WEBVTT 00:00:00.546 --> 00:00:10.580 - It is now 6.30 on Wednesday, September 16th, so I will call this meeting to order. Congratulations. 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:21.116 - There's probably nowhere else you'd rather be on a Wednesday night. Will the clerk kindly call the roll? 00:00:21.116 --> 00:00:30.046 - Council Member Flaherty? Here. Stasberg? Here. Piedmont-Smith? Here. Zulek? Asari? Here. 00:00:30.466 --> 00:00:40.245 - Daly? Here. Rallo? Here. Roth? Rosenberger? Here. Did anybody hear that? Excellent. Today the meeting 00:00:40.245 --> 00:00:50.121 - agenda is posted on the walls. There are some printed out over there. We have a handful of minutes for 00:00:50.121 --> 00:00:58.270 - approval. We'll have reports from council members, a handful of offices in the city. 00:00:58.370 --> 00:01:06.552 - There'll be two times of public comment, one at the beginning of the meeting and one at the end. You're 00:01:06.552 --> 00:01:14.734 - able to speak at one of these two. We then have some issues concerning boards and commissions. And then 00:01:14.734 --> 00:01:22.995 - we have two items for first reading, one of which the council sponsors have asked that we don't discuss, 00:01:22.995 --> 00:01:24.254 - but this is the 00:01:24.514 --> 00:01:31.419 - depending on what the council wants to do. And then we have one, two, three, four, five things for second 00:01:31.419 --> 00:01:37.998 - reading. So with that, I'll move to minutes of which I think we sent out some, oh, then the clerk is 00:01:37.998 --> 00:01:44.708 - gone. I think he sent out some amendments that everybody get the amendments to the minutes. Okay, well 00:01:44.708 --> 00:01:49.854 - when the clerk returns, we can continue on doing the thing we do at this time. 00:01:50.690 --> 00:01:58.503 - All right. So with that, are there any motions? We need to approve the minutes from February 18th, 00:01:58.503 --> 00:02:06.947 - March 4th, March 11th deliberation session, March 11th special session, March 25th, all 2026. Be approved. 00:02:06.947 --> 00:02:15.233 - Second. There's a motion and a second. Any further comments or edits needed to the minutes? Seeing none. 00:02:15.233 --> 00:02:18.942 - No one online. So all those in favor, say aye. 00:02:20.098 --> 00:02:27.935 - Any opposed? That carries. Thank you very much. We'll move on to reports. Do any of my colleagues wish 00:02:27.935 --> 00:02:35.773 - to give a report or any comments? Start to my right with Councilmember Piedmont-Smith. Yes, thank you. 00:02:35.773 --> 00:02:43.610 - First of all, we're in the midst of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and I invite you all to join the 00:02:43.610 --> 00:02:50.078 - celebration at Switchyard Park for Fiesta del Otoño this Saturday from 12 to 4 p.m. 00:02:50.178 --> 00:02:58.550 - On a totally different topic, I wanted to address briefly the dire conditions that continue in Gaza. 00:02:58.550 --> 00:03:07.005 - On April 3rd, 2024, we unanimously passed Resolution 2024-08, a resolution calling for a cessation of 00:03:07.005 --> 00:03:15.295 - hostilities and for delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Well, those civilians, those 00:03:15.295 --> 00:03:18.942 - that are still alive are suffering greatly. 00:03:19.458 --> 00:03:25.929 - Today, a war-damaged building in Gaza collapsed, killing at least 21 people, including children, and 00:03:25.929 --> 00:03:32.463 - trapping many more beneath the wreckage. Just from the New York Times, the incident shines a light on 00:03:32.463 --> 00:03:39.126 - the perilous conditions in Gaza after the devastating war that followed the Hamas-led attacks on Israel 00:03:39.126 --> 00:03:45.597 - on October 7, 2023. Officials have warned that many more buildings damaged in Israeli airstrikes are 00:03:45.597 --> 00:03:46.942 - at risk of collapse. 00:03:47.074 --> 00:03:53.223 - the lack of progress on reconstruction has forced residents to choose between living in seriously compromised 00:03:53.223 --> 00:03:59.205 - buildings or in tents. And this is a quote from Pat Griffiths, a spokesman for the International Committee 00:03:59.205 --> 00:04:04.906 - of the Red Cross. With the heavy rains and winds of winter approaching, the risk of damaged buildings 00:04:04.906 --> 00:04:10.776 - collapsing will only increase, putting more lives in danger. Choosing between life in a tent with little 00:04:10.776 --> 00:04:16.478 - privacy or space and exposed to harsh weather, or a building that is damaged and at risk of collapse, 00:04:16.770 --> 00:04:23.560 - just to have a roof over one's head is not a choice any family should have to make. And a recent report 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:30.220 - by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the humanitarian situation in 00:04:30.220 --> 00:04:37.402 - Gaza remains dire as Israeli airstrikes and other attacks continue to hit populated areas, causing casualties 00:04:37.402 --> 00:04:40.862 - in property damage and driving further displacement. 00:04:41.634 --> 00:04:47.331 - Persistent shortages of critical medical supplies are undermining treatment for communicable 00:04:47.331 --> 00:04:53.824 - and non-communicable diseases, while access to already overstretched water and sanitation services remain 00:04:53.824 --> 00:05:00.072 - precarious. Against this backdrop, humanitarian partners are working to improve living conditions and 00:05:00.072 --> 00:05:06.627 - mitigate flooding risks at overcrowded displacement sites as winter approaches. However, funding shortages 00:05:06.627 --> 00:05:10.302 - and ongoing restrictions to the entry of critical materials 00:05:10.626 --> 00:05:20.641 - Engine oil and spare parts continue to severe severely curtail these efforts So I just wanted to bring 00:05:20.641 --> 00:05:30.364 - that as an update because this body expressed two years ago. It's It's concern for the humanitarian 00:05:30.364 --> 00:05:40.574 - situation in Gaza and that situation is ongoing. Thank you Yeah, thanks a few things I'd like to mention 00:05:41.154 --> 00:05:48.714 - One is Before I forget councilmember Ruff and I have our monthly constituent meeting on Saturday this 00:05:48.714 --> 00:05:56.274 - Saturday September 19th from 10 a.m. To usually goes to noon So it goes for a couple of hours and you 00:05:56.274 --> 00:06:03.685 - can find the link at Bloomington.in.gov Slash council if you want to attend Everyone's welcome. Not 00:06:03.685 --> 00:06:10.430 - just people obviously it's a large Representative, so everybody is welcome to that meeting 00:06:11.010 --> 00:06:19.680 - I wanted to mention Last evening there was a joint Meeting between the environmental Commission and 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:28.523 - the sustainability Commission Sustainability and resilience Commission on the subject of light street 00:06:28.523 --> 00:06:37.540 - lights in the community and The fact that they are growing in intensity with LED lighting and that this 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:40.574 - is problematic for both people and 00:06:40.802 --> 00:06:50.220 - for wildlife and They took action on a resolution to send to the City Council so that we might do something 00:06:50.220 --> 00:06:59.203 - about that So we can look forward to that coming briefly if lights are at 4000 Kelvin extremely bright 00:06:59.203 --> 00:07:08.098 - they're often blue and this the blue light is problematic for a lot of wildlife including insects and 00:07:08.098 --> 00:07:09.406 - which then are 00:07:09.602 --> 00:07:17.358 - Trophic level where birds feed Actually the chair of Justin vassals here this evening. I see so perhaps 00:07:17.358 --> 00:07:24.889 - you were going to report on that So nothing wrong with that here twice He'll provide more detail but 00:07:24.889 --> 00:07:32.421 - in referring to the lighting situation there was a meeting between the Administration and members of 00:07:32.421 --> 00:07:38.238 - the council were invited with Duke energy two days ago, I took notes happy to 00:07:38.498 --> 00:07:47.407 - Share them with the the council Liz Irwin, who's the community liaison for Duke Energy? kindly sent 00:07:47.407 --> 00:07:56.495 - materials relevant to the lighting situation and What they are doing about it And I can send that out 00:07:56.495 --> 00:08:01.662 - to and make that publicly available I did want to mention 00:08:02.754 --> 00:08:09.444 - I wasn't going to mention this last week because I had already mentioned it but the world woke up to 00:08:09.444 --> 00:08:16.266 - the existential threat of AI Last week suddenly everybody is talking about it, which is a really great 00:08:16.266 --> 00:08:23.419 - thing. It's no longer a fringe subject. It's mainstream It's on all the media. Thanks to a young researcher 00:08:23.419 --> 00:08:30.043 - named Jacob Coxson who went public and said this is a existential threat might kill everyone and it 00:08:30.043 --> 00:08:32.030 - could happen soon he puts the 00:08:32.226 --> 00:08:39.346 - Estimation between the next six months and the next couple of years. That's his words not mine So we 00:08:39.346 --> 00:08:46.819 - know these things are super hackers. So they're already superior into humans at least in in cybersecurity 00:08:46.819 --> 00:08:54.292 - and hacking and their capacity is growing exponentially by measures of their workload increasing doubling 00:08:54.292 --> 00:08:56.478 - every three or four months and 00:08:56.642 --> 00:09:03.831 - They form swarms to collaborate they form hierarchies to get work done and they sacrifice themselves 00:09:03.831 --> 00:09:11.020 - if they run out of their allotted tokens, so And this has all been confirmed. So I'm not telling you 00:09:11.020 --> 00:09:18.137 - anything that hasn't been published the danger of course is recursive self-improvement whereby they 00:09:18.137 --> 00:09:23.262 - completely humans are out of the loop the AI is designed themselves and 00:09:23.490 --> 00:09:30.163 - the next AI model designs the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one, and