- So we will call to order this large table working session, joint working session between the RDC and
- the Bloomington City Council. Before I guess we get started, I'll just ask if Clerk Bolden, if you'd
- be able to just call the roll and then we'll have just a couple of ground rules or just general level
- setting and then we'll move on straight into discussion.
- Councilmember Rosenberger here clarity Here so like here daily here Rollo here. Sorry here and rough
- Thank you very much
- And then we're also joined by our colleagues at the RDC. I don't know if you all need to do roll or
- whatever, but yeah, yes, please do. So go ahead. We're just doing a roll call, so I hope you want to
- entry. Rita Gassley here. Laurie McRobbie here. C. Scambaleri here. Deborah Meyerson here.
- Wonderful. So thank you all for taking the time to meet with us. And thank you all for being here for
- this repurpose deliberation session. As you saw on the agenda, our hopes here and hopefully will also
- be joined by Flintlock Labs. And I think David Hittle will also be joining us. Our goal here is to really,
- oh, there you are. David Hittle is here. The goal today is just to discuss
- the reasonable conditions now with information as hopefully you all had a chance to see in the packet
- surrounding potential tradeoffs that might be associated with each of these reasonable conditions. We
- want to keep the conversation about
- the reasonable conditions, and so lawyers are not allowed to talk, I mean, other than the lawyers who
- are on the council. But we're not, just to have hopefully a productive conversation just around how
- we might potentially move forward with reasonable conditions. The only other thing that I'll mention,
- you all might have noticed that our former deputy mayor, former city attorney Larry Allen is here, and
- we're just very grateful we've somehow convinced him to
- City Council out on a part-time basis in this interim period. And so, Mr. Allen, thank you so, so very
- much for your service, continued service to the city and long-suffering. So now we, I'll hand over to you.
- Oh, thank you. Just, again, welcome and glad to have everybody at the table here tonight. Looking forward
- to hearing from Flintlock. I know they've prepared some slides for us to look at and looking at how
- we can talk about the Hopewell South PUD and focus on opportunities for housing supply, affordability,
- and accessibility within the Hopewell South project. So is Hopewell or is Flintlock going to be presenting
- initially? OK.
- Fantastic. Okay, so if there's no objection, I think the way that we'll do this, we will ask Ali to
- give sort of like a 30,000 foot overview, you know, just sort of level setting, and then we can go sort
- of reasonable condition by reasonable condition. The person who's proposed it, spend a few minutes just
- sort of explaining what is we're trying to achieve here. I think as we've done, but I think it's just
- useful to talk about that, and then we'll have sort of
- immediate response from Ali as outlined in the slides, and then RDC response, and then some discussion.
- Does that seem like a good way of structuring the conversation? No objections? OK, fantastic. OK, with
- that in mind then, Ali, if you're there, we would love it if you took it away. So give us a 30,000 foot
- view overview here, and then we'll jump into the reasonable conditions. Let me set up my screen, Chair.
- or briefly. Is it on our end or? Yeah, I can read her. We had an issue with planning commission on Monday
- night that by the end of the meeting, we could no longer hear the online folks. I don't know if that
- could fix between then and now. They're interesting. Can you do a mic check, Hallie? OK. Can you guys
- see slides and hear me OK? Maybe on our end. Hold on. Yeah.
- Okay, great. Read your favorite epic poem. Hold on. Because we can't hear you. Okay, we're going to
- run through this quickly. And I've got slides that we may want to come back to. So I'll go quickly through
- the slides. But I tried to include all of this in case there's questions. We are really hopeful.
- Hold on, Ali. We can see the slides, but we cannot hear you still. Oh, one moment.
- Yeah, just keep, if you could keep every so often saying check and then we'll tell you when we can hear
- you. Turn on some jazzy music. Yeah, turn on some elevator music. Yeah, it definitely is on our end.
- Thank you for your patience. I don't know what happened on Monday night, but like in the middle, like
- toward the end of the meeting, suddenly it was no longer working.
- I did. I was on team. It worked. Yeah. Were you not able to hear it? Oh, no. Oh. Never know. How about
- now? Yeah. OK. It looks like it's working. Thumbs up? Yeah.
- What was it called? The goal. Okay. What about the May apple? Okay. Okay. Thank you.
- I'm going to say we will be having 830. Still nothing? The other attendees on, I mean, I'm going to
- type this. Maybe you should leave and come back.
- Oh the other zoom attendees can hear you well, that's interesting Yeah, no, it's definitely like Yes,
- like it it happened like it was toward the end of the meeting it was like you I don't know 1045 or something
- and I can't remember
- who it was that was maybe going to chime in with one last thing. Can we pull her up on one of the lockers?
- Oh, no. I know. It was one of the attorneys. Unfortunately, she was upstairs on Zoom. And so she just
- came down and was able to give her comment in person. Well, should we, while they're trying to, oh,
- oh, noise. Try now, Ali. Can you hear me now? Yay. Bravo.
- We celebrate your arrival. So take it away, Ali. Okay, so I'm going to, I've got more slides than we
- might need. I'm gonna run through them quickly, but I wanted to have everything here in case we want
- to go back and reference or ask questions.
- Our big hope too, you know, I want to also though, be really clear about where we are here. There's
- been a lot of variations on some of the conditions. So we think we've done our best. Sorry, sorry. Can
- you please slow down? Sorry, Ali, sorry. Thank you. Yeah, sorry. And our mics don't turn on as quickly.
- But yeah, the three requests to slow down if you could. Yes, happy to. So we are
- We think we've got a good, and one of the big questions was the impact of each of these conditions.
- And some of the conditions have changed over time a little bit, and so we think we have a good, honest,
- quick look at what the impacts are. We also want to caveat that we've not done a full iteration of redesign
- with each specific variety. So there may be some of the places that we think this is the impact.
- We may be, you know, when we get it all fully vetted, I'll give that caveat. We're working at a conceptual
- level still with the changes. I'll flip though to the plan that is submitted in the PUD is much less
- conceptual. It is fully vetted by,
- Many departments, you know, we had work sessions for several months with departments and every department
- has different opinions sometimes and different priorities. And so there are some things that were really
- worked out based on operational and departmental requests. And so, you know, I do want to say there
- is extensive coordination across internal departments taking into account
- Count feedback from lenders and builders, developers in a region, engineering, fire, sanitation, planning
- have weighed in on this extensively. And so the PUD plan itself is very much vetted. Our alternatives
- that we're trying to quantify some impacts from conditions, I'm trying to be honest that they are our
- best interpretation of our current understanding of condition and how that would impact the plan generally.
- So I think we're all on the same page, right? By right, we can get 28 lots. We are trying to increase
- our total number of individual units. We are trying to increase home ownership opportunities specifically
- across a really wide range of price points.
- We are aiming for a very broad set of homeowners and residents of the neighborhood that can find something
- that fits their housing needs at various stages of life. And so the goal is, you know, really
- getting to a broader range of housing solutions for many more residents of Bloomington than we could
- reach with, we could have done a code compliant plan. I think we would have saved all of ourselves a
- lot of meetings, but we're really trying to make something that is really impactful for the kinds of
- housing that we are hearing that Bloomington residents need.
- So we've got a summary of conditions in here and we're gonna go through a couple of the high level ones.
- Some of these are already aligned, some of these are already passed. Some of these have some impact
- that we think it's really productive for city council and for RBC to be working together on what the
- trade-offs are because they're every decision, every one of these things that we've come to the table
- with already and that might be added or changed
- Those all have trade offs. And I think generally we want us to all be thinking about, you know, more
- requirements is going to generally result in fewer homes and higher costs and fewer homes means that
- the houses will need to cost more each.
- But one of the things that we have been really maximizing for that we wanna be open is really baked
- into, we've really optimized for the most homes possible with the widest variety of price points and
- programs that we have some family homes, some senior homes and some first home buyer homes. We also
- see that we, and we see this a lot in housing, we think this is not uncommon at all.
- that a lot of times we can see one project and want it to solve all of these problems that we're facing
- as a community and that can sometimes be challenging to meet all of them. So generally, the short answer,
- one of the questions we got, the short answer that we're trying to provide is that the initial set of
- conditions as written would remove approximately 14 homes
- There are several interpretations of how, you know, if we lay this out in this way, we would have to
- work from this existing curb cut or this existing property line. And so this is one of those places
- I want to caveat. We ran this scenario on three different interpretations. We got to 14 homes each time.
- There were 14 different homes in each of those assumptions, but it was a pretty consistent number. And
- about seven of those units impacted are accessible, which is another thing that is being optimized for
- in this plan.
- The affordability condition is one that we think would be really productive to have RDC and council
- talk through. That's something that we can weigh in on from experience, but also think that that is
- an internal discussion that will be really helpful to have. Generally, we're both trying to provide
- permanent restriction of units
- of 25% of the units and we're trying to provide attainability for a much broader set of the units, around
- 70% of the units, will be at or below 120% AMI at market rate at first sale. And so we're really trying
- to do both and calibrating the exact numbers that are the right numbers in the project will be really
- helpful conversation I think for today.
- We also want to say that new construction is expensive. There's a joke in development that the best
- time to build a house was 20 years ago. It's sort of like the best time to plant a tree was 100 years
- ago. And so the more restriction that we're putting on there, probably the fewer units either that can
- be put in there or that subsidy is required on. So we want that trade off to get discussed with RDC
- and council together.
- Sustainability is one that would be another one to really discuss well. We are already required to comply
- with the adopted model energy code. And so this project will meet that standard and exceed that standard.
- That code governs our envelope performance, our systems, our overall efficiency. And so the
- core sustainability outcomes are really already addressed.
- the standards are already high in Bloomington. So the condition, this is one of the ones that we think
- is tricky that would be helpful to have you guys talk through because the referenced ordinance there
- does reference third party frameworks like LEED or Green Globes, which are not energy codes, they're
- rating systems. And so they introduce a lot of additional criteria that may or may not really be tied
- to performance of the building and may not positively impact
- residents in terms of reduced energy costs, ongoing reduced utility costs in the same way that working
- towards an energy code or building code standard might. This is the trickiest one, this combination.
- This is the one that we ran a couple of different scenarios on. We think it would be probably helpful
- as well to discuss, what are the interpretations? Are we widening a sidewalk by 12 inches, which is
- pretty minor as a change.
- Are we saying the sidewalk is widening, but we want strict compliance with the way the transportation
- code has previously been interpreted for consistency, which is something we also heard. The way that
- the transportation plan has been interpreted previously is that this full 60-foot right-of-way is required
- to be dedicated even when the street section itself is constructed to a narrower width, is my understanding
- and what we've heard multiple times in departmental meetings.
- So that 60 foot right of way, if we are optimizing for consistency with previous developments, that
- has a really big impact. Whereas just the tree plot being wider or just the sidewalk being wider might
- have smaller impacts, we can talk through, we ran a bunch of scenarios, we can talk through probably
- high level marking up a plan if there are specific questions of if this, then that.
- We do think that the transportation plan builds in a lot of flexibility in the way that it is passed
- and written. And so we showed these slides previously, but the transportation plan does have a shared
- street typology, which is similar to what the lanes are proposing, which is 20 feet
- total pavement, 20 to 22 feet of total pavement with optional on-street parking, no center line intended
- to be shared and so intended to not have sidewalks. And so there are some typologies within
- the transportation plan, design parameters that give a lot of optionality to recognize that every block
- is different, working around different things is really viable. The pedestrian zone,
- descriptions within the transportation plan and these are screenshots from it does reference that a
- sidewalk can go down to four feet wide as at the narrowest and still be ADA compliant. It also references
- that the standard street installation is five feet not six feet which conflicts a little bit with the
- section which we see as normal flexibility intended often through these that you've got kind of a best
- case scenario when you're working from scratch and you've got
- smaller standards that are allowed when reasonable. So we think that's normal and we think the flexibility
- for what we're proposing exists in the transportation plan and this was very heavily vetted by planning
- and engineering the proposal that you were seeing in the PUD based on these conversations prior
- to submission. So we saw this one right that the we've got a
- Widening our rights of way to 60 feet, which is our consistency, has about a 15% reduction in our total
- number of homes. As I said, we did do a deeper dive with a couple other assumptions and found a little
- variation in exactly which ones it was, but similar numbers. The biggest thing that we see in the negative
- impact of potentially losing units is actually in how it impacts our accessibility percentages.
