles we are plugging away we're moving forward with this model what we're learning
- is The land trust model is not right for every low to moderate income buyer So it's it's good for a
- certain subset of buyers that are out there if we can help get them through the mortgage application process
- Being lower income presents all kinds of challenges to getting a mortgage and sometimes just the timing
- doesn't work out. So So that there's that piece I would say our land trust right now is serving the
- population that is appropriate for the land trust model meaning I Don't know that we're ready as a community
- to add more land trust and
- Home sales essentially we're it's kind of saturated with what we're doing as we as our sales show So
- that's not to say the land trust model is failing I think it's working and I think we're gonna continue
- to plug ahead to add more right now Those units at Hopewell Would just delay people getting housing
- am I am I right in saying and please if anybody I don't want to dominate because I I
- I recognize the power dynamic of the fact that I get to choose myself to speak but I'm and so so then
- right away to councilor councilmember Rallo Does the are you saying clearly that?
- That the land trust model, but they've given a lot of different options here There's been a bunch of
- terms included in that but exactly so I'm just trying to understand like your recommendation because
- I mean because we're making an argument about like banks and lenders but there's also the broader market
- in in Bloomington and and I'm just curious about your recommendation on this particular reasonable condition
- and whether you would frame it in a different way because I think we've all said very clearly we want
- a lot of permanent affordability we own this land that moral argument we've made but but like how
- How we do it is the is the is the question that we're trying? I don't know if I can give you the answer
- to how to do it, but I can tell you that You could tell us how not to do it is also helpful But the
- land trust model comes with the problems we've been struggling with for the last three years So it is
- going to be a slower model. It is going to mean people will not get housed as quickly there are other
- models to consider and I think that's
- What needs to be part of the conversation to ensure permanent affordability? First right refusal is
- definitely a tool that can be implemented with different models to ensure But you also have to have
- subsidy in place for to be able to buy those homes back. So There's a lot to think about a lot to consider.
- Thank you so much. That's my role Just just a simple question. What's the duration of the of the ground
- lease? What's our ground leases are 99 years I mean
- Ground lease or land trust model is is meant to create Permanent affordability meaning there is a Mechanism
- in there to retain subsidy that gets passed along for future buyers. Mm-hmm. So good
- The first right of refusal is something that Habitat is using currently in Bloomington, along with a
- silent second mortgage, and that has been an option that is the front runner. It's probably most similar
- to Boulder Colorado's program, which has been established since 2008. It is a right of first refusal
- or purchase option. There's a couple different legal ways that can get set up.
- But when you purchase the house as an affordable home buyer, the first time you are functionally agreeing
- contractually at that time to sell it back to an entity. So in this case, it is likely the RDC. Whitefish
- Montana has a similar program that has multiple beneficiaries. And so they've included both their housing
- authority and the city as beneficiaries of that right. And in some of those programs,
- the resale price is pre-negotiated so you know that you will get some equity back and it's typically
- at market rate that you know that the sale is at market rate or at a pre-negotiated annual appreciation
- rate that would be below market rate so that if for instance housing prices have doubled you are making
- some additional
- equity at that resale and that you know the timing and the purchase price when you sell and it's typically
- tied to how long you've owned the home. There is a lot of then sureness in that transaction that can
- be really helpful to an affordable home buyer. Both of those programs do involve a deed restriction
- because the deed is restricted to that first right of refusal continues to always default back to the
- city. But it is one that if that expires or
- It can functionally expire because you're just declining to buy it at some point. If 100 years down
- the line, the city is just declining to buy it each time. It's functionally not stopping the transaction
- of that home, but it does give the city an opportunity each time the property transacts for it to come
- back into the program. A lot of those programs also don't actually purchase the home from the buyer.
- from the original buyer, they find the new qualified affordable home buyer and then assign the contracts
- to them at closing. The city is controlling the transaction, but they're never actually in the transaction
- with money. That is the method that I think the most cities have started to move towards. There's a
- number of towns in California that are using that model. Boulders is the oldest version of that that
- I'm aware of.
- Falls Church, Virginia does something really similar. And so that is the model that's been most discussed
- at RDC. But I do think that some of the challenge that you guys are referencing here is it's really
- tough to tie that mechanism when there is not one clear answer into the land use regulations in a way
- that changing that program would require coming back to amend the PUD.
- So I would just in reaction to all of that and and what what what I was getting at is that I think that
- the 25% the ratios make a lot of sense from from four I think that the mechanisms that we originally
- considered in five We have a lot of evidence that those
- that those may be the better mechanisms, and I think giving sort of flexibility to how those mechanisms
- are put in place might be wise. And so, I mean, I would think what I would love to see us do is some
- combination of four and five, which states very clearly the minimum amount that we want, which
- Said that however you wish but then that we have the right mechanisms in place to actually make this
- make this doable I'm concerned about the feasibility with the evidence we have mounting evidence that
- it's not going to be as feasible. I'm customer flirty than Zulik Doesn't Paragraph three in the second
- part of about the legal instruments in RC for doesn't that wouldn't that include everything that was
- in RC five it would just require that the petitioner
- Know what it is. They're doing before we give final approval Rather than just asking them to tell us
- later Which is more the structure RC five So I think my reading of RC four is that the flexibility had
- already built in would include everything in RC five It's just the difference is whether or not the
- council approves it since we don't know right now what the mechanism even is and
- Point through this says or other legal mechanisms for permanent affordability is subsequently approved
- by this council which would which would suggest that if they that if the Petitioner found that you know
- deed restrictions and ground leases didn't work They would have to come back to us and say what we'd
- like to do is do You know some affordability plan and we could then accept that right exactly, but we
- could also reject it, right? Yes
- And then it would default back to if so if they don't come up with a better option or if we do right
- so so that That's my only would be my only concern. There is that you know, it subjects it again to
- You know, you know I'm saying like like I like I just wonder if we want to pre-approve it as you know
- We would like it to be this way. But yeah, so then sorry say that councilman Sasberg
- If this and kind of in the spirit of like recognizing that part of what we're doing right now is discussing
- the reasonable conditions So then we can move forward in the next couple of weeks to surely amend them
- like the reasonable conditions to kind of reach some some cool middle ground that Works for everybody
- in an idealistic consensus sort of way Yes, three is supposed to enable that but it does require the
- coming back and so that's where I was like I could potentially compromise, you know depending on
- What kind of evidence I I appreciate hearing that habitat is using right of first refusal and silence
- second mortgages right now I appreciate You know that that list of other cities that are doing this
- and that kind of information so then you know like like that's the kind of like research based sort
- of stuff that I would have liked to see and then I
- wouldn't object to putting specific methods on. But I think that just giving a free pass to every method
- under the sun, I don't love that. But maybe adding a third line in that says this mechanism, this mechanism,
- this mechanism, and then a fourth line or any others that have to come back might split that difference.
- I don't know how my co-sponsor feels about that.
- Think that I'm gonna pull it up I'm not bothered by number three. I think if there are more Terms around
- here like permanent affordability Is like not defined in this reasonable condition and so, you know,
- I tend to think we're looking at a hundred years We're looking far into the future somebody else might
- think that means 15 years, right? and
- Shared equity models might be 3% back to the homeowner. It might be, you know, 97% back to the homeowner
- and we've lost affordability. So it's not just the mechanism, it is the details of how it's going to
- be accomplished. But mechanism one and two aren't reversible.
- right so so we can't we have to set on that track from the beginning and so and I think we've already
- heard very clearly like the petitioners like we don't think one and two is gonna work and so so this
- so that's what like, you know, so so don't we need to decide the mechanism that we'd like to produce
- do you see what I'm saying or I Don't know why we need to decide the mechanism right now. Well, I want
- to say if that's okay, I
- Community land trust. I mean I had a conversation today with the community land trust and it didn't
- go exactly the same way, right? It went that it was a rocky start I mean, I think this is what mr. Ferrer
- was saying it was a rocky start and it's doing well now and it's it is selling homes and I understand
- that We don't necessarily need more land trust homes and hopeful we don't necessarily need that because I think
- We need different mechanisms around our city for permanently affordable places because people want different
- things and can figure out different things Right that work for them Like some people don't some people
- want to own the land and they don't want to rent the land and that's a real thing Here in the Midwest
- and I think other places as well But I guess I just don't like
- Repeat that like that's not working. That's not working It is in the UDO and it is just an option and
- that they can do and like this would just be in the PUD That it can be done that way and we're talking
- about something like what if we don't know if this is gonna work in 50 years Okay, well that is true
- That maybe it will work in 50 years if it doesn't work now if a deed restriction isn't working now It
- might work in 50 years or something like that, right? So this just gives basically the flexibility of all of
- Types and I would say Like the administration doesn't have the mechanism figured out yet like that doesn't
- you know, it's like working on where that might live and Who might have first right of refusal, right?
- Like would it be the RDC or would the RDC sell the land, right? So it's a lot There are a lot of unknowns
- still I think to just say Thank you go from here. Yeah council members look
- Thank you. As suggested earlier, I'm happy to work with the sponsors of reasonable condition four to
- work on something that works for all or most of council members, but I can't support a reasonable condition
- that includes deed restrictions from all of the different feedback that we've just gotten. So thank you.
- And then just a quick question, and then I'd love to go to public comment. Do you read, unless you guys
- have more, unless there's an objection, I'd like to go to public comment. Do you all intend this to
- be that, like, how do they decide and who decides whether it's one, two, or moving to three? The owner
- of the land does. I mean, I think that that's one of the things I heard from them is that they want
- As much flexibility as they can around and I mean what I heard mr. Ferrera say is that you know the
- Bloomington can't necessarily support another land trust but I guess like a follow-up question that
- I don't want answered right now but I just want to put out into the universe is well what if one or
- two of these lots kind of became part of that land trust because you know I don't know for sure what
- the design models are say for the houses in the land trust right now but some of these proposed houses
- and hopeful like they're really tiny they're like tiny homes it might be attracting a different demographic
- that would also qualify for the land trust thing
- But but needs a different type of housing So like that's why and that's why with the deed restriction
- like I don't want to take anything off the table For the the RDC the petitioner and you know, like figuring
- all of that out So, you know down the road and also as councilmember Piedmont Smith not sorry councilmember
- Rosenberger just said that like
- You know, we don't know what's gonna work in 25 years or 30 years Maybe something different will work
- and that's not about number three. That's about number two Maybe more banks will will do better about
- lending related to ground leases and land trusts Maybe you know like like we don't really know we can't
- see the future and so keeping that flexibility in for any of those I think is is valuable. Thank you
- so much if there's no objection would love to go to public comment and on this reasonable condition
- Seeing none, you are not public comment to you. We didn't call for you yet. You go sit down. I asked
- for public comment. Mr. Kerr did say earlier that he'd like to give a legal response to each one. Is
- everybody okay with Mr. Kerr giving his legal response to this one?
- All right, seeing no, Mr. Kerr, go ahead and then we'll go to public comment. All right. Thank you.
- Be ready. Dana Kerr, legal representative for the Redevelopment Commission Petitioner. We believe that
- this is legally classified as an amendment as it specifically alters the text of the PUD ordinance.
- Also legally classified as an amendment as it has a very significant impact on the PUD development as
- achieving a 50% permanent affordability goal
- would likely be impossible given the mix of housing type, fuel prices, and other escalating product
- costs. While there is the idea of having a legislative prone affordability requirement in the future,
- that does not exist at this time and cannot be imposed on the petitioner. If considered a condition
- and not an amendment, it would be legally an unreasonable condition for the same reasons. Thank you
- very much.
- Thank you didn't expect you to say that but now we'll go to Anybody who'd like to make public comment
- on reasonable condition for we Accept your comment at this time if you're online and would like to make
- comment You can raise your hand and we'll acknowledge you shortly Hey everybody Steve Bishop
- enjoying my civic participation tonight. If you all would indulge me really quick, anybody on the council
- involved in real estate? Any of you with a lending background?
