Thank you. I'd like to go ahead and call this Deliberation session of the Bloomington Common Council
to order here on November 12th. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Flaherty here rough
here Rallo here Piedmont Smith here Stasburg here daily present Zulik present Sorry, I am also present
Wonderful. Thank you
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you all for coming. So tonight we are having our second community
conversation related to housing and Bloomington and tonight we're going to be formatted a little bit
differently than we were the first time. So we are going to alternate between
Presentations by planning staff and small group deliberation conversations, okay And so one of the the
keys with this is that we're going to have a couple different transitions I think actually for where
we're going to transition from this kind of meeting set up with council members up here and planning
staff at that podium giving presentation to small group conversations and then we will have to transition
back out of small group conversations and back into the large and
group for more presentation, and then we will go back to small group conversations a second time. And
where you go for a small group conversation the first time might be different than where you want to
go the second time, just in terms of what you want to talk most about. Because if last time all of the
groups were talking about the same thing, this time the groups are talking about different things. So
as I said to somebody earlier,
I really had to turn on my teacher organizational brain for this tonight, and y'all are gonna have to
help me out by turning on all of your listening ears. If you have toddlers, you might know a lot about
listening ears. At least encouraging listening ears, I hear a council member, sorry, chuckling down
there with his toddlers.
The purpose, I'll get back to my script now. So the purpose this evening is kind of dual. One is to
learn a little bit from planning about what trends that they've been hearing during their many community
conversations and also about what their outreach efforts have been. And then we also want to explore
those trends and how those trends could potentially turn into
to housing policy here in Bloomington and also hear a little bit about how some other cities have turned
some of those same kinds of problems into policy or what it is that they're trying. So before we get
to the presentation part, just a reminder of shared expectations and community agreements. And these
things were in the packet if you read that. But when we are in those small group sessions, we can make
sure to speak from our own experiences using I statements and being honest and respectful.
Listen to understand and that it's okay to disagree But please do so with curiosity not hostility and
to be concise so that everyone has a chance to speak so first on our agenda our planning director David
Hittle is going to share
Information about his process related to his community engagement and housing experiences that he's
been working on since June And depending on time council members may have a few minutes for questions
But generally I really want to prioritize tonight as a time for meaningful community conversations.
So Mr. Hittle Thank You president Stossberger good evening everybody My name is hi
My name is David Hill. I'm the director of the Department of Planning and Transportation and appreciate
you coming out tonight a Little bit colder than it was the first time that we met but this is the second
of two deliberative sessions where my department and hand and a variety of our staff are partnering
with the council we appreciate the opportunity to get input from from you all and hear what you're thinking
with regards to what we're doing and
So the Department of Planning and Transportation has been charged with the task of considering housing
policy changes Intended to make housing more attainable in the city of Bloomington I think you probably
have a good feel for the fact that housing is not attainable in the city It is the most cost burdened
city in the state cost burdening being
Household spending more than 30% of their income on housing beyond which is considered to be detrimental
to the household So there are things that can be done. There are things that can be done in the UDO
and elsewhere to try to fix that It's not the cure-all. I think what we're proposing and what we come
up with but it at least I hope remove some of the obstacles that are
Not really necessary to be there. So tonight we're going to share some of what we've learned thus far
Through a variety of engagement and outreach efforts even as we continue to listen and learn and bear
in mind. These are highlights The we've gone into pretty deep Waters and conversations with stakeholders
housing interested parties so so we're not going to be able to sort of give you the whole breadth and
of that and
that conversation those those many conversations we've had so far but More more top-level items and
hopefully good fodder for a good conversation for tonight when we break into small groups So
we're considering potential unified development ordinance amendments and other house housing policy
changes to increase access to attainable
housing in Bloomington again, please So this is we're not doing this in a vacuum This is not something
that the city is undertaking on its own of its own accord without there being precedent this is something
that is really happening in all of the northern hemisphere
Cities everywhere are dealing with with housing crises of their own of different types But but it's
a pretty widespread problem. And so what's developed is is kind of a standard slate of ordinance revisions
of different types of zoning reform that we're seeing taking place all over the country especially and
these are the these are the items that generally rise to the top of that list and that would be minimum
and maximum lot dimensions short-term rental regulations
cottage development regulations, modestly scaled multi-units, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, accessory
dwelling units, architectural standards, on-site parking requirements, impervious service requirements,
ground floor commercial and residential flexibility, permit process improvements, pre-approved plans,
lender developer training, building codes. With the exception of the bottom four here,
Everything else that I've read is already in Bloomington code. It's already part of the UDL. So we could
be looking at amending and refining those things. Quick note about those last four items. The permit
process improvements, besides being a difficult thing to say, is something that we're in the midst of
right now. We're having a third party engineering and planning firm from Indianapolis come and audit
our permit and plan review processes. And we're looking for that to be very helpful
One thing that we've learned, and I think that it's been learned by a lot of communities, is that the
longer you delay the time from permit application to the time when permits are approved, the more cost
it is for developers, and developers don't just eat that, they pass that cost on to the end users. So
there's quite a bit of efficiencies, I think, that we can realize. We have a lot of departments that
review our plans, we have a lot of regulations, and we have an external building department, so there's a lot of
Room, I think for improvement in the communication between those parties and this is the way that they
interact So that started today In fact, we just had that that consultant come and interview our staff
and in the morning they interviewed Bloomington utility staff in the afternoon So we're well on our
way there the bottom three pre-approved plans and lender developer training I'll just talk about those
two real quickly. Those are going to be part of the Hopewell South and
Project which is going to be a planned unit development that's coming forward. There's a sort of an
unveiling by the the consultant we've we were using for that property and that project a couple weeks
ago and it's
Pretty exciting what's planned for there. But among them is a catalog of pre-approved home plans. These
are very well designed, contextually appropriate, missing middle homes. So those would be ADUs. These
would be bungalows. These would be really small houses. And then even duplexes and triplexes that are
going to be available for no cost or low cost. Have to figure that out to people that want to build
them. And so it's a much easier way to get from idea to something on the ground.