- We currently are working with a 31% accessibility, 31% of homes are either universal design as defined
- in the UDO or fair housing standard, which is also called an ANSI type B unit or universal, sorry, or
- full ADA compliance, which is ANSI type A. And so we've got a third of our units within the neighborhood
- that are accessible. We've worked with local accessibility experts to really
- hone in on what is highest priority, we're working with civil engineers to make sure that all of those
- 31% of homes are provided with no step entries and that any homes that can also be made visitable also
- provided with zero step entries. And so that's been another big focus to optimize for. And so we would,
- if we lost these units, drop our total percentages of
- accessibility from 31% to 24%, which would be below the standard that we currently, I think,
- have incorporated into the language in the PUD. We did run some initial versions with the 60-foot
- right-of-way, and so we also can talk about what that might happen, what that might yield.
- This is one of the ones that I know has changed a little bit. And so we would love to hear what the
- latest thinking is on width. But our position remains that maintaining the lanes at a 20-foot pavement
- width as a shared street, as reflected by the transportation plan, provides a lot of flexibility within
- the way that driveways maneuver in. We don't gain any real square footage in the design overall because
- of our utilities. And so I think this is one that would be good to discuss, but we think
- functionally remaining at a 20 foot makes a lot of sense. And that is fire code driven. I know we had
- a lot of questions at council about fire code. We can run through any questions further that anybody
- has here. We are somewhat providing those as fire access routes as well for those inner homes that that's
- their main vehicular entrance.
- So if we reduced the width of the lanes, we would need to fire sprinkler any unit that doesn't have
- 150 foot max hose pull to all parts of the building, generally assumed to be starting along sidewalks
- wrapping the building. And so that would mean a portion of the inner buildings here would require fire
- sprinklers.
- The fire sprinkler lobby is really good at telling people that they're very affordable. That has not
- been our experience. Even when the pipes and heads, that really low price per square foot that you often
- hear quoted is typically just the actual parts required for the pipes and the heads material only. We
- often then have quite a bit of design, permit, inspection costs for those. We have sort of labor minimums
- to show up to install it. Even if the house is really small and it only has a couple heads, getting
- a plumber out to install it,
- As you guys are probably familiar with, anytime you try to get somebody to come to your house, they
- will charge a certain minimum just to come out. We typically then need a backflow preventer as well,
- which is another piece of equipment. The equipment itself ranges from $500 to $2,000, and then you typically
- need a larger water meter than we might put on a really small house.
- And, you know, extra meter boxes, etc. So in our really small units, fire sprinklers would increase
- the cost of those by, you know, 10 to 20%. So I think that would be helpful for everybody to talk through together.
- And we are really intending this to be a pedestrian-focused neighborhood. So our green network is our
- pedestrian routes, and those are intended to be a primary focus. Pocket neighborhoods are very popular
- across the United States. They have been since the 90s. There's many built examples. There are lots
- of books about them. There's lots of built examples we've given tours of. I think we've sent some photos.
- They're very lovely, very residential, kind of intimate types of streets that is
- not every house in the neighborhood but is a nice set of options for people if that's something that
- they find desirable. Roger Street I think is one that would be good to talk in detail as well because
- we may be misunderstanding the intention somewhat but when we did an initial analysis with engineering
- through designing we have a portion of 714 that would require demolition to dedicate that right of way. This is a
- We had a diagram that we'd sent to engineering at the beginning saying, you know, taking from center
- line offsetting at the amount of width that is shown in transportation plan. Here's where that line
- is the part of the building that sticking out into that is a stairwell. And so it can't be easily removed.
- It's not a porch or something sort of non non required.
- whether or not that building stays for some sort of use, I think is something for discussion. But if
- that building is intended to be reused in any way, we think we need the section on Rogers, which again
- has been coordinated extensively with engineering prior to being submitted. So our goal is
- really straightforward, I hope. We want to deliver the maximum number of homes at the most attainable
- price point we can in a form that is buildable and bankable and will work long-term.
- And so we're committed to working together. We're excited. Everybody's in one room to refine those details.
- And we think we have a framework that gets us there. So we look forward to hearing more about details
- and questions to get us across the finish line. Thank you so much for that presentation. We all have
- a copy of the slides as well. So if we want to go back to reference stuff, we can do that. I'm going
- to propose that we
- I just pulled up a list of the reasonable conditions. We have some commentary on them in the packet
- materials, but wanted to propose especially
- since RDC members having a chance to look at those conditions and then maybe discuss with council members
- what are the primary questions that would be most relevant to discuss at this meeting about what the
- conditions are and especially while Ali is here about just confirming we understand what the cost benefit
- is or what the tradeoffs essentially are. Because as I understand it from the presentation that the
- original plan is for the 98 units that potentially some of the conditions
- might introduce again higher affordability, more transportation compliance with the plan, but could
- conceivably reduce the number of units, the number of accessible units. So just to kind of get a sense
- maybe of the conditions, which ones would be most useful to discuss here or if there's even questions
- about what they mean. So I will just kind of throw that out. I'm directing my comments towards the RDC,
- but certainly this is a conversation for everybody at the table.
- Yeah, just to kind of see what would be most fruitful for discussion at this for this meeting Well,
- we got 13 that we need to work with and then there's three that are top priority in regards to transportation
- affordability and What's the council's
- because as we look at this and we're talking about the by-ride of 28 units and we're trying to get to
- 98, but we also have a UDO, a transportation plan, and an affordability component that has been put
- forth with the UDO. How do we meet those conditions and still maximize the number of units? So I think
- from a standpoint as we're going through this and the previous meetings I had seen dealt with
- the transportation plan,
- and dealt with affordability as to the top components. Thank you. I think that emphasis on intent and
- principles and what we're trying to accomplish is the most important part of the focus. I just the past
- month it was difficult to get substantive responses or engagement on the regional conditions while working
- on them including in our public meetings because we just spent most of our time talking about the council
- statutory authority.
- I worry it's too late now. We are where we are. I think we could have avoided some extra work or headaches
- that went into preparation for this meeting as well if we would have had more conversation or engagement
- because basically all of the reasonable conditions that I've authored I think need to change in some
- way. And I learned that through the substantive discussions we had at the regular session two weeks
- ago. I tried to explain what I thought could change in my final comment, which ran on to five minutes
- and I needed to shut up. So I did.
- So I think working through the substance of these things, at least for the ones I authored, what I think
- is workable, I think would change a lot about the presentation we just heard and what the implications
- are. We may not have the ability to do sort of a full analysis, so to speak, tonight, but I think we
- could talk at a high level about more about that. So I think what was proposed in the agenda was to
- start with RC6 and work through from there and then back to the affordability. I think we should be
- mindful of time also and not
- lose too much time on any given one. That's it. Agreed. So do you want to take it away on six? Sure.
- Yeah. So this is about electrification. So basically, the synopsis covers what you need to know. This
- is consistent with what our climate action plan calls for, specifically for PUDs. It is also the only
- viable pathway for building decarbonization, which is part of our goals as well, community-wide.
- In Indiana, that's, you know, a tough regulatory environment to navigate. Groups like ALEC and others
- and fossil fuel lobbyists have already gotten the state to preempt any code requirements that local
- governments could have. So we can't do what lots of local governments and even states have done on the
- coasts on this front. But, you know, our plans call for us to use opportunities that we have to develop
- all electric.
- My gut is that this could shift to a written commitment instead of a reasonable condition. We already
- passed this reasonable condition and had sort of agreement from the administration on behalf of the
- RDC that they could do that or were planning to do that. I think a written commitment could work instead
- and would probably be on legally firmer footing. There's some questions. We've gotten a couple of letters,
- which I've also sent to Corporation Council, from folks either at gas utilities or kind of gas utility
- industry lobby.
- saying that we don't think this is allowed. My sense from prior discussions with our attorneys is that
- as long as it's in the context of incentives and not a requirement for any petitioner or for any person
- to develop land, that it probably could be allowed. But again, I think here a written commitment would
- be probably firmer footing that would be voluntary. So if the plan is still to develop in that way,
- I think a shift to that mechanism would be maybe what I'd recommend.
- No, I'm just facilitating I don't disagree electrification as you well know But taking into consider
- into consideration what our abilities are so that we can move the housing forward Without having to
- get into the litigation aspect of it in anything with a statewide lobby or the rest of it So well the
- energy efficiency if it's done correctly Electrication will work
- But being able to move something forward while that is tested is my only concern about it. I don't want
- to get caught up in something when we're trying to house people at the lowest affordable cost, which
- electrification will be the least cost in the upfront. We need to make sure the insulation and the envelopes
- are done correctly. In the equipment itself, if you have efficient units and heat pumps, like also lower
- operating. Properly sized equipment is the most important thing.
- So I don't know how the written commitment would work in regards to what enforcement we would have I
- think I think it's a great way to go about it and try to keep our affordability I think I think this
- is fairly straightforward is counselor Flaherty said Ali anything you'd like to add on on this one any
- other context necessary I
- I have two thoughts on this that I'll share, you know, with the goal of being helpful as a city consultant.
- And I think one of them is, I think you guys are thinking about this correctly, which is not, I think
- there was a lot of conversation about statutory limitations. And often when we are often in a position
- of discussing with cities, not just what is allowed statutorily, but, and we typically
- Most of most cities that we work with tend to think about things from a very constitutional federal
- level that there's, you know, which I think we talked about a little bit, and often the verbiage that
- gets used on that to add this to the conversation is what is higher risk versus lower risk.
- What are we more likely to be spending time defending or less likely to be spending time defending?
- I think the comments I'm hearing are probably really spot on. I think it's high risk to put it in as
- a requirement. My understanding is that would cause some risk. From a practical standpoint, I think
- there will be some builders who would push back on
- there are still a lot of builders who have really strong feelings about gas heat because they've had
- trouble with heat pumps at really low temperatures. Whether or not that is factual, I think that is
- something that is an education component that will be important to get wrapped into the program. But
- I will also say that from the beginning, you know, departmentally in review, there was not wide discussion
- of having provided
- providing gas as a utility within the neighborhood. And that's something that we are seeing really broadly
- in neighborhoods like this that
- it's becoming more common. You have one less trench, you have one less set of meters that need to be
- on the building. Induction ranges are becoming much more popular. Indoor air quality focus has really
- moved to focusing on all electric buildings and we're seeing some insurance benefits to that too. I
- think it's a very justifiable thing for the RDC to decide as a developer of the property that they're
- not putting that utility in.
- I think that's a reasonable thing we see private developers make that decision to. I agree, I think
- there's probably some risk to introducing it as a statutory requirement. Any other comments or questions?
- Any other comments or questions on this? I feel like it's got a reasonable common ground at this point
- and if we can move on to
- another condition. I have one quick question regards to it. Matt when you're talking in regards to a
- the reasonable condition versus a written commitment just so I've got a good understanding in regards
- to. So they're both tools that are called out in the 1500 series for planned unit developments. I think
- I think the I'm not sure I have a
- grasp of what's more suitable for one than another. I think actually reasonable condition 13 is another
- that's come up in conversations with our recent temporary legal counsel that might be better suited
- for a voluntary written commitment if there's alignment. And I think that would be less likely to be
- interpreted as regulation of some kind. And for similar reasons, we'll get to that one, but there are
- state preemption issues around regulation of short-term rentals.
- And so the legal guidance we were getting was that written commitments would be better for both of those.
- And you know city attorney or corporation council that's representing the RDC could we could have a
- follow up conversation about that too. Thank you. Appreciate that. Would it be helpful to as long as
- we're on the topic of sustainability to address other conditions that are related.
- I'm looking at condition number seven, which is that buildings must meet one of the energy efficiency
- standards contained in the UDO. Alec touched on that as well, and just interested in kind of continuing
- in that theme while we're talking about this topic. Sure. Should we move on? Yeah. Let's review condition
- seven so we're all on the same page. Yeah. So again, the way I think
- it's probably best to approach all of these is about what the intent is. And so the intent is to really
- lean into the purpose of PUDs, which is to go above and beyond what base code requires to do better
- in the various ways that are reflected in our comprehensive plan and other guiding policy documents.
- Generally speaking, more efficient buildings are going to save significant amounts of money in the long
- term, building considerable net present value in a positive dimension. But this is one where I think
- I'm very flexible or open to other approaches on accomplishing that. I also think it is, well yeah,
- so we started with seeking to leverage the
- the UDO itself, the incentives that we use for folks that are similarly seeking to go above base code
- in order to get additional building height, for instance. And so that's where we started. I did have
- a conversation with the mayor before our last regular session where she expressed concern about actual
- formal certification, which was what a prior version of that had. And so I softened that to just saying
- meeting, being consistent with that section of the sustainable development incentives as opposed to
- actually getting it certified.