- because I hear a lot of conjecture around both those topics and I don't see any experts on the panel
- or any being convened to talk in front of you, which is a real concern because you're making a lot of
- choices for people that also don't have those professionals, you know, either as a background or someone
- they can lean on. The point of affordability that you keep focusing on
- Really doesn't come into play at all. You all have the purview to help with attainability, which is
- the purchase of that home You don't have anything to do with affordability because you don't have control
- over taxes or insurance Indiana currently leads the country in foreclosures because people can't afford
- their escrow accounts That's taxes and insurance. So unless you plan to cap those somewhere there is
- no affordability permanence for any of this and
- Thank you next comment or in in the house Me again Nate for executive director Housing Authority Not
- fully sure what to say now, but I had prepared something so I'm gonna touch on some of it some of it so
- So I we truly do appreciate the conversation about affordability as a land trust We're deeply committed
- to permanent affordability and expanding access to homeownership We believe in our model and we know
- that it's worked well for many buyers At the same time again, I may be repeating myself, but the land
- trust is one of several long-term affordable ownership models I wanted to provide kind of an update
- on that which I have already done and
- but assisting buyers under 80% 80 AMI to qualify as Habitat knows and anybody else that's tried to help
- low-income buyers Qualify for a mortgage comes with significant challenges and long timelines and complexity
- so again, I want to reiterate how important flexibility around the affordability piece is obviously
- we want affordability to be part of this but
- Leaving it as flexible as possible is going to help your developer and whoever is carrying out this
- programming around affordability To actually implement something that gets people how gets people housed
- and doesn't delay this any further So
- If we want to expand homeownership to low to modern income buyers, we need a broader range of entry
- points That means smaller lots more attainable price points different ownership structures opportunities
- for incremental development Hopewell South was perfectly designed for this We had heard about these
- designers before They even came to town. They're doing this work across the country and they know what
- they're talking about So I just wanted to express my support
- This project really matters because it gives us a chance to test new approaches Expand access to ownership
- and build a stronger pipeline for attainable housing It's not about replacing existing models. It's
- about complementing them We're not going to figure out what works best in Bloomington unless we try
- something I've had several conversations with with you all around affordability and and others in the
- last few weeks or several of you not with all of you, but
- If we push too far we were on the risk of making this project financially infeasible Or delay it to
- the point that it doesn't move forward and it has to be abandoned And I would pose the question what
- happens then does it get sold? Does it go market? I am sure there is a luxury Student housing developer
- just waiting to get their hands on this property. I don't think any of us want want that that's not
- to scare you into action, but I just
- Want to make that point that this is the best option we've seen on the table. So please please support
- it I'm out of time. Thank you Good evening, mr. President, this is Chris terms you from the Greater
- Bloomington Chamber of Commerce I'm not in the mortgage industry nor
- I'm in the real estate industry. That's why I listened to the previous two speakers is because they
- know what they're talking about Know what you don't know and that's one of the caveats I sort of bring
- is I can listen to them when we talk about Affordability mechanisms we all all in this with the same
- goal. The questions are the tools and what we're looking at if I got my numbers, correct is a project that
- Under r4 would have 28 homes and now going to have 98 homes. That's an average instead of 425 270 that's
- not incremental that's transformational for working families This is just the first phase. Let's move
- and just a density idea of building equity equity is not a bad term equity builds wealth This is not
- the final say on hope. Well, this is just one neighborhood there is a sort of
- Reputation perception about Bloomington that we struggle to get projects through the finish line that
- we're stuck in process Revisions trying to solve everything at once. I think we've seen that tonight
- We want to move this from concept to reality and this is just the first step This is just that South
- neighborhood. We can do everything else with the lead certified the 12 foot sidewalks the modular homes
- we can name
- one of the streets, Misty Woods Boulevard. We can do all of those things in the future. You know, but
- eventually, we just have to get something done, and going from zero to one is the hardest. Going from
- one to two is a lot easier to make those changes, where it goes from concept to something that's tangible,
- that's reality. I mean, I'm looking at, I think, nine Democrats and a lot of here in the room Democrats
- or recovering Democrats that I think would know FDR.
- New Deal which tried a lot of things nothing to fear but fear itself and a lot of them didn't work But
- it moved forward with some ideas and if we have the housing crunch the housing crisis, we're not going
- to fiddle for the next few sessions on some of these Concepts that we all agree upon
- I would just hope that the council that are serious that really gets the answers and sort of Digest
- some of the things that they're hearing tonight, which is sometimes not what you want to hear but when
- you're not in the mortgage industry when you're not in real estate, this is when the time to listen
- and sort of Re-evaluate some of those things. I thank everybody for their time tonight and I do appreciate
- it Thank you Next person in chambers and then we'll move online. I think
- In the spirit of naming things, we could probably go with P-U-D Pond. I think that might be a good idea.
- But... um... so, all right. My name is Ben Berenko. I'm a freshman at IU. I'm majoring in political
- science and media. As someone who's going to be a renter in this city, I think I'm pretty invested here,
- and I want to kind of offer my...
- my philosophical perspective, just a little bit on the timeline of this development. I won't really
- speak to last week's postponement. I do really respect the Council's decision to want to get this right.
- I think that's a very noble goal, but as I said, here to offer my perspective as someone who will be
- a renter in this city for many years to come. I know I don't have to sell you guys on the importance
- of affordable housing, but what good is housing if it never actually gets developed?
- I understand that ensuring the permanent affordability of Hopewell is of the utmost importance However,
- let's remember that time spent on the approval process is also time spent on the development process
- Time that people in desperate need of affordable housing can't really afford to lose and time that could
- be the difference in keeping a talented IU grad in Bloomington or losing them to a more affordable job market
- After hearing and reading some of the comment from last meeting and some of the comment on reasonable
- condition for I really do appreciate The measures of wanting to keep affordability the affordability
- affordability measures flexible I think that's going to be a very good thing to keep in mind I think
- anytime we're talking about housing development keeping our options open and things flexible really
- does help with overall affordability but
- I would really urge the council not to let in a perfect goal of perfection Stand in the way of a successful
- efficient project that will give more folks a shot at affording a place to live and be a step in the
- right direction on the city's path to sustainability and affordability Thank you Thank you, and we'll
- move online. Is there anybody online with come? We'll come back to chambers. Don't worry anybody online
- with a comment None. Okay again back to chambers miss Davis. I
- My name is Joe Davis The Reasonable condition number four does not do enough to address affordability
- The whole PUD process here has left out one major thing that makes property ownership and the building
- of equity easier for those of low incomes the mayor's
- Has a staff memorandum in the packet packet number three page 27 of 159 From March 2026 first
- line affordability in owner occupied housing must be pursued without undermining the core function of
- home ownership Which is building equity and long-term economic mobility
- Well, 30 years ago, little over 30 years ago, the Indiana Log Cabin Rule was established, which essentially
- says that any property owner in the entire state of Indiana can build their residence without a building
- permit. This was upheld by Appellate Judge Friedlander, ruled in favor in Robinson v. Monroe County.
- that owners of property can build without a permit, it also applies to accessory structures as well.
- In the dicta of their ruling,
- Building codes and ordinances may conceivably discourage or impede such individuals from building their
- own houses. A private individual building his own house may not possess the skills necessary to construct
- a building which complies with the technical specifications set out in the ordinances. In addition,
- an individual may not be able to afford to hire professionals or others to build a house. Therefore,
- exempting a person who wishes to build his own house
- from the requirements imposed under IC 36783, subsection D, permits, allows that person to build a house
- even though they may not possess the skills or equipment to comply with technical specifications, allows
- him to do so even though he is not able to afford to pay others. With this in mind, we consider the
- meaning of IC 36783
- Three, subset, subsection D. We can conceive of only one purpose which could justify allowing a builder
- to circumsident certain applicable building safety ordinances when he builds a house which he will occupy.
- In its early stages, this country's frontier was moved westward by pioneers who moved onto the land
- and built houses made from the materials at hand. And that's your time. Thank you, sir. Other comments?
- Give you a warning a strong ideological opinion ahead I would like to respond to the staff memorandum
- that was sent to you last month from the director of housing and Neighborhood development it appears
- on page 27 the memo starts by asserting
- As was just said the core function of homeownership equity, we'll give you back your time But I just
- want to ask a clarifying question. Yeah, because because you know, we like rules Is this going to be
- about reasonable condition for specifically? Yes. Okay, fantastic Can you give you can give him you
- know some time because I've taken it from him, please Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt.
- Go ahead has not written down I strongly support
- Amendment for as written 50% and I thank commissioners Rosen council members Rosenberger and Stossberg
- for bringing it forward But the premise in the memo was that the core function of homeownership is building
- Building equity With this premise the PUD is focused on market rate homeowner equity appreciation as
- you've been discussing but I say the premise is false and
- The core function of home ownership is stable housing, a situation in which no landlord can uproot your
- life. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow famously described five levels of human needs. The first
- level of this hierarchy contains physiological needs such as water, food, clothing, and shelter.
- Meanwhile, the memo further states that real estate equity is, quote, one of the most reliable pathways
- out of poverty, end quote. But nobody who is currently living in poverty will be buying a house at Hopewell.
- Because this is a project for the aspiring middle class, not those in poverty. The notion that Hopewell
- has anything to do with poverty reduction is frankly insulting.
- The RDC is entirely financed by taxes, and I think public money in the form of taxation should be used
- for the public good. By putting a top priority on private wealth accumulation for home buyers, we are
- encouraged to view the cumulative effect of turning tax dollars into land grants as a public good. And
- I can appreciate that argument because I believe that the redistribution of wealth has long been a proper
- response to the intrinsic inequity of the capitalist system. But how long
- can this process last? What remains when the source of financial distribution dries up or the beneficiaries
- move away? If we want to prevent housing from being exploited as just another profitable commodity,
- then we need to remove it from the ordinary marketplace. And I know a lot of people don't like that,
- but that's my opinion. Community land trusts are an increasingly popular way to create affordable
- owner-occupied housing in perpetuity.
- In the United States, there were about 200 community land trusts 20 years ago, and now there are more
- than 300. With the land trust model, the purchase price is automatically reduced by about one third
- because the land is not included. Summit Hill uses partial ownership equity appreciation. That wasn't
- mentioned. You're gonna be sorry if you give up the land. I have more, ran out of time. Thank you. Next
- person in chambers.
- It is good evening council members John zodi executive director of CDFI friendly Bloomington Just enlisting
- to the discussion and I'll just ask the council to keep in mind The issue of risk mitigation right in
- the lending community councilmember Zulek was asking you know about whether a deed restriction and a
- reasonable condition could be supported and you know as most of you know, I used to be the director
- of housing and neighborhood development for the city and worked with
- folks and programs on homeownership, and then have since moved into the lending community and community
- development lending, where every day it's my job to connect people with financing. A couple years ago,
- the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a study talking about credit access around the United
- States. And the areas that struggle the most with access to credit are rural areas. And if you look
- at college towns, they are skewed in a major way, and they haven't quite
- put their finger on why that is, probably because there's the mass concentration of young people that
- may have issues with debt, right? But the bottom line is, just ask the council to keep in mind the risk
- that people face every day if they are trying to get credit and can't, they're trying to get a loan
- and they can't, whether it's for a home or for a small business, sometimes that's the same person. And
- they struggle throughout the cycle of their ownership, business ownership,
- Whatever it may be and so I just asked us to keep in mind sort of the struggle that they go through
- when you look at affordability periods Which can be different? Sometimes you see things on the other
- side of that affordability period that you didn't anticipate I think councilmember Rosenberger stated
- that you don't always know what's gonna happen in 25 50 years you have to do your best to make those
- decisions I think that's what hope well is all about
- Almost ten years ago. We had a vision as a community for what this was going to be What we wanted it
- to be and the numbers have changed I talked to you some of you personally about what are those affordable
- housing numbers going to be and hope and hope well Specifically councilmember Piedmont Smith and I talked
- about it because she lives right down the street So things change and I think we just have to do our
- best to keep our eye on those potential homeowners the risk that they face every day when they go out
- to try to get access to financing and what communities like ours struggle and
- that comes in and so that tells us that points me to say We need to do everything we can to keep our
- options open and have as many options on the table to promote affordability And on these six acres across
- the site to whatever extent you can So that people have that access and we're keeping our eye on those
- individuals who need to be homeowners of all different types and
- This isn't just a low-income problem with access to credit people struggle with it of all income levels
- We've got to create the best option to keep that risk as low as possible for those people and our fellow
- residents. Thanks a lot Thank you Is there anyone online? Okay to our commenter online Take it away
- Thank you, it's a John Fernandez
- I've been following this discussion and honestly I've been really reluctant to join it. The council
- has been very supportive of the work that I've been doing at the mill and with the trades district and
- I greatly appreciate the support you've given us. The work we do is at the intersection of community
- and economic development.
- We know from all the conversations we have with the talent we're trying to retain here or attract here
- that attainable housing is a real issue. It's an impediment. And consequently, it stunts the ability
- of the city to generate the growth in local option income tax that we desperately need to sustain and
- improve the quality of services we deliver in Bloomington.
- So this is a really important issue for the work we're doing. As I've listened to the discussion on
- this particular reasonable condition, what I've heard is, on the one hand, just tremendous agreement
- that there's things we can't absolutely know. We need to have flexibility. Some things may work. They may not.
- None of us can actually foresee exactly what the market's going to do in the future, and we need to
- be able to adjust. I totally agree with that. In a progressive community, you would think that there
- would be support for innovation, for trying things, for piloting things, and testing ideas.
- And we've all said everything I've heard from folks tonight is that we agree that we need flexibility,
- but the big caveat is we need flexibility, but we want everything to come back to the city council in
- the future for approval. And so it just seems like the real elephant in the room to me is it's not about
- policy. It's not about aspirations or even shared ambitions for what we want from Hopewell. It's a trust issue.