you get this 00:09:30.163 --> 00:09:36.771 - takeoff of intelligence, which is the danger. So I would just say that Congress is aware of it. There 00:09:36.771 --> 00:09:43.573 - was a big meeting at Washington, D.C. yesterday sponsored by the Future of Life, whose chairman actually 00:09:43.573 --> 00:09:50.505 - attended our council meeting in support of the resolution we passed calling for a moratorium on artificial 00:09:50.505 --> 00:09:52.254 - superintelligence in June. 00:09:52.514 --> 00:09:59.019 - He was a host of the meeting, involved Bernie Sanders, spanned the spectrum. Steve Bannon showed up, 00:09:59.019 --> 00:10:05.589 - so pretty wide variety of people. There were a lot of congresspeople, some senators there. All the AI 00:10:05.589 --> 00:10:12.223 - safety experts of note were there. And I had a few acquaintances who attended, sent me up to date sort 00:10:12.223 --> 00:10:18.793 - of information about it. It was fascinating. A lot of media were there. It was a New York Times story 00:10:18.793 --> 00:10:22.078 - today. So that's very welcome, but we shouldn't be 00:10:22.434 --> 00:10:29.456 - We shouldn't assume that something is going to happen why? Because although the AI companies say yes, 00:10:29.456 --> 00:10:36.339 - we're producing something dangerous in fact Jacob Cox and as soon as he tweeted and got 170 million 00:10:36.339 --> 00:10:43.430 - views on his tweet or x-post He was followed by the head of AI safety for Open AI who confirmed it who 00:10:43.430 --> 00:10:49.694 - said yeah, I agree with everything. He's saying it's it's an existential danger is that to 00:10:49.986 --> 00:10:56.573 - Gain market share. Is that to promote a product? Would you promote a product saying it's got a 10 to 00:10:56.573 --> 00:11:03.160 - 100% chance of killing everyone? I Don't think so. I think that's kind of a cynical thing people say 00:11:03.160 --> 00:11:10.333 - they're just doing it because they're bragging about their capacity In any case, I wouldn't expect Washington 00:11:10.333 --> 00:11:17.246 - to take immediate action Simply because some 400 million dollars are pouring in every year for to prevent 00:11:17.246 --> 00:11:18.942 - regulation of any kind so 00:11:19.458 --> 00:11:26.309 - This is an ongoing thing and it's capturing our representatives and it's preventing them from doing 00:11:26.309 --> 00:11:33.503 - the right thing So we got to keep the pressure going. We got to do what we can Wherever we are to inform 00:11:33.503 --> 00:11:39.326 - people and to make sure that something happens soon. So, thank you Thank you so much 00:11:40.130 --> 00:11:47.408 - I just wanted to give council a brief update on Planning Commission this week. There were three petitions 00:11:47.408 --> 00:11:54.412 - that we dealt with two of them are already headed our way one of The ones headed to us already has to 00:11:54.412 --> 00:12:01.278 - do with UDO changes essentially changes and requirements related to what triggers site improvements 00:12:01.346 --> 00:12:08.329 - and those shifting and so that got forwarded by the Planning Commission with a positive recommendation 00:12:08.329 --> 00:12:15.719 - and Then there was another petition related to a rezone of our zoning map that Planning Commission forwarded 00:12:15.719 --> 00:12:23.041 - with a negative recommendation And then the third petition which was not forwarded yet, which was continued 00:12:23.041 --> 00:12:30.431 - is also UDO Changes and so one of the reasons why I want to talk about that one is where Planning Commission 00:12:30.431 --> 00:12:31.312 - got a little 00:12:31.312 --> 00:12:44.678 - bit held up was wanting to have continued discussion about changes being made to the UDO with regard 00:12:44.678 --> 00:12:46.398 - to duplexes. 00:12:47.202 --> 00:12:53.414 - Basically how duplexes are supposed to look and some of those regulations and discussing whether or 00:12:53.414 --> 00:12:59.688 - not to remove those or keep those And so we are gonna have lunch session tomorrow to talk about that 00:12:59.688 --> 00:13:05.963 - a little bit more But if anybody has any opinions on that, I was actually asked for council opinions 00:13:05.963 --> 00:13:12.175 - and I only have my own opinion So if anybody has any opinions on that, that would be great to share 00:13:12.175 --> 00:13:16.958 - with me and I also wanted to announce that the county has scheduled the must 00:13:17.058 --> 00:13:23.507 - meeting, the must task force, the municipal, I can't remember what they all stand for, but it has to 00:13:23.507 --> 00:13:29.955 - do with the financial changes coming down with SB1 and the House bill. And that meeting is Friday at 00:13:29.955 --> 00:13:36.660 - 1. And it's, of course, a public meeting. It is in the courthouse. And I do plan to attend that meeting. 00:13:36.660 --> 00:13:43.491 - But of course, if any of my colleagues are interested, you are also welcome to attend. It's also available 00:13:43.491 --> 00:13:45.726 - online. Thanks. Thank you so much. 00:13:46.114 --> 00:13:58.204 - Anyone else? Comments or updates? Okay. Thank you all so much. Let's move on now. We have a report from 00:13:58.204 --> 00:14:04.830 - Director Adam Wason. Oh, background music. That's great. 00:14:06.882 --> 00:14:12.805 - Party quite like a public works party and this is the this is a real big celebration tonight So I just 00:14:12.805 --> 00:14:19.015 - wanted to take a quick minute here before I turn it over to Mike Millett regional director for the American 00:14:19.015 --> 00:14:24.478 - Public Works Association We're here with Mike tonight to receive our official accreditation of 00:14:24.546 --> 00:14:29.778 - Plack and metals for all the work. We've been doing over the last three years, but before I do that 00:14:29.778 --> 00:14:35.115 - I just do you want to thank the staff in attendance particularly Christina Smith our special projects 00:14:35.115 --> 00:14:40.190 - coordinator Christina was our accreditation manager worked on this project for several years and 00:14:40.706 --> 00:14:47.418 - Joe Van Dievender, our Deputy Director of Public Works, as well as all of our different division heads, 00:14:47.418 --> 00:14:53.935 - JD Boroff, Michelle Wall, Virgil Souter, Corey Snyder, and Lazarus Sears, as well as Nate Nickel and 00:14:53.935 --> 00:15:00.582 - several other staff members. This was a huge undertaking over the course of many, many years, and just 00:15:00.582 --> 00:15:07.294 - want to thank them on camera and in front of the public tonight, and then turn it over to Mike as well. 00:15:11.906 --> 00:15:17.921 - And intern extraordinaire, Michailo Miller, our two-year SPIA fellow who did a ton of work. Thank you, 00:15:17.921 --> 00:15:24.112 - Michailo. Thank you. You did my job for me. Good evening, President Asari, members of the Common Council, 00:15:24.112 --> 00:15:30.069 - Mayor Thompson, Clerk Bolden, staff, volunteers, and residents of the city of Bloomington. My name is 00:15:30.069 --> 00:15:36.260 - Mike Millett, and I have the distinct privilege of being on the board of directors of the American Public 00:15:36.260 --> 00:15:38.654 - Works Association representing Region 5. 00:15:39.522 --> 00:15:45.372 - I bring you greetings on behalf of President Robert Garland, Chief Executive Officer Scott Grayson, 00:15:45.372 --> 00:15:51.749 - the entire Board of Directors, staff, and over 34,000 members of APWA. Greetings and sincere congratulations 00:15:51.749 --> 00:15:57.775 - on your Public Works department achieving accreditation. Accreditation is the mark of professionalism, 00:15:57.775 --> 00:16:03.859 - indicating that a Public Works agency has made the commitment to continuous improvement in the delivery 00:16:03.859 --> 00:16:07.486 - of operations and services to the residents of its community. 00:16:07.778 --> 00:16:13.336 - Accreditation recognizes an agency's policies procedures and practices which have been evaluated against 00:16:13.336 --> 00:16:18.948 - nationally recognized management standards That are determined to be appropriate for that specific agency 00:16:18.948 --> 00:16:24.453 - For example your department handles animal control whereas other communities may be in a location where 00:16:24.453 --> 00:16:29.694 - their county handles that function So therefore accreditation is tailored to the individual agency 00:16:31.042 --> 00:16:38.161 - A team of evaluators consisting of public works professionals from Missouri and Ohio reviewed 291 practices 00:16:38.161 --> 00:16:45.083 - to confirm your department's compliance with those nationally recognized standards. I am proud to report 00:16:45.083 --> 00:16:52.136 - that Bloomington Public Works achieved a rating of 100%. You have now joined 233 other accredited agencies 00:16:52.136 --> 00:16:57.278 - across North America and have become only the second in the state of Indiana. 00:17:00.130 --> 00:17:06.158 - Accreditation is a journey. We emphasize the continuity of evaluating those policy and procedures and 00:17:06.158 --> 00:17:12.185 - practices and adapting them to changing needs of the community. The process requires the input of the 00:17:12.185 --> 00:17:18.153 - whole department and adds a measure of ownership and, might I say, pride to every staff member. Now, 00:17:18.153 --> 00:17:24.122 - you may know that Public Works tends to be the most introverted group in a government. After all, we 00:17:24.122 --> 00:17:29.854 - are the mechanics, operators, technicians, and engineers. The most stereotypical left-brain folk 00:17:29.986 --> 00:17:36.488 - around begging the pardon of current neurological studies, we tend to keep our heads down, do our work, 00:17:36.488 --> 00:17:42.990 - and not want to draw attention to ourselves. Part of the accreditation process helps us to realize that 00:17:42.990 --> 00:17:49.367 - it is okay to be proud of our work and take the occasional victory lap and realize how important that 00:17:49.367 --> 00:17:55.620 - work is to the community we serve. Last March, I experienced a prime example of that importance. On 00:17:55.620 --> 00:17:58.558 - Monday night, I was driving to the road school 00:17:59.138 --> 00:18:05.722 - at that college that went up north, the other Big Ten school, the one that's not the national football 00:18:05.722 --> 00:18:12.114 - champion, that one. And anyway, I was heading south on 65. It was snowing, snow came down fast, and 00:18:12.114 --> 00:18:18.762 - they closed the interstate at Remington, so I got across, so I was gonna go on US 24, come down US 231. 