- There is another building efficiency portion of the sustainable development incentives. So the one I
- put in was from option two. There is an option one where it's kind of like a do multiple, like solar
- ready, covered parking, some different stuff. And there is a building efficiency section in there that
- could be even lower barrier and an option. And so we could talk about that. It is still, this is the
- first feedback I heard
- our consultant at Flintlock Lab about the, you know, just considering trade-offs with respect to code
- versus certification frameworks, right? And so the question then would be also, okay, so I heard, I
- think I heard the words adopted model energy code, which I think, I assume she's referring to the Indiana
- current version of residential energy code. There are more efficient versions of that
- The bluer states tend to adopt readily when those come out. We don't generally in Indiana where you
- tend to lag. Ours aren't the worst. And some states don't even have residential building energy codes.
- So they're not horrible, but they also could be better. So I do wonder if this was something that the
- Council and or the RDC decided it wanted to pursue, you know, if using just a later, like a more recent
- version of the efficiency codes.
- that other states utilize would be a suitable alternative. That matches like what, in places that allow
- home rule on this front, that matches like what municipalities often do. They have like reach codes
- that align with efficiency standards that are the latest codes. So that's the context of the question.
- Any questions or comments from,
- RDC, of course, as well as council, but again, focus on RDC. Energy efficiency is absolutely critical
- in regards to it, but when we're sitting here looking at the number of houses and the kind of dollar
- we're trying to get to, we know that any of the LEED certification is going to be an issue in regards
- to that. So trying to meet the Indiana energy code, while it's the minimal standard, it can be applied
- additionally on
- the builder's portion of it. But if we put our requirement in there where we try to change to a different
- home rule state, then we're starting to muddy the water, unfortunately. I don't disagree with you, Matt,
- in any capacity that the energy efficiency for the long term affordability here is very, very important.
- But I don't know exactly how we meet that and then set up the requirement of those particular ones that
- is above and beyond what we've already got.
- I think it should be changed on a statewide level, but we're still operating under the 2008 electrical
- code. So, unfortunately, it's moved slow on the state level. So, when we look at it, energy efficiency,
- induction, heat pumps, they tend to work well. I'm not trying to do dialogue. I'm just trying to figure
- out how to get more energy efficiency and put it into our, you know, PUD that would contain ourselves
- from a cost standpoint.
- to try to meet the affordability. I worked in energy efficiency and buildings and ratings for 10 years.
- So I do know a little bit about this lead is not the mechanism to use for residential. This is one of
- the areas that I feel like the UDO really doesn't do a good job of
- delineating residential from multifamily. I will say that there are other programs out there that might
- be easier to attain. One of the things that, I'll let you guys have a discussion, but just know that
- I do have some information that I'm happy to share. Well, home energy rating scores are how they typically
- Find out the efficiency of the buildings You could say that each home needs to have or shoot for a home
- energy rating score of a hundred and still
- It would be very similar to the current model energy code and or improving it. Those tests though do
- add costs to the overall process. So there are ways to say that you're going to meet certain efficiency
- standards with or without those tests. I think the other thing with efficiency is to be very, very careful
- about the building envelope because if there's not a rigid air barrier moisture management strategy
- and you have a tight building then you are just creating conditions for mold and moisture intrusion
- and degradation of the buildings.
- So I'm sure Ali has something to say about that, but I am more than happy to chime in with my knowledge.
- How's everybody feel in regards to obtaining a home energy efficiency? It's going to add. A HERS score
- will add cost. And there are no local raters in Bloomington. They will have to come from Indianapolis
- to rate the homes. It's not out of reach, but just know that that does add cost.
- Did you have thoughts on this one? Yeah, I'd love to weigh in here because I think it's also helpful
- understanding the overall goal. The first thing that I will say is that by virtue of being really small,
- these are already really efficient units by person in terms of energy use, right? A house that is half
- as big requires a lot less energy to keep warm or cool. And so we have we've done a lot of
- tests with builders here locally, you know, and on our own developments that we've tested in the field,
- a wide variety of trying to achieve what you guys are discussing, which is how do we get good ROI on
- not a huge cost add to the house, but a good impact to the overall energy efficiency. And one strength
- that we have working in our favor on this project is that the plans will be provided pre-approved.
- So the RDC is the client for the architectural designs and the energy designs. And the way the RFP is
- intended to be issued is that the builders are agreeing in their purchase contract for the lot to build
- the house as depicted in those pre-approved construction plan. And so we can get to a relatively simple
- agreement in the PUD, I think, between the RDC and the council,
- because we will be the ones drawing to make sure exactly the way it's being built. We're not asking
- for builders to go and have somebody, some third party figure out what it is that we meant. So I think
- that that is a huge strength. I'll weigh in that there, I agree on the hers rating. Modeling the houses,
- right, is sort of step one. And that might be worth doing. That's a little, you know, that might be
- $1,000 per house design for them,
- that's modeled in a digital way to see exactly what the wall sections are and orientation and what are
- our values in which place and are we hitting certain scores? And so I think the base level that would
- be the simplest and easiest thing is that we do a rating digitally. I don't know off the top of my head
- what that rating would wanna be, but we could look that up and we're agreeing that they will be rated
- at a certain
- PERS rating. Then there is an on-site blower door test that is usually $750 to $1,000 per house where
- they come and actually see, you know, how airtight did they get it? Did they achieve the construction
- type the way that it's designed and modeled? And so we do see, you know, that there is probably a thousand to $3,000
- cost potentially per house to doing a HRS rating, but modeling the houses, we only have to do it once
- for each design, and so it's not that full cost for modeling each for each house. But I think that's
- a tiered way to do it. And then we've got a couple of really good details that we have tested in the
- field, you know, building two floor plans side by side with different construction details. And then
- doing a testing on what are the utilities running on these. And so we'll say to the single most impactful
- thing that we have ever found that we can do is make sure that all of the duct work for the HVAC system
- is inside the insulation envelope. It's really common practice to run all the duct work in the attic
- up above the blown insulation on the ceiling because it's easy.
- That's our single worst energy efficiency thing that we've ever found, and it's allowed under a lot
- of these rating systems. And so that's you know things like that we can ensure in the detailing are
- done correctly. The second most impactful thing that if we really want to go above and beyond, we can
- look at a full exterior.
- you know, rigid insulation of, you can do it in mineral wool, you can do it in foam, between the sheeting
- and the siding, because then you're not getting energy transfer through the studs. And so there are
- a couple of relatively simple details that paired with an air sealing, you know, upgrade during the
- construction by the insulation guys, which is not high cost and is a good idea. I think we can get to,
- you know, knowing the target is we want these to be more energy efficient. We want them to have a long-term focus.
- I think we've got practical details that can be put into the plans and then insured through construction
- with probably without a blower door rating on every house. So Ali, what I'm hearing is that we can digitally
- identify these from a construction practice standpoint in order to meet that and not have to do the
- thousand to $3,000 on each particular residence. It's called a plan review. It's pretty standard and
- with predetermined plans.
- That will assist us and make sure that we get that energy efficiency. And then you could actually potentially
- model one or two to verify that it occurs. What's everybody think in regards to that? So what's the
- cost? The digital aspect of your pre-approved plans would be accomplished prior to anything being put
- out. So theoretically, it should function correctly.
- That's right. I just have another question on that front, too, and the possibility of using Department
- of Energy's home energy score as another tool instead of the home energy rating score. They're a different
- scale. And the DOE home energy score in particular, I think, was introduced and meant to be simpler
- and lower cost to implement. And I overall support what I'm hearing around at the planning and design
- stage. We control a lot. The RDC would, as a petitioner,
- And also just wondering about, like I was just trying to look up some quick things about home energy
- score and what would kind of go into it. And like an example was insulation with an R value that would
- match like 2021, you know, international energy conservation code as opposed to like what the Indiana
- versions are now. So like it might be a useful framework to think about the opportunities for efficiency.
- I don't know if anyone has experience with DOE home energy score in particular and administering it.
- per design, is that with the AI automation, or is that when you're actually doing blower test on each design?
- Yeah, that's the modeling. So typically people are modeling an individual house and then testing the
- individual house. And so that 3000 is like your worst case scenario. The guys had to come from long
- away. You're just doing it for one house. We wouldn't need to do that. We've got 16 unique plans currently
- in the catalog. And so we would have an
- And correct me if these numbers are wrong. I'm giving you our local company numbers the last time that
- I paid for this. The testing is usually around $1,000 a plan. So testing all of the plans ahead of time,
- modeling them. And so what happens, there's a little bit of back and forth between the modeler and the
- architect where they may call out, we've called out fiberglass insulation. We're a few points low. We
- need you to upgrade that to,
- blown cellulose, which has less air infiltration, or that needs to be, you know. So there's a little
- bit of calibration that happens with the modeling. It's not just proof, it is a process. And so you
- can get some improvement plan by plan to make sure you're hitting your marks. So there's only 16 planes
- in the catalog. So modeling all of those once, and then being able to make sure all of the details for
- them meet whatever target we've hit.
- might, would probably be less than $20,000. So that's a real, you know, if we're not doing blower door
- tests, we're modeling them all ahead of time because we're repeating plans, that could be really efficient.
- On that modeling, could it actually use the home energy, the department energy home energy rating model?
- I will have to admit that I would need to look that one up. I do know that we've used to that before.
- It's been a couple of years. I do remember it as being approachable.
- But typically you're trying to get to an overall rating. HRS is the way that our code works.
- It's a HRS score. I will have to admit I need to do some research to see how all of these interact in
- detail. Is there a reason why we wouldn't do Energy Star? So from a whole home perspective, my understanding
- is DOE home energy score is the kind of approach. Energy Star does have a home upgrade program, but
- that's more about the
- a set of measures that you can implement that are efficient. So I think Home Energy Score is the federal
- government's product for building efficiency, and it looks at things like advanced installation that
- go above base code. It does look at appliances. There might be limitations there, too, depending on
- the role of the RDC as petitioner here versus selling lots and what you can actually control there.
- So there might be some limitations that don't apply.
- Specifications of appliances are something that I think we could reasonably require. It is not unusual
- for a developer like the RDC as a private corporation to require a certain level of finishes, appliance
- specs, et cetera, selling lots to builders. That's very industry standard. And so I think requiring
- Energy Star appliances is something that absolutely could be done, which won't have a huge cost impact,
- which I think
- might happen otherwise, but it'll make sure people are paying attention to it. So that would be another
- really low cost change. I just want to clarify that Energy Star is a home energy rating tool, and you
- can have a one star to a five plus star as far as efficiency rating. That is a federal government standard.
- It is often used in residential construction. It's used here locally.
- So just to say that if you do land on a rating system, that's gonna be the easiest to attain here. So
- from a reasonable condition standpoint, as we look on this, from a digital standpoint on a modeling
- standpoint, Ali, that is something that would be done on the pre-approved plans, be done by Flintlock,
- be presented as far as part of the housing plans, and then agreeing to Energy Star appliances based upon what
- that is something that's reasonable and will not add additional, it'll allow minimal cost to the residences
- in order to give them the most efficient thing long-term utility-wise. Okay. My experience has been
- Energy Star Appliances, reasonable and easy to add. And you can find one that's still good at the same
- cost as an off-the-shelf thing you would have bought at Home Depot anyway.
- Thank you for that discussion. Are there any other comments or questions about this particular condition
- before we move on to some of the transportation and sidewalk questions? Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank
- you for those comments, and it's really helpful to kind of hear the various perspectives to get to something
- that is, again, most useful for the energy efficiency as well as most cost effective for the purposes
- of sustainability.
- I'm just looking through and maybe it's classified under land use as opposed to transportation under
- the conditions, but there's discussion about, you know, plausibly there we have standards in
- the transportation plan and there's questions about looking at how to align the plan for the Hopel South
- PUD with the transportation plan. I don't know if there's any, again, either questions or comments in
- terms of launching a discussion on those elements as part of our meeting.
- I think in the past we talked about them together, eight, nine, and 10, is that right? Go ahead, Councilman.
- Again here, I think there's been differences from what assumptions were and how it was being interpreted.