- And the work I've done with the council has been meaningful and very appreciative. People ask great
- questions, they push us, and it's all right. The work I've done with the administration, particularly
- with hand, has been phenomenal. We've got great professionals in that department that have a wealth
- of experience in housing. Why can't we trust them to do their job? There's your reporting requirements,
- There's ways to do kind of accountability, to see how things are going, but it would just be so much
- smarter, in my opinion, to move forward and try some things and don't make everything conditioned on
- coming back to the City Council. Thank you very much. Moving back to, oh, is there anybody else online?
- Moving back to chambers, anybody else like to give a comment on reasonable condition four?
- None and we'll come back to chambers. Is there any more discussion that you'd like to have or are there
- any motions? Councilmember Stossberg, there's no more discussion. I would move to close discussion on
- reasonable condition for Second, okay. Do we need to vote on that clerk Bolden? It's just close. Thank
- you Okay any motions?
- Talk about reasonable conditions. I Still the whole exercise still strikes me is irrelevant If if the
- administration's position on all of them is that they're illegal There's no compromise that can be had
- if that's the administration's position departing from four decades of at least of city practice and
- legal guidance and contradicting our currently contracted council, so I just don't I can talk about
- reasonable conditions when we talk about what the transportation plan requires or
- why I think it's bad policy precedent to violate the transportation plan, violate city code, use a PUD
- to make worse infrastructure than the UDA requires, which is the exact opposite of what a PUD is for.
- We can talk about all that and what we can do, but what's the point if... I guess the idea that the
- administration is saying all of this is illegal is completely counter to the opening remarks of the
- mayor. You can't have both. We can't, you know, work on this together over the next few weeks to find
- the compromise if they're saying everything
- The council's bringing is illegal Like what's it seriously? What's the point? Yeah, thank you. I invite
- the mayor to answer that question I invite anyone to weigh in on that. What are we doing? Why? Mayor
- Thompson if you'd like to answer Sure, I think both things can be true we can work to collaborate on
- agreements that the RDC may make and
- and we're open to doing that. That is a different circumstance than the legality of counsel imposing
- what our legal counsel has deemed non-reasonable conditions or amendments to what was certified by plan
- commission. So both could be true.
- I'll just say if you do continue talking about reasonable conditions, if it pleases the council, I would
- suggest bringing any questions forward perhaps for Chief Kerr that you have tonight so we don't have
- to ask him to come to repeated meetings. He's been sitting here for a while at the request of council
- members to be present. Thanks.
- I I guess in response to councilmember Flaherty of what is the point? I think at least part of the point
- is just getting some of the Concerns about the language out of the way. So, you know and and also kind
- of confirming support to you and in terms of what sounds like you know could end up being a
- Potentially a legal challenge or also if the RDC has a meeting on Monday night potentially a hey RDC
- like council seems primed to you know do this reasonable condition that we don't think is legal would
- you think that was okay because like It's like it's like we're jumping Like we we don't have to make
- this a legal battle if the petitioner agrees to the condition It would only be a legal battle if it's
- something we want and the petitioner says no. I
- Yeah, and I think expanding off of that in a way I I had seen this as an opportunity to As an exploration
- in a way right to hear some legal responses to some of these reasonable conditions to hear From miss
- Thurman, you know their take on how it affects the project so that then maybe that is sparking some
- more conversation saying okay, maybe what's before us we can't do but these are the ways that we can
- change it to actually make a
- it doable in another form or to find a way to bring these compromises about. So that was my impression
- of what this exercise was for right now. Kind of a way to see how we can move forward together. I'll
- also just add one thing, which is that I'll add a point that
- We don't all need to vote for this right? I mean and we also do have the option of voting it down.
- So Again, and they also have the option of withdrawing and I think that part of this is to give space
- for Full deliberation so that the RDC can decide whether it wants to move forward as it is RDC could
- say you know what like council doesn't seem like they're gonna pass this and we'd rather just just Sell
- the land and let it be 25 houses writer as somebody said, you know houses luxury student apartments,
- I mean I I
- I voted for this already three times. I think where I'm at, again, I agree with all of the... I agree
- with the position from which we're arguing. I don't think that there's really... You know, I think that
- the position of we're not allowed to do this is wrong, but I think that the... To me, at the end of
- the day, it's like,
- I would like there to be 98 houses in Hopewell. That is my position. I'd be very happy if we passed
- permanent affordability and then just passed this tonight would be my current position. Anyways, but
- I don't know. Just saying it in case anybody else would like to join me in making it happen.
- Piedmont Smith, and then I saw a response there.
- Along the same lines as what councilmember Flaherty was saying I think it it is important and not to
- be glossed over that the administration's legal department Says that this common council is not allowed
- to do something that we are Indeed legally allowed to do and have done for decades. I think that's not
- a point I take lightly
- I mean I I appreciate what the mayor said about you know, we could have some more discussion say sessions
- in order to come to an understanding on this project and Like councilmember Asari. I want to see 98
- units not 25 luxury units But you know somebody I think in during the public comment said this is a
- matter of trust I think it was mr. Fernandez
- Yeah, it's a matter of trust and I'm losing trust when the legal stance of this administration does
- not match up with state code. It's very disturbing to me and it runs counter what the mayor started
- this evening with about collaboration. I just can't, I mean, yes, I'm going to continue to engage and
- try to get the best project possible and not
- Say throw out my hands and say just build 25 million dollar homes But I don't want to lose sight of
- this This is a problem and it's going to be a problem longer term if if we have a mayoral administration
- that denies the legal rights and responsibilities of council I'm curious. Okay councilman further than
- I had a question to go ahead. I Was gonna suggest I mean if we can keep talking about reasonable additions.
- I'm happy to do that
- I'm just, I do think the larger question is important. If we're collaborating, compromising, that's
- a negotiation of sorts. And if one side of the negotiating parties, the other side says, you actually
- can't do anything, though, there's no power in that negotiation. It's just, what do we, by our grace,
- grant you with, if anything, or nothing at all, because you can't do anything. So it does matter in
- the context of
- I know we want to frame it as working together, collaboration, compromise, and that's great. I definitely
- agree, but that hasn't always been in high supply. So I think it's relevant. But we can keep talking
- about it. We can talk about RC11 next about if we want to draw on Chief Kerr's experience.
- Well, I agree with my colleagues I think what we've we've been advised by our legal counsel is that
- what we were doing is is legal and we've been doing it for some time and That is the PUD process allows
- for the council to offer reason reasonable conditions I think that what I want to emphasize my comment
- is that this is precedent-setting
- So if we surrender that at this point Then it's probably going to affect future PUDs and I don't want
- to do that. I think that this body has Positively affected PUDs in the past in a negotiated process
- to improve PUDs for the public good and I think that that's been valuable. There's been many many cases
- of that and so to to give that up to surrender that to the experts
- Who don't necessarily haven't followed city code? Is something that I I'm not willing to do so I think
- this debate is important because as much as we discuss it and we hear that You know objection that this
- this can't be done Well
- Reveals something I suppose and I think that process is important. So thank you and I really share I
- share the the opinion first off that this conversation is critical for the precedent I also think as
- we've established time and time again that it's that's very important that council be counsel Okay,
- and so it's a no no debate on any of that for a moment though if we were to just just
- set aside the very valid conversation about reasonable conditions, the precedent that sets, et cetera,
- when just looking at the weight of the conditions and thinking about what we're willing to move. Just
- think amongst ourselves, regardless of whatever negotiation you want to have with the petitioner,
- You know what stage is you know are we okay with 85 homes are we okay like where where does where does
- the cost? Start to affect our decision-making Or do we all feel? Some some some variation of look like
- these are all the things we want and we don't really care what the what the impact is we'd rather
- You know whatever number it ends up with and however much they cost with these outcomes Or is there
- some line at which we'd change that opinion Councilman Stossberg Great question and that's one that
- I've like kind of been thinking about a lot in terms of you know, like like what am I willing to to
- compromise and that is part of where I want to like
- Bring like the evidence I want to go. Okay, so, you know, there's a claim that narrowing the lanes would
- Require sprinklers and sprinklers cost a lot But you know one side says well actually sprinklers cost
- this much and that's not actually very much and the other side says Oh, well, they cost a lot more than
- that But I don't actually have real numbers about how much sprinklers were cost and that is just like
- an example of something where I don't feel like I
- have enough information to even know where my line is because so many of these things it's like oh well
- you know then we'd have to like like have to do this and do this so we can't possibly do that and it's
- like well but what if we did and maybe that's part of what Ali's presentation was that didn't
- Like get shown because it didn't get sent to council office by Monday noon. That's just so alley So,
- you know like that is council office procedure that's been council office procedure for months at this
- point and the every every department head every person who has who is in the city that is that has come
- presented before should should know that and
- But yeah, so I can't answer that question right now because I don't feel like I have enough information
- about and part of that is because there has been the stall stalling on on the administration and to
- just be like, no, you can't do that. That's illegal. We should have had this conversation last week.
- Thank you. But instead it was oh everything's illegal. Sure. And okay, so so then just just
- Just roughly by a show of hands, do you all feel the same way that Councilmember Stosberg does? And
- I'm getting at the question that Councilmember Flaherty asked, a reasonable question. Do we all feel
- roughly that way, that it's like, well, I can't come to a sense of where my line is because we don't
- have enough evidence about the weight of these conditions? Just roughly speaking, you don't feel that
- way. The rest of us feel somewhat like that, with different words or not at all?
- Not at all. You do. OK.
- The question is whether I mean because the question on the table is what's the purpose of this practice
- right and and and a possible answer is that really what we want to do is get to the place where we're
- where we're able to Substantively just deal with okay, and that that may be what we want to do for the
- next few weeks And it may well be that there's support amongst council to say look like I'm not willing
- to take that cost and you know And and so we can actually substantively have that conversation I think
- is what's on the table. I think did somebody on that. Do you want to say something?
- So I think We've always you know again 40 years of reasonable conditions and most of us up here think
- that they are legal and reasonable and I think that what I would like to do is proceed and
- Vote on them. I I don't see a reason to go offline and do this somewhere else in some other fashion
- like We are legally allowed to impose reasonable conditions and written commitments and we can play
- a hypothetical where if this is legal would you collaborate and if there's collaboration we collaborate
- and if there isn't a
- I'm good with the conditions as they are but but the hypothetical is is There's not a hypothetical.
- It's it's if they withdraw Are we still happy to go for it with the with the reasonable conditions if
- it results in less houses? Are we still a willing to go for with reasonable conditions if it means the
- house is more expensive? Are we so right? That's the conversation we should be having not whether or
- not we can make reasonable conditions And and the question is are we willing to have that conversation
- tonight? Or do we need more time to have that conversation? And I think council members Sarsburg's made
- the argument that we need more evidence
- To support that conversation productively It if I could please clarify maybe my position and maybe part
- of what councilmember Rosenberger just said to even though I'm jumping in front of councilmember Flaherty
- is that By passing reasonable conditions or not passing reasonable conditions that could actually give
- guidance around this and
- Conversation it could give guidance to the RDC about discussing it It could give guidance to the petitioner
- to go. Okay. Well if we expand, you know if we if we make the sidewalk with six and You know, we do
- this thing then it's gonna mean this much concrete It's gonna be in this many fewer lots and and that's
- what that means and and and then that can be brought back So I guess that's that's kind of meeting the
- middle in some ways of going Okay, we're actually going to decide some of these things tonight about
- what we as a body majority want
- Because until we actually decide the thing we can't know what the impact is and it's honestly it's probably
- like a pointless waste of time for the consultant our first staff to like like work up all the hypotheticals
- of like well if if you make this than this and if you make this than this and I mean and I do have a
- few hypotheticals, you know, like if we do this then I think that we should that we should change the
- setback on Wiley is one of them, you know, and and so that's one of the
- Ways that I feel like like like I don't want to vote on this as a whole package tonight no matter what
- Because I think that there's some things that might follow from certain things passing that would make
- sense and could actually help the project overall, so
- But if our ambition is then to signal to the RDC so the RDC, which meets on Monday, can have an informed
- conversation about how they want to proceed and give some type of response to the general direction,
- I think that we've already done enough to give a general direction to RDC of, well, I mean, six of you
- put out a letter that said very clearly your position on things as an example. I mean, so that's a majority
- of council, right?
- You know, you know, there's enough for them to respond to so so so if that's the point then I would
- just suggest that we stop having this conversation but already see have the conversation and then we
- continue after that so that we move from the you know, but Comes more flirty. I mean so I think It could
- be productive to talk about some of the reasonable conditions and the details I think what's been
- Challenge to that is this legal dispute normally because that's never been challenged before by any
- corporation council When council members have a reasonable condition We actually get to engage substantively
- on them with staff usually from the outset usually when we Send a reasonable condition or let them know
- we're thinking about one You immediately end up having a conversation about its feasibility practicality
- how it can how it can work staff might end up
- You know not agreeing with it. We've certainly had that sometimes they do end up agreeing with it and
- council can make an informed decision about what they want to do based on that and I think we've had
- weeks of delay because the administration has not taken that past practice of engaging us on the actual
- details And in particular planning and transportation staff They are the folks that do zoning code.