And then the lender developer training is something that's going to be happening next year again as
part of this Hopewell South project where we're going to have our consultant help with helping build
a local ecosystem of incremental developers, kind of homespun homegrown developers, and then also help
lenders understand that these relatively alternative
Home designs that they would be lending for so that that sort of greases greases those those gears and
helps that whole process happen more quickly Again, we're not new here. We're not the guinea pigs. This
has been done in other cities and done well And so we're pretty excited to have it here
Building codes is a longer term issue. Our building codes are very much derived from state code. In
other states, they're realizing a lot of new efficiencies in terms of single staircase design for residential
structures, different ways of attending to fire safety needs, different ways of attending to sprinkling
requirements that really could lower the cost of building.
It's gonna be a longer, I think, term project to have that happen in the state of Indiana, but we are
seeing more and more states adopt friendlier building codes to make that happen, so if that's a possibility,
we wanna be involved with that next. Here you see the two documents that we pay regard to when we are
looking at any kind of changes to the UDO, to really anything we do, and they're in literal chronological
order here,
On the left you see the comprehensive plan and on the right you see the unified development ordinance
the left the plan is a it's the vision as set out for the city of Bloomington with regards to anything
having to do with land use and development.
And then that vision is to dictate how the unified development ordinance acts and works as a means of
realizing the plan. So those two things are inextricably linked and they're very much in the air tonight
as we talk about these types of things. Okay, next. A little bit about the methodology, about what we've
been doing since the summer.
We've been doing quite a bit of outreach to various stakeholders in the city, people who have an interest
and an effect on the housing environment. Those include neighborhood organizations, the university,
the school corporation, and then a whole lot of other groups that I initially wrote out
One-by-one and then realized there were too many so we just sort of encapsulized them into different
categories there with regards to neighborhood organizations Some numbers for those There are 63 registered
neighborhood organizations in the city of Bloomington
Reached out to all of them heard back from 30 visited or scheduled visits for 21 and so far we've had
attendance of 185 at those meetings We have more scheduled through February. So that number will grow
I guess I would have liked to have seen a bigger number than 185 but It's you know, that's it's not
nothing. So we'll take it As we've had those conversations the kind of con the kind of questions that
we've thrown out to to to drive discussion
kind of the same questions that we entertained with the first deliberative session, which would be what
works well in your neighborhood, what does not, what types of housing do you have, what more types be
a positive or a negative, and why can you walk to meaningful places from your home in your neighborhood,
or do all of your trips require a car? And then generally, those questions alone were enough to take
conversation in all kinds of places, expected and unexpected, for a good amount of time.
We've also met with As indicated here employers the development community peer cities lots of peer cities,
which I'll talk about in a minute. We also have additionally Some focus groups that were planning for
the development community and for businesses in January and February to get more focused feedback from
them Concerns and issues we have had trouble getting renters. Actually, there have been more renters at
Present at the neighborhood association meetings and I would have expected probably on the order of
10 to 15 percent Whereas most neighborhood association meetings are almost always all owners. So that's
been kind of a positive we've Made arrangements with the Bloomington transport Bloomington Transit Company
to do some some walk-up surveys at the Transit Center where I'm hoping we'll engage more renters just
in terms of the
Clientele that they serve and and the Transit Center and also a key stop so we can add to that Community
that we've not heard enough from Quick note about pure cities So you see some of the usual suspects
up there when we talk about pure cities often we're talking about Big Ten cohorts Ann Arbor and Iowa
City are in there, but it reached out also to other cities that are
Modest in size but host a very large university. So some some places that we haven't really talked to
before Charlottesville and Pullman Fayetteville State College Corvallis Athens have been very instructive.
It's been very cathartic for me as a planning director to talk to
Planning directors in these other cities and find out that they have the exact same problems that we
have And that they're dealing with them in different ways and finding successes and also finding out
that in a lot of ways We're ahead of some of our of our peers out there next slide, please Okay back
to the comprehensive plan again the plan sets the vision and so whenever we change the UDO we should
be getting our mandate from the comprehensive plan
Our march marching orders if you will So let's take a quick look and see what the comprehensive plan
has to say about what we're proposing to do next slide
These are quotes taken out, so obviously they're not given in full context. They're parts of goals or
parts of the narrative. So what I'm reading, what you're reading here, again, there's more color to
be had if you go to the source and read the entire page, the entire chapter it's from, but I think it's
still instructive to look at some of this language.
So, some of Bloomington's neighborhoods are relatively diverse economically and by housing type, whereas
others are comprised almost entirely of single-family homes, limited in development by covenants. Most
core neighborhoods are stable but are trending towards a lower percentage of new single-family homes.