- First of all, just agreeing with prior remarks that the UDO and the transportation plan itself need
- more flexibility to vary the right-of-way dedication based on whether or not
- which optional components of a street cross-section you're including. So in particular, the tables in
- the UDO allow for parking lanes that are optional. And so if you don't have that, the right-of-way then
- becomes oversized, and that's a barrier. So we actually do need to improve our UDO and the transportation
- plan on that front to allow it to vary. My intent with reasonable conditions eight and nine was not
- to revert, and I don't think, it doesn't say this, but it maybe wasn't explicit to the contrary either,
- The intent was not to widen the right-of-way dedication and any more either at all or any more than
- is strictly required to meet the dimensional standards that are being sought for the sidewalk widths
- themselves and so The right-of-way can be right-sized to what the street cross-section actually would
- look like I guess as a way to think about that and so what was intended here is to do six foot minimum
- sidewalk width
- which is what we used on First Street when we remade that in Hopewell. It is what's required generally
- by the transportation plan for this type of street, for rezones and subdivisions. With no exceptions
- that I'm aware of, we do require it of every other petitioner going through a situation like this. And,
- you know, opinions can vary here. I walk on a lot of
- sidewalks and older infrastructure. And I think there's a really meaningful difference between a four
- and five foot sidewalk and a really meaningful difference between a five and six foot sidewalk in terms
- of how that functions for multiple people, for people in mobility, you know, with mobility, assistive
- mobility devices. And so for a variety of reasons, I think while it might seem like we're quibbling
- over 12 inches of pavement, I actually do think it matters quite a lot from both
- consistency of following the same rules we require others to follow, but also actually just the quality
- of the infrastructure for choices we're making that are probably gonna last 100 years. And so the upshot,
- and then yeah, so I'm gonna talk about reasonable condition 10 as well, which is about a tree plot,
- because they're kind of, the impact of them can be thought of collectively. So the second component
- actually, so that was RC8, Y is six foot width,
- sidewalk width, RC9 is proposing an eight-foot sidewalk width for the central paths that are not adjacent
- to a street. I think this is consistent with what the planning staff recommendation was in the first
- plan commission meeting. They were calling them multi-use paths and suggesting eight feet. Based on
- development elsewhere, I feel like a wider pedestrian corridor, well, multi-use corridor, actually,
- bicycles are also allowed and maybe probably we'll be using them to access the fronts of homes and porches
- and things, that eight feet would help this to function a lot more like a front. And based on the renderings,
- the designs, it seems like there's room for that without losing lots themselves for the eight foot.
- So we could talk about that.
- Reasonable condition 10 is about tree plots. So tree plots are included in almost all of the proposed
- site map. The exceptions are the north side of Wiley. And again, this is an area where I believe consistency
- with what we require of others is important here. I also think monolithic sidewalks, those that are
- immediately adjacent to a street, are just something we consider substandard in our comprehensive plan
- and transportation plan.
- They exist in our community, but we don't want them to. And we want to improve them. And when you redevelop
- a whole multi-block area in a rezone and with a subdivision, you would generally be required to come
- into compliance on that front. And so if we did with what's actually a five-foot tree plot, there was
- some confusion on that point initially, too, because one part of the transportation plan shows a six-foot
- tree plot, and another shows a five-foot tree plot. So five-foot's fine. I think that's what we've done.
- in places. And as far as the impact of all this, basically you would have a tree plot now on Wiley Street
- where it's physically possible and not planned on the north side of the street. You would have six foot
- sidewalks instead of five foot sidewalks where those sidewalks are running right along the street with
- a tree plot and then next to the street. I think, again, curious for feedback on this from Flintlock, but
- My gut is you don't need to lose any lots and that it just shrinks them by about a foot and a half per
- lot. And so looking at block nine in particular, in the middle, on the north-south dimension, you end
- up losing seven feet. That's the tree plot, which is five feet, and two sidewalks that get wider by
- a foot. So if you lose seven feet on this north-south dimension, that's the biggest space loss implication
- of this. What is the upshot of that? And you've basically got four rows of lots
- running east-west across Block 9. So if you lose a little more than a foot and a half from each of those
- lots, you've made up that seven feet of space. I don't know if that's actually exactly right or possible,
- but I think discussion on that would be helpful. But my gut is you would just downsize the lots slightly,
- and the homes would have slightly lower setback than they're planned right now.
- I'm also a little unclear, but I think there's some flexibility in which homes get built on which lot
- and all that there actually is like some autonomy for Builders to choose which one and so I assume again
- That as described we don't actually have to lose any lots, but but I would be curious for some conversation
- there. Thank you Ali could you bring up could you bring up that map so the public as a whole can take
- a look in regards to the area that Matt's referring to
- Yes, I also was going to ask is I know we're showing things that have been submitted. Can we look at
- a Google Street view of Wiley that our position might be more clear if we look at Wiley? Oh, yeah, let's
- go ahead and do that. I'll answer the dimensional question first.
- Yes, you're absolutely right. The monolithic sidewalk on Wiley is not about dimensional constraints.
- We have a setback from Wiley that is a it's the surface edge of the parking lot right now is what we're
- using as a setback. And so there is space for a tree plot and a sidewalk on Wiley. And the right of
- way on first is pretty oversized. And so the other reality is if we got down to the inch on that north
- south block being tight, we could
- you know, vacate 12 inches of right of way on first street. There's like 10 feet behind the sidewalk,
- I think, you know, there's a lot of extra space behind the sidewalk. So we could shift everything north
- 18 inches. If we did get tight, but I don't think that we would. The reason that we are suggesting retaining
- the monolithic sidewalk on Wiley is that there is an existing row of trees on Wiley that would be impacted by
- every variation of changing the sidewalk that we looked at. Wiley right now is one way. And so it's
- a really low traffic, low speed street. I agree with you. We don't do monolithic sidewalks. Anytime
- that we have any sort of traffic speed that is, you know, I have a four year old and a seven year old.
- We walk on sidewalks a lot. We have little kids on bikes a lot. A monolithic sidewalk on a high speed
- street is really unpleasant and often unsafe. And
- Low speed historic streets like this often do have what we would call a monolithic or back curb sidewalk
- with no space. And it can be perfectly pleasant at the right speeds. We would not have proposed this
- on any of the other streets in the neighborhood, but this is our lowest speed, lowest traffic one-way
- street. And in most of the aerials, a lot of residents park along the side of the street. And so you
- get some natural protection on this side from the cars themselves.
- Retaining the sidewalk in place on Wiley lets us keep this row of trees. We've been working on foundation
- designs and porch placements that let us save this entire row of trees, which we think has a really
- big impact on all of these residents, several of whom we heard from in public engagement about
- preserving some of the character of their street. And so while yes, we could get a tree plot in and
- we absolutely could plant new trees, I think we all are familiar with new neighborhoods that have little
- three inch caliper trees. It takes a long time for them to make much of an impact. And because this
- was a parking lot islands like this, we've got lots of variety of species, right? And I'm not saying
- we might not lose some of the wall of evergreens, but it's a nice row of,
- practical neighborhood trees that would soften the change for neighbors across the street at first,
- which is why it's currently in there as this proposal. Council Member Sossberg and then Council Member
- Rowe. I appreciate that. I guess I'm just, I'm also looking at this Google Street View on my computer
- and that picture's from May of 2019 and I've actually driven down Wiley and I'm trying to remember if
- all of those trees are still there.
- because I feel like they're not all still there. Like that there are some, but not as many as is shown
- on the street view. Can anybody confirm that memory for me? Because right now I just kind of want to
- like get up and go drive down Wiley and then come back, but that's not practical. That's a valid question.
- I just pulled up the latest one that pops up. So that's a good question. Does anybody know off the top
- of their head?
- I walked in recently, I don't remember, but I can't speak to the comparison either. I mean. I can't
- speak to the actual count. There are less than there were in the Google map. But the question I have
- in regards to it, if we're talking tree preservation in regards to it, what's the species? What's the
- life of these that we're looking to do that? Because we're looking at doing a modeled community with
- the best aesthetic look at the lowest cost, with the best. So the monolithic sidewalk, while it stays,
- from an aesthetic standpoint, if we're in a new community at this present moment, we have the space,
- you know, what's the cost, what's the cost benefit trade off to do that? I don't wanna lose a tree,
- but you know, as you said earlier, Ali, you know, the best time to have planted a new tree was 100 years
- ago. So what is the variety of the species and such, and when we're trying to attain this model community
- that is going to outlast everybody at this table?
- Dave, were you? Well, Matt, go ahead if it was relevant to Randy's comment. I think they probably all
- are. I don't know. Well, I just want to make a comment. Condition 8 is simply six foot minimum sidewalk
- width. Having spent a couple of decades in the council sidewalk committee,
- Um, you know, our preference was always for a buffer tree plot. Um, it wasn't always available. Um,
- obviously it was cost prohibitive in areas where we had to get purchase right of way and so forth,
- but we, but we certainly required developers to put those tree plots in and it's kind of a shame that
- we're, that, that, that we may not do it here, but, um, apart from that,
- Maximizing sidewalks to six feet my mind is necessary just because it minimizes conflict between bicycles
- and pedestrians and in Bloomington, of course Motorized, you know electric scooters are allowed to be
- on sidewalks as well So You know if we're going to minimize conflict between pedestrians and especially
- impaired pedestrians and
- and motorized vehicles like scooters and bicycles and things like that. I think the greater width a
- foot is minimally what we should ask for. Ellie, is there a way, just because one of the things that
- had come up was potentially what tradeoffs might exist
- with some of these questions and I'm just wondering, you did touch on that earlier, but just now that
- we're talking specifically about these specific conditions, if you could help us with understanding
- what the trade-offs might be or how we could accommodate wider PsyDocs with minimal impact on the number
- of units and just help walk us through that. I think the short answer is, and let me, I'll share this
- screen again so we can look at this.
- My apologies, sharing in Google Slides, we've always got to start with this little box and then get
- it on our slide. The additional one foot inside walk on First Street is no change. There's no dimensional
- impact whatsoever. On Fairview, we think we can make it work. We get a little closer to porches, but
- having looked at that, we think we're okay on Fairview.
- Jackson, we have two units that it gets really tight on. We might be able to, swapping out some units,
- make it work on Jackson. So Jackson is a maybe. I'll clarify too, the intention is that the RDC has
- some flexibility to switch different plans on different lots, but that when they sell them to developers,
- that the plan itself is fixed. And so there's some of this Tetris that can happen.
- And when we went and looked at all of our scenarios, we were accounting for plans we could switch with
- a smaller one in the law students. The five foot to six foot I think is achievable is the short answer.
- Trade off on Wiley is purely existing trees. And one of these conditions is the trickiest, I think is
- the most impactful, is shifting our internal sidewalks
- from five feet to eight feet, which does have a major impact. We lose two units here that we don't have
- another unit that is that dimension. Those are our two little micro units. We don't have something else
- that could go back in that place. And because it's wrapping it on two sides, we would lose those two
- units. We couldn't put something back.
- And then our three accessible units here could be switched for a non-accessible unit, but we would lose
- three accessible units. So the block 10 sidewalk going to eight feet would be really negatively impactful.
- I think everywhere else, the six foot sidewalk could work. I think the eight foot sidewalk could work.
- It's different character than pocket neighborhoods are typically built with.
- That's not kind of the feel generally of those as they've been built elsewhere in the country. But I
- think it could dimensionally be accomplished. But the block 10 eight foot sidewalk was our most impactful
- for losing units and losing accessible units. Would there be any way to consider, since I hear some
- of the interest in the wider sidewalks is to accommodate a mix of uses,
- And since you're saying that it's the internal sidewalks that may have more limitations on the ability
- to accommodate that wider without sacrificing either units or type of units, do you have a sense of
- what the typical slower versus faster speeds might be on the streets in terms of where the shared use
- is happening? Is the shared use happening on the sidewalk, or is it more likely that it might happen
- on the street in terms of, anyway, I'm just interested in,
- learning more about what anybody thinks about those questions. I wasn't going to answer that question
- though. Is that okay? Yes, I was just wanting to get in a queue. It is just about the monolithic sidewalk on Wiley.