00:18:18.762 --> 00:18:24.770 - That was also closed, so I had to go all the way to Reynolds to pick up I-43, Indiana 43. And 00:18:24.770 --> 00:18:28.286 - I'm white-knuckling it down, and as you are out to do, 00:18:28.514 --> 00:18:34.098 - Out in the distance was the savior of the day for me, which was the green and white flashing lights 00:18:34.098 --> 00:18:39.682 - of the Indot plow driver. So I followed that person mostly into the way the West fell off. I didn't 00:18:39.682 --> 00:18:45.378 - have a chance to thank them personally, but that is an example of when the public sees us. That's one 00:18:45.378 --> 00:18:51.073 - example of they know what it is that we do. But when things are going well, Public Works is generally 00:18:51.073 --> 00:18:56.658 - part of the background. But when we look at those 291 practices and see how vast is the breadth and 00:18:56.658 --> 00:18:57.886 - scope of Public Works 00:18:58.114 --> 00:19:04.995 - We realize that what we do truly matters to the core of what makes cities like Bloomington wonderful 00:19:04.995 --> 00:19:11.875 - places to live, work, and study. Now, please permit me to present this plaque officially to Director 00:19:11.875 --> 00:19:19.232 - Adam Wason and your Accreditation Manager Christina Smith as a recognition of this achievement and awarding 00:19:19.232 --> 00:19:24.478 - APWA accreditation to the Bloomington Public Works Department. There you go. 00:19:37.314 --> 00:19:50.225 - All right. We're also photo adverse. We sometimes tend to do that, too. Thank you. Thank you for doing 00:19:50.225 --> 00:20:03.011 - that during a council meeting. That was very exciting. We'll move on to consolation stage and screen. 00:20:03.011 --> 00:20:06.270 - We have Gabe Golden here. 00:20:07.138 --> 00:20:13.851 - Over to you, sir. Thank you so much for having me here. Love following our friends at Public Works. 00:20:13.851 --> 00:20:20.631 - My name is Gabe Glodin. I'm the managing director of Constellations Stage and Screen. Thank you guys 00:20:20.631 --> 00:20:27.545 - so much for having us here at Council, members of the public. Thank you. Oh, do I just hit the forward 00:20:27.545 --> 00:20:29.022 - button? I'm a genius. 00:20:29.218 --> 00:20:34.386 - Just wanted to come here as Constellation enters our fifth year of operations as the managing partner 00:20:34.386 --> 00:20:39.453 - for the city-owned John Walden Art Center and the final year of our current contract, I should add. 00:20:39.453 --> 00:20:44.773 - We thought it'd be an opportune time just to kind of run through some updates on the state of the city's 00:20:44.773 --> 00:20:50.094 - community arts anchor here in downtown Bloomington. I'm just gonna run briefly through some information, 00:20:50.094 --> 00:20:55.313 - including operations and program highlights, and hopefully, we'll have some time for you guys to shoot 00:20:55.313 --> 00:20:56.478 - some questions my way. 00:20:57.506 --> 00:21:04.232 - Just some recent history, as many of you know, in July 2022, three local arts organizations, the Bloomington 00:21:04.232 --> 00:21:10.650 - Playwrights Project, Cardinal Stage Company, and Pegasus Institute merged to create Constellation Stage 00:21:10.650 --> 00:21:17.438 - and Screen. Concurrently with this merger, we worked with the city to enter a five-year management agreement. 00:21:17.570 --> 00:21:24.156 - to reopen the center in October of 2022 after a $1.5 million repair and renovations campaign. I don't 00:21:24.156 --> 00:21:30.743 - recommend doing a three-way merger and doing a giant renovation at the same time. Can't recommend it, 00:21:30.743 --> 00:21:37.265 - but we did it. Our manager agreement also established the Waldron's visual arts program, which still 00:21:37.265 --> 00:21:38.750 - is going strong today. 00:21:39.138 --> 00:21:44.845 - And then two years later, the city and Constellation entered into an agreement to support the Waldron 00:21:44.845 --> 00:21:50.497 - operations and programming, including the employment of a full-time facilities manager, enhancements 00:21:50.497 --> 00:21:56.260 - to our visual arts programming, and the establishment of an open stages grant program, which I'm going 00:21:56.260 --> 00:22:01.968 - to talk about in a little bit. It's really exciting. That partnership has provided the foundation for 00:22:01.968 --> 00:22:04.094 - continued investment in the building. 00:22:04.226 --> 00:22:10.931 - And since 2022, we've invested an additional $200,000 in leasehold improvements and technical upgrades, 00:22:10.931 --> 00:22:17.378 - including new lighting, sound, and projection equipment, a new art gallery hanging system, and even 00:22:17.378 --> 00:22:23.954 - assisted listening devices for both of our venues. So now if you have anyone that has hearing issues, 00:22:23.954 --> 00:22:29.950 - we have those devices free of charge. Anyone can come up to our box office and request them. 00:22:30.210 --> 00:22:36.023 - All of these enhancements, obviously focusing on the Waldron's accessibility and production quality. 00:22:36.023 --> 00:22:41.778 - And obviously, none of these improvements would have been able to be possible if it weren't for all 00:22:41.778 --> 00:22:47.878 - of these artists that we need to fill the spaces with incredible art, right? So there was another barrier 00:22:47.878 --> 00:22:53.863 - of accessibility that we needed to address, and that was affordability. So all of, as many of you know, 00:22:53.863 --> 00:22:57.086 - larger established organizations like Constellations C, 00:22:57.218 --> 00:23:03.512 - venue and occupancy cost is just one piece of the pie, but our vast majority of all of our community 00:23:03.512 --> 00:23:09.869 - arts organizations that have budgets under $100,000 a year and are volunteer run, well, those groups, 00:23:09.869 --> 00:23:16.350 - those costs are incredibly prohibitive to them. Rental and occupancy accounts for a huge chunk of their 00:23:16.350 --> 00:23:22.768 - annual production budget, and so that's why we work directly with the city to create open stages. It's 00:23:22.768 --> 00:23:23.454 - an ongoing 00:23:23.522 --> 00:23:29.401 - grant program that subsidizes performance and exhibition space for Bloomington-based artists 00:23:29.401 --> 00:23:35.723 - and organizations. And with this grant, the Rose Fire Bay Theater, our 70-seat black box, rents for 00:23:35.723 --> 00:23:42.361 - less than $800 a week. Our 150-seat auditorium rents for under $1,600 a week. I can tell you, as someone 00:23:42.361 --> 00:23:48.810 - who used to rent the auditorium at the Waldron, that is a huge discount and makes it very capable for 00:23:48.810 --> 00:23:53.488 - these spaces to be more occupied with amazing work and, more importantly, 00:23:53.488 --> 00:23:59.986 - giving these artists the opportunity to devote more resources to that work. So we're talking about more 00:23:59.986 --> 00:24:06.358 - consistent, high-quality arts programming throughout the year. But of course, this level of access at 00:24:06.358 --> 00:24:12.793 - such a low cost requires a significant operating investment. This past year, Waldron-specific expenses 00:24:12.793 --> 00:24:13.918 - for Constellation 00:24:13.986 --> 00:24:21.120 - totaled over $200,000. That's an increase of over 18% from last fiscal year. Most of those increases 00:24:21.120 --> 00:24:28.324 - were in places like overhead, like maintenance and utilities, and our open stages subsidies, which is 00:24:28.324 --> 00:24:35.458 - really exciting. These additional resources that we've devoted to Waldron operations absolutely have 00:24:35.458 --> 00:24:38.142 - translated into substantially greater 00:24:38.274 --> 00:24:45.286 - public and artistic activity. And I wanted to just briefly share some highlights from this past season. 00:24:45.286 --> 00:24:52.702 - Attendance wise, Waldron is open for the public 188 days out of the year. That's huge. That's a 42% increase. 00:24:52.898 --> 00:24:58.394 - from just two years ago, which is really amazing. More than 21,000 people attended over 54 00:24:58.394 --> 00:25:04.614 - public performances and events. And the Visual Arts Program, too, is thriving with over 30 exhibitions 00:25:04.614 --> 00:25:10.714 - last season, featuring 100 artists, including the successful launch of a holiday market in December, 00:25:10.714 --> 00:25:16.813 - which is really cool. I encourage you to check that out this December, as well. And, of course, more 00:25:16.813 --> 00:25:21.886 - days open to the public means more opportunities for artists to be seen, supported, 00:25:22.050 --> 00:25:28.986 - Paid and our open stages grant program. I think really creates that huge impact that we're looking for 00:25:28.986 --> 00:25:36.056 - just in this last year We awarded 27 open stages grants representing over $38,000 in subsidies for these 00:25:36.056 --> 00:25:42.991 - groups That's a 42% increase from the previous fiscal year, which is really awesome. That means grants 00:25:42.991 --> 00:25:47.166 - supported 20 area artists and subsidized 225 rental days it's 00:25:47.522 --> 00:25:54.184 - To me, abundantly clear that this public investment in the Waldron Arts Facilities is making access 00:25:54.184 --> 00:26:01.246 - to these spaces more affordable and is creating a really measurable public impact. So in closing, Waldron 00:26:01.538 --> 00:26:07.905 - Going great, more effective, accessible, and capable because of our sustained partnership with the investment 00:26:07.905 --> 00:26:13.692 - from Constellation and the city. And if you haven't been to the Walder in a