With greater density in the city comes the challenge to preserve neighborhood character and the opportunity
to strengthen neighborhoods by developing small commercial nodes as community gathering spaces. Existing
core neighborhoods should not be the focus of the city's increasing density.
Next one, all of Bloomington's neighborhoods must avoid monocultures that serve only a small range of
household incomes and attract a limited segment of the market. Next. Many communities have a missing
middle for housing types where there are not many housing options beyond large multifamily units or
detached single family. These options include duplex, triplex, courtyard apartments, bungalow courts,
town homes, multiplex and live work units. Bloomington is no different. Next.
Such housing varieties used to be common in American cities and they offer opportunities to further
explore affordable housing options for Bloomington next Encourage opportunities for infill and development
across Bloomington with consideration for increased residential densities complementary design
and underutilized housing types such as all of those next Avoid placing these high density forms in
single-family neighborhoods next
Help meet current and projected regional housing needs of all economic and demographic groups by increasing
Bloomington's housing supply with infill development, reuse of non-residential developed land,
and developments on vacant land, if it is at least partially surrounded by existing development. Next.
And then from the climate action plan, which is also a part of the comprehensive plan, it states flatly,
encourage density and increase housing options and affordability with the goal of increasing gross density by 3%.
Next and then from the sustainability section everything else I had read with the exception of the climate
action part was from the housing part of the comprehensive plan. This is from the sustainability part
says demographic shifts favor more urban interconnected development with increased mobility and green
amenities often transforming an area area.
Depends upon changes in the highest and best use for the community as a whole sustainable development
is by definition the best long-term investment of private and public funds So there's some contradiction
in the language of the comp plan and some frustratingly imprecise language But on balance I'd assert
that the mandate is there for us to give a good look at housing diversity in ways to increase that diversity
Also, I think it's it's it should definitely be noted that prevailing themes in the comprehensive plan
include those of equity and those of access and certainly to strive towards Equity and access for all
your you want to look at the ability to increase housing diversity
I am going to, before I pass it on to Jamie, I'm going to really quickly set up the first small group
session. Just take a moment for that, so next please. This Dower fellow is William S. Burroughs. He
is a mid-century artist and author, and he's not important here, but he is known for having coined the
phrase, when you stop growing, you start dying.
And that's one thing we're going to talk about with our first small group. This kind of resonates with
me because I think it is about 12 years ago as a planning director for Johnson County. And we had hired
a consultant to work with one of our cities on a comprehensive plan.
and he made the statement, grow or die, and it kind of became his refrain. And as that process moved
forward, he was talking about grow or die, grow in the context of how this particular city had been
growing for decades, which is to conquer corn fields and bean fields and expand ever further with very
low density suburban development. And I realized that as I agree with this statement,
when you stop growing, you start dying, I disagreed with that variant in that context. So I think that
it's possible to grow, but to not grow well. In talking with Hopi as we prepared for this today, tonight,
we thought that sort of a couple of these more philosophical questions might be fun. Can I say fun?
for the small groups. So I think that this will probably, I hope, garner some good discussion. And then
the next one for the small groups is this.
It's a maxim you hear in planning circles. It was originated I think a long time ago But has become
more popular via the strong towns movement in the last 10 years or so and it is to two statements No
neighborhood can be exempt from change number two. No neighborhood should experience sudden radical
change so as we look at the tension between preservation between preservation of character protection
of character of neighborhoods and the need for a healthy city to grow and
Is this true? Is this partially true? Is this true in some places in some circumstances and not true
in others? So that is another thing that you can all find the answer to when we divide for small groups
That's all for the first section and I think we're moving on to Jamie now Jamie now or are we moving
into our small groups? Where does your slide show go? I?
Because you just intro this like the small group. So should we We could I This is a moment where everybody
is going to be flexible with us, right? What do you want to do Jamie? What do you want to do? What do
you want to do? You want to go? Okay, then staff will have to jump back to this afterwards So at this
point, thank you so much, mr. Hittle so now I I believe
One of our new planning staff members is going to bring us through a little bit about the related research
that she has been doing, also related to some of the feedback that Mr. Hittle was talking about. So
floor is yours.
So thank you to everyone and good evening. My name is Jamie Kreindler. I'm a newer planner with the
city of Bloomington. I started here in August and my presentation is about current efforts and practices
happening nationwide in zoning reform and housing attainability including case studies some basic planning
principles and guides from professional organizations and what they're saying about middle housing.
So for starters I just wanted to highlight a few things in the unified development ordinance or you
do which you'll commonly hear it referred to in the city of Bloomington. There are a variety of residential
and mixed use zoning districts that allow for diverse types of housing to be built. We have cottage
developments that are clusters of single family homes with shared common spaces and these are conditionally
permitted uses in all of the city's residential zoning districts.
Duplexes are conditionally permitted uses in the R1, R2, and R3 districts, and these are the residential
large, medium, and small lot zones. Duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and multifamily dwellings are also
allowed by right in the residential multifamily and residential high density multifamily zoning districts.
To encourage gentle density, cities small and large have reformed their zoning codes to allow for middle
housing in strategic locations. Minneapolis, Minnesota is known for being the first major US city to
eliminate single family exclusive zoning, allowing duplexes and triplexes in all residential districts.