- They are just dangerous by design. And it really doesn't matter what a speed might be. I mean, obviously,
- if you get hit by someone going 10 miles per hour, you're most likely going to live. But if that's an
- SUV, you're actually probably going to die. We've had that happen in downtown Bloomington. Someone rolled
- from a stop sign and turned right and killed someone. So I don't like that. But also, I will say, I
- just called planning to talk about
- subdivision that I'm curious about and like this is a subdivision right this PUD is a new subdivision
- and Where I wanted to put it it also needed the five foot tree plot and then the six foot sidewalk and
- it couldn't fit on the property and it was a it was 100% a deal-breaker like Planning did would not
- consider anything different. So I think the idea that
- Like, why does the RDC get them to not put a five-foot tree plot and a six-foot sidewalk in a place
- that is a deal breaker for anybody else trying to develop in the city? I do think that is a very bad
- precedent. Are you following that, Andy? I'm sorry, you just look confused. OK, yes, I'm sorry. I just
- want to make sure I was making sense that I couldn't even consider developing a property. And we have
- talked a lot that I think that is a really bad
- precedent to set and With other developments that happen trees are great. Everybody loves them when
- a developer has to uproot trees and or cut them down they have to put new ones in and I get it that
- they're smaller, but That's just kind of what has to happen to follow the rules and to create the safest
- sidewalk possible I mean when we're talking about a tree plot and then a sidewalk
- It's two buffers, right? Because people make mistakes when they're driving. And it is. You've got the
- space of the five feet, and you've got the trees, and you've got this really awesome buffer where you
- actually would let your kids ride a bike. I think when we have a monolithic sidewalk, most people choose
- the street, and especially a four-foot sidewalk. So I think these are really important additions. And
- I just want to get that out there. There's no button.
- One brief additional comment. I mean, I appreciate the existing trees. I've walked the site a number
- of times now. But again, we're talking about 100-year decisions. And you'll see weird little places
- around Bloomington where the sidewalk is going as normal. And then it has a crescent-shaped cutout in
- the sidewalk that makes it maybe not wide enough or just kind of weird, maybe a tripping hazard. And
- that's because a tree was there. And we built the sidewalk around the tree. And street trees.
- are amazing and we need them and we would have them here over time. But there is this temporal dimension
- of like they, you know, I think that's the infrastructure and the consistency of how we enforce and
- require infrastructure to be built are bigger considerations to me. I really appreciate the additional
- slide on the eight foot sort of central sidewalks. I was getting the same impression from, which is
- from my own look, like looking at the site plan.
- I think it would still be valuable for block nine, again, because if we're trying to make this like
- a front, I think you're going to have multiple uses for sure with bicycles and things that eight feet
- would work better there. And if that's achievable, I would still favor that. I would be perfectly fine
- sticking with six foot as the minimum for all other sidewalks, whether adjacent to a street or internal
- elsewhere. And I would think that that
- could be accommodated everywhere unless some of the homes are literally built to the lot lines on both
- sides. So that might get us to a situation of truly not losing any lots, but would, I guess, be interesting
- if that's the case. Ali, can you bring that map up again of what you're saying we're gonna lose, where
- those lots will be lost by increasing the sidewalk, please?
- I just want everybody to be able to see and articulate what is being discussed. And I'll weigh in a
- little bit too. I think hearing such strong opinions about monolithic sidewalks generally, I think it's
- worth saying Wiley Street has and lots of historic streets in Bloomington and other cities have those
- both sides of the street for blocks. And so maybe that's a good flag as well that some potential
- additional attention is warranted on sidewalk replacement plans in places to accomplish that. I will
- say to the first comment about the lack of flexibility, I'll really very explicitly say RDC is not asking
- for special permission to be the only person that's given this flexibility, although it is a PUD, so
- it does have custom street sections, and so we're going through all of the extra hurdles in terms of
- additional requirements.
- you know, additional standards in order to do things non-typically. But I will say we very explicitly
- have champions to the engineering department that we think a very strict reading of the current
- transportation plan already has the flexibility to have allowed you to do a narrower tree well, to allow
- you to do a narrower sidewalk, and that flexibility exists in the transportation documents, and that's
- really a process decision that the city could make internally, and should,
- for a broader for everybody that that could be a benefit that we're really arguing everybody should
- be able to use the flexibility that is built into the transportation plan right now. Flexibility is
- good, but we're hearing things on six foot sidewalks and trees. So I'm back to how many units are gonna
- lose. So this diagram is just the one
- foot of extra sidewalk and this does take into account the locations where we could switch a unit for
- a smaller unit and so that's why we've shown it to you as you know we've got two of the units I think
- that are switching from a three-bedroom to a two or from a two to a one and so we've got a number of
- bedrooms that we're losing to sort of show we're switching
- 11 units would be lost overall, but most of those, again, are from the eight foot width change, not
- the six foot. And most of our accessible units that are impacted are from that eight foot, not six foot.
- So if we had the six, oh, excuse me, Hansbelle, go ahead. Sorry, you guys are the, come on. Well, it
- doesn't have to be all or nothing, right? I mean, where we can reduce
- or increase the interior sidewalk to eight feet is in that center block, right? Without losing any units,
- so we could do that. We could keep it narrower on the western block. We could widen the sidewalk to
- six feet on Wiley and Fairview and not on the west side of Jackson. I mean, it seems like we could make
- a compromise here.
- Ali then respond and then back to customer clarity. Okay, I think that I I I think I have a couple questions
- in a comment. So My comment I'll do that first is I think that for the sake of continuity of the neighborhood
- I think that it would be important to try to keep Continuity in terms of that eight foot sidewalk say
- so I think in that middle
- Block nine, you said eight foot would be okay in the center section, but would eight foot also be okay
- in the north-south sections? Because it looks like they're- The north section between the large buildings
- looks okay, the south building we were worried about. Okay, and so if the same width could happen, all
- in block nine and then block 10 would all be the same width too, but they don't necessarily have to be
- like match each other as long as they internally match. Does that make sense? So that then you don't
- have, just so there's like continuity. That's like the comment. I just think that there should be continuity
- there. And then one of the other questions I have is, Ali, if you could explain what the light pink
- Xs mean versus the dark pink Xs. Because I'm not clear about what the difference is.
- Yeah, the light pinks are the accessible units and the dark pinks are the non-light, they're not one
- of our three types of accessible units. Okay, and then the other kind of question I have goes back to
- those existing trees on Wiley. So, assuming that there are existing trees and I know that there are
- at least some,
- But because of the location of where they would be, wouldn't those existing trees end up being
- on individuals' properties as opposed to actually being owned by the city? And that means that whoever
- actually buys those properties could just cut them down any time they want. We currently have them shown.
- We're showing that we're dedicating the right-of-way. We're dedicating the typical amount of right-of-way
- on Wiley so that all those trees end up in the right-of-way and then become city street trees.
- So even though they're not between the sidewalk and the street, they would still count as city street
- trees? They'd be in the right of way, that's right. They would be on city property, not on personal
- lots. The lot line ends at, more or less if you go walk the site, the lot line ends where the old asphalt
- was. And those lots would still have the 12 foot setback off of Wiley?
- That's what that extra 12 feet is. The larger setback is done. We laid it out so that it can be done
- as right-of-way. It can be done as setback. But yeah, that's that 12-foot strip that we're leaving is
- the tree strip. Wait, but that 12-foot strip is then going to be city right-of-way? I will admit, I
- think we talked about it in both directions. I would have to go back and look at what the final decision
- was from engineering on the way
- Lay that out. I was remembering that it was in city right-of-way. I am now remembering you're right
- There's a 12 foot setback that may have changed last minute in that third revision of the PUD But they
- went back a couple times back and forth about the preferred way to lay that out Okay, I guess I mean
- as I said last meeting like I wanted that 12 foot setback to be in there just so that then
- you, because there's not otherwise much of a front setback anywhere else. And I wanted it to match the
- other side of Wiley, at least sort of, to make it seem a little bit more continuous. But that just might
- be something that also needs to look at. And kind of looking at Director Hiddle right now, because the
- 12 foot setback would have to be from the right of way. And so if right of way was actually all the
- way past those trees,
- then you would have to set back from there before you could do the house, right? I think I'm mixing
- and matching. So it's measured. Those could be done in a tree preservation easement, even if they're
- in the setback. OK, I think that that just needs to be looked at a little bit more carefully in light
- of this discussion.
- I'm going to make it real simple. Whose responsibility for taking care of the trees, trimming them,
- and dealing with them? Was it the homeowners, or is it going to be the city of Bloomington
- or the redevelopment? If we leave the existing trees. You don't have to answer that question. I think
- that that's what nobody knows right now. What we do know is if we put new trees in, whoever it is has
- a tree that should last 100 years. Yes.
- with maintenance and care as opposed to who's responsible. And given the hospital site that was previous
- there and it was used as a berm, there are multiple different species of trees. And I am not a forester
- or could tell you what they are. But just from looking, they're not the consistency that we look at
- in our street trees. Go ahead. I just wanted to say, so I think what we're looking at here, looking
- at the time and just the overall context here, I wanted to summarize kind of where I am
- what an updated reasonable condition would look like across these couple. I'm still in favor of tree
- plots everywhere that's physically possible, including on North Wiley, six-foot minimum sidewalks site-wide,
- including internal sidewalks, and eight-foot where that's possible. And I think we had a little bit
- of a hard time understanding here. A six-foot sidewalk shouldn't lead to any lot loss unless
- Lot currently is planned with a home literally on the lot line on both sides and there's literally no
- give and in those cases I'm guessing the unit could be swapped out But I'm happy to like follow up on
- all that like off like after this meeting to like actually work out the details Because yeah, I know
- we've got the other RC's to get you Where possible and then who and who would determine in the in the
- reasonable condition
- I think it might not be physically possible with the existing building on Block 10, at least for a portion
- of it. And we encounter that with some regularity. First Street that we rebuilt west of the B Line.
- There's a brick, I think it's a small commercial or multifamily building there. We did a monolithic
- sidewalk for about
- Whatever it is 40 feet adjacent to the building because of the grade It just wasn't possible and then
- we went back to with a tree plot on 1st Street So right at first in the beeline in the northwest corner,
- and so if that was needed in block 10 for instance That's what it was meant to address. Yeah, and then
- who would Like who gets to adjudicate where it was possible or not possible Interpretation in the city
- engineer. Okay. Yeah, okay. Okay. Thank you. I
- Also, in the interest of time, I am not planning to advance or the reasonable condition related to lanes.
- I think my opinion is still that we'd be better served by smaller alleys. And I think with advanced
- planning, there were ways to do that that wouldn't have increased costs a lot. And we kind of worked
- through those, though, with the fire chief last two weeks ago. And I think at this stage of the plan,
- it's probably not feasible. And I don't think strictly necessary
- The intent with it was to try to make sure we weren't losing lots and could accommodate the
- other infrastructure. So if we can basically accommodate the other infrastructure anyway, then I would
- say that reasonable condition could go away. Thank you. As a note about that reasonable condition.
- Going back to the streetscapes that Ali shared earlier, which aren't on my screen right now, when she
- talked about the lanes essentially being shared streets, there's also a note on that that then the target
- speed is only 10 miles an hour. So if the lanes are having a targeted speed of 10 miles an hour, they
- need to be designed such that that is the targeted speed. And right now, they are just straight shots
- between houses.
- there will certainly be people going far faster than 10 miles an hour right now. So I'm not sure how
- that needs to be accommodated somehow, whether it should be a reasonable condition to do something
- engineering-wise in terms of design to ensure that those lanes are limited as shared streets per the
- transportation plan to a target speed of 10 miles an hour. I don't know if that's something that
- is a reasonable way to kind of shift that reasonable condition. We have not typically found speeding
- problems within alleys like this. We end up with a lot of 20 foot alleys in our work because of fire
- code. And because you have so many driveways with people pulling in and out, and because they're not
- contiguous at
- another street, you can't speed down 600 feet of one to get up enough speed. We typically see those
- have an approachable drive distance naturally. It's really hard to turn in there and get up to much
- speed before you're slowing down again for the other end. I'm not saying no crazy teenager will ever
- try it, but those typically do have
- you know, decent operational, and that exists in lots of this kind of development nationally, you know,
- by lots of people. Excellent. Go ahead, and then we should move on. I'm always hitting the button like,
- hello, hello, hello, okay. I do think it might be interesting, as Hopi said, if that's okay that I call you Hopi.
- To look at a reasonable condition for slowing speed, the PUD on South Dunn Street has nine foot alleys
- and they had to add speed bumps because people were driving too fast in a nine foot alley. So I don't
- know if Bloomington is unique. I don't think so about speeding in alleys. But we could go look at that.
- Does the RDC have any opinion on that type of reasonable condition in terms of
- designing those lanes in such a way as the target speed is 10 miles an hour. Quick question for our
- consultant here. So tell, give us an idea of what we see, you see nationally in regards to how we do
- it, because speed bumps are a pain, but you know, especially if we're dealing, huh? They work,
- they work. Or do you do speed dips? Is there any other solutions that you've seen previously?