minute, I encourage you 00:26:13.692 --> 00:26:19.538 - to come. I just want to add a live theater. It's been AI-free since around 3000 BC and will continue 00:26:19.538 --> 00:26:23.358 - to be. So if you don't like AI and its encroachment in our lives, 00:26:23.458 --> 00:26:30.039 - come check out some live theater. Definitely this weekend, I encourage you to check out, you know, we've 00:26:30.039 --> 00:26:36.370 - got a little bit tipsy, which is a cool new original musical from our upstart performing arts groups 00:26:36.370 --> 00:26:38.814 - after the storm. And Constellation has 00:26:38.914 --> 00:26:44.713 - really cool show called Heist Running and its final weekend. This is a show that started at Bloomington 00:26:44.713 --> 00:26:50.401 - Playwrights Project, originated from an idea here in Bloomington. It closed due to complications with 00:26:50.401 --> 00:26:55.977 - COVID during the pandemic, has since gone on to gross millions of dollars in North America, and has 00:26:55.977 --> 00:27:00.382 - come back home here to Bloomington. It's a real incredible success story about 00:27:00.482 --> 00:27:06.212 - what we can do when we invest in the local arts community here. And I can't stress how wonderful it 00:27:06.212 --> 00:27:12.057 - is to see this building so vibrant and alive with art. So just a big thank you to the mayor's office, 00:27:12.057 --> 00:27:17.960 - all of our partners at ESD, Jane and Paige have been wonderful. A big thank you to Jennifer Lloyd, our 00:27:17.960 --> 00:27:24.263 - Director of Operations. She absolutely helps us document all of the great work that goes on at Constellation. 00:27:24.263 --> 00:27:25.982 - Couldn't do this without her. 00:27:26.114 --> 00:27:32.225 - I just want to say finally that I don't think the Waldron has realized its full potential. We're definitely 00:27:32.225 --> 00:27:37.940 - going to need some further investment to ensure that long-term viability, but hopefully you see that 00:27:37.940 --> 00:27:43.598 - we're making great progress. So thank you again and happy to field any questions you might have for 00:27:43.598 --> 00:27:45.182 - me. Thank you ever so much. 00:27:51.714 --> 00:27:59.314 - Updates I guess the main question I have is since it's been a two years since the two-year subsidy was 00:27:59.314 --> 00:28:06.988 - agreed upon I'm wondering what the status is of the city's ongoing support for the Waldron I don't know 00:28:06.988 --> 00:28:14.736 - director Cooper Smith wants to speak to that or if you can Mr. Golden Speak to that the the city support 00:28:14.736 --> 00:28:21.598 - has remained consistent We are we are on track to fund the Waldron operations the city level 00:28:21.698 --> 00:28:27.975 - the same amount that we were in the last two years I Don't know Jane if you want to add anything else 00:28:27.975 --> 00:28:34.252 - that I don't want to misspeak on this issue Hi Jane Cooper Smith director of economic and sustainable 00:28:34.252 --> 00:28:40.530 - development I would just say there's a line item in our 2027 budget proposal for sixty three thousand 00:28:40.530 --> 00:28:44.222 - three hundred and thirty three dollars, which is the annual 00:28:44.674 --> 00:28:52.995 - Divided total the two-year agreement was negotiated at all at a funny time of year So we were able to 00:28:52.995 --> 00:29:01.316 - break it up over the course of three years. So the 63 333 is a third of that total support So they'll 00:29:01.316 --> 00:29:09.556 - have that coming in January We hope if the budget is approved and then we'll be in discussions about 00:29:09.556 --> 00:29:14.206 - other ways to support them as we can Thank you Thank you 00:29:14.690 --> 00:29:20.542 - Sounds like you guys are doing some exciting things over there. I was just curious You had a comparison 00:29:20.542 --> 00:29:26.170 - of the hundred and eighty eight days and twenty five twenty six to twenty three twenty four But not 00:29:26.170 --> 00:29:31.797 - attendee is do you happen to know off the top of your head? What's your actual attendee? Twenty one 00:29:31.797 --> 00:29:37.424 - thousand is in there right that was I mean, yeah, I mean compared to the prior year We can we could 00:29:37.424 --> 00:29:41.982 - definitely pull those numbers again into but I don't have them in front of me. I 00:29:42.306 --> 00:29:50.012 - I'm just kind of curious because my guess is more Considering you were open a lot more days probably 00:29:50.012 --> 00:29:57.871 - more but I guess I'm just yeah Thanks for being here for this report. I Love this building as you know 00:29:57.871 --> 00:30:05.500 - has such a rich history to within our community. So I'm just curious What would you say is the like 00:30:05.500 --> 00:30:11.070 - ratio of? constellation use versus community use within the building and 00:30:11.394 --> 00:30:17.244 - It's a great question. Constellation does use the Waldron as its primary venue for its theatrical 00:30:17.244 --> 00:30:23.095 - productions. We're doing seven productions this season, mostly in the auditorium, but we do have, 00:30:23.095 --> 00:30:29.124 - you know, more than 50% of the auditorium days are available for use, but it is definitely the least 00:30:29.124 --> 00:30:31.870 - open in terms of venues for community groups. 00:30:32.162 --> 00:30:38.039 - But I will add that we also manage the constellation playhouse on 9th Street just up the street here 00:30:38.039 --> 00:30:43.916 - and that venue is booming with community activity and we have open stages grants available for those 00:30:43.916 --> 00:30:49.734 - folks too. So I'd say in terms of all of the total days open and constellation manage venues to the 00:30:49.734 --> 00:30:55.844 - public, we're talking maybe a quarter of those are constellation events. The rest is this really vibrant 00:30:55.844 --> 00:30:57.182 - growing community arts 00:30:57.538 --> 00:31:03.730 - Infrastructure particularly the performing arts sector. We saw two new theater groups established themselves 00:31:03.730 --> 00:31:09.467 - Just this last year the year before that two other new ones and all of them have multiple production 00:31:09.467 --> 00:31:15.318 - seasons that are coming out of constellation managed venue city-owned venues like the Waldron So yeah, 00:31:15.318 --> 00:31:21.226 - it's a really exciting time to get involved in the arts and it's not just constellation It's this whole 00:31:21.226 --> 00:31:24.862 - universe of community arts organizations that are doing amazing 00:31:26.338 --> 00:31:32.554 - I was just at a production at the Playhouse last weekend with Cyrano. Yeah. So that was really exciting 00:31:32.554 --> 00:31:38.591 - to be back in that space, too. Thank you. Thanks, Courtney. Thank you again. Anyone else? All right, 00:31:38.591 --> 00:31:44.986 - well, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening. Well, two great reports, wonderful 00:31:44.986 --> 00:31:51.262 - news. Anybody in the, oh, first, actually, council committees. Do we have any council committee reports? 00:31:52.578 --> 00:31:59.322 - Fantastic. So does anyone in the public want to give some type of a public happy report? Or it doesn't 00:31:59.322 --> 00:32:05.935 - have to be happy, but does anybody have a report that you'd like to give? You'll have three minutes. 00:32:05.935 --> 00:32:12.613 - Just make sure you state your name or something similar for the record and write it down importantly. 00:32:12.613 --> 00:32:17.982 - And then we'll go online. We'll start in council chambers. To you, Mr. Alexander. 00:32:20.194 --> 00:32:27.261 - all that preamble I gave, you know. Is there anybody online? Well, well. Okay. There you go, sorry. 00:32:27.261 --> 00:32:34.329 - Go ahead. A little technology trouble. I'm Greg Alexander. When this council failed to stand up for 00:32:34.329 --> 00:32:41.820 - a pedestrianized Kirkwood, there was a lot of commentary that I felt kind of missed the mark. Some people 00:32:41.820 --> 00:32:48.958 - clearly expressed a vision of Kirkwood as a kind of regional theme park where people would come from 00:32:49.346 --> 00:32:56.574 - neighboring counties and bring their money and their business to our downtown and I think that's you 00:32:56.574 --> 00:33:04.160 - know Others wanted it to be either a perfect Sylvan Glade or like car supremacy and they couldn't imagine 00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:11.460 - anything in between I feel like they're kind of missing the point about what our actual reality is in 00:33:11.460 --> 00:33:17.758 - this town is that there's not very many cars or people on Kirkwood in the summer and so 00:33:18.146 --> 00:33:25.043 - You know, we need a good public space for the people that are here, both students and townies. And we 00:33:25.043 --> 00:33:31.804 - told you again and again, we enjoyed the no frills closure, the pedestrianization. So during county 00:33:31.804 --> 00:33:38.972 - summer this year, hard leaning cars, hard leaning people, still strict car supremacy, there was a rolling 00:33:38.972 --> 00:33:45.598 - closure for construction and so we did see that there was a demand for kids to play in the street 00:33:45.794 --> 00:33:52.649 - I saw kids playing in the street in those roll-in closures. It was not as good an environment as in 00:33:52.649 --> 00:33:59.504 - years past. Then August rolled around and the environment suddenly changed. For several weekends we 00:33:59.504 --> 00:34:06.497 - had like Taste and Pride, you know, pedestrianized Kirkwood for those people. Presumably several more 00:34:06.497 --> 00:34:13.352 - over the next couple weeks or months. Now we see how that works. We see what's really at work here. 00:34:13.352 --> 00:34:15.134 - These are commercialized. 