Several states such as Montana, California, Washington, Maine, and Vermont have passed laws that mandate
cities to allow middle housing options in low density residential districts.
Other zoning reform measures that have been widely used across the country include allowing accessory
dwelling units eliminating parking minimums removing restrictive design standards reducing minimum lot
size requirements and incentivizing transit oriented development in the city of Bloomington. We also
have affordable housing incentives that are currently in our UDO as well and those apply to the R1 R2
R3 and R4 zoning districts.
The American Association for Retired Persons has done a lot of work on middle housing, and they're a
leader in the aging in place movement. They've published guides for local and state regulators on how
to expand middle housing options, such as cottage clusters, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units.
AARP has partnered with organizations like the American Planning Association, Strong Towns, and Congress
for New Urbanism, and they make the case that what is good for older Americans is good for everybody.
According to the 2021 AARP home and community preferences survey, most people prefer to live in walkable
neighborhoods that offer a mix of housing and transportation options and are close to jobs, schools,
shopping, entertainment, and green spaces. In many communities, walkable, small to midsize housing that's
affordable for middle income households is difficult or impossible to find.
The city of South Bend, Indiana, has an initiative called Build South Bend that is designed to assist
small-scale developers, entrepreneurs, and residents with property development and new construction
projects in the city.
The city of South Bend offers pre-approved housing plans to support neighborhood infill and economic
opportunities. And this resource assists with small to medium scale housing developments and includes
contextually appropriate high quality architectural plans to fit within a range of neighborhoods in
South Bend. These pre-approved ready to build housing plans are intended to save developers and individuals
time and money.
on the design and approval process as the city works towards its goal of increasing the supply of diverse
mixed income housing.
While still in the early stages, Hopewell, as many people are familiar in this room, is a local case
study on housing attainability. Hopewell is planned to be Bloomington's next great neighborhood, located
on the former IU Health Bloomington Hospital site along West Second Street. The Bloomington Redevelopment
Commission is partnering with Flintlock Lab, a multidisciplinary consulting firm based in Fayetteville,
Arkansas, on Hopewell South, which are blocks nine and 10 of the Hopewell Master Plan.
And key components of this project include a mix of housing types and price points, pre-approved home
designs to streamline permitting and reduce costs, opportunities for local builders, a legal framework
to support permanently affordable and market rate housing, and ongoing community outreach and developer
training. One of the goals is to develop a pre-approved homes catalog similar to South Bend that could
be applied citywide to make housing infill easier in the city of Bloomington.
In many communities, digital tools are being used to advance housing attainability, better permitting
systems, and improve zoning transparency. Outdated processes can cause barriers and delays that slow
down the potential supply of housing. Digital tools can help cities to share success stories, automate
workflows, centralize records, shorten approval times, reduce error rates, and track community engagement.
predictable trackable housing projects are more likely to get funding from investors and lenders and
Developers have an increased sense of confidence to work with communities that have track records of
efficiency From 3d mapping like this map the city of Carmel, Indiana to interactive zoning tools to
new innovations in AI There are numerous ways that technology can be utilized to demystify zoning identify
gaps in housing attainability and provide information to the public and
Historic preservation is another tool for maintaining the existing stock of affordable homes while protecting
neighborhood stability and character many pre 1970s homes are inherently affordable and preserving and
rehabilitating these types of homes can contribute to addressing housing attainability in some cases
it is more cost-effective to repair older homes than build new housing and occupying currently vacant
units can help to fill the housing shortage gap and
Looking at housing attainability through a historic preservation lens, common practices include
deconstruction over demolition, affordable housing overlays with the creation of new historic or conservation
districts, ADUs in historic neighborhoods, government funding for repairs to older homes, and regulations
to Airbnb's which are frequently historic homes that attract visitors rather than providing permanent
housing to locals.
And lastly legalizing ad use which stands for accessory dwelling units has been a very common action
taken by state Policymakers to make attainable housing more feasible to build to date laws broadly allowing
homeowners to build and rent out ad use have passed in 18 states
However hurdles still persist even in states where adus are legal in a recent article from the National
Association of home builders three of the quote-unquote poison pills to building adus or owner occupancy
requirements parking requirements and discretionary permit reviews and the city of Bloomington adus
are allowed in all of the city's zoning districts with the exception of the mixed-use institutional
and the non-residential zoning districts and
There are you specific standards that apply to building ad use and the city of Bloomington has extensive
resources available online including an adu catalog with pre-designed plans created by local and regional
architects Communities are exploring how to make ad use more economical through zoning reform streamlining
approval processes and offering financial support such as grants and low-interest loans to homeowners
who construct ad use on their properties
And that concludes my presentation. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you so much. And
once again, welcome to the city of Bloomington staff. I still feel like Miss Kreindler is very new.
So the next thing we're going to do is we're going to break into the small groups. And so one of the
design thoughts that we had when talking about this is that
Planning staff has lots of information to tell us but it's also really hard to like sit and listen to
stuff So that's why we're doing information and then conversation and then come back for information.
Okay, so all There are there are gonna be eight groups and all council members Should have this packet
in front of them and this should help tell you and explain to you exactly how this is gonna work tonight
Okay, so I just need to I'm gonna do my best to make this really clear. So in our first
breakout session, we're dealing with our guiding questions. So we have guiding question number one or
guiding question number two. So council members, you should have this in front of you right now, okay?