- Are we going to be the first tables are the new one that everybody's doing, you know, poured integrally
- into the concrete is typically the way that we see those done. We we could end up with some level of
- pavement change is sometimes a way that we do it. Although the downside of that is then you end up,
- you know, with pretty significant additional cost. You know, the difference in asphalt
- or concrete and anything else is pretty significant. And so cost change is the biggest limitation to
- that. We also just see enforcement as one of the things that can be most impactful. Speed cameras and
- really aggressive ticketing can often get everybody in the habit of slowing down even more than a speed table.
- So enforcement of it, you know, post the speed and then enforce that via existing mechanisms. Potentially
- right there next to the police station can be another way to do that. Okay, Council Member Softer. I'm
- not sure that enforcement in Bloomington will actually work out, but are we, legally I think neighborhood
- streets have to be 25 miles an hour. Can we actually sign something that's only 10 miles an hour? I'm
- kind of looking at Director Hiddle right now,
- I'm not sure who would be the best person to answer that, because the engineer's not here. If not, is
- the shared street design speed not enforceable that's in the transportation generally? Well, I think
- that that's where it's through street design. It's designed using speed bumps or other things, and what I've
- heard during some of the Greenway meetings last year was that then they just wouldn't have a speed limit
- sign. It would be one of those recommended speed signs in terms of whatever thing it was on. But that's
- where enforcement would, I think, be challenging. And that's like an Indiana State thing. I think that
- Indiana State doesn't
- I think neighborhood roads, I think, have to be 25 miles an hour. I really wish that Director Seabor
- was here right now, but he's on vacation. Is it fair to say that we can, I mean, that's something we
- can all talk about in terms of, I mean, general reasonable condition that says, you know, some enforcement
- around speed and let that to engineers who could decide the best design to do that?
- Fantastic. So should we move on? I'm mindful. I mean, I think the one that we wanted to spend the most
- time talking about was permanent affordability. And so have we satisfied all of yours? Well, there's
- reasonable condition 12. I think it could be very brief. It could share a high level here. Go ahead.
- Please do it. And 13 that I suggested, short-term rentals, might be better suited as a written commitment.
- Number 12 was about Roger Street. In the absence of much substantive conversation,
- at the stage this was drafted and it not having been updated since, what needs to change is the right
- of way dedication part of it. I think what's planned right now in the PUD is 31 feet from center line.
- That would work and accommodate a 10-foot drive lane, 5-foot park lane. No, yeah. Is it no parking?
- No, bike lane, that's it. 10-foot drive lane, 5-foot bike lane, 5-foot tree plot,
- 10 foot sidewalk. So 10 foot sidewalk is what's required on the general urban street topology. It's
- what we built in Hopewell already to the north of this on Roger Street. And that does get the sidewalk
- within about a foot or so of the existing building. Again the right of way is already planned at a width
- to accommodate this. I did talk to the city engineer about it who agreed that it is physically possible to put
- those dimensional standards. So the right-of-way is smaller than what's in the transportation plan.
- That's that modulation of right-of-way dedication that we do need in our UDO and need updates to reflect
- that. But the street components, the 10-foot drive lane, the five-foot bike lane, five-foot tree plot,
- 10-foot sidewalk, we don't have to compromise on those. We can build what's called for in our plans
- within the planned right-of-way dedication. And again, the sidewalk gets relatively,
- pretty close to the existing building for that short stretch of 15 feet or whatever it is, that little
- bump out in the building. But I don't think that's unique in an urban setting. We have sidewalks that
- are a foot or two from the existing police station, which I know is a potential use here. And actually
- going to building edges of all over downtown. So I think that's feasible and the intent. And I would
- update this to reflect that existing planned right of way dedication and just the dimensions that
- So I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but if there's any clarifying questions. Can I ask a clarifying
- question, Ali? In the models, when you come up with 11 to 14 units less, et cetera, et cetera, was that
- assuming that we did all of the reasonable conditions? Or was that sort of on a case-by-case basis,
- like as you were showing with the sidewalk question? OK.
- Okay, so. We thought all of them was 14. We thought just the one feet of extra width was 11. Got it.
- And then the Rogers question, I think the trade off there is losing all of the public parking along
- Rogers. If I'm understanding the description of that street section, I think that's where those extra
- feet are coming from, is we would lose all the parking spaces. No, no, there's no planned parking on
- Rogers there. It's just the bike lane, I believe. I can double check.
- Where the space is coming from is what would just otherwise be like grass remaining in that part of
- the right-of-way. Our street section that we were currently showing has 10-foot lane from centerline,
- parallel parking, and then an 8-foot sidewalk, which is called out in the transportation plan as being
- acceptable width as a shared use path for limited stretches when needed to accommodate around tight.
- So I think that's what's in the PUD right now is that street section. I can clarify, which was matching
- the general urban street typology is what I was talking about as opposed to, yeah, what's proposed.
- Yeah. Yeah. So I think just the trade off there is the parking, which would be used likely for public
- use. I don't believe there is parking on that block of. Can you bring that up, Ali? Because we've got
- a little discussion in regards to what the parallel parking and then.
- And the section, if we actually look at the PUD proposal, the section of Rogers Street has the drive
- lane, the bike lane, the tree plot, the sidewalk. There is no parking on either side of Rogers in the
- PUD proposal.
- Yeah, my apologies. I was looking at this exhibit when we first made this exhibit for the end. I was
- sitting and looking at the screen. When we were looking at this exhibit that we made for engineering,
- when they asked what the typical would be, we did have parallel parking there. You are correct. Engineering
- has already removed that and moved it into the wider sidewalk. So my apologies. I was looking at the
- wrong slide. So just to clarify. As I said, there were a lot of calibration rounds we went through.
- So just to clarify, and this is reasonable condition 11, right? That reasonable condition 11 is 12,
- sorry. That reasonable condition 12 is already essentially considered. It's a five foot sidewalk.
- Five foot, okay, okay. But the effect that Ali was saying is no longer, is now a moot point. Is that
- what I've heard? The engineer confirmed for me that it fits with the 10 foot sidewalk.
- The cross-section that I described which matches the general urban street typology does fit I believe
- miss Thurman was just communicating Oh the idea of a wider sidewalk being planned for now, but that's
- not what's in the PUD right now The PUD calls for a five-foot sidewalk in the Rogers cross-section right
- now. Excellent The clarification needs to be that that would be adapted into a 10-foot in that area
- and it only gets us close to the 714 building. Yeah, it's Okay, should we move on to permanent affordability?
- We are targeting 830 and so let's let's move on to permanent affordability. So we've got two conditions
- that have been on five actually. So just for oh it's just for OK. I suppose we could reconsider five.
- Well that's fine. I just appreciate that clarification.
- So the main condition apparently that is on the table is that would require at least 50% of hopeful
- units or properties to remain permanently affordable with affordable homes of proportionate in size
- to embed your mix to market rate homes and comparable in quality and appearance. Now one question I
- have is what's the income target for that affordability?
- What is on the RC right now is 35% for households earning at or below 120% AMI and then 15% of total
- units reserved for households earning at or below 90% AMI.
- you'd like to add as the sponsor comes from Mr. Stossberger? I guess something I would like to add is
- potentially an anchor is that this PUD is working under an older version of the UDO and the updated
- version of the UDO requires a PUD to have 25% of units at 90% AMI. So for any PUD now
- being considered. That is what is necessary. This does not get to that level. It only has 15 percent
- of units at the 90 percent AMI and then a much more flexible 35 percent at 120 percent AMI. I guess
- what I want to add about the 120 is that is pretty much the household income where people can buy on
- the regular market.
- Somebody looking at a house in this PUD can also buy a house some homes for sale right now in Prospect
- Hill Sure, I'll also just add kind of philosophically and and also going back to the
- to the original PUD report with those originally, as proposed, approximately 71% of the units are affordable
- under 100% AMI in terms of that sheet. So we're not even asking for as much as is being presented. And
- I think that the key difference there is the permanent affordability piece. And for me, it's kind of
- philosophical of going,
- City this is a city resource. This is a taxpayer resource and one of the
- things that we've been presenting or being presented with is this idea of people being able to buy in
- in very affordable ways and gain equity and move up the economic mobility scale. And I personally,
- philosophically, just don't think that we should use city tax dollars for that purpose. And so that's
- why I think that they should be permanently affordable through some kind of limited equity, something
- or other. There are several suggestions on the table or thoughts on the table about how to
- Create this permanent affordability And I I just I think that that's really important to do and I mean
- if right now they're affordable essentially They're affordable at the market rate that they would sell
- at simply because they're small Right small small houses on small lots then then we should make sure
- that through time they continue to have that affordable mark by somehow a
- Limiting basically the inflation on these and and this is where I'm not exactly sure the mechanism to
- do that But I feel like it should be possible to do that especially through some of the limited equity
- kind of models that have been being talked about so that's
- I have expressed various flexibility around that 50% number in the past few weeks, but in the last couple
- of weeks, I'm really like, you know, if they're market rate affordable right now, then in 10 years,
- they should also still be market rate affordable, and that somehow we should make sure that 10 years
- from now, they are, that they have an outpaced inflation, that they haven't, you know, so that we can
- guarantee not just the first homebuyer is getting
- Something affordable and attainable but the next one and the next one and the next one Smith and then
- we'll have to hear from Ali So one thing I'd like to better understand At the outset is so the administration
- has has said that they would do 25% of total units of permanent affordability Is would that be
- In addition to the naturally affordable units that are already listed where you have dedicated, committed
- to 50 percent, I know the table we have says 71 percent, but in the text of the ordinance it says at
- least 50 percent of the homes would be naturally affordable to home buyers at or below 100 percent AMI.
- That is in the text of the ordinance. The 25 percent long-term affordable units, would that be a subset
- of the 50% naturally affordable. I mean, I kind of assumed that, but I just wanted to clarify. So Anna
- is nodding.
- Yes, I do believe that the 25 percent would be included in that. And part of where we landed was based
- on having some flexibility since we don't exactly know what it's going to cost to build these units
- right now. You know, we are in a geopolitical environment where prices are going up every day and as
- oil prices go up,
- So are the materials. And so it's hard to make a commitment to something that we don't exactly have
- a price tag on. We also don't know how much of these other reasonable conditions are going to be implemented.
- And all of it is a math problem. So there is some flexibility in there for a reason. Not that we don't
- all want as many affordable units as possible. And I think that if you also read some of the text in what we
- proposed for affordability, too. There was some language in there about limiting the amount of equity
- that somebody could earn. But I think we also have to understand that homeownership is about lifting
- somebody out of poverty. That is their number one source of wealth building, period. So to say that
- they should not ever earn equity in their home or appreciation is also a fizzle
- philosophical question too, because that does keep people down from economic mobility. And I'm not saying
- that I want somebody to profit significantly off something, but they should have some mobility that's
- part of homeownership. But 100% on board with affordability in every way. Ali, I think maybe you should
- chime in on this.
- I know that there is a structured portion of our scope which is developing the exact mechanism of that
- affordability with RDC, which we're working through PUD to know what the standards are first before
- we get there. But I do know that there's quite a bit of work that we are trying to maintain flexibility
- to be able to define that when we know how many units we have and when we know exactly what can be built
- and what the timeline is.
- I will say too, I think Anna's making a really good point, that we're only limiting the amount of equity
- that can be gained by a homeowner in this neighborhood to our affordable buyers, which also has some
- tricky connotations. We do have some larger family homes and throughout Bloomington and across the country,
- the thing we see the most built of is larger, more expensive homes.
- They make more money for a builder. They're easy to permit. Your neighbors get less mad when you build
- them. We typically see less opposition from neighbors with large single-family homes on a larger lot,
- which then is more expensive. Those homes are not capped in equity that can be gained from a homeowner.
- And I think there is a good argument that single-family homes zoning generally
- has created a really tough situation for housing generally that we are only getting more expensive houses
- than we can afford and only people who can afford to buy those then get the benefit of all the equity
- increases. And so I do think it's a more complicated question than do we want homes to be affordable?
- Obviously we're going to great lengths to try to get as many affordable homes here as possible. Thank
- you so much, Commissioner Cassidy.
- I was just trying to separate down what we agree or have to look at as our percentage of affordability
- and then our permanent affordability years. I mean, from an administration and RDC, we've discussed
- the 25%. We all want to go more than that, without a question, as far as the affordability percentage,
- but to try to get something in the context of the PUD to say, meet the current UDO standard, because
- our current PUD says 15%, and that was just a timing issue.
- So with that is my standpoint my understanding is everybody is good with at least the 25 percent so
- we can get that we want more but we have to set something in the PUD that at least is an attainable
- basis and then to them to a that piece of it.