- They've been largely absent from this process and and
- You know, they had all sorts of recommendations in the first plan commission hearing for instance that
- were not taken up Before the second plan commission hearing but the recommendations all disappeared
- like that's interesting Some of those recommendations are consistent with the reasonable conditions.
- I've brought We can talk about those we could talk about a 10-foot sidewalk on Rogers how that's what's
- required in the transportation plan required with any subdivision This is a subdivision You know tree
- plot sidewalks so we can talk about those things and I think it's probably productive to do so and I'm
- happy to talk about the
- RC 11 specifically right now about fire code and and lane widths at the mayor's suggestion because chief
- Kerr is here with us and so yeah, I think we can have some productive conversation, but I Through through
- this discussion of the last 20 minutes I think I'm realizing that the difficulty in getting the information
- we need to make the informed choices Yeah, good point is what has gotten us here. And so maybe we can
- have some of that conversation now. Yeah, fair point Okay, and and and then everybody feels comfortable
- continuing and
- With that in mind. Okay. And so please councilmember Zulek Given that it's 10 and the fire chief has
- sat here for the past three and a half hours Can we discuss the reasonable conditions that would relate
- to that's what was great. Great. Thank you. Okay, excellent Councilmember Flaherty. Yeah, I'm happy
- to provide some context. So in general so RC I would say said sorry eight eight nine ten and eleven
- eight nine concert sidewalk widths and
- 10 concerns tree plots. There were a few misstatements from Ms. Thurman that were referring to a prior
- version of reasonable conditions. I did update them based on some limited feedback for round two. And
- then RC11 has to do with narrowing the lane or alleys width. And the broader goal of those collectively
- is to follow the UDO requirements and follow the transportation plan for subdivisions.
- when you make a subdivision in the UDO, you are required to follow the transportation plan.
- The transportation plan has certain street design elements, like a tree plot, like a six-foot sidewalk.
- We don't make substandard sidewalks that are monolithic anymore. We don't not include tree plots. And
- I think the thing that does need to change about the transportation plan
- and I will be getting to the fire piece. I'm just explaining the context. The thing that needs to change
- about the transportation plan is the ability to modulate the right-of-way dedication to match the street
- design elements, and in particular, whether or not you have parking, because that's actually an optional
- piece to include, and so, we do need to improve that and have the ability to shift the right-of-way
- dedication, but I think deviating from the transportation plan in that way is not justification for
- not following the design standards around green infrastructure and pedestrian accessibility and safety.
- And just quality. So at the outset, I was like, I want to follow the transportation plan. I think it's
- a very, very bad precedent for the city to choose not to follow its own transportation plan and the
- UDO subdivision standards when it wants to develop, but to require every other developer ever to follow
- it. So starting with that premise in mind, I was looking at
- trade-offs, essentially. You add a tree plot on Wiley where one is not planned. You make sidewalk width
- 6 feet instead of 5 feet. And you lose about 7 feet in the north-south cross-section of Block 9. Obviously,
- you can tell from the design, the intent is to maximize the number of homes, the number of lots. I think
- that's great. Those are changes I have previously developed policy around in a former resolution, now
- brought back again.
- to apply system-wide as a market solution. So I support that. I'm in line with the mayor's goal. A lot
- of homes, small homes, you know, modest homes. So the question then was, can we both meet the transportation
- plan, which should have been a design constraint at the outset? We should have said, first things first,
- we follow the UDO, we meet subdivision standards, we follow the transportation plan. And then, what
- can we fit? Unfortunately, that's not the path that was taken. I imagine staff probably advocated for
- that, because I know they know these plans well, too.
- but that's not where we are. And so, trying to still accommodate all the lots that we have or that are
- planned as the PUD was submitted, the obvious way to be able to do that is to figure out a way around
- having very large alleys. 20-foot alleys are very large for the residential context. There'd be almost
- no precedent of that in like, certainly in the older gridded part of Bloomington. And so, that was the
- motivation of the RC number 11, which would initially, as proposed, would have narrowed lanes to 12 feet,
- and then was increased to 15 feet here. The space you gain by doing that more than offsets the space
- you lose from meeting the transportation plan on sidewalks and tree plot. The challenge you run into,
- as noted, is that there is a fire code requirement for 20 feet of clearance. And so the questions are
- really about is this necessary as a fire apparatus access road, which is a fire code requirement, and
- are there exceptions to
- the 20-foot clearance, and there are. And so, I, through legal research, identified some of those, talked
- to our legal counsel about it, and submitted some questions to Chief Kerr just yesterday, because I
- was still conducting this research to identify those exceptions. Chief Kerr did share one portion of
- the fire code with me last week, which I appreciate, but there are other portions that name these exceptions
- that I didn't know about until literally yesterday. So, there's an exception that you don't have to
- meet the 20-width
- 20-foot width requirement if you have automatic sprinkler systems installed. That's one thing. As I
- understand it, again, I'll invite the chief to the podium here in a moment to give responses and weigh
- in. Another exception, as I understand it, is, and again, I'd like correction on these if I'm
- misunderstanding them. The next part, as I understand it, is the fire access road needs to get within
- 150 feet of all of the exterior surfaces of a structure. That makes sense.
- often a building that's taking up maybe half a block, and you need to be able to reach the back of it.
- And so, in this case, I was wondering if the fire access roads of 1st Street, Wiley Street,
- Jackson Street, and Fairview would all already be within 150 feet of all of the buildings,
- in which case, the alleys would not need to function as fire access roads at all, because you'd already
- have code-compliant fire access roads. So that's a second kind of possibility or question.
- that might allow us to achieve the goal of reducing the lane size and maximizing space for developable
- land. And the third question is another approach that would be for the east-west, and Block 9 is where
- this is all the most relevant, by the way. So Block 8 actually could be more flexible. We could keep
- the 20-foot width in Block 8. I don't think it's great urban form, but if that's the best solution,
- we could do it.
- I'm sorry, Block 10, I meant Block 10. The small block, the half block, the half block Block 10, we
- could keep the 20-foot lane if that's necessary because it's not the same space constraints that I'm
- describing by following the transportation plan in Block 9. So back to Block 9, the third option is
- if there's an east-west pedestrian street frontage, if we actually made that something like the B line,
- like a wide multi-use path, like the standards for a suburban connector street or something, that's
- 12 feet wide.
- wide enough, certainly, for a fire truck to drive on. We've used mountable curbs that are reinforced
- in other contexts, and essentially, you would allow that as the fire access road. You would have fire
- trucks be able to drive onto the central pedestrian plaza, and you would no longer be using the alleys
- as the fire access road for the buildings that front on the central pedestrian path east-westbound.
- So those are three creative solutions, all of which
- have been used in Bloomington to some degree. South Dunn Street has PUD used the sprinklers to make
- a narrower street front. We have, as I understand it, used... I spoke to Jason Moore, by the way. I
- called former Fire Chief Jason Moore last night to talk about all this because he was Fire Chief for
- eight years and knows a lot about it, so some of this is informed by his input as well. And we've used
- the 150-foot rule, as I understand it, in the Kirkwood closure as part of the fire safety plan for that.
- close Kirkwood and have bollards there. You know, all of the buildings are still within 150 feet of
- a fire truck crossing the cross streets. And then, yeah, there's other examples where we don't have
- the 20-foot clearance, like streets with a median, for instance, where we have mountable curbs that
- allow for the fire apparatus mobility that's needed. And so, basically, I want to have a conversation
- about those options. What's feasible, what's not, why, what the costs are,
- Former Fire Chief Moore did quote to me last night, $1 to $2 a square foot for automatic sprinkler systems.
- That's also the same figure I found from the National Sprinkler Safety Association, I think. I might
- be getting the acronym wrong. I've also heard preliminary feedback from staff that they think those
- numbers are all wrong and there's lots of requirements locally that make that not true. That might be
- right. I don't know. We gotta talk about it. So those are three creative options all aimed at
- letting us follow the transportation plan, subdivision requirements of the UDO without losing any lots.
- So those are my twin goals. That was a lot of preliminary. So let's talk about it. Chief Kerr, I would
- love to hear from you if you're willing to share. I'm happy to answer questions, too, if you have questions
- for me. But I'd love to hear more about those three possibilities, the viability of them, cost associated,
- challenges, those kind of things. Thank you so much. Chief Kerr, take it away.
- Roger Kerr chief of fire department. You'll probably have to help me You'll have to go back to these
- a little bit because I know there's three things and we had a email a little bit I think answered some
- of them. The first one is with the Obviously the fire code is 20 foot wide. That's what it says. There
- is some exceptions. You're correct the 150 feet If you go to I'll just be the first tell you I'm not
- the code expert in my department so I've relied on my staff to help me and
- work through this. The term, you know, 150 feet is not a straight line, as it says in the other parts
- of that code that it's how you would lay out a hose. So you can't just draw a straight line. You have
- to take into consideration you might have to go around a building, go around a fence, some of that stuff.
- So that takes that into consideration as well. Also, the sprinkler thing, it says that to meet that
- Specification it has to be a monitored system, which means then it has to be monitored. So you have
- to have a dedicated alarm system with a Well, at least whether I understand it then with a phone line
- and that kind of thing where it had to be monitored 24 7 the only drawback I do see that is once the
- house is done And it becomes a private dwelling then we have no ability to make sure that that has that
- that is maintained because we don't inspect private homes so once it got you know permitted and
- We would have no way of knowing whether the sprinkler system was still functioning or not, because it's
- not in our purview to go do. And then, help me on the third, if you would. The third was about whether
- or not we could design the central pedestrian path essentially as like a street that's closed to cars,
- or like the B-line. I've seen the fire trucks use the B-line from time to time, or at least once.
- But yeah. Yeah. I think there's some options. There are some things that's happened before. I can think
- back to out on the IU campus.
- to get to one of their buildings, it had to be 20 foot wide. They didn't want it to be a 20 foot wide
- sidewalk. So they made the sidewalk, I think it was 10, and then they put some permaville pavers that
- would hold the weight of our apparatus off to the side that DeGrasse grew up through. So I think there
- is some options that still allow us to get the access, but maybe doesn't make it look like it's a 20
- foot wide road, I'll put it that way. Gotcha.
- And as far as cost of sprinklers now, I have absolutely no idea what it costs to do. Yeah, maybe maybe
- one follow up on the sprinklers and then to yeah I appreciate that. Yeah, if there's additional requirements
- that adds cost of complexity on the sprinklers I am curious though about South Dunn streets PUD and
- it seems like the same basic Question or situation did like code change or is there a sit? Is there
- a difference there why they were able to do sprinklers or do they face the same challenges? And how
- are they navigating them?
- Yeah, I'd have to go back and look and see what the code was when that was done Obviously the state
- code changes over time and I don't know what that was built under right off the top of my head and Compared
- to what it is right now. We could go back and kind of do some research and find out there was something
- different I Think off my top of my head down there The biggest thing is the way this you know way the
- houses are most of them face Dunn Street and so
- Difference and you know kind of where they empty out to so that most of the houses aren't 150 feet Deep
- so you can get to them with the hose and so they they probably have more of a residential sprinkler
- system Because they they fall within probably don't meet the hundred and fifty feet But I'd have to
- go back and look and see what code was and tell you exactly. Thank you
- The idea about the pedestrian path being converted and something big enough. So for it to be like official
- There would have to be like 20 feet somehow still in terms of your like tires, etc And the IU solved
- this by putting permeable pavers in that were strong enough, but grass could grow up So like it's like
- so somebody like maybe like walking on that sidewalk wouldn't necessarily realize Correct that that
- it was an extra wide
- What it boils down to is that says it has to be for our biggest apparatus Which is our ladder truck
- and so to set the ladder truck up the outriggers go out Between 18 and a half and 19 feet so you have
- to have that much space and it has to say it can't sit on grass because it could you know or Dirt because
- it could sink into it. So I'd have to go back and check with IU. I know it just in my mind That was
- one of the conditions we did out there. I'm that they Made it so that our outriggers could still go out
- It would still support the weight of our apparatus, but it doesn't it didn't appear to be a 20-foot
- wide, you know paved a road Is it relevant at all that I don't know I'm assuming that ladder truck and
- that need for outriggers has to do with going vertical. Yeah It seems to me like this residential development
- would not probably require that type of Service. I know the code is about your biggest apparatus, right?
- so from a clearance standpoint, but from a Practicality standpoint, I guess is that's probably fairly
- accurate I mean a residential neighborhood obviously we don't set the ladder truck up as much Obviously
- it becomes on what cut what size of houses in there and what kind of pitch on the roof would be You
- know having done this it's not much fun to standing on a 1212 pitch roof and trying to cut a hole in
- if it's on fire You know, you'd rather work off a platform
- If their house is only one story tall is a whole difference than if it's a three-story house or something
- So it there is some you know some give-and-take there, I think Thanks just as a follow-up to that is
- there I mean is there give and take in the code or does the code strictly make you do the tallest Apparata
- or the biggest apparatus or is it more like I mean, I guess you just said that you're not the code expert
- I guess I just trying to figure I think the way I understand is it's a it's a
- It's in fire code. We have the ability to make provisions in that at the local level Okay, okay. So
- so we could at the local low like like you could you know get together and figure out okay What what
- is the like tallest steepest roofed kind of thing and what kind of truck would we need? To handle that.