And so on the guiding question sheets, there should be four groups on each of them, and you should have
a highlighted name of where you're supposed to do.
where you're supposed to go. So if we think back to Mr. Hiddle's presentation, our first guiding question
was about neighborhood change and that idea of no neighborhood should experience radical change, but
all neighborhoods should expect some change, okay? No neighborhood should experience radical change,
but all neighborhoods should expect some change. So there will be four groups talking about that statement,
and those will be groups one through four.
And so these small groups should be numbered, I believe, one through four are all within council chambers.
And then there will be four groups talking about guiding question number two.
If you have guiding question number two as a council member, can you like hold up your sheet? So you
have guiding question number two. So I know that you're paying attention to me. Thank you so much.
Thank you, teacher. So guiding question number two is when you stop growing, you start dying, that quote
from William Burroughs. So groups five through eight, I think five and six are in chambers.
maybe five is in chambers and six, seven, eight are out in the hall, are gonna be talking about that
concept of when you stop growing, you start dying.
Okay, so in each one of those groups one through eight, there will be a council member and a City staff
member teaming up to do facilitation. All right, so before you start moving council members the other
things that you have is a printed out facilitation guide and Which one you're doing should be highlighted
Okay in terms of which questions you're dealing with and then you also have a note-taking guide Okay,
and so I would like to remind you that one facilitator
One partner in the group should be taking notes, and you guys can decide who that is. And then I also
emailed this document out to you if you prefer to take notes digitally as opposed to on paper. There
are also clipboards and pens right here if you want to grab a clipboard and pen and take notes on paper.
If you don't want to use my note taking guide at all, there's also just paper here, and that's fine.
And you don't have to use my note guide. Does anybody have any questions right now about where they're
supposed to go?
Yes, there are numbers on the chairs. And council members, bring this sheet with you and hold it up
so that then residents and community members can help remember whether they're going to groups one through
four, talking about neighborhood change, or five through eight. All right? In about 20 minutes, I'm
going to call you back, and we all need to come back to the main group. Work on that, y'all. All right.
Let's go back to Mr. Hiddle, who is going to kind of continue on with a little bit more information
about the trends that he has seen related to the housing challenges in Bloomington that will kind of
set us up for our second small group discussion. Take it away, Mr. Hiddle. Thank you, President Stossberg.
Thanks everybody for pulling yourselves away from the group. Sorry to do that. This will be Another
10-minute presentation and then you'll go back to two more groups so this is we're going to share a
little bit about what we've learned throughout the outreach and engagement process again, these are
very much highlights and very selected highlights very little detail here, but we tried to kind of
Curate some some items. I think probably will lead to again good discussion here and also just help
you understand sort of the dynamics that we've Learned from people as we've gone out and talked with
them so a couple of the points that that are really hitting home is that Generally a greater diversity
of housing options is desired among stakeholders thus far engaged we found that you're not going to
find a lot of people that say oh gosh diverse housing and
Terrible. I don't like that at all As you get talking a little bit more closer to home and in their
specific neighborhood Then they be they maybe become a little bit more concerned about it That leads
us to the second point is where there is concerned expressed about housing diversity. It's most often
from neighborhood residents and and leadership Next slide, please those concerns include
First and predominantly the idea that off-campus student housing pressures will overwhelm or are already
overwhelming neighborhoods and From that we get a loss of neighborhood character new buildings don't
fit contextually new buildings are architectural downgrades from what they're replacing next slide the
local residential market cannot compete with off-campus student housing market
Neighborhoods uniqueness its sense of self erodes as more transitory students replace more long-term
neighbors And then traffic parking and student behavior and I actually put that last item last on purpose
Traffic parking and student behavior because I heard those complaints, but I didn't hear them nearly
to the degree I expected I've come my previous job was in West Lafayette Lafayette, Tippecanoe County
same job different town
Big University small city and the complaint there was very much about student behavior in especially
adjoining core neighborhoods in West Lafayette Here we get that there are certainly certain neighborhoods
that I spoke with where You know, they've had bad experiences with students and and they is very much
top of mind but
The overriding concern really has to do with the dynamic between the pressures of off-campus housing
needs and what that does to the built fabric of the neighborhood, the pressures for changing the built
fabric of the neighborhood and for really just changing the cost of living there. Not so much student
behavior, so I think that is there, but it's definitely not in first place. Next slide, please.
This was one of the neighborhoods provided me this specifically as an example of their concern relative
to neighborhood character. So this is 7-Eleven East Cottage Grove two years ago. Next slide. This is
7-Eleven East Cottage Grove two weeks ago. Next slide. And then this is what is proposed. This is what
the neighborhood gave me that they were given, I think, by somebody that visited.
But it turns out that the next slide is actually more indicative of their plans. And so what you see,
I mean, this is 400 feet from campus. And so you see what was a single family dwelling would now be,
this is a triplex. So there's the tension. It makes sense that there should be, could be, maybe will
be higher density close to campus. But then the question of at what cost when you look at the change
in character.
And so there are going to be some people that think this is a fine thing, and there are going to be
some people that think that this is an abomination. And I think that it's worthwhile to listen to both
points of concern as we look at what we want to be able to call gentle density. Next slide, please.
