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.