00:34:15.234 --> 00:34:23.065 - for-profit, well, not necessarily for-profit for all the participants, but they're vendors. There are 00:34:23.065 --> 00:34:30.742 - steering committees. There's branding. There's sponsorships. To put a fine point on it, at Pride, a 00:34:30.742 --> 00:34:38.189 - lot of the booths were just big corporations trying to put a positive PR spin on themselves. So, 00:34:38.189 --> 00:34:44.254 - you know, it's clearly an attempt to build a visitor or tourism-based economy, 00:34:44.546 --> 00:34:51.016 - not to build a space for us. So I hear this slogan, local, over and over. Local is not something you 00:34:51.016 --> 00:34:57.614 - feel in your heart. Local is not ownership or profits. Local is about location. I am loyal to downtown 00:34:57.614 --> 00:35:04.277 - because I live right here. Something that's designed around visitors will be very fragile. It'll always 00:35:04.277 --> 00:35:10.683 - be hollow. Visitors can always go somewhere else if they're willing to travel. But something that's 00:35:10.683 --> 00:35:13.950 - designed around locals, it'll be attractive to us. 00:35:14.306 --> 00:35:20.594 - It'll be attractive to everybody. So I think some of you were comfortable siding with drivers 00:35:20.594 --> 00:35:27.283 - over pedestrians, some of you comfortable siding with old people over young people. But did anybody 00:35:27.283 --> 00:35:33.972 - really mean to be siding with money over people, with tourism, over placemaking, with visitors over 00:35:33.972 --> 00:35:40.729 - locals? If you want to look at what is destroying the soul of Bloomington, exhibit number one should 00:35:40.729 --> 00:35:42.334 - be this policy. Thanks. 00:35:43.458 --> 00:35:53.815 - Thank you so much. Is there anybody else? Is there anybody else in town who in town? Good evening. My 00:35:53.815 --> 00:36:04.070 - name is Justin vassal. I just wanted to kind of follow up on some of the Comments that councilmember 00:36:04.070 --> 00:36:13.310 - Rallo made earlier this meeting just about the the joint meeting that happened between the 00:36:13.474 --> 00:36:20.841 - Commission on sustainability and the environmental Commission last night Regarding light pollution resolution 00:36:20.841 --> 00:36:27.606 - So I'll probably be here at another time to go through more of the specifics of what that resolution 00:36:27.606 --> 00:36:34.438 - entails But really it's about thinking about what we do with our light where it goes and What sort of 00:36:34.438 --> 00:36:41.470 - access we have as a community to the sky to the stars to the Milky Way? and the effect that light has on 00:36:41.570 --> 00:36:48.276 - You know the various creatures around us birds bats that sort of thing But for me sort of as a personal 00:36:48.276 --> 00:36:55.046 - reflection, you know, one of the most exciting things about this resolution was the collaborative nature 00:36:55.046 --> 00:37:01.816 - of it The two commissions sort of came together and we spent months digging into the research and trying 00:37:01.816 --> 00:37:06.910 - to put together a set of recommendations that were Largely achievable maybe in 00:37:07.010 --> 00:37:13.048 - some circumstances, maybe a little bit of a stretch, but a good kind of stretch, but nothing that's 00:37:13.048 --> 00:37:19.448 - really impossible. And we really tried to focus on the benefits here. We call it the dark sky resolution, 00:37:19.448 --> 00:37:25.728 - so it's about making the skies darker. It's not really about making the streets darker or anything like 00:37:25.728 --> 00:37:31.765 - that, right? And we focus a lot on things like light temperature. Most people would agree that when 00:37:31.765 --> 00:37:36.958 - they go outside at night and you see this bright blue blinding light, that that's not 00:37:37.250 --> 00:37:43.284 - very enjoyable. We can convert some of those to lower temperature lights, warmer amber sort of lights. 00:37:43.284 --> 00:37:49.202 - There's a handful of recommendations there that hopefully could send Bloomington in the direction of 00:37:49.202 --> 00:37:55.529 - getting that sort of dark sky certification sometime in the future. But yeah, it was really a collaborative 00:37:55.529 --> 00:37:59.806 - project. I mean, we're two different commissions that have two different 00:38:00.066 --> 00:38:05.952 - Different missions and a different focus, but this was one area of sort of overlap between them and 00:38:05.952 --> 00:38:11.896 - so it was a great opportunity to collaborate and you know hosting a Joint meeting as I think you all 00:38:11.896 --> 00:38:17.841 - know between two bodies that normally doesn't meet together is a bit of a lift But we made it happen 00:38:17.841 --> 00:38:20.254 - and we're really happy with at least I'm 00:38:20.450 --> 00:38:28.301 - Personally, very happy with the result that came out of it. And so we'll be transmitting it to you soon, 00:38:28.301 --> 00:38:36.076 - and we would welcome an opportunity to come and brief you all on some of the specifics at a later time. 00:38:36.076 --> 00:38:43.030 - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anyone else like to make public comment? All right. 00:38:43.030 --> 00:38:49.086 - We'll go online. Is there anybody online? OK, fantastic. We will come back then. 00:38:49.314 --> 00:38:59.102 - We have some appointments and to Commission's another hiring Yes, sir. Yeah, please on behalf of interview 00:38:59.102 --> 00:39:08.982 - committee team see This is for to appoint Cedra Luna to seat c2 of the Commission on the status of children 00:39:08.982 --> 00:39:15.294 - and youth fantastic there's a motion and a second any discussion and 00:39:18.786 --> 00:39:31.279 - All those in favor say aye Any opposed all right that carries are there any other motions I Would like 00:39:31.279 --> 00:39:44.622 - I would like to make a motion to appoint Zack Ammerman to what to seat see three of the Public Transportation 00:39:44.622 --> 00:39:48.382 - Corporation board of directors 00:39:49.570 --> 00:39:56.966 - and I have a little bit of a discussion on this. So I am a part of interview committee A, is that right? 00:39:56.966 --> 00:40:04.080 - Yes. And we had several meetings and four interviews with applicants and in our last two meetings we 00:40:04.080 --> 00:40:11.476 - were sort of waiting for some decisions to be made and did not make a recommendation to bring to council 00:40:11.476 --> 00:40:18.590 - but thought that a council member could bring a recommendation just so we would not have to schedule 00:40:19.138 --> 00:40:27.576 - another meeting. Today, one board member, Kent McDaniel, announced his resignation from the board. And 00:40:27.576 --> 00:40:35.932 - I also actually want to first start by just saying a big thank you to Kent McDaniel. He served on the 00:40:35.932 --> 00:40:44.534 - board for 36 years. He studied public transit in college. He drove IU campus bus when he was in college. 00:40:44.534 --> 00:40:48.958 - And he was the director of IU transportation services 00:40:49.506 --> 00:40:57.292 - So he has really shepherded Bloomington Transit to where it is today and I have great appreciation for 00:40:57.292 --> 00:41:05.305 - him So thank you to him and then I wanted to recommend Zack Ammerman because the board as I think council 00:41:05.305 --> 00:41:12.638 - knows is five members and What it is missing right now is someone who consistently rides transit 00:41:13.442 --> 00:41:21.113 - And Zach is a person who consistently uses public transit as his primary mode of transportation. And 00:41:21.113 --> 00:41:28.709 - then he also has a background in data mapping and diving into numbers. And so in the interview with 00:41:28.709 --> 00:41:36.532 - him, it was really neat to see him synthesize pretty quickly stats over the years, patterns, and ideas 00:41:36.532 --> 00:41:39.646 - of change. And so I think that skill set 00:41:40.226 --> 00:41:46.245 - would be a really good addition to the board. And then the third thing I wanted to mention is that the 00:41:46.245 --> 00:41:52.264 - board is five members but by state code it can be seven and at some point I think it would be good for 00:41:52.264 --> 00:41:58.107 - city council to discuss whether or not the board could be seven or should be seven instead in order 00:41:58.107 --> 00:42:04.009 - to bring in more skill sets and more experiences because it's hard to get everything you really want 00:42:04.009 --> 00:42:06.814 - for Bloomington Transit on a five person board. 00:42:07.394 --> 00:42:17.532 - So that is my lengthy explanation of my recommendation for Zach to see see three There's a motion is 00:42:17.532 --> 00:42:26.366 - there a second motion and a second any further discussion councilmember Sasberg As well 00:42:26.466 --> 00:42:33.015 - And I also wanna say in terms of the five versus seven board members, I did bring that up in the CCP 00:42:33.015 --> 00:42:39.565 - meeting and I followed up in a couple other areas and there's actually an email thread right now and 00:42:39.565 --> 00:42:46.503 - BT actually in their meeting last night, they discussed that as well. So I think that maybe our discussing 00:42:46.503 --> 00:42:53.182 - that during our interview committee was something that led to a wider discussion about that. So that's 00:42:53.182 --> 00:42:55.646 - certainly in motion and I'm glad that 00:42:55.778 --> 00:43:03.536 - getting brought up tonight, just so that we can make sure that this appointment can get made, because 00:43:03.536 --> 00:43:11.295 - this board is quite small. Thank you so much. Any other comments or questions? Okay, seeing none, all 00:43:11.295 --> 00:43:19.129 - those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that carries them. Congratulations, Mr. Emerson. 00:43:19.129 --> 00:43:20.574 - Any other motions? 