More of what we learned, there is a strong desire for improved walkability. I heard the word walkability
a lot. In the post-war neighborhoods, and when I say post-war, I mean after 1950, essentially. So these
are the more suburban neighborhoods in character. But there's also a different
different definition of walkability there. I think what I'm hearing there has a lot to do with just
the presence or absence of sidewalks and paths and their condition. Are they there? If I want to walk,
can I go there? Whereas in the core neighborhoods, it's a more, I think, comprehensive idea of walkability,
is if I leave my front door, can I actually walk to a place that's meaningful? Do I have to get in the
car to get a gallon of milk? If the kids have to go to school, do I have to get in the car? Can they walk?
So the idea of walkability is much more comprehensive in the center part of the city in the
core neighborhoods Than it is in the external neighborhoods But we do have some of these more suburban
neighborhoods where they do talk about the pleasures of being able to walk to the store to a coffee
shop There's a relative lack of awareness. I was surprised to learn of ADU opportunities If you live
in a residential neighborhood, you can build an ADU Well, not tomorrow because it'll take us a long
time to process your permit and
But if you do live in a residential neighborhood, you can build an ADU. They're expensive They're super
expensive because you know per square cost our per square foot cost of an ADU is much higher than than
a than a Regular single-family dwelling so we don't have a lot of them but but they're allowed by right
right now and so I've been to you know neighborhoods I've talked to and people are thinking
I'd love to be able to have, you know, my father-in-law who is ill and needs, has some independence
but needs some help, love to have him living in the backyard in a house or have my adult special needs
child, you know, in the same situation or, you know, more and more these days your college graduate
child is not ready for
You know is gonna you would like to have that person, you know living at home or have the opportunity
and so I was a little bit surprised that so There are not a lot of people that knew that that was something
that could be done right now People were aware very aware of their subdivision covenants, especially
again. These are in the 50s and 60s era neighborhoods more in the perimeter of the city
A lot of those neighborhoods have subdivision covenants that prohibit anything other than a single-family
dwelling from being built on a lot Now those are not enforceable by the city, but they they certainly
have sway and power as far as whether somebody wants to try to do that So that's kind of a that's a
real sticking point for people that want to be able to build an adu in their backyard for the reasons
I just described but but they have private covenants that prevent them from doing that and then also
in the the
post-war subdivisions, there's this sort of low-key fear of anything other than a single-family dwelling.
And I say low-key because it's not overwhelming. There was no place I went where there was this uniformity
of opinion where the idea of living next to something other than a single-family dwelling was just completely
objectionable. There was always a little bit of diversity of opinion.
But there was, in general, generally speaking, there was a desire, if you live in a single-family house
in a post-war suburb, most people wanted to have the same thing on either side of them. Next slide.
Off-campus student housing, again, this is a major, I think, cannot be overstated what a compelling
force this is.
In this city is as far as house housing works and how much housing costs So again, I've talked to peer
cities and learned a lot in doing that We're gonna look at some of the strategies that other places
are utilizing again super highlight This is not with much depth But I think it's it's interesting to
look around and see what's being done and certainly good fodder for conversation Next slide. So Ann
Arbor builds vertically It's nothing for them to drop an 18-story student housing
Project somewhere their their campus and their downtown or are integrated in a way that's a little bit
different from Bloomington's They have a history of small of taller buildings in their downtown and
it's just a bigger city So so this is sort of an opportunity that they have that I don't think would
fly so well in Bloomington but they they in addition to other strategies one of them is to build up
and so these are you know,
On the outside, they all look a little bit different, but on the inside, they're all the same. This
is the high amenity, luxury student apartment buildings. Next slide. West Lafayette, again, this is
the place I just came from, so I know a little bit about it. They go vertical as well, so they have
no shortage of 12 to 16 story student housing buildings in their downtown. And what's really interesting
about West Lafayette, next slide, please, these are two side-by-side maps of downtown West Lafayette.
Wabash, if you look at the one on the left, the green area is essentially the banks of the Wabash River.
And then on the map on the right, the white area shows a redevelopment area. So this was an area built
in the 60s with a mall, an enclosed mall.
big strip mall and then some old garden variety apartments, all of them failing, all of them making
for a really big redevelopment area. So what they have done, what they are doing is creating a new downtown
essentially. If you look on the map at the right, you can see that they gridded out a new street network
to allow for a lot of new development here.
Again, the map on the left shows downtown West Lafayette on the left side of that map and then a new,
basically a new downtown West Lafayette on the east side. The problem they're having though is all of
the developers, all of the pressure and desire to build there is high amenity student apartment buildings,
mixed use perhaps. They don't want to build mixed use, but if they have to, they will.
There's a philosophical question in the air in West Lafayette is, do we want to put all of our eggs
in this basket? Maybe higher education changes substantially in 50 years, and there's not this immense
on-campus or near-campus student presence with online education, with the fact that we have demographic
challenges I think that colleges are going to be dealing with, starting like literally right now into
the future.