- to make sure we get an agreement or something we can all live with the minimum amount. We want more,
- never question. And then from an affordability standpoint, that permanent affordability into a 50 year,
- 99 year time frame to do it and how the equity is shared. There's basically three components, the percentage,
- the affordability time frame, and then how we determine anything from a shared equity on that 25% up
- on the affordability.
- I'm trying to just break it down in three parts so we can get a good contextual aspect of what needs
- to be put into the PUD ordinance. Well, I think another variable or maybe just a different way of saying
- what Commissioner Cassidy was saying is looking at the number of households we help overall with taxpayer
- dollars. So we can help 49 households or we can help
- hundreds of households over the next 100 years. So that, I think, that is a persuasive argument for
- me. Even though each of those households would have limits to the equity that they would gain, they
- would still all be helped by taxpayer dollars, by our investment. And that does seem, for lack of a
- better word, more fair to me to spread out that benefit.
- into future generations of homeowners, rather than just say, hey, now we have, you know, well, I guess
- the way that with the 25% we would have, 24, there would be 24 households, no, 25 households,
- I don't know, something like that, that we would say, you know, help just with their first purchase,
- and then after that, the next people who purchase that home
- are not gonna have our assistance. So it's like, oh, you're the lucky 25 and you get to have the income
- limited housing, but further down the road when you sell it, the next person, we're not helping any
- more people out of poverty, we're not helping any more first time home owners after that. Thank you,
- Council Member Stasberg.
- I also want to say that there that there's this middle ground between like Renting and then being able
- to get as much equity out of your home as possible because when you rent I mean every month you're just
- like Giving money to somebody else to another entity to another person and you're never gonna see that
- again but when you own you are gonna see that again even if you sell the home for the exact amount that
- you bought it for and
- four years before, you're still going to get back essentially all of that rent money. So it is this,
- or all that mortgage money, there is this, it is like an intermediate step. And I'm not of course saying
- that there shouldn't be any increases on this because of course there's natural inflation.
- But I mean, our housing costs have outpaced inflation in Bloomington for God only knows how many years
- at this point. And so through this making this permanently affordable, and part of what I'm saying is
- like, let's not let the cost of these houses outpace inflation in the way that might be being done in
- other areas. So that then it's limiting how much more somebody could sell it for. They might not be
- able to sell it for market rate. They might have to sell it for a little less than market rate, because
- market rate has
- gone up so much. But that homebuyer is still getting something from it. They're still getting this benefit.
- They're still getting back that money that they've put into it by paying that mortgage. And so that
- still is lifting people up and out of a less stable housing situation and a less stable financial situation.
- Councilmember Zerota-Sambarga and then Robert.
- I was just going to piggyback on that. I think from Grounded Solutions, the stat is 70% of people who
- first buy permanently affordable buy their next house market rate, which to me is the stair step that
- I find so amazing and so exciting. I think the point is to get folks to market rate home purchases in
- their lifetimes. I will say, too, just keep in mind that these houses are very small. So we're looking
- at 250 square feet, which might, of course, not fit on those two little properties.
- but these are very much like starter homes, and they're very similar to house sizes and Prospect Hill,
- and I think there will be, I mean of course someone could live in one of these homes forever, and people
- do live in 600 square foot homes forever, but these I think are meant, I mean I think the administration
- calls them workforce, for workforce housing folks, particularly young professionals, and a lot of times,
- What happens is folks then move have a kid or two kids and nobody can really fit anymore in 600 square
- feet or not that many people and so they they do head out to a different neighborhood right or something
- so I think to looking at the like the nature of and like the purpose of These homes that potentially
- they are a first home and not potentially a last home I think that is good for this conversation as well
- It's been a good conversation. I agree I think Councilman Rosenberger and Stossberg put it very well
- that I think that it doesn't preclude obviously I mean we all want people to build equity when they
- purchase a home And that can be realized on what one pays on the principle so I think that the the good
- way to frame it is this step between rental where you surrender everything and
- to something, you are building some equity, but you don't maybe don't gain everything, the market value
- that you might have. And then as a starter home, and then that is a stair step to something else. And
- we ought to maximize the number of people benefiting from that. So the long-term affordability to me
- is very important. And if we can't do it here, where is it going to happen? Right?
- I mean this to me is the place to prototype this and make it work. So I'm in agreement. Just raise a
- point that I'd like to share which is I definitely agree and and sympathetic to the idea of using publicly
- owned land for permanent affordability. I want to just note that one way I think this
- may be accomplished through the Hopewell South PUD is that because of these smaller units, that's creating
- its own natural affordability. Again, they are lower price points. There are administrative layers to
- having externally non-market affordability, which I'm not advocating against. I'm just noting that there's
- who's gonna administer it, how it's gonna be monitored,
- It's just an extra layer that, especially if it's permanent, that needs to be sustainable over time.
- So on the other side of that, in terms of the market, naturally market-based, I'm just going to note
- that for many years, until the Great Recession,
- Condominiums were an important source of housing affordability people could have owner occupancy but
- because of the nature of the condominium ownership and structure tended to Basically be a lower price
- point and those in most cases were not again subsidized units, but they were a naturally occurring form
- of market-based affordability and I'm just going to make a case for discussion that I feel that the
- city investing in
- what the Hopewell South PUD is in the mix of housing types, especially smaller housing types that are
- more inclined to stay at a market rate of affordability, as folks were saying, a starter home, et cetera.
- Just to consider that, even though, again, condominium development still is something that needs, and
- I'm not talking about locally, I'm just talking about nationally, that's a need to deal with how to
- make that more available, again, as a market type.
- until we get to that point the kind of mix of housing types that are being offered in the Hopewell South
- PUD offer an important naturally occurring affordability that I just don't want to underestimate that
- and I'm sure Ali can speak more to that too. So there's both the housing types but even that this is
- meant to be a prototype whether it's for other development in Hopewell or
- other options for other parts of the city that if we can get this right and can replicate that, it's
- also the supply issue. These types of housing are not being readily built on the market now and that's
- where the public investment is coming from of making it possible to build these smaller housing types
- that meet that natural price point on the market. And to the extent that we can expand that supply again
- by having a successful
- prototype that can be replicated adding to the supply then creates less pressure on the scarcity of
- housing that of course we know then contributes to the escalating costs. So I just want to
- help folks understand that, yes, there's room for looking at how subsidy and permanent affordability
- can be part of that. And I don't want to underestimate that, but there are just additional hoops to
- jump through to make that possible. And so not to underestimate the capacity of what the existing plan
- provides just as market design-based affordability. Excellent point. Sorry.
- I just got photos from Wiley Street. I got a little distracted. Thank you to the resident who just sent
- me photos from Wiley Street. In response to that, though, I think that that's, I mean, one of the kind
- of questions that I had that I never had a chance to ask as well, I mean, in terms of the 25% of units,
- like which units were going to be permanently affordable, and then the mechanism that was going to be used was,
- what I've been told, things that are not deed restrictions, like none of them are going to
- be deed restricted, that Director Killian-Henson has been exploring other options for it, and so my
- thought on the others is that we wouldn't necessarily have to have any different programs in place than
- what is already being done, and if they're already like affordable at market rate, then I mean, wouldn't
- necessarily have to step in with much subsidy at all,
- that it would really just be this oversight kind of piece of you're going to sell this at market rate,
- like this is the maximum that you could sell it for. And I guess the other piece of that is making sure
- that whoever buys it falls into the income level that we're targeting. But once again, that also,
- I mean, if we're already going to have programs in place for those first 25%, I'm not sure that it
- adds any more of that kind of overhead. And that is a question, though, that I have. It's like, well,
- if we're not doing deed restrictions, then there has to be something that's ongoing. And how exactly
- are we going to do that as a city? Because that's a whole separate arm of council's oversight is the
- long-term financial piece of that, whether it's staffing, whether it's actual subsidy of funds going
- into things. And that's a question that
- that hasn't really been answered thus far? Yeah, I mean, again, I think it's a good point. But even
- if there's not, let's say, subsidy between kind of aiming at a certain target income and what market
- rate, let's just say market rate, is the sustainable option for that income target,
- In terms of even having the oversight, you still need the compliance and monitoring part of it if that's
- being built into it. And that's an additional cost and layer of administration, which I'm not writing
- off. I'm just trying to pull that out as something that is still part of it, even if it's not an actual
- cash or soft second kind of subsidy. Commissioner Cassidy.
- I was trying to understand where you're coming from, Isabel, because we want to make long-term affordability
- for multiple people, not a situation where it's one and you hit the lottery. This is a situation where
- percentage-wise, trying to identify, because the components I was talking about, and to Hopi's point
- of how that works out, since we are dealing with the land use on the PUD at the present moment, and
- what we discussed is the mechanisms that have to occur
- if we can agree on percentages and then either a sliding scale or the amount at 90% or 80% AMI, and
- then work back to how we get to that permanent affordability. I don't know if I'm making sense in regards
- to it, but I'm just trying to get it to that point where we know that we want consistency of long-term
- affordability for at least a minimum of the 25 units, whichever units they happen to be at the present moment.
- natural occurring affordability based on size and construction costs and the fact that we should the
- city has to set the example and that's as Councilman role put it we're the this is if it doesn't happen
- here where else is it going to happen but taking that how the conditions to get to that affordability
- are left after we determine the land use basis based on our 13 reasonable conditions to be able to have
- that discussion but move these others forward
- Because we all want permanent affordability. We want minimum 25% maximum 100% But that 90 that you do
- that based on correct me if I'm wrong at least 25% at 90% of AMI That's the new and that's what we've
- had the discussion on and somewhat agreed to I
- Put in flexibility because we don't understand what the reasonable conditions that have been proposed
- will do to our price tags yet and Just to be very clear. It's highly unusual For us to even be targeting
- a price point at this point
- Most builders that would come before you for a PUD for land use would not have any idea. So I think,
- again, based on material costs that are changing, based on what regulations you guys are going to impose,
- how do we get to the math problem? We don't know until you tell us what reasonable conditions you guys
- are going to adopt. Then we can do the math and say, OK, here's what we can actually build and for how much.
- Other than that, that's really why we put the flexibility in there. Not because we want to target 120%
- AMI, but because we need some flexibility to understand the math. We've talked about what the mechanism
- to protect that long-term affordability is. And you've heard from experts in the industry that tell
- you what we've experienced, which is deed restrictions don't work. They're very hard to administer,
- and it's hard to get a mortgage on them. So if we could,
- just continue the conversations about the silent second mortgages with the right of first refusals.
- They work. They work in other communities. They work in our community currently. It's what Habitat is
- using. It's not unheard of. We're not just making this up. It is well known to be an option, whether
- it's in our UDO or not.
- ownership, this is really the avenue that we need to move towards if we want to protect affordability
- long term. But as far as the actual percentages, it's really hard to say we're going to target only
- 90% or only 80% or only 100% when we don't know what that equation is right now. I would say all. So
- within the current reasonable condition as framed, my colleagues have given a couple of, they said, you know,
- for you all to decide from a couple of different options. And I suppose, correct me if I'm wrong, Council
- Member Stasberg and Council Member Rosenberger, that there's some combination of those would also be
- feasible. And so I guess the question is, are there within the flexibility that's already built into
- the reasonable condition, are there tools that you don't see available to you? Because what you just
- described is they've already
- added that as one of the options. If deed restriction is viewed as not the best choice, then go to second
- mortgages or write a first refusal. You've all outlined exactly that in the... I remember seeing that
- in the reasonable condition. I saw that we would have to come back to you all for approval for whatever
- the mechanism is, which we're gonna end up back in the same exact spot, which is
- Homes that can't be financed because we can't agree the other Michael. Could I ask, I mean, if the tension
- point is the coming back versus, I mean, just so that we're negotiating on the right thing. I mean,
- if it's, OK, we've given you the right toolkit, but we don't want to have to go through a whole process
- of coming back to council, OK, then maybe we can build some stronger frameworks into how that decision
- is made or something like that. Or is the question that you don't have
- the right tools, right? So is it we don't want to come back to council about this, or is it that we
- don't have the right tools available to us in terms of choices?
- Because I think they've listed out four or five different ways that they're happy with. We specifically
- said deed restrictions, because that's what's already in the UDO, ground leases, community land trust,
- because that's also something that's being done. And then we said, or other legal mechanism to be approved
- by the council. And one of the reasons why we said it to be approved by the council is, at least for
- me, is to make sure that there is that flexibility to keep on exploring those other options.