00:43:28.706 --> 00:43:39.110 - Well, the next item on the agenda is Historic Preservation Commission appointment removal is I don't 00:43:39.110 --> 00:43:49.822 - know if there's a motion on it But I would like to hear the basis for having this on our agenda There's 00:43:49.822 --> 00:43:57.342 - a motion to hear I guess a point of information Point of information and 00:43:57.570 --> 00:44:03.984 - I think we both have Clerk Crossley here and Attorney Allen. I don't know who would be best suited to 00:44:03.984 --> 00:44:10.398 - answer that question. The basis for why it's on the agenda is because it was considered last time and 00:44:10.398 --> 00:44:16.749 - it was specifically moved to be heard at this meeting. If you mean the general basis in terms of the 00:44:16.749 --> 00:44:17.566 - allegations, 00:44:17.762 --> 00:44:23.967 - Those were the report of conduct came in. I think the the clerk had Observed some of the meetings and 00:44:23.967 --> 00:44:30.355 - written a memo to council council leadership after a discussion with me We agreed that the council staff 00:44:30.355 --> 00:44:36.621 - would send out a letter To notify of the opportunity to be heard and so that council could take formal 00:44:36.621 --> 00:44:43.069 - action on it And that's why it was placed on the agenda originally last meeting and then it was continued 00:44:43.069 --> 00:44:44.286 - to this meeting and 00:44:50.690 --> 00:44:59.456 - You all should have received a An information email that was sent at 1026 last night I love this job 00:44:59.456 --> 00:45:08.136 - so much that I send emails this late. Um, so I sent this email to all of you all last night to also 00:45:08.136 --> 00:45:15.774 - highlight what I had sent to council president, I'm sorry and council members do like I 00:45:15.874 --> 00:45:24.888 - In respect to your code of conduct that you all had implemented earlier this year I would like to say 00:45:24.888 --> 00:45:34.167 - for the record Do I think that at the end of this day a day do I think that? council appointment anybody 00:45:34.167 --> 00:45:39.646 - related to boards and commissions should be able to address a 00:45:40.002 --> 00:45:46.965 - and agree and disagree and do all of those things, absolutely. Just like all of you that sit up there 00:45:46.965 --> 00:45:54.133 - each and every time you have your meetings, you agree to disagree and sometimes you agree. And sometimes 00:45:54.133 --> 00:46:01.097 - those conversations can be heavy and sometimes you move along. However, what I have observed and what 00:46:01.097 --> 00:46:05.534 - staff has also observed and I believe there is also some pending 00:46:05.698 --> 00:46:12.828 - resignations pending on this particular moment. This is where we are. I don't take this very lightly. 00:46:12.828 --> 00:46:19.888 - I take all things into consideration and I think in the five years that I've been here with the city 00:46:19.888 --> 00:46:26.878 - boards and commissions have had a lot of scrutiny and sometimes I think we can we need to back off. 00:46:27.170 --> 00:46:33.879 - And then sometimes we have to take these things that staff is going through and some of the concerns 00:46:33.879 --> 00:46:40.589 - that are happening. And we really need to take a look into what it is. The other thing that I wanted 00:46:40.589 --> 00:46:47.365 - to highlight and point out is, again, you all implemented this code of conduct earlier this year with 00:46:47.365 --> 00:46:54.140 - that. You have a committee on council processes. I know there's been some conversation related to how 00:46:54.140 --> 00:46:55.934 - these processes should go. 00:46:56.066 --> 00:47:03.179 - That's something that also should be taken up at the committee on council processes I'd just like to 00:47:03.179 --> 00:47:10.432 - say the code of conduct is a tool that you all have at your discretion And code does say that if folks 00:47:10.432 --> 00:47:17.475 - violate the code of conduct that could be cause for removal And the points that were discussed last 00:47:17.475 --> 00:47:21.982 - night and the email and again just kind of highlighting what is 00:47:22.370 --> 00:47:28.267 - Points are in the code of conduct. It does say members appointed to city boards of commission shall 00:47:28.267 --> 00:47:34.518 - comply with applicable laws State laws city ordinances resolutions city policies members shall be patient 00:47:34.518 --> 00:47:40.416 - respectful polite courteous to each other as well as members of the public and city staff and shall 00:47:40.416 --> 00:47:46.313 - act ethically in all matters before the body members shall not engage in behavior or speech that is 00:47:46.313 --> 00:47:48.318 - detrimental to city operations or 00:47:48.450 --> 00:47:54.909 - or the public interest, members shall respect the rule of the chair and the city staff, follow the procedures 00:47:54.909 --> 00:48:00.780 - set in code by laws or rules and regulations and in Robert's Rules of Order. When speaking, members 00:48:00.780 --> 00:48:06.711 - shall be mindful of the public's time and fellow members' time and shall remain on topic and without 00:48:06.711 --> 00:48:12.641 - unnecessary repetition to facilitate the work of the board or commission. And the meetings that I've 00:48:12.641 --> 00:48:15.518 - observed and the meeting that I actually went to 00:48:16.130 --> 00:48:23.432 - There are some violations that are in there. There was one meeting that business was held up for 45 00:48:23.432 --> 00:48:30.733 - minutes and there was a petition that was supposed to be heard, but unfortunately that was a little 00:48:30.733 --> 00:48:38.035 - bit delayed until the dust settled and things were able to proceed. So again, I don't think that, I 00:48:38.035 --> 00:48:42.270 - take this very seriously, and I am not of the mindset of, 00:48:42.658 --> 00:48:50.246 - Let's just get ready and we don't like something. Let's just remove we see that in our federal government 00:48:50.246 --> 00:48:57.548 - and our state government That is not the role that city government should play. However This is where 00:48:57.548 --> 00:49:04.922 - we are right now and based upon what you all have implemented That would under my recommendations that 00:49:04.922 --> 00:49:09.790 - that's what I see Thank You clerk cross Lee to councilman Stossberg 00:49:10.402 --> 00:49:19.337 - Thank you. Thank you Claire Crosley for your memo and your perspective on this from your seat in terms 00:49:19.337 --> 00:49:28.012 - of your position I Have had a chance to review those three meetings. I've watched those and I agree 00:49:28.012 --> 00:49:35.038 - with Claire Crosley's Conclusion that the code of conduct was in violation and I 00:49:35.138 --> 00:49:43.140 - didn't want to just punt this again tonight, so I was like, I need to come in with a plan. And so my 00:49:43.140 --> 00:49:51.220 - thought is, depending on what you all think and whether you all have been able to review those and or 00:49:51.220 --> 00:49:56.766 - feel comfortable in just taking the recommendations to either vote or 00:49:57.154 --> 00:50:03.215 - have a motion around finding mr. Cross and violation of the code of conduct and removal or Potentially 00:50:03.215 --> 00:50:09.218 - referring this to a committee and I was thinking referring it back to the interview committee that is 00:50:09.218 --> 00:50:14.749 - in charge of the this board's appointment because you know, we generally take recommendations 00:50:14.749 --> 00:50:18.398 - for appointments from interview committees and so in terms of 00:50:18.594 --> 00:50:25.248 - Process I agree like the committee for council process Maybe needs to figure out like let's nail down 00:50:25.248 --> 00:50:31.968 - a process for how we actually do this and assess it But unless we all feel comfortable, I think taking 00:50:31.968 --> 00:50:38.623 - a vote on the actual Removal tonight. I I would think that moving it to the interview committee might 00:50:38.623 --> 00:50:43.646 - be an appropriate place for it Thank you Other comments counselor Puma Smith 00:50:47.202 --> 00:50:55.735 - Yeah, I don't feel comfortable voting on this tonight the Code of Conduct Was also violated by Other 00:50:55.735 --> 00:51:04.353 - members of this Commission because they did not follow Robert's Rules of Order So, I mean where do we 00:51:04.353 --> 00:51:12.886 - draw the line do they have to violate? More than one of these things in the Code of Conduct. There's 00:51:12.886 --> 00:51:16.350 - one enough is the degree of violation of 00:51:16.738 --> 00:51:29.346 - considered I I just think there we need to we need to act very deliberatively here because It's I Think 00:51:29.346 --> 00:51:41.712 - there were legitimate concerns raised by mr. Cross as to what occurred at the June 25th meeting I did 00:51:41.712 --> 00:51:45.470 - watch the meetings on cats and 00:51:45.826 --> 00:51:58.661 - So before we remove anybody, I think we need to consider process and how we determine whether somebody 00:51:58.661 --> 00:52:11.121 - will be removed and also address, I mean, frankly, I think watching the July, the second meeting in 00:52:11.121 --> 00:52:15.358 - July, whenever that was, I think, 00:52:15.682 --> 00:52:24.579 - Just a recognition that the Commission did the wrong thing would go a long way And that was not forthcoming 00:52:24.579 --> 00:52:32.982 - So anyway, I think I think we need to work on this and I think of removing him from the Commission is 00:52:32.982 --> 00:52:41.631 - not going to really solve the The problems that underlie this Thank you so much. I'm Councilman Borrello 00:52:41.631 --> 00:52:44.350 - Well, I concur with my colleague 00:52:44.642 --> 00:52:54.071 - Smith that I Think this is has a level of complexity to it and needs some careful deliberation I would 00:52:54.071 --> 00:53:03.776 - prefer it go to the committee and council process actually because they have the I Think they're uniquely 00:53:03.776 --> 00:53:13.022 - qualified to Because they did essentially decide on the on the quality on the and the rules yes, and 00:53:13.794 --> 00:53:22.934 - And that's not to evade because I'm a member of team C but just in terms of Put it this way it may be 00:53:22.934 --> 00:53:32.164 - setting a setting a review standard for the future That's I think this committee is the best place for 00:53:32.164 --> 00:53:38.526 - it to be considered. So that's what I would recommend Thank you others 00:53:39.234 --> 00:53:45.999 - I'll add, I think I 100% agree with Councillor Piedmont-Smith first off. The second thing that I might 00:53:45.999 --> 00:53:52.699 - say and I also agree with Councillor Stasberg, at least the suggestion of moving this to a committee. 