- Yes, and that could so then there's some potential that we wouldn't actually need the full 20 feet is
- that we could need less than that, but it depends on some more details that
- Yeah, we have to work through the kind of house gonna be laid out. Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks Council
- just a quick quick question Would everybody anybody be opposed to us allowing our legal counsel that
- we're paying hourly to go home now? Do you do you feel like you're going to need more legal questions?
- Yes, any any opposition I
- All right, grateful to the folks from Quinn and thank you. If there's any parting notes you'd like to
- give us before you leave. No, I mean, I guess the one thing is I would just note that we did have a
- substantive conversation with the city today and with the
- on behalf of the RDC. I mean, I think that there's a difference on the line as far as what the reasonable
- conditions are, but it's not that they don't believe that the council can impose reasonable conditions
- at all. So some collaboration, I think, is
- You know possible that to have with with the city before this is all said and done. And so I guess I
- would encourage counselors in that regard Thank you very much that thank you miss Shah for being here.
- Thank you both so much. Thanks
- Okay back to the line of questioning. I'm so sorry. I'm councilman Flaherty. Go ahead One of the thing
- I did want to mention also for my colleagues is that director waste and I had a conversation today because
- this is also relevant to sanitation or could be and also for alley maintenance and and He said that
- and as you probably noticed the in the site plans I think it's intended that trash collection will be
- at designated sites and not be conducted on this on this alley and
- And so he didn't anticipate sanitation vehicles using the alley, but they would be responsible
- for maintaining it. So when it comes to access issues, I think we are talking primarily about fire apparatus,
- which is also the driver from code anyway. I guess I'm curious to... I thought the most elegant solution
- here probably would be to emphasize the central pedestrian corridor as more of a real plaza like the B line.
- And I appreciate that there's other precedent in Bloomington with IU of figuring that out in a way that
- isn't just 20 feet of pavement Do you have could you wait, you know, you said it seems like that could
- be possible With the mountable curbs on like Jackson and Fairview that would definitely get you the
- access, you know to all the homes At least in block 9 again, I think block 8 or yeah block 10 we could
- end up leaving maybe the 20-foot alley if that's was necessary, but
- Any additional thoughts or concerns or questions we would need to answer to see if that's actually feasible
- Draw it out and see if we can get the 150 feet and all that, you know and see about it my only concern
- I guess from from a point would be You know, whatever we do here some other ways to somebody else is
- going to come back to my staff and go Well, you did it here. Can we please do it?
- For me or for here and so just keep that in mind, you know We face that all the time and we'd like to
- do this And we'd like to do that and sometimes our staff has to be the one that says sorry No, we don't
- want that. So just be aware that if we give something here somebody's gonna ask us to give it again
- Probably somewhere else. So it's just it makes it tough on staff to try to pick that You know to pick
- out which when and when not to give that so just that's my only my only thing 100%
- Question and then and then comes Morello and then we'll come back Thank you. Thank you for being here
- and all your patience this evening. So You might not know the answer to this and this might actually
- be a better question for miss Thurman who may also not know the answer to this but if we're talking
- about like the mountable curbs How realistically how realistically feasible would that be? like financially
- would that do you have any idea if that's like a
- Putting a lot more money in it or if it's like no, it's just a little more, you know pavement reinforcement,
- okay Miss Thurman I imagine miss Thurman has like a broader response to so maybe we can go to councilman
- Rallo and then I know customer Flaherty had a handful more questions, but then we can go to councilmember
- We'll go to councilmember Rallo to miss Thurman then back to councilmember Flaherty. Oh, you're done. Oh Okay
- You said your end up it was I was admiring it If you'd like to offer a response, thank you chief Kerr
- Thank you chief Kerr and I will I'll weigh in on a lot of the fire code specifics here as a person who
- is deeply involved in fire code all day every day and I'll give the feedback
- Fire code and fire access routes are one of the least flexible codes we've ever come across. Typically,
- they're passed at the state level. So typically, the state fire marshal has to weigh in. There's often
- local jurisdictional control that can make variations. Typically, those variations are only to make
- things more strict based on specific fire safety concerns in a specific location. I have never seen
- the 20-foot fire access route with 150-foot max pull varied in my
- five year career. Never one time in any state have I ever seen anyone, a fire marshal sign off on that.
- So if this is done here, it would be a national first that I think would get articles written about
- it because it's considered among designers to be one of the least flexible
- codes that you have to work around. The site really is designed around that. Part of the limitation
- here is we're pretty set because the building in Block 8 and Jackson's tie into the north, and we're
- pretty set on our existing Fairview line. The Block 9's dimensions are set, and the overall dimensions
- of Block 9 are just north of 400 by just north of 400. There's not a way in short shorthand, even a
- straight line pulled from
- our outer boundaries of First, Jackson, Wiley, and Fairview is more than 150. We can't get 150-foot
- pole from that outer range of roads, which means we need at least one fire access route through the
- middle of the site. We also need car circulation somewhere within the middle of the site. The decision
- was made early on to prioritize the central walk as a green infrastructure,
- pedestrian way that rather than being a plaza, it was about water quality and planting and it was our
- soft green infrastructure. A lot of the concerns about can we widen that sidewalk to eight feet or to
- 10 feet or to 20 feet, we really negatively impact our green infrastructure and we will need to remove
- to be able to put that somewhere else if we do add a lot more paving there.
- The lanes themselves, right, so conceptually, yes, you could have one fire access route in the middle
- instead of two that are split. But because we need to put infrastructure, water, sewer, underground,
- electric into the lanes, the width of those lanes can't really get narrower.
- patch feet by narrowing those because of infrastructure requirements. Because of turning radius needs
- of the cars and the driveways, it can't really be narrower. Even if it's overall 16 feet, the driveways
- are just extending to meet it. A lot of that width still ends up paved, is the short answer there.
- make it narrower in pavement, but we wouldn't catch the hole. We wouldn't save all of that. We would
- still have quite a bit of runoff and then we would lose our green infrastructure area.
- We don't need a, so there are two different kinds of fire access routes as you guys are referencing
- for two different heights of buildings. So a typical fire access route is 20 feet of paved drivable
- width that can support a 75,000 pound vehicle. The outriggers are not required as part of that. That
- fire code is actually based on being able to pass a second fire truck in an emergency and being able
- to have access to all of the components on the side of the truck to be able to get
- hoses out and ladders off and access the truck for response. The wider, if you have an eave over 30
- feet, you have to have aerial access and an aerial access route is 26 feet wide. We're not providing
- aerial access within the neighborhood. We have all of our eaves under 30 feet so that we don't need
- that. But you are correct as well that if we can't get the fire access route, fire sprinklers are an
- allowable backup to that that is approvable.
- The Dunn Street project, the big difference in why were they able to make fire sprinklers work on Dunn
- Street, but we're saying we can't make it work here. The Dunn Street houses, to my knowledge,
- sold for $800,000 for an 1,800 square foot house. And so the cost increase of adding a fire sprinkler
- was worth it at that price point. We are trying very hard to be at a different price point. To run you
- through the costs as a person who puts a lot of sprinklers in buildings, I'm very familiar with all
- of the different components required. That one to two dollar that gets quoted is from the sprinkler
- lobby and so it gets it gets republished a lot. It's been given in a lot of presentations and so it's
- in a lot of places.
- That was in 2020 for the new 13R system, which is the smallest, easiest system that you can put in.
- It's put in in duplexes and single family homes. That is just the pricing in 2020 for the pipes and
- sprinkler heads, assuming a 2,000 to 2,500 square foot house. They were saying that your sprinkler heads
- and pipes, just the materials, would be about $5,000 for a normal family size house.
- So I think we can say too, if we take our smallest plan, there's a lot of the components that go into
- fire sprinklers that are not sized with the house.
- So you need a backflow prevention, an RPZ. That costs $700. It only comes in one size. You need one.
- You have labor minimums that you can't get a plumber to come out for a $500 job. As anybody who's ever
- needed a repair at their house can relate to something really small, there's a minimum service charge
- to just get somebody to show up. And the same is true in construction.
- You get design and permits and inspections. You typically need a separate meter, a separate water tap,
- a separate trench because it has to have even the smallest one on domestic service requires its own
- system. The smallest sprinkler system I've ever put into the cheapest system per unit that we've ever
- put in in our firm is about $7,000 a unit with all of those things incorporated. Your labor, your materials,
- all of your RPZ, your installation, inspections, it has to get tested.
- And so in our smallest houses, even assuming that we got them, we got the cheapest version, you know,
- we got great quantity pricing, everything went really well, because I'll also say we've
- I've personally put some systems into buildings that were retrofits that were 20 to $30,000 per unit.
- Even if we assume all the way at the cheapest version that all of them are the cheapest version, even
- the bigger houses, we would end up with 700,000 to a million in extra construction costs to add fire
- sprinklers because we have 98 units times $7,000. We're talking a lot of money to add fire sprinklers,
- The thing that we also see, one of the other questions that I saw embedded in that e-mail was whether
- or not there were insurance savings that were offset. Yes, we spend more on fire sprinklers, but our
- homeowners getting lowered insurance rates long-term, is there some financial benefit there? We are
- typically nationally seeing the opposite. Insurance companies are typically paying out more cost in
- loss from sprinkler discharge than they are from fires.
- We are typically seeing insurance rates be higher in buildings with fire sprinklers. We are seeing accidental
- discharge from a head gets hit and it discharges and you're flooding a house with water. There's typically
- a really expensive loss related to that. The thing that we're seeing more often, especially in all electric
- buildings, is power goes out in a winter storm in a deep freeze.
- you don't have heat in the building. Instead of just having plumbing at your kitchen sink and in a bathroom,
- it's a couple walls, maybe one ceiling that need to be, if your pipes freeze, need to be taken out to
- replace those.
- You have now water pipes in every single wall and ceiling in your house. We are seeing complete loss
- on buildings that are freezing due to power loss. We've had two buildings that we have worked on that
- have within five years of new construction been gutted to the studs because of a fire sprinkler freezing.
- There are a lot of insurance downsides to moving to fire sprinklers rather than providing fire access
- routes. I can answer any other questions you might have about fire code or fire sprinklers.
- To whatever detail level you would like me to Councilmember Stasberg There was a lot of information
- there and I think sometimes and it might be easier to give smaller chunks of information at one time
- instead of Putting it all out there in that way because right now the thing that I have to like I
- latch on to in the end is that you just Gave a really big number for sprinklers assuming that every
- single one of those 98 homes would need a sprinkler and that's just not accurate like
- Every single every single one of those home 98 homes would not need a sprinkler system Councilmember
- Flaherty it just said probably with this we could exclude that lane in block 10 Which means none of
- those would need a sprinkler system. We have the hundred and fifty feet which means Actually note second
- we have homes along Wiley Street and along 1st Street None of those would be a sprinkler would need
- a sprinkler
- Yes, and Jackson and Fairview and then we have the hundred and fifty feet Which means we're looking
- at very few places. I think very few actually actual dwelling units that would need
- sprinkler so I I'm a little bit frustrated by The way that was just presented. I think that it was kind
- of a deceiving number to throw out there secondly I think that some of the things that you said it feels
- like they were directly in conflict a conflict with what our chief of fire told us about his
- Knowledge and understanding of fire code and the fire experience and the experience here in Bloomington,
- Indiana And I'm looking at him right now trying to remember how long he's been a firefighter Or in a
- position of authority in the Bloomington Fire Department, but it's been a long time So I respect his
- experience in this town a whole lot. Thank you. I
- Councilmember Flaherty. Yeah, I heard some contradictory information there and some assumptions that
- I think are incorrect but you know, it doesn't I think it it's illustrative perhaps of the type of you
- know Information how the information gathering is going I'll say I can't feel like I always I'm getting
- Whatever I'll move on You know, I think
- There are options. Some of them might require design changes, and nothing's, you know, this isn't fully
- platted. There are other things that can change. I think those are trade-offs. Those are things we can
- think about and do or not do. I think we all find it frustrating that things like the transportation
- plan and the subdivision standards were not followed, and that has caused a lot of delay. I wish we
- weren't here having these conversations. I would have approved it long ago if we would have met the
- UDO and met the transportation plan. I would have had no problems.
- But we haven't. In fact, the PUD, as submitted, still isn't code compliant, because it doesn't meet
- the affordability requirements. That was never told to the Planning Commission. I was the one, and Hopi
- independently, actually both of us, literally surfaced that through this process. So, like, let's not
- pretend it came to us code compliant, which is another thing Ms. Thurman said in her opening remarks.
- It's not true. So, you know, we can look at a redesign for using the Central Plaza as a, you know, 12-foot
- paved, like, beeline trail-esque type of thing, a multi-use path.