If they're left with these massive buildings that are really built only to house college students, what
does that do for the town 30, 40, 50 years down the road? It makes you think of Anderson, Indiana, which
put all its eggs in the basket of the automobile industry. And when they left town, it's just a shell
of itself. So it's kind of the same dynamic here. So it's a question that's being grappled with in West
Lafayette.
just the natural market forces to flow as they seem to want to flow, then they will have a downtown
that is composed of nothing but big student apartment buildings. Next slide. This is just a cross section
of what you see in one of those buildings. The hallmark of student housing is that the bed to bathroom
ratio is one to one, and that operationally the rents are by the person, by the bedroom, rather than
by the unit. So this is the rive,
Bloomington next slide shows pretty much the exact same thing the verve and West Lafayette and again,
they're Go to Ann Arbor. They're the same names. The buildings look the same. It's it's sort of a formula
that they can just that just caches checks next slide
State College Pennsylvania. They have an interesting strategy in place there. They're actually also
overhauling their zoning ordinance. So whether or not this survives that process, it's not sure. But
if you have a student in a residence
And that student meets the definition of student home. I mean, attending undergraduate or graduate programs
offered by colleges or universities, then that is a student home. And automatically, you cannot be within
720 feet of another existing student home. So the practical output of that is that you distribute student
homes within a given neighborhood, core neighborhood, so that the ability for student housing to overwhelm
a traditional
You know single-family or duplex or triplex oriented older neighborhood near campus doesn't materialize
Next slide Charlottesville, Virginia overhauled their ordinance last year and they created three what
they're calling gentle density districts all adjoining campus Allowing for three units six units eight
units by right even more of affordable
They are put in place and then they were sued immediately and so that's all a little bit in limbo in
fact the other three cities in Virginia that have major campus presences a major campus presence at
the same time enacted similar zoning ordinance overhauls to allow for increased density and they were
sued as well and
Virginia's state code has a very prescriptive Requirement for changes to ordinances and the suit allow
alleges that those weren't followed in different ways in each of the four cases But anyway, that's something
that's going on in Charlottesville Next slide, please back to Bloomington. This is our zoning map Jamie
showed it earlier all of the yellow is r2 zoning and it allows by right only for single-family dwellings and
Also, you could build an ADU. We've talked about that You could have a duplex but only by grant
of conditional use which is a BZA process which carries with it quite a bit of friction so that zoning
district is about 4,000 acres of land in the city and that's almost five times the next highest land
area zoning district, which is our three so we have a lot of land set aside that allows a
By right really nothing but single-family dwellings with the caveat that that 80 years can be built
as well Next slide
It's informational. The top graph I think is probably most worth looking at. The yellow dots show the
number of ADUs built over the years since 2018. You can see it's a pretty even average of four or five
per year during that time. And then the blue shows the number of plexes, duplexes, triflexes, or quads
that have been built since 2022. Gentle ascent of about one and a half per year. We've had six so far
built this year.
So we did allow for duplexes by grant of conditional use in in our Residential districts, but as you
can see it hasn't resulted in a lot of those actually being built next slide And then this just shows
the distribution ad use in yellow and plexes in blue relatively evenly distributed throughout the city
Next slide
Just a little bit of elaboration on some of the typologies that we mentioned earlier. Cottage courts
is a very interesting one. Next slide. This is a two lots, two urban lots in Indianapolis. This is actually
in a neighborhood, the neighborhood I used to live in. And this is a traditional cottage court development,
brand new construction. I don't know that there have been many of these built in Indiana in recent years.
Deb Meyerson might know the answer to that question. Come again?
Engelnuck Okay So this is one of the few cottage developments that have been built in the state This
took six seven years The developer had this concept again two urban lots on which would be built instead
of the two single-family dwellings It would have been allowed by right. There are six 1100 square foot
single-family dwellings each of them three bedrooms two bathrooms
very thoughtfully constructed, very energy efficient. You can see that there's a courtyard in between
them. Next slide. And they've actually been built. As a planner, I'm so accustomed to seeing glossy
renderings and ideas that never get built, but these have actually been built. Now, they're $300,000
a piece, but as new construction goes, that's relatively inexpensive. And if you allow this kind of
thing to scale over time, there'll be enough of it that you would hope that those prices become reasonable
for people.
Again, this is an old typology. I don't know that there's any in Bloomington that exist that were from
a different time. But in other Midwestern cities, certainly in Indianapolis, there are a number of these
that were built in the 20s and 30s. And it's a good way to achieve true gentle density. They complement
the neighborhood, they work well, they offer lower price points, and they give people places to live.
Next slide.
Just another example of a cottage court done well. You know, again, it fits well with pretty much any
neighborhood. Next slide. Lot dimensions. Real quick note about that if you'll go to the next slide,
please. So this is just an example of houses that have built ADUs and using various means, they've split
off the ADUs so they can actually be sold.
Fee simple and then owned by a different party The lot on the left is using a flag lot approach which
we don't allow right now with our ordinance And then the lot on the right is used taking advantage of
the fact that it's on a corner to split off the rear lot this
This is an idea, I think, where it probably has the most utility in Bloomington is for large residential
lots, where there's a house and then there's just a big expanse of turf grass. And we've been approached
by people who want to be able to subdivide that. And as infill, as true infill, where you're not building
new pipes, you're not expanding services, you're not building new roads, it's a very economical way
of getting more people in the city
without great expense and without dramatically changing the neighborhood as well. Next slide. I just
find this interesting. This is from Indiana Code. This is HB1005, which was passed last year and went
into effect. So if you'll read the bottom part, it requires certain municipalities
to voluntarily revise their unified development ordinances, zoning regulations or other land development
rules to allow for higher density development of duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in areas designated
for single-family homes, construction of other housing types including accessory dwelling units and
manufactured modular housing, adaptive reuse of commercial buildings for residential use. So this reads
very much like the blue states that Jamie mentioned earlier that demand this
of all their municipalities, but it applies only to those Governments that are that are utilizing the
residential housing infrastructure assistance program. So that's Financial assistance to develop additional
housing but it's fascinating to me that this language just even appears in Indiana code Because I just
never thought that day would come Next okay
So I can send you guys into your groups Thank you, so thank you so much right now to our planning department
and especially mr. Hittle but also Jamie Crandler because both of them have done a lot of work preparing
this session and supporting me as I figure out some of these facilitation details, so
Right now, we're going to split into our small groups again. And there are going to be four different
topics. And so they're kind of briefly illustrated up there.