00:53:52.699 --> 00:53:59.070 - I like the idea of moving it to the hiring committee. I do think there's two separate questions. 00:53:59.234 --> 00:54:06.123 - referring it to, I said hiring, I'm sorry, the interview committee as what I meant. I do think that 00:54:06.123 --> 00:54:13.081 - there's two separate processes though here. I think the question of establishing a better process, I 00:54:13.081 --> 00:54:20.108 - think that appropriately sits within committee and council processes. I think the question of sort of 00:54:20.108 --> 00:54:24.862 - what recommendation the interview committee makes could be separate. 00:54:25.250 --> 00:54:33.066 - If we did vote for it today, I would say no. I mean, on the basis of the fact that, as you said, I think 00:54:33.066 --> 00:54:40.584 - that there were a lot of issues generally. Now, I'll also add, though, that when we adopted this, my 00:54:40.584 --> 00:54:48.177 - personal view was that we shouldn't have the for cause statement in our council appointments, that as 00:54:48.177 --> 00:54:50.782 - the mayor is able to remove people 00:54:51.042 --> 00:54:57.121 - You know as they wish again, I wouldn't vote to remove mr. Cross to be clear, but I do think that as 00:54:57.121 --> 00:55:03.200 - we're considering this process I do I would hope that we could also revisit this question of whether 00:55:03.200 --> 00:55:09.701 - or not we Need a process at all. I mean it seems to me that you know people if you're appointed by council, 00:55:09.701 --> 00:55:16.382 - you should serve at the pleasure of council, but again just a plug for that, but okay are there motions then I 00:55:18.306 --> 00:55:26.437 - Yes, I would like to make a motion that this matter be sent to the committee on council process And 00:55:26.437 --> 00:55:35.138 - I think that they should Deliberate on the entire matter. In other words the as my colleague Councilmember 00:55:35.138 --> 00:55:43.513 - Piedmont Smith mentioned that they should consider the conduct of the entire matter of everyone at the 00:55:43.513 --> 00:55:45.790 - meetings Not just mr. Cross 00:55:49.250 --> 00:55:57.176 - Okay, there's a motion in a second any further discussion counselor Piedmont Smith and Stossberg As 00:55:57.176 --> 00:56:05.261 - chair of the committee on council processes, I would like to say that we have a full plate already We 00:56:05.261 --> 00:56:11.998 - are way behind in title two updates that were started a year and a half ago and that 00:56:13.634 --> 00:56:21.350 - Councilmember sorry knows are important as we move forward to try to streamline our own processes and 00:56:21.350 --> 00:56:28.991 - clarify procedures So I would prefer that it did not go to the committee on council processes I will 00:56:28.991 --> 00:56:36.859 - note that I am also on the interview committee. So it's not like I'm going to get out of work here That 00:56:36.859 --> 00:56:37.918 - comes with us 00:56:38.786 --> 00:56:46.705 - Third well, I have two things first of all I think that any motion should include a date to maybe report 00:56:46.705 --> 00:56:54.322 - back to council so that it doesn't drag and so that the public knows when This body is going to deal 00:56:54.322 --> 00:57:02.015 - with it again But I guess the third option is also to have an ad hoc committee of some kind And I I'm 00:57:02.015 --> 00:57:06.238 - yeah like Yeah, third option. Sorry to add more options 00:57:07.138 --> 00:57:14.188 - Councilmember daily then Rallo. Thank you. And for clarification this issue did actually come up before 00:57:14.188 --> 00:57:21.102 - committee council processes and after discussing it we did discuss Procedure, you know for committees 00:57:21.102 --> 00:57:27.948 - themselves But the actual question of removing somebody from a body we had determined was not within 00:57:27.948 --> 00:57:34.930 - our purview Which is why it came to the full council. So just to give a little bit of more context for 00:57:34.930 --> 00:57:36.286 - why I don't support 00:57:36.514 --> 00:57:42.328 - For right now, I would be okay with the full body taking a vote or ad hoc or interview committee. Thank 00:57:42.328 --> 00:57:48.031 - you To be clear. I I wanted to be a recommendation to the full council Mm-hmm. Did I make that clear? 00:57:48.031 --> 00:57:53.957 - So I don't want the action should be the full counseling was implied Yeah, but it's just a recommendation 00:57:53.957 --> 00:57:59.716 - from the committee, but it sounds as though I should withdraw that commotion to entertain a new motion 00:57:59.716 --> 00:58:03.070 - Council member Stossberg. Did you have something in mind? I 00:58:05.122 --> 00:58:15.885 - committee or team see I mean Well, I mean I guess before I make a motion I'm curious as to whether people 00:58:15.885 --> 00:58:26.242 - at this point are thinking team see or an ad hoc committee it really I'm indifferent in a lot of ways 00:58:26.242 --> 00:58:34.974 - I'll say one of the benefits of well really I guess it's either if we say team see or 00:58:35.298 --> 00:58:43.095 - We know the three people. They can set a time to meet, and then that also gives people opportunity to 00:58:43.095 --> 00:58:50.739 - have public comment, which I think would be useful in this case. I feel like that's the option with 00:58:50.739 --> 00:58:59.070 - least friction. So if other people agree with that, then I'll move that this matter be referred to Interview 00:58:59.070 --> 00:59:04.574 - Committee C so that they can make a recommendation to the full council. 00:59:04.706 --> 00:59:14.773 - and that a report be And potentially and hopefully a recommendation be given at our next regular session 00:59:14.773 --> 00:59:24.552 - meeting on I believe October 7th Wait, it's the 14th October 14th is the next regular. Oh the seventh 00:59:24.552 --> 00:59:32.510 - is a special session great then on October 14th There's a motion any second second 00:59:32.898 --> 00:59:41.282 - Motion in a second any further discussion. All right seeing none all those in favor of referring this 00:59:41.282 --> 00:59:49.667 - matter to Interview committee see and for them to report back on October Date again 14th all those in 00:59:49.667 --> 00:59:58.051 - favor say aye Any opposed? All right, so that it has been referred to committee see thank you all and 00:59:58.051 --> 01:00:02.654 - apologies again for the second time that you've come to 01:00:02.786 --> 01:00:12.092 - But motion is moving. Okay Let us move on any others. I think we have another issue Issue C. Is there 01:00:12.092 --> 01:00:21.397 - a motion? Yes, I move that Jose Fuentes be removed from the Commission on Hispanic and Latina affairs 01:00:21.397 --> 01:00:30.794 - due to non attendance Motion in a second any discussion Have they been informed? Claire crossly I just 01:00:30.794 --> 01:00:32.254 - want to clarify 01:00:32.418 --> 01:00:40.645 - It's not like folks are just in the business of just removing people. Just to clarify, because I hear 01:00:40.645 --> 01:00:49.276 - some grumbles. So the liaison reached out and had asked about this person and their attendance. We reached 01:00:49.276 --> 01:00:57.503 - out to him. I did talk to him the first time that you all had wanted to take up this matter. He knows 01:00:57.503 --> 01:00:59.358 - that he has missed it. 01:00:59.458 --> 01:01:06.640 - Again, this is the second go-round where he's missed a series of meetings to this time frame now. I 01:01:06.640 --> 01:01:13.965 - checked with the liaison this afternoon to see if she heard from him, and she still hasn't heard from 01:01:13.965 --> 01:01:20.860 - him at all, even after reaching out to him once this motion was in place by you all. Thank you. 01:01:20.860 --> 01:01:28.113 - All right, so there's a motion and a second. Anything else? Seeing none. All those in favor say aye. 01:01:28.113 --> 01:01:29.406 - Aye. Any opposed? 01:01:29.986 --> 01:01:37.069 - All right, fantastic, that motion carries. All right, we'll move on unless there's anything else for 01:01:37.069 --> 01:01:44.222 - boards and commissions. All right, let's move to legislation for first reading. I move that ordinance 01:01:44.222 --> 01:01:51.445 - 2026-21 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only. Second. Motion and second. Any 01:01:51.445 --> 01:01:58.878 - further discussion? All right, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Will the clerk please read? 01:02:04.386 --> 01:02:12.657 - ordinance 20 20 26 dash 21 updating title 2 to provide better of This is a hard word to say Apportionment 01:02:12.657 --> 01:02:20.538 - of representation on the Transportation Commission and Environmental Commission The synopsis is this 01:02:20.538 --> 01:02:28.420 - ordinance sponsored by councilmember Stossberg makes changes to the membership of the Transportation 01:02:28.420 --> 01:02:29.278 - Commission 01:02:29.410 --> 01:02:39.071 - by creating a dedicated seat for an employee of the Monroe County Community School Corp and consequently 01:02:39.071 --> 01:02:48.457 - refrigering the remaining community member seats. Additionally, the ordinance reduces the size of the 01:02:48.457 --> 01:02:57.566 - environmental commission to eliminate seats with long standing, hold on, vacancies. Oh. Thank you. 01:02:57.794 --> 01:03:05.918 - I move to discuss ordinance 2026-21. Second. Motion and second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. 01:03:05.918 --> 01:03:14.539 - Any opposed? All right. Let us discuss. Councilmember Stasberg. Thank you. I actually have a slideshow. 