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.