- It might entail some other design changes around green infrastructure. If that's too much going back
- to the drawing board, I would say just where we can talk about then the trade-offs involved in, like
- remember this was premised, the fire piece was premised by trying to make up for space you would lose
- to following the transportation plan as a design constraint on the whole site with respect to pedestrian
- infrastructure and tree plots. And so if we required a six-foot sidewalk minimum throughout the entire site,
- and required tree plot on Wiley, since this is a subdivision, and that's what the UDO requires.
- You know, I'm looking at the drawings. It seems to me like you could actually just do a slightly smaller
- version from the catalog of any number of those homes that are on Wiley and Block 9. The trilliums in
- combo might not be able to do all three, I'm not sure. It seems to me like maybe you lose one, two homes
- by following the transportation plan.
- And maybe they need to be different homes than the ones that are, you know, not the Sassafras but,
- you know, a Winslow instead or so on. So if those are the better trade-offs and we don't want to revisit,
- you know, we don't want to invite the complexity of the fire question or a redesign that involves using
- the multi-use path as the fire access road, that's certainly something we can do. And we can move on
- from the... I don't know, I guess the question is, do we have enough info that we want about the fire piece?
- Thank you all so much. Ms. Thurman, a question for you. And first, I'll say apologies because, I mean,
- frankly, we have a custom on this council that over many years has been established that we speak to
- people in ways that we wouldn't particularly enjoy if we spoke to others. And so I'm very sorry about that.
- And I do I do mean that that's it's if then I'll say exactly why if I had said to councilmember Stossberg
- You know generally when I speak to people. This is how I would speak to them I don't think so, please
- excuse our hostility. I do think that the questions are valid all the same but with that said despite
- the fact that I play an expert on TV and
- I have no idea what most of the things you said meant, and so...
- Question about the question that Councilmember Flaherty has put forward, the core question of whether
- or not when we change the width of the alleyways, whether that results, what is the cost of that? Aside
- from the sprinkler question, the question of how many houses are built, does that pencil, and I wasn't
- quite understanding the aerial and the we're fixed on nine
- And I didn't quite get all of that, so can you help me understand just in very simple terms what the
- effect of... whether or not his assertion that changing from one side to the other side, if those actually
- are equal, and help me understand in a simple way that they are or they're not. I think the simplest
- version of that question that I'm understanding is, if the lane is smaller, can we shift
- things apart to get more space in the central street or to get additional width for sidewalks.
- Let's touch at some point on the transportation plan. I know we keep saying out loud, this doesn't meet
- the transportation plan. I would love to at some point have that discussion of it absolutely does. The
- transportation plan has exact verbiage that this does meet. And I'd love to talk about that when you
- guys are ready. But I think the first question is, do we get to six feet and six feet if we make those
- lanes narrower?
- And the short answer is no, because they have to be that width, even if we don't pave them for utilities,
- is probably the shortest answer of that. And then I'll call out to you, the only place that we have
- a monolithic sidewalk is on Wiley. And the reason that we have, we actually have, we are leaving the
- space. Yep. All utilities, water, you mean, what do you mean specifically? Water, electric, sewer.
- And they'll show up in our exhibits in your packet in our street sections, or at least they did in an
- early version. They may have come out so that they weren't fixed that that's the only place they were
- going, but we were showing how those work underneath that 20-foot alley. So those are serving those
- homes in the middle section. And then the question that we could move some of the house designs around
- as the other creative approach here, does that pencil?
- we could rearrange house plans and we did, I think we did almost 15 versions of rearranging and tetracing
- and how many units do we get and then what is that unit mix? That there's a goal as well, that there's
- a percent of three beds and a percent of two beds and a percent of one beds and a full range of price
- points. It absolutely could be rearranged further.
- to move things around. But I think that the short answer is the width of the lane for infrastructure
- reasons likely has to be what it is. And so narrowing the pavement is unlikely to help solve the overall
- a Tetris geometry problem. Okay, and so am I correct in saying that it is possible to do this, but outside
- of the sprinkler question, there would be some type of an implication for the number of houses that
- can be built. Yes, and that we have a rough estimate. The lane shortening solves our north-south problem,
- but our more pinched direction is actually east-west.
- Can you explain that? Sorry, I don't understand that. So First Street is already built out and has quite
- a bit of right of way. And so, you know, on our north block, and I think too, I'll ask as well, I believe
- we could be looking at exhibits that are in the PUD as those are in your packet, which might be helpful.
- So if we would like to look at graphics, I think things that are in the packet in the PUD might
- be reasonable, but I'll...
- I'll leave that to my colleagues to decide if it would be useful. Um, but Yeah councilmember Sasberg
- I want to ask the the general question which I don't think that can get handled tonight, but the general
- question is what's stopping those utilities from going in the green space in the middle as opposed to
- in the lanes in terms of needing that kind of 20 feet of right-of-way and the second thing that I want
- to make sure to put on people's radar which I kind of alluded to earlier is that
- You know, this whole thing has zero-foot front setbacks for dwelling units, except for along Wiley.
- And along Wiley, there is a 12-foot setback.
- for a front setback. And I'll tell you, the reason for that is because at the Plan Commission in January,
- it was a zero-foot setback. And I drove down Wiley and I went, oh my goodness, can you imagine the houses,
- if anybody's familiar with it, are kind of typical like R3, R4 houses on the south side of Wiley. Road,
- sidewalk, building, with no green space at all. And I was thinking to myself, there's no neighborhood
- transition there.
- that would put this very like, this appearance of real separation between these two sides of the street
- when really we want them to be one neighborhood. And I said like, we need some kind of setback, there's
- something. And what got added was a 12 foot setback.
- I'm not attached to that 12 foot setback. We wanna make that a five foot setback and then put in a proper
- sidewalk and a proper tree plot or whatever it needs to be like, that's fine, because that would still
- meet my goal of that 12 foot setback of getting some separate, or getting some like unity neighborhood
- transition between the houses that are existing and these new houses going in so that the whole place
- can feel like one neighborhood.
- because I think that that's really important and I think the visual effect is important in that. So
- that's what I was referring to earlier, like hey, let's put that, a piece of this puzzle in terms of
- Councilmember Flaherty's, I don't think that's so much number 11 as it is number, I can't remember anymore
- which one addresses Wiley's monolithic sidewalk. But while we're talking about redesign. And then,
- The other thing that I wanna just make sure to say in general about this conversation about
- the infrastructure piece is that part of what I seem to hear is like, okay, so we can skimp on this
- infrastructure of sidewalks and tree plots so that then we can make housing really affordable and lots
- of it. So then I have to go, so are we okay with the poorer people living in a place with crappier sidewalks?
- And that feels kind of,
- Interesting and so then it's like okay like, you know, cuz then you're compromising something and I
- just saw you know a member of our Administration go like this and it's like well, that's a real question
- right now because you know It got described to me as the transportation plan is the gold standard So
- are we okay with? Delegating certain parts of our population be like well You don't deserve the gold
- standard because we need to make it cheap enough for you and so that's that compromise that
- that Council Member Asari referred to earlier is like, what are we willing to kind of compromise and
- do? And that's just, I'm not making a judgment on that right now. I'm just bringing it up as a question.
- I'll answer that question since I think that's probably directed at me. We really intentionally preference
- smaller sidewalks. And in all of our neighborhoods, not even,
- not only affordable housing neighborhoods and so we we think that there has been broadly a real bloating
- of rights of way generally and and there there's quite a bit of strong towns support to that that doesn't
- always benefit places that you've got lots of historic neighborhoods that are the most expensive
- houses in your town that have monolithic sidewalks, that have four-foot sidewalks. You've got incredibly
- beautiful historic neighborhoods throughout America that are very high-end neighborhoods that are a
- four-foot or five-foot sidewalk, and that that is preferential, that a six-foot tree plot and a six-foot
- sidewalk tends to be a much more suburban subdivision greenfield pattern.
- that is not common in a lot of our historic districts and that creates quite a bit of additional cost
- on stormwater that a six foot sidewalk is 20 percent wider than a five foot sidewalk. Expanding that
- over your entire town is a 20 percent increase in the amount of concrete that you need to maintain and
- the amount of runoff that you need to manage without great benefits overall that are hugely impactful
- to people's lives. That is really a design,
- decision that we've made that is consistent throughout our work that is not tied to saying that we think
- that the residents of this house don't deserve the best. We do our best to design really beautiful,
- dignified housing with really great infrastructure and walkable communities at all price points. Council
- Member Flaherty had a thing and then Council Member Aralo. That was really helpful because I think what's becoming
- I'm aware of the clause clause being cited page 25 of the transportation plan to justify monolithic
- sidewalks and to justify Sidewalks that are smaller width than we allow I've also talked to staff many
- times about the transportation plan and that's not the correct interpretation I I want to hear it from
- director Hiddle if we're going to talk about the transportation plan we're going to talk about Zoning
- rules generally about how things are administered how the UDO works. We haven't heard from director
- Hiddle once I
- if we're gonna have a conversation about those things, that's the person to talk to. And I think what
- was also helpful about that is that putting smaller sidewalks in all of their work, I assume that's
- Flintlock Lab, we're actually hearing opinions that are an opinion about design that are counter to
- the policies of the city of Bloomington. And I think that was so illustrative, or illuminating for me,
- rather, that that's actually a lot of the source of the problem here is that
- Our city plans and our city goals and the udr requirements and the recommendations of staff Weren't
- followed and instead we followed the recommendations of a consultant, which is okay That's not I'm not
- saying that you know We're not entitled to our opinions and and we can have those views but they are
- counter to our city goals and policies and and code and And plans and that's I think actually where
- we're running into so much trouble here. I the fire piece I think you know if it's too expensive and
- too complicated. I think I
- What I was saying is that we can do, we can meet code, we can meet the transportation plan on Wiley
- Street. When you have a subdivision, you do need to meet the transportation plan facilities. That's
- very clear in the UDO. That's very clear in the transportation plan. So we can do that on Wiley Street.
- We can have a five-foot tree plot, a six-foot sidewalk. And I think you probably end up either losing
- no homes or maybe two homes from what is planned right now. And you might have to switch the home type
- in in a few of those lots Thank you, so so I don't know I mean I feel like we can move on from the fire
- question personally, let's everybody anybody else feels like they want to we can talk about Additional
- conditions or passing them or whatever we want to do. Yep. Thank you so much. Councilmember Flaherty
- And it comes member Rosenberg. Oh, sorry comes member Rallo had already been called and then comes over
- Rosenberg Go ahead. It's just a brief question. And that is that it sounds like from your presentation
- that you decided to deviate from the transportation plan from the onset. Is that correct? This has been
- something that we've discussed at length with planning and with transportation and with legal.
- The transportation plan doesn't say you are allowed to maintain existing streets. The transportation
- plan says very clearly on page 25,
- that existing streets shall not be required to conform to these cross-sections. Yes, that is
- being interpreted to mean the opposite of what it says, but that is legal past ordinance. Wiley is following
- the transportation plan in not being required to match the new street section, which is being proposed
- for tree preservation. There's an existing row of relatively nice trees along Wiley Street that provide
- quite a green edge and
- existing character to that street that those neighbors are used to. Keeping the sidewalk in place where
- it is currently shown, which is in line with the transportation plan and with national best practices,
- also maintains quite a bit of tree preservation. The added setback was added as part of plan commission,
- but the homes were not moved. They were held at that line from the beginning design, promoting tree
- preservation along Wiley to minimize impacts for the neighbors across the street as the construction
- comes through.
- I think it's also important to note that the city of Bloomington hired us because their current codes
- and plans allowed for 28 homes. It was stated upfront that 28 homes at the price that 28 homes would
- need to be charged was not a good fit for this neighborhood. The master plan that is shown originally
- for Hopewell shows more density than R4 allowed. It was a goal upfront in hiring us that we were being
- brought in to help
- via PUD see what it would take to achieve the city's goals affordable housing wise within the codes.
- And so yes, there was a decision upfront that the transportation plans statements of flexibility would
- be followed. So it allows for a sidewalk down to four feet. It allows for a tree plot down to
- five feet and so the transportation plans, specific standards were called out as being the thing that
- the PUD with custom street sections would provide. You decided early on to reduce the public realm and
- were you aware that there was a, that bicycles are allowed on sidewalks?
- We did extensive kind of explorations early on and the city selected a site plan that had narrower site
- Narrow our rights of way. We have early site plans that all incorporated 60-foot rights of way and bicycles
- allowed on sidewalks because that is a safety concern that you know why we preference wider sidewalks and
- The transportation plan calls out that sidewalks that are also bicycle lanes are required to be 10 feet.
- In constrained blocks, they're allowed to be eight feet. But sidewalks that are intended to be used
- for bicycles are required to be eight feet wide by the transportation plan in constrained situations
- and 10 feet, generally. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'd love to hear from Director Hiddle, and then,
- if no objection, we can move to public comment. And then, just as a suggestion, I mean, it might be
- appropriate
- Have a question for director Hittle for please. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we'll move to him and you can
- ask him questions when he comes So so well, he might be able to answer it without like in his speech.