the first kind of set of more substantial questions has to do with off-campus housing and attainability,
kind of with the main thing of how can Bloomington absorb the significant need for off-campus housing
of our university students while still providing attainable and necessary housing for non-student residents?
Okay, so how can Bloomington absorb the need for off-campus housing and still provide attainable and
necessary housing for non-student residents? So that is going to be discussed in group
One and two. Okay, so that is in this room groups one and two Then we are going to have how can neighborhood
character be maintained while Allowing for growth to meet the needs of current and future residents
Okay, so how can we balance that neighborhood character and preservation and that is going to be I'm
not reading the right thing right here right now, but that's going to be groups three and four and
Okay, which are also in here. I don't know where all of our circles went, so we're just gonna have to,
that one is three and I think that four is back there. Okay. And then we will have group three.
What will incentivize small local developers and or disincentivize large outside investment into our
housing market? That was another one of those kind of common refrains that came up a lot in the last
council session that we did was this idea of wanting to support local developers. So that is the third
question and those folks will be in groups five and six is out in the hall. And then the last topic
is how can
housing be made more attainable for current and future Bloomingtonians. And that's groups seven and
eight. So once again, if you wanna talk about student off-campus housing and how to balance that, you're
in groups one and two. If you wanna talk about neighborhood character and preservation mixed with growth,
you're in three and four. If you wanna talk about incentivizing small developers, you're in five and six.
And if you wanna talk about attainable housing, which is kind of a mix of affordability and availability,
you're in seven and eight, okay? Go team. Okay, we're still working on people coming in from the hallway,
but I just wanna close us out here with a very short statement. Thank you, is everybody in from the hall now?
All right, so I had originally planned that we were kind of gonna do some large group reporting out
from things that we heard in our session, but our time was not managed quite as well as it was during
the first session, and I think that that's because we all seemed to really enjoy talking in our small
groups. So if you're interested in hearing what other people talked about, sometime probably next week
there will be kind of a packet addendum
with the notes that note takers took tonight. So I think that that's gonna be the most efficient way
to do this. I have generally advertised that these deliberation sessions last about two hours and it
is now 839, so that's more than two hours. So I wanna go ahead and adjourn us sooner rather than later.
But I do wanna thank everybody for being here and for sharing your thoughts and being deliberate and
taking time out of your day to help give us the kind of feedback that we need to
to move Bloomington forward in the housing arena. So I just wanted to kind of tell you what the next
step is that Mr. Hittle kind of alluded to is actually making policy changes to the Unified Development
Ordinance to try to address some of the challenges and improve the housing situation in Bloomington.
So I just wanted to say once again in terms of process and timing, the expectation for that right now
is that there would actually be official policy
Change proposals that would occur Probably starting in the earlier part of next year depending on planning
department Situations and there are probably you know, we've talked about a lot of different topics
and there's been a lot of different things that they've heard And so it won't be just one big thing
There will probably be several smaller pieces of legislation that will come through and those will start
at the planned Commission level and planned Commission meetings are
are Monday nights, and I'm forgetting right now whether they're first Mondays or second Mondays. They're
second Mondays, thank you. They're second Mondays of the month. I'm actually on Plan Commission, and
I just couldn't remember which Monday of the month. I always am here.
But so they will start at that plan commission level with that proposal. Usually there will be at least
one hearing for everything. Usually there are two. That's kind of standard. We have to waive a second
hearing very deliberately if we just want to move through. But at the plan commission level, there is
an opportunity for the public to weigh in through public comment on the specific proposals. And then
after the plan commission processes it and looks at it and hears feedback and potentially changes things,
then that will end up forwarded on to common
Council and Common Council of course also will at second readings have time for public to comment on
those specific policy proposals. So I hope that everybody signed in today either out on the paper or
using the QR code and so through those sharing of email addresses if you shared that we can I will pledge
to do my very best to keep you up to date in terms of sharing when any specific proposals are coming
through the
planning commission but those meetings are of course publicly noticed and all of that kind of thing
but I will do my best to also send it out to all of the folks who came tonight and then also to the
meeting in September so I don't think that there's anything else I needed to share do council members
have any questions oh yes the reminder if you did not put your pin on the map
of where you live. We're just trying to make sure that when we have these input sessions that we're
gathering data from all over Bloomington and not just having feedback from narrow areas. So please make
sure to do that on your way out. If you didn't sign in, make sure to do that on your way out. If you're
watching on Zoom, I once again forgot during the second breakout session to point you toward the QR
code around the second breakout session topics and feedback for that, but hopefully you all
figured that out because it was the same procedure as the first one. So unless there are other reminders
from council members or other stuff. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Absolutely. And on that note, we are
adjourned.