- because as the fiscal body separate from the land use PUD part, we need to know how it's going to work
- in terms of actual city finances, in my opinion. And so that's where it's like, how is this actually
- going to work? And so if there's some other way to do that, at this point, we've been having this discussion
- for longer, so maybe
- there's already more of an outline of exactly how silent second mortgages are gonna work. Who is gonna
- be the holder of the silent second mortgage? Those are the kinds of questions that I have as the fiscal
- body of Bloomington. Is the RDC gonna be the silent second mortgage? Those are the questions I have,
- so that's why it was like come back to council with more details about how these other programs are
- actually gonna work.
- We already administer silent second mortgages all of the time with our down payment and closing cost
- programs. So we have a ton of affordable programs that already use it. And then I see Council Member
- Flaherty next. Would it be useful to expand the list of things that are considered under this reasonable
- condition? So they're setting a sort of minimum amount of permanent affordability, and then would it
- be better instead of
- you know, that fourth category being, and that very thing come to us, including, you know, moving that
- to six or seven things, or maybe just five, and then with the option of, you know, and we're willing
- to consider other things as well, or something like that. Feel free to answer, and then Council Member
- Feather. I'm not 100% sure that I understand what the question is. If we're saying that,
- The toolkit is deed restrictions and community land trusts or long-term ground lease. Or second mortgages.
- As long as that other piece is in there, I think that that's fine. I think that there's also other mechanisms
- that could be brought up eventually. So as long as we're spelling out that the right of first refusal
- and the silent second are part of that toolkit, then I don't see that there's a problem.
- That's very helpful, thank you. Councilman Flaherty. Yeah, briefly note, I think this is in the same
- vein. To me, the reason why we need to approve it, either now or in the future, is because we're asking
- to do something that isn't in code. We're asking to deviate from the UDO. And from where I sit, we just
- can't approve it if we don't know what that is. We just do need to know. And it's even OK to not know
- now. But we're giving some options now. And if we come back later, we just amend the reasonable condition
- and the PUD. We did that with the Rolato when there needed to be a change.
- So I don't think it's unreasonable. And yeah, also totally open to adding other things right now.
- To me, it's about just knowing what it is, or if we don't know now, knowing the future and having that
- formal approval and making sure that it meets what the intent is here. That it's not just a right of
- first refusal, but like,
- Obligation to exercise it for instance so that we actually do maintain the councilmember Pima Smith
- and then Okay, go ahead first then yeah, I just wanted to follow up on my notes in terms of so like
- what you would need is the tool of silence that could mortgage and write a first refusal and then also
- having the possibility of others, but it's just those two and
- I mean, that seems very right. I mean, that's. Yeah, I would want more specific information about how
- silent second mortgages are already being done by the city and how that would then be done for this
- Hopewell area. And then similarly, right of first refusal, how that would be done. I mean, part of right
- of first refusal is that then what would the RDC basically be saying? Like, yep, we're gonna buy this
- property. And then like,
- Understanding more about how the funding of that would work and you don't have to answer that right
- now But that's that's the kind of things like to put those on the list That's what I want to know in
- terms of how it's gonna work. Yep. I'm councilman Smith and Zulick I'd like to step back for a minute
- and and this is relevant to understanding the importance of a long-term affordability, so if I let's
- just do a scenario, let's say I buy a b-bomb and
- Okay, 560 square feet, $184,800. I know those are just very general estimates at this point. I assume
- that the RDC, in order to make this attractive to a builder, is gonna either give away that land or
- sell it at a very low price. Is that a true assumption? We have not discussed that at all.
- So how can these sale, how can you have any ballpark idea of the sale prices of these homes if you don't
- know what they're gonna pay for the land? And I can probably help with that question. We've in our internal
- modeling for affordability, we have assumed that we are tying land or lot price as a percent of future
- sale price, which is really typical for the way that builders and banks and appraisers would look at that.
- And so the larger, more expensive homes would pay a larger dollar amount, right? We're not tying the
- dirt sale to a price per square foot because the builder is required to buy the lot and then build a
- specific house. We're instead of doing a flat price, price per square foot for land, which is a normal
- way people do it sometimes. We're instead doing a different normal way, which is a capped percentage
- of eventual sale price as the land price.
- There also has been some discussion, this is in no way a commitment, this is the program, but this is
- an idea that will be part of vetting this with the RDC. There's an idea that we could make the land
- sale dollar number, which typically you're gonna say is about 20% of the value of the cost max, so somewhere
- between 15 and 20 is industry standard. You can make the cost of that due at the sale of the home instead
- of at the beginning of the project.
- So the RDC could carry that land cost through construction, which would bring down the amount of equity
- a builder would need to bring to the project, which would broaden the number of people that could develop
- them. They need less cash to the bank in order to be able to pay for the land and then borrow the money
- for construction. And then at closing, that land sale would be paid to the RDC, and then the RDC would
- be in a position to four qualified home buyers take the value of the lot,
- and roll it into a soft second or home down payment assistance or some other kind of mechanism
- of affordability. And so there's some ways that I think the land value and land sale can then ultimately
- benefit the home buyer, but also broaden the pool of people that we're able to bring in to build these.
- OK, so I guess what I'm concerned about is if there's any kind of subsidy
- to create these what we're calling naturally affordable homes because they're so tiny, then that subsidy
- goes away when the first homeowner sells it to somebody else, right? Unless we have permanent affordability.
- But the difference in price of what the first person pays for the B-bomb, what I'm paying for the B-bomb,
- and then in five years, what I can get for that B-bomb is gonna be
- Big difference because I won't have whatever subsidies are in place to enable the builder to build in
- this with this financial scheme Am I making any sense here? I would say could I say and I think that's
- a brilliant I think a brilliant point necessary point
- I think it's a relevant point for us to bring up on the 22nd and we can continue having these conversations.
- Given the time, I think that it would be really useful, particularly there's a handful, both council
- members and members of the RDC who haven't either chosen to or had a chance to chime in, so would love
- to give them an opportunity to say some things. And then if there's just any sort of final feelings,
- reflections that we'd like to share going into our meeting on the 22nd, obviously we're not voting on
- this today,
- if we chose to vote on it on the 22nd. And so is that okay, Council Member Pumas-Smith? Okay.
- So would love, Council Member, Commissioner Scambillary, if you had anything that you'd like to add.
- No, thank you. Thank you for this discussion. This is tremendously helpful. And I'm grateful for all
- the thought that I have heard put into this.
- Most of the flexibility I feel around this project comes in terms of things that don't cost us units,
- that don't limit the number of people we can help. I heard it characterized that way earlier tonight,
- and I love characterizing it that way, the number of people we can help. Some of the physical changes
- to the environment do concern me.
- in that regard because of what they will affect, particularly in terms of accessible homes, because
- I think that's a great enough need in this community, and there are very few incentives to build those
- kinds of dwellings, so I think that's important. I appreciate especially what Director Hanson shared
- about the kinds of tools we need to have in our toolkit for affordability. I think all of us believe
- in the importance of affordability and lasting over time, but the tools we use to get there
- are what's important. They need to be sustainable. They need to work with those who are seeking mortgages,
- those who are seeking loans from banks and from other entities. So, again, having that silent second
- mortgage, having the right of first refusal, having those tools in the toolkit are going to be critical,
- I think. Thank you so much.
- Thank you for going first because I see I mean seriously I think you laid out a lot of my concerns as
- well and I first also want to thank the council for Come allowing us to come together tonight to talk
- about this because it's I've learned a lot just listening to the discussion and hearing more detail
- on what your concerns actually are I Tend to approach these kinds of things in a more
- perhaps abstract way and a big picture way. My concern, like everyone else's, is we get as many people
- housed at an affordable cost as possible. I also find I'm very attracted to the idea of experimenting
- with something that's a little different because, and part of this comes from the experience of having
- sat through multiple rounds of proposals to build parts of Hopewell and they simply have not been able
- to build anything that's affordable. We have to do something different in order to get there. And I
- think the idea of taking a neighborhood approach gives us a lot of ways to bring some design elements
- in in a consistent way that I think is gonna make the experience of living there really attractive.
- So I think though at the same time there's clearly a lot of
- detail that we have to be able to work out and we want to do it in a way that says has a little bureaucratic
- overhead as possible the backing and for thing I agree with too but but I think where we need to do
- that we should do that last thing I'll say is that and I think Ali you opened with this is that every
- community certainly Bloomington has multiple goals for housing and no one development is going to meet
- Necessarily is going to solve all of those problems with all those goals. We have a lot of other Areas
- in the city that need to be attended to some of those are already see concerns. They're all you know,
- they're everyone's concern on some level So it is part of a larger system and flow of housing in the
- city, too. So again not We're gonna have to make some compromises to get where we want to go for this and
- but it feels to me like a big step forward. Thank you so much. Councilmember Zulek or Councilmember
- Daley. Thank you and thank you to the lovely members of the Redevelopment Commission for joining us
- today. It was nice to hear some of the thoughts that you put forward. All I will say
- this is I did include the silent second mortgages and write a first refusal in my reasonable condition
- which was number five which unfortunately failed on I think it was April 1st but it also included a
- proposal for a full and final affordability structure to be proposed to the council prior to the first
- home sale so two sponsors of reasonable condition
- But we're happy to collaborate if you're interested. Thank you Councilmember Daley I don't really have
- very much to add tonight. I was coming in tonight as a fact-finding mission in my brain and Mission
- accomplished. I think first of all, I'm grateful for the RDC for being here and for contributing to
- the conversation for the city staff that was here tonight I think I think tonight showed a lot of
- progress and really good listening from everybody and contributions from everybody who spoke. So I feel
- encouraged. I think I learned a lot about what is possible that I thought maybe might not be possible.
- But I also think I feel really clear now on some of the parameters that need to be set in terms of keeping
- some affordability, which is, as I've said,
- Before about this project that is our number one goal is to get as many people housed at a rate that
- can Continue on you know, so the permanent affordability is something that I Really do want to make
- sure that we we have something in place moving forward for that because just like councilmember Piedmont
- Smith said we don't just want like a few lucky winners who win the lottery and then that's
- That's it. We want this to continue on in our community. That's that's the purpose of this in my eyes.
- So thank you very much. I'm looking forward to you know our future conversations and building from here.
- Thank you. Council member rough. Did you want to add anything. You also just the last point that was
- made speaking to the microphone. So the last point is made by Council member Smith sort of illustrates to me how
- This is complex, and we all need to have a more thorough understanding of all the levels of complications,
- just the last point being the pricing of lots and lots that are going to be market rate, even the naturally
- occurring affordable units that we are saying
- are naturally occurring affordable, because they're going to be smaller and streamlined in the process.
- But there's still going to be market rate, my understanding. And the idea that if it's going to be a
- market rate unit, there should be market rate for the price of the lot, the land, it seems like. Maybe
- it's more complicated than that. But that came up just sort of at the very end. And that's something
- I need to understand.
- Just that alone is something I need to understand better, as well as a lot of the other things that
- were discussed tonight. And this idea that we need to be headlong, rushed, and hurried in any way, shape,
- or form on this project, which we hope will serve the community and the needs of the community, not
- all the needs, as you said, but serve the needs of the community for generations, we hope, is worth
- the time to take
- to go through this and get this as right as we can possibly get it. And it is difficult and challenging
- and time-consuming. But that's, to me, that's what we have to do. So thanks. Thank you so much. And
- Director Hiddle, also, you haven't had a chance to say anything, anything you'd like to add. I don't
- think I have anything more to add. I echo the sentiment that very
- I don't have much more to add. I echo the sentiment that it felt like very productive conversation.
- And I think, as has been stated, good listening, which is nice. Thank you. Thank you so much. OK. You
- don't all have to say anything, but any final thoughts that would be additive before the 22nd from anyone?
- I just want to thank everybody for the time.
- Further communication discussion and dialogue so that we get to a reasonable place that moves things
- forward for the citizens of Bloomington, Indiana Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Cassidy This is
- incredibly helpful. I am emailing all of you with an update on what I'm planning for the reasonable
- conditions That I have drafted six through twelve if you have feedback about those Please get back to
- me ASAP as I'll try to get those in the pocket by Friday for And even if not if you get it on
- You know, Monday would be useful too, but better by Friday. Any other comments as we close? I will just
- thank you all for a productive discussion tonight. I feel it was really helpful to break down some barriers
- and to really get into the details and things. And certainly there's more to do. It's not like we're
- done, but I feel like it's really opened the gate to moving the project forward. So I appreciate your
- contributions to that, and thank you.
- Thank you all a little later than we expected. But with the technical difficulties, also thank you to
- Ali, to the wonderful staff, to Katz. And let's do this again sometime. We're adjourned.