- What's our councilmember? Sorry, thank you There's already been a handful of questions. So director
- Hittle, please respond and then we can ask them some follow-up questions. Go ahead To respond to I'm
- not sure if there's a particular element or
- I guess I'll say That Ali is our designer and She is a Widely acclaimed designer. She's the person that
- we've brought in to design this project projects rarely benefit from Democratic design. I think they
- do best when you have someone who is
- Again, widely acclaimed whose tops in her field literally at this time of time of development to let
- her cook let her do her thing I think you put a certain measure of trust in somebody when you bring
- them in to do that and you don't Arrange and try to micromanage that work I have to say I've never seen
- this from a legislative body in my 20 years to have a City Council
- argue about 12 inches here, 12 inches there, argue about what a PUD is. A PUD is a deviation from your
- ordinance, a deviation from your subdivision regulations, a deviation from your zoning ordinance, a
- deviation from your transportation plan. It's clearly the best route to take here, and it's the one
- that we've taken. And I'm... this is a staggering conversation for me, the fact that, again, a legislative
- body, a city council,
- is is Meddling is the best word in something that they shouldn't be meddling in this is planned Commission
- material if anything So that's that's my that's the crux of my response Is there anything more detailed?
- I think the question that customer Flaherty had put forward was a was around them particularly around
- the the transportation plan and the consideration of it am I am I recalling that correctly I'm just
- I guess I'm curious is there any Do we allow less than a six-foot sidewalk for a subdivision anywhere
- in the city of Bloomington? Can you name a precedent where we have allowed? Since we've had
- the transportation plan in place Where we've had a subdivision and not required a tree plot and a six-foot
- sidewalk. I don't recall offhand Okay, I don't recall Councilman Stossberg, did you have a question?
- Well going back to the transportation plan which you know, uh, miss Thurman is quoting that That page
- in terms of not requiring existing streets to conform But when we're redeveloping things we require
- Things to confirm when we're when we're we Conform when we're redeveloping and right right now. We're
- redeveloping one side of that street so I would think that that street would then be included and
- The requirement to conform and I appreciate what you said. Well, it's a PD PD. It's like a deviation
- So like it's all different anyway, but I'm just saying generally speaking if there's redevelopment on
- one side of a non-conforming street Don't we make that conform? I Think page 25 grants license to go
- in either direction. I
- That's a novel legal interpretation of that clause in page 25 relative to how this has been administered
- with other developers in the city of Bloomington Over that since the transportation plan has been passed.
- I'm almost positive of that Can anyone tell me otherwise have we used that clause as a we allowed a
- developer who's creating a subdivision or a rezone? Not to come into compliance with the transportation
- plan on the basis of that clause in page 25 because the base that the original the original context
- of that clause on page 25
- was confusion among residents of older neighborhoods, or are you gonna come in and start taking land
- in the near west side to widen the street to match this typology? And the answer was, of course, no,
- that's not something the city's gonna proactively do. So that's the context and the origin of that clause,
- why it's in there, how it's been interpreted and administered over time in the city of Bloomington,
- to my knowledge.
- So I guess I'm inviting is there an example of another developer who has leveraged that particular phrase?
- To not come into compliance with the transportation plan when creating a subdivision a rezone. I'm not
- aware of hand. Okay. Thank you Then I have a question I can
- I don't want to call out the person's name, but I can definitively tell you of somebody who was required
- in his historic district and remodel of his historic home to come into compliance with the sidewalk
- and had to put in a six-foot sidewalk, even though there's four-foot sidewalks on either side of his
- dwelling, and he was not at all happy about it. I think that he has spoken about it publicly, but I'm
- not going to call out his name now. But I might email him and say, hey, this got brought up. So he had
- to do that.
- Historic neighborhood with his historic home to put in the bigger sidewalk Thank You director Hitto,
- do you attend BZA meetings come again? Do you ever attend BZA meetings? Yes, do we ever accept? variances
- of this sort in the BZA or have they ever come before the BZA I don't think that it would you don't
- vary from it from the transportation plan
- Thank you No, I don't I don't believe so, okay. Thank you All right, we'll go now unless there's anybody
- else with questions for director Hiddle We'll go to a time of public comment on What number reasonable
- condition is this on reasonable condition 11? and then
- Maybe we'll have mercy. If anybody in the public or online would like to comment on reasonable condition
- 11, you're welcome to do so. Anybody in chamber like to comment on reasonable condition 11? Hello. My
- name is Joe Davis. Thank you for the opportunity to speak
- I am offended by the executive branch Bullying us into thinking that they know best that we shouldn't
- question their designers because of all the good words that they want Well in our community This is
- unique. We need to address these issues clearly the City Council is the protector of the people in this
- scenario and
- You are protecting us from the overreach of the executive. If you allow a poor PUD that sets precedent
- that makes it harder for people in the future to be able to have autonomy, flexibility, and all the
- things that empower them,
- then that's going down a road where we are only going to increase the idea and concept of victimhood.
- And we will have even fewer people wanting to live in Bloomington, work in Bloomington, and be a Bloomingtonian.
- We need to take the time to have the discussion and make sure that the people are allowed to have their
- input. Overall, these proposals that have been put forth by the City Council have many blind spots.
- We need to have more time for more public input so that we can truly come up
- with something that serves the people. Of course, we need affordability. But we also, too, need to allow
- homeowners the full rights of ownership, restrictive covenants, silent second mortgages,
- They all end up encumbering the property. They all end up making those who have to live with those conditions
- feel that they are less than. In this country, before we had the Civil War, slaves, black people were
- only considered three-fifths of a person.
- This PUD makes every homeowner only 3 fifths of a homeowner. It does not allow the full property rights
- that people who are trying to build and establish equity need to have. Thank you very much.
- reminder and please keep our comments to the reasonable condition 11 Anybody else in chambers like to
- comment? Thank you, mr. President members of the council John zodi from CDFI friendly Bloomington look
- the hours late and I just want to Maybe draw on what the question council members fastberg answered
- about what? someone who's living in affordable housing might sort of deserve or entitled to with a
- You know tree number of trees and things like that and I think You know as a regional community development
- organization We're always trying to look for people out there who can crack the code who can get affordable
- housing done and I think what what I've seen is The desire to make sure people Can find safe affordable
- housing right and so if that means less trees in the tree plot or
- Vinyl plank floor rather than a hardwood floor, you know I've been through modular housing that has
- different fixtures that can save money but the margins are small and People are always trying to figure
- out how to get this done and Bloomington is such a unique place not only in our region but in Indiana
- were the only city that has the level of robust housing protections in place that it does were the only
- city within an hour
- That has the kind of incentives that we do to subsidize affordable housing quite honestly We're the
- only community that has an active effort to get more landlords to accept vouchers An active funded effort
- in the past to get more Affordable housing online and other communities are trying to do this and they
- don't have as many resources as we do And so I think it's a reality Councilmember Stossburg and I
- the observation because this is something we've got to talk about as we're talking about what is gonna
- happen at Hopewell and how we actually have affordable housing there and I would just Continue to ask
- the council to keep in mind what that means if we're asking local developers To come in and do this
- work because I see it in projects every day The difficulty in putting together the financing the time
- it takes the lending you got to go through
- you know, like 60 to 90 days of underwriting for loans, and it just adds time. And so, when we think
- about any requirements, I just ask us to keep in mind that homeowner, at the end of the day, there's
- somebody waiting on that house and needs the assistance and the incentives that this community has the
- ability to offer that others don't. And so, trying to keep all of those things in mind and the risk
- that we're putting on them to kind of, quite honestly, create barriers, which isn't intentional.
- No one on the council is trying to create barriers to someone owning a home, but the natural and the
- frustration of all this, not you guys, but the frustration of trying to get the right pieces in place
- to develop affordable housing is extremely difficult. I see it every day. I've got people who are just
- right on the margin whether they can get a project to work. That's my time. Thank you for your time.
- That's your time. Thank you. Next in chambers.
- My name is Jeff Richardson and Yeah on on number 11 condition 11. I think it's a great discussion I'm
- not happy how miss Thurman was treated, but I Definitely think it's a worthy discussion I'm reminded
- I had a boss about 30 years ago and she's having some difficulties with her husband and he was talking
- about the relationship the relationship and she families hey, I'm here and
- We're we're here. We're the relationship where the two people involved and so I hear about you know
- the relationship The mayor's right here. She's got five departments here. She just said she's gonna
- work with you all of April all the way till the deadline if need be Let's model some great Behavior on how
- Nine Democrats, progressive, smart, intelligent, thoughtful, forward-looking Democrats, can work with
- a smart, thoughtful, forward-looking, creative mayor. Let's do this together. We have four counties
- in this state that are Democratic, and in this county, we have a dysfunctional county government. The
- perception is that we can't get along with each other. Let's use this opportunity, I credit
- You folks, for putting forward what you want, you got it. Should she have done it before? Maybe. But
- right now, let's seize the time, let's seize the moment, take advantage of these next 30 to 40 days,
- and let's show people how we can get things done. This is the best city in the world. I've lived all
- over the country. I love Bloomington. I love being here with every fiber in my body.
- I want you all to succeed. I know we can do this. Everyone has housing as their top priority. Please
- work together. Show Bloomington, show the state, show this country how we can get things done.
- Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anyone online? Please, person online, take it away.
- This is John Fernandez again, and I really hate to follow Jeff Richardson. But let me just say this,
- I'm commenting now, not as the CEO of Amplified Bloomington, but more as a member of the BZA. And I
- just want to say that, you know, I've been on the BZA for over a year. And I can just tell the council
- that on a monthly basis, we grant variances
- We grant variances because the UDO, the transportation plan, the climate plan, et cetera, et cetera,
- often lead to impediments to some very common sense decisions on real world projects, not hypothetical
- stuff that's in the UDO. We make adjustments as part of our normal processes because in certain instances,
- our policies don't work
- And that's what we do. And you can go back and you click the minutes of the BCA and the record,
- but there's, you know, we have a wealth of data on where there are problems with the UDO. So this notion
- that somehow we have to take like a strict constructionist approach to these policies and these codes,
- it's just, it's not the real world.
- And respectfully, I think that that is the whole point of a PUD, is that it's where a real project that's
- trying to do something that's creative and different, and in many ways, almost retro in terms of kind
- of neighborhoods that we actually want in Bloomington, require deviation from strict constructional
- coaches to our existing codes.
- I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I've listened to this, you know, for a couple of meetings now.
- And I think the fundamental question is, like, by right, if you want to take the strict constructionist
- approach to the UDO and to the transportation plan and the climate change, et cetera, et cetera, we're
- talking about, like, 20, what, 23, 28 units by right. And what's being proposed is a pretty creative
- alternative
- that gets you north of 90 houses, 90 homes. I'm just really kind of perplexed that we're having such
- this intense debate about trying to do something. We're trying to fall back on, you know, process questions,
- power questions, all these kinds of things. At the end of the day, it's really, do we want 28 units,
- which is required, that can be built by right? Or do we want to do more than that?
- And you know, it's just, I would hope that the council would just move forward and not delay this further.
- I think there's been a ton of movement on issues about the percentage of units that are affordable.
- Let's just get on with it. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else online? Anybody else in chambers?
- Seeing none we'll come back to to council any motions or comments Please councilmember Zulek Ordinance
- 20 2606 to the May 6th regular session meeting There's a motion and a second is there any discussion I
- Member Stossberg, I guess I just want to make a quick comment but not necessarily about this motion
- and I don't know if then it's appropriate for me to make that or not a Comment so would it be I wonder
- if the if the those who said would be willing to let us do maybe a round of quick sort of Comments and
- then reintroduce the motion if unless there's objection Okay So well we can go to a round of comments.
- Does the customer Stossberg would you like to start? First
- I want to respond to a couple of things I guess kind of in closing for tonight. I do think that that
- we're all kind of proceeding about this with like the the best thoughts in mind for Bloomington and
- Once again, it's like yeah, it is really important to put that into perspective. I think it's a really
- Almost like this like false concept that just because we're all Democrats mean that we always have to
- agree and I think that it makes better government and better decisions when we actually have debate
- when we actually have conversations when we actually share ideas and challenge each other on our ideas
- and honestly, you know if if I at some point get challenged on an idea and I don't have a good response
- then that's a moment that I have to really think rethink my idea and if any of us as people can't be
- challenged and
- and accept that we're being challenged and either have a Good justification and like this is where we
- are and this is where we want to be Then we have to rethink our ideas and if we're unwilling to rethink
- our ideas or if we frankly get offended or all angry and pissed off at like our idea being challenged
- and now we have to rethink it like like just Sit down at that point like honestly like we are in a forum
- where we're always trying to you know
- Do the best thing and the best thing is going to be exchange of ideas secondly, I Have notes all over
- by the way instead of all in one place and it's not like helpful to me I want to highlight something
- and councilmember Flaherty said earlier in terms of that, you know difference of philosophy about approach
- and and Director Hittle kind of said it that Ali was brought in to
- I think I wrote this down right was brought in to design this project and projects rarely benefit from
- Democratic design and that they just needed to let her cook and let her do her thing and
- I think that that was said maybe in this context of council needs to you know, stop trying to bugger
- But I think also that that's how our staff then thought about it So some of these questions that are
- getting brought up in terms of like this is how this is the expectation that we have in Bloomington
- This is the philosophy around prioritization of sidewalks and why you know, we have those wide sidewalks
- I appreciate that councilmember Rallo brought up the bicycles on sidewalks as a thing because that that's
- actually legal it doesn't have to be that the sidewalks are designed for
- Bicycles there may just be bicycles on these sidewalks on these little four-foot sidewalks and that
- could be potentially problematic and I think that those are things that locals know that Consultants
- don't necessarily know and I think that that's one of those struggles with consultants no matter how
- good a consultant is they're not from where it is that they're doing the consulting and no matter how
- many times they visit and
- Like there's always going to be those things and I think that that is you know It's like the pros and
- cons of using consultants, right? And then I think the last thing I hope at least I'm gonna remember
- is I want to talk about the BZA as some people kind of mentioned the BZA and Mr. Fernandez spoke and
- I'm actually you know, we're doing this whole liaison thing now and I'm actually the liaison to the
- BZA and I went to a BZA meeting recently and boy did they spend an awful lot of time debating
- whether or not these variances should be granted. So if we wanna compare this PUD to like one giant
- request for a variance, it is normal for those variances to be debated, to be discussed, to be like
- figured out how they fit into the whole and all of those things. And if that's, I mean, that's what
- we're doing right now, right? Is we are debating whether or not this like special request is gonna
- Do-good things for Bloomington is reasonable like all of those pieces And so, you know anybody trying
- to rush us as counsel through this process or be like, oh, well, you guys don't really deserve to think
- about that It's like no our whole job as our elected officials is to try to take the the large 20,000
- foot view all the way down to how wide are the sidewalks because the people who live here are going
- to be our constituents and our residents one way or the other and their
- Gonna come to us with those small complaints and they're gonna come to us with the big ones and it's
- important right now That we try to think about all those. Thank you Thank You councilmember Stossberg
- councilmember Flaherty, thank you We are making progress I think I mostly wanted to talk about where
- I am and and how I can get to yes on the on the PUD and just a note to I
- probably was speaking a bit frustratedly. If my tone came off as disrespectful to Ms. Thurmond, I do
- want to apologize for that. I will say I did hear a number of things that were incorrect that she said
- at different times tonight. Another small example, it's trivial, but it's an example, is that South
- Dunn Street homes sold for $800,000. That's not true. They sold in the $200,000 range when they were
- built. A couple of them might be $800,000 now, but that's a wildly inaccurate claim.
- There was a lot of information coming at us. There were other things that were incorrect or really had
- unfounded assumptions. And again, I don't mean that in any sort of disrespectful way, but I think it
- is frustrating sometimes as a council member when you're trying to get the information you need to make
- decisions and you can't rely on the accuracy of the information all the time. So that's where that was
- coming from, I think, again, and frustration. But...
- Again, respect the work that's gone into it, and her expertise, certainly, I do appreciate it, but I
- think we just have some differences of opinion about priorities, and that's okay. As far as where we
- are, it seems to me like unless we want to redesign and do the fire access road as a beeline-style thing
- in the middle of Block 9, that it's maybe just too complicated and not feasible to adjust the alley
- widths. I'm not wild about that. I think they're oversized.
- The upshot of that is we can either allow monolithic sidewalks and make them smaller than what's allowed
- in the transportation plan or that we've allowed other developers to ever do in this kind of context.
- To me, I think that is a deal breaker. I think it's extremely bad governance and bad policy precedent
- to use the PUD
- to really subvert our plans, which is in fact the opposite of the express purpose of a PUD, which is
- supposed to give considerable benefit above and beyond what code requires. So I'm just saying, I'm probably
- a no vote on the PUD as a whole if we can't fix those things. Not because I don't want all this housing,
- which by the way, the other resolution that's on our agenda that we won't hear tonight that I brought
- a year ago after working with staff to develop it, and it was opposed by the mayor at that time, would
- have done a lot of the things that would make this allowable by right
- the resolution that Kate brought, sorry, Councilmember Rosenberger brought, would have done most of
- the other things in this PUD that it would all be allowed by right. Really all that would have been
- left to change is modulating right-of-way variability based on whether you're including parking and
- allowing frontages. Actually, that might have already been addressed. Almost all of this would be allowed
- citywide by right if the mayor had not opposed those resolutions a year ago. So that context matters
- too. We are talking about this PUD, of course, but these market solutions matter.
- they need to be applied at scale. I hope we'll get there. Back to this PUD, I think I could get on board
- with a six-foot minimum sidewalk width along the streets, probably an eight-foot sidewalk width for
- what is essentially a multi-use path, you know, a five-foot tree plot, anywhere that that is physically
- possible. It might not be possible on the south side of block eight,
- And a 10-foot sidewalk on Roger Street. I realize we don't actually need the 40 whatever feet of right-of-way
- dedication on Rogers It can be probably the 31 or 32 feet that is envisioned but the 10-foot sidewalk
- I think is important It's what we've built elsewhere already and hope well on Roger Street as well as
- further south and Roger Street and it fits I have that in writing confirmed from the city engineer And
- so there's no reason not to do that a five-foot sidewalk there would really really be substandard. So I
- Oh, last point. I tried to ease up on the energy efficiency standards by saying you don't have to actually
- get the certification, but just meet what it is. I'm not quite sure I heard this earlier tonight, but
- I might have, which is actually that in the Sustainable Development Incentives, there's an option one,
- sub-bullet five, which is about, I don't think it's quite as strict as LEED, but it is higher-level
- energy efficiency.
- a certain number of points into rating systems. And I think I could get on board with that, is the more
- efficient code level that we're building to, as opposed to building to lead level. The electrification,
- I think there's still a legal question about whether or not that's gonna run afoul of some of the state
- preemption stuff. If we could do it as a written commitment, I think that'd be great, if we feel comfortable
- with that legality. If not, I think it's probably okay to withdraw it.
- because I think the stated intent is to develop the property as all electric efficient homes. And I
- think that covers most all the things. Oh, the last one. Well, the short-term vacation rentals, I think
- that can actually be accomplished via written commitment as well instead of reasonable conditions, so
- let's work on how to do that.
- I think we're on board with it and the permanent affordability is the last piece. We got to figure out
- I think we made some progress. Oh, sorry. Yeah, okay Yes, I can stop I just wanted another three minutes
- if you'd like them in a second, but too sorry It was just the spirit of like this is actually what it
- will take for me to get this done in the next few weeks Yes, and thank you for that for me as a deal
- breaker. Yeah Thank you. Thank you so much. That is a hundred percent agree. Very useful councilmember Daley
- Thank you very much. I just want to make a simple plea right now. So as we move forward, I just want
- to ask that we continue having these conversations, as we continue having these conversations,
- that we please, please not jump to assume the worst intentions in each other. I appreciate Council Member
- Flaherty's words of passion, or talking about how he spoke in passion.
- You know, overall though, tonight I was sad and embarrassed and angry to hear this body make accusations
- of speakers tonight. That called their professionalism and or intelligence and or motivations into question.
- And we don't have to agree with what they are putting forth, but we do need to maintain decorum. We
- don't allow people to speak to us like that. Every one of us clearly cares very deeply about this project
- and we all want Hopewell
- to be amazing because we all love this city and the people who call it home. So I just want to put that
- forth in the way we are presenting ourselves and how we work. I do want to take a moment to acknowledge
- the immense amount of work that my colleagues have put into shaping this vision. The level of detail
- and the high standards being proposed come from a place of wanting the very best for Bloomington.
- In a perfect world, every single one of these conditions would be a total slam dunk. We all want beautiful
- architecture, perfect infrastructure, and top tier sustainability. I don't think anybody doesn't want
- any of that. We need to keep in mind that the affordability and the attainability is the number one
- goal here though.
- I also want to acknowledge tonight that the administration has also made an effort this past week, and
- it may not have leaned in enough to get us to where we want to be right now, but I do want us to keep
- in mind that they did agree to three of the reasonable conditions last week, and Mayor Thompson started
- the night with an offer to give us another month essentially of discussion, which I hope that we keep
- having more of these. We keep up these discussions. And I don't see that offer as, you know,
- Lucy putting the football out in front of Charlie Brown to just pull it away. I don't think there is
- no, I don't think there's no room for further discussion if that offer is being made. So hopefully we
- can come to some of those agreements like I had spoken earlier in the night about the whole purpose
- of why we were continuing these conversations if we knew we weren't gonna vote on it. So that's it.
- We still have a long road ahead of us and many more acres of hope well to develop and we can work together
- to incorporate
- more of these designs and infrastructure goals in the next phases as the project matures, I hope But
- for tonight, let's not let the pursuit of a theoretical perfection turn us against one another Thank
- you come from daily of other comments closing comments All right, all right seeing none are there any
- motions Now councilman Zulek, thank you I move that right
- Ordnance twenty twenty six oh six be postponed to our May 6th regular meeting second point of order
- Roberts rule says that we have to go to the next regular session When we postpone to a certain date
- we need to postpone to the next regular session I'll withdraw my motion and motion to table ordinance
- twenty twenty six oh six until
- Hey, could I ask the clerk to tell us what to do here because you are a certified Roberts person or
- whatnot What's the best course of action? What is your goal to postpone or to not deal with it until May 6 and
- Yeah, I mean it could be I don't I mean it could be on the 22nd and it still gives us time We have a
- deliberation session next week. For example that we could Is it two weeks from now? So we have so we
- have So we have a deliberation session on the 15th that we could use to talk about hopeful and then
- we can schedule it for the 22nd all the same and and obviously then if we're still not ready we can just
- from the outset, reschedule it to May 1st. Sure. Is there any reason, Mayor Thompson, was there like
- a specific reason to say the May 4th? Sorry, I like Star Wars, sorry. I was encouraging us to use all
- time between now and May 6th to discuss this.
- To make a final decision by May 6th. Okay. Okay seems that we need plenty of time Okay, but that wouldn't
- preclude also using also using April 22nd So let's let's maybe schedule it to April 22nd. Do you have
- a deliberation session between now and then correct? Yes. Yes So yeah, so I withdraw any previous motion That
- Ordinance 20 2606 be postponed to our next regular scheduled meeting on April 22nd There's a motion
- in a second any discussion seeing none all those in favor, please say aye Any opposed any abstaining
- that motion carries? Thank you very much We now have other things on the agenda are there any motions
- noting the time of
- You have to be more explicit, please Yeah, we can we can either motion to adjourn whatever you want
- go go for it Say sorry, sorry, everyone's talking at the same time counselor clarity I Move we conclude
- the portion of the meeting on second reading and move to the next portion of the agenda second
- There's a motion and second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstaining that motion carries
- any other motions Okay, we're now at a final time of public comment For things that were not on the
- agenda if anybody would like to make a comment at this moment And you'll have three minutes to do So
- is there anybody in chambers who would like to make a public comment who did not comment previously?
- Is there anyone online
- Okay. Thank you very much. All right, that concludes our time for public comment Which leads us to a
- time of council schedule. Is everybody okay? with us using our next deliberation session to deliberate
- on Hopewell Any objections I'd like to leave that question up to councilmember Flaherty because he was
- Scheduled in there. I'm comfortable with it using the time and and and
- Another time and had we arranged though for others to be here just so that we I mean Is there any work
- that we had gotten agreement that they were available? But I'm sure they won't and those all city city
- staff like we don't have we don't have anything like that, right? No, we don't have anything like that
- lined up I Think it will delay the opportunity for a delivery. I know we're queued up to like September
- on public safety so I do think it will delay deliberations on
- Challenge of sidewalk safety and accessibility or pedestrian safety and accessibility in the wake of
- snow events to a point in time past which budget implications could be, you know meaningfully informed
- but So it goes I'm okay fair point we could also push the public I mean we have multiple public safety
- so we could do one public safety. Well, we have a deliberation session in May so
- Basically, I'm fine not doing sidewalks, but okay safety implications, I mean member Stossberg then
- councilmember Piedmont Smith I just wanted to point out that there are five Wednesdays in April and
- we don't have a meeting scheduled at all right now for April 29th So I don't know if it's at all possible
- to put April 29th on the calendar as another deliberation session about the sidewalks So that then we
- could have that discussion before its budget, but we can't decide that tonight probably. Yeah, okay
- I'm councilmember Piedmont Smith
- I thought that the deliberation sessions about public safety were moved to September and October and
- That being the case I believe that we could do sidewalks in May That's what she that's what she said
- hey, okay Okay any other things so tomorrow we have a hiring committee this reminder to to to my colleagues
- any other things for the good of the order and
- All right, two wonderful residents. Thank you for being here. And this meeting is adjourned.