01:03:14.539 --> 01:03:23.243 - I don't know if we can get staff to put it up there, and I don't have the little clicker, so maybe staff 01:03:23.243 --> 01:03:25.150 - can click for me, too. 01:03:25.474 --> 01:03:34.348 - Or we can get a clicker over to me. So I Have been working on this for a little while I'm gonna wait 01:03:34.348 --> 01:03:43.486 - for the next for the next slide to come The origin of this was the committee on council processes Where 01:03:43.486 --> 01:03:48.670 - when we did the Transportation Commission last year we had 01:03:49.506 --> 01:03:55.806 - created a seat that prioritized an appointment by an employee or a volunteer or board member of MCC 01:03:55.806 --> 01:04:02.232 - SC and the person who the Would be a great person for it in terms of somebody in their transportation 01:04:02.232 --> 01:04:08.531 - department who was willing to do it And interested in doing it couldn't do it because they were not 01:04:08.531 --> 01:04:15.020 - a resident within the city limits and so had this discussion at the committee on council processes and 01:04:15.020 --> 01:04:17.918 - this idea of expanding the allowance to allow 01:04:18.050 --> 01:04:26.028 - those outside of the city limits to serve on this. And my kind of competing idea was, hey, instead of 01:04:26.028 --> 01:04:34.007 - just opening it up broadly, let's specifically target a seat for the MCCSE person. And so while I was 01:04:34.007 --> 01:04:35.102 - doing that, I 01:04:35.234 --> 01:04:42.239 - Cleaned up some related details and had to make some other changes So in terms of the process committee 01:04:42.239 --> 01:04:48.503 - on council processes has seen this a few times I've of course discussed this with MCC SC and 01:04:48.503 --> 01:04:55.238 - the superintendent and she is very supportive unable to make it this evening I spoke with staff the 01:04:55.238 --> 01:05:00.222 - staff who cover the Transportation Commission I Spoke with administration 01:05:00.386 --> 01:05:06.083 - Mayor and deputy mayor and they are also supportive of this and I went to the Transportation Commission 01:05:06.083 --> 01:05:11.671 - themselves And they were supportive they had some some good ideas about some specific language change 01:05:11.671 --> 01:05:17.259 - recommendations There were other things that maybe they were interested in changing that committee on 01:05:17.259 --> 01:05:22.847 - council Processes was not interested in doing at this time so the first thing I just wanted to remind 01:05:22.847 --> 01:05:26.846 - everybody of the Transportation Commission purpose and I highlighted the 01:05:27.234 --> 01:05:35.731 - seeks to provide adequate and safe access to all right-of-way users and Make recommendations and guidance 01:05:35.731 --> 01:05:44.149 - to the mayor and Common Council in terms of citywide policies so some really slight changes some capital 01:05:44.149 --> 01:05:48.638 - letters and Then the real change happens here with this 01:05:48.770 --> 01:05:55.352 - One member appointed by the mayor and the mayor was good with that to be an employee of MCC SC Involved 01:05:55.352 --> 01:06:01.807 - in student transportation and that the mayor needs to request that the superintendent recommend up to 01:06:01.807 --> 01:06:08.641 - three individuals for this appointment with no residency requirements that they just need to be an employee 01:06:08.641 --> 01:06:14.590 - of the school system and then there's some if there's no qualifying applicants identified and 01:06:14.722 --> 01:06:22.826 - Then the mayor can appoint somebody else with priority given to somebody related to MCC SC And so then 01:06:22.826 --> 01:06:30.772 - what was number six two members appointed by council and be residents With experience using forms of 01:06:30.772 --> 01:06:38.875 - travel other than personal vehicle moved to number seven. So that language didn't change it just moved 01:06:38.875 --> 01:06:40.606 - and then number eight 01:06:40.834 --> 01:06:47.965 - In the original one that I took off, it had some language around serving marginalized groups, especially 01:06:47.965 --> 01:06:55.029 - safety marginalized groups, so I gave the last appointed member by council priority for that individual 01:06:55.029 --> 01:07:02.499 - serving marginalized groups. And then I had to clean up terms a little bit because it's generally recommended 01:07:02.499 --> 01:07:10.174 - that terms stagger, and the terms of the Transportation Commission were not staggered, and so I staggered terms. 01:07:10.914 --> 01:07:16.126 - And then that was it for transportation Commission 01:07:16.706 --> 01:07:23.245 - Why making changes to environmental Commission because there were long long-standing vacancies on that 01:07:23.245 --> 01:07:29.721 - Commission currently there are 12 members And the proposal proposals cutting three seats off of that. 01:07:29.721 --> 01:07:36.451 - I also brought this before the Committee on council processes staff and administration The administration 01:07:36.451 --> 01:07:41.022 - so my proposal takes it from 12 down to 9 currently with 12. It's 6 and 01:07:41.154 --> 01:07:47.845 - Mayoral recommendations and six council recommendations when we have an odd number Of course there has 01:07:47.845 --> 01:07:54.472 - to be more of one than the other and I gave five to council and four to the mayor because at the time 01:07:54.472 --> 01:08:01.553 - I started this there were five members serving from council seats And just because there were more vacancies 01:08:01.553 --> 01:08:04.606 - on the mayoral appointments The administration 01:08:04.898 --> 01:08:10.601 - for full clarity, said that they weren't a fan of having one fewer seat and wanted to cut it down to 01:08:10.601 --> 01:08:16.305 - eight, but that at the time would have involved actually cutting a member who was already appointed, 01:08:16.305 --> 01:08:17.886 - and I didn't wanna do that. 01:08:18.306 --> 01:08:23.997 - And so, I left it at nine, and the Committee on Council Processes agreed with that. I was not able to 01:08:23.997 --> 01:08:29.576 - go to the Environmental Commission meeting because in July, I was traveling, and then in August, it 01:08:29.576 --> 01:08:35.546 - was canceled. I have spoken to individual Environmental Commission members, and I see some in the audience 01:08:35.546 --> 01:08:41.125 - tonight, so I will probably let them speak for themselves. They're really passionate about the work 01:08:41.125 --> 01:08:45.310 - that they do on that commission and don't love having fewer members on it. 01:08:46.114 --> 01:08:55.224 - Said that they understood because there were long-standing vacancies that this made sense and I've simply 01:08:55.224 --> 01:09:04.076 - changed the Number of members and that is the whole thing. So questions. Thank you so much. Councilman 01:09:04.076 --> 01:09:09.662 - Pujol said Did you want? Not necessarily, I don't think I didn't 01:09:09.922 --> 01:09:18.161 - Expect anything so great questions or comments. Well, actually let's do questions. I'm sorry. Hey Forget 01:09:18.161 --> 01:09:26.322 - that there's an order to things Sometimes phasing of the transportation Commission seats would be Would 01:09:26.322 --> 01:09:34.326 - affect current serving members. Is it shortening any members term or is it implicitly lengthening any 01:09:34.326 --> 01:09:35.582 - members term? I 01:09:36.034 --> 01:09:45.847 - Changes anything about the current terms Let me let me review that just to make sure Because you're 01:09:45.847 --> 01:09:55.659 - talking about The The staggering the terms yeah. Yeah, so It doesn't make any difference because so 01:09:55.659 --> 01:10:05.374 - first of all the Transportation Commission stuff doesn't go into effect until I think it's January 01:10:06.178 --> 01:10:12.273 - Yeah, January 31st because the current terms all end on January 31st. So that was why so like none of 01:10:12.273 --> 01:10:17.711 - the Transportation Commission changes actually affect the people who are currently serving 01:10:17.711 --> 01:10:23.746 - on the Transportation Commission It just affects the next round of people who are appointed and it's 01:10:23.746 --> 01:10:29.901 - just the single-year terms for the first instance to get us on the off Alternating track and then it's 01:10:29.901 --> 01:10:34.622 - yes in terms for everyone from there, right and so I did single-year terms for 01:10:35.554 --> 01:10:42.398 - the seat that is the CCA seat right now because I Can only suspect that that same person might serve 01:10:42.398 --> 01:10:49.717 - From because right now they expire also, you know next the end of next January that they will then probably 01:10:49.717 --> 01:10:56.561 - still serve another year and they'll be that consistency because one of the reasons to stagger terms 01:10:56.561 --> 01:11:03.134 - is to have consistency and so I tried to kind of be Smart about that. Yep. Thanks for confirming 01:11:05.826 --> 01:11:18.493 - Other questions councilman Barallo Yes, I I guess my question would be there was a motion to To have 01:11:18.493 --> 01:11:32.414 - a discussion on this this evening With the sponsor Care if we forwarded this to another meeting simply because 01:11:32.514 --> 01:11:39.822 - diminishing removing three seats from the environmental Commission without Having them discuss it and 01:11:39.822 --> 01:11:46.987 - make a recommendation. I Was assuming that this would go to a second reading. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that 01:11:46.987 --> 01:11:54.224 - was my assumption. Okay was okay. Very good. Thanks All right, let's go to public comment if anybody 01:11:54.224 --> 01:12:01.246 - would like to comment on ordinance 2026 21 Thank you so much same rules you got three minutes and 01:12:01.826 --> 01:12:09.507 - Say something for the record and write it down, please. Take it away. My name is Matt Caldy. I'm a member 01:12:09.507 --> 01:12:16.898 - of the Environmental Commission, but I'm not attempting to speak for the commission, just for myself. 01:12:16.898 --> 01:12:24.289 - I appreciate the committee efforts to help out boards and commissions, to make things the right size, 01:12:24.289 --> 01:12:28.926 - to make it so they're easily able to meet and conduct business. 01:12:29.826 --> 01:12:36.960 - I'm not convinced that cutting seats is the best solution to this problem. I view it as sort of... I 01:12:36.960 --> 01:12:44.517 - haven't quite worked out how to articulate it. Somewhat of a short-term fix to a long-term problem because 01:12:44.517 --> 01:12:51.581 - any board or commission could be the next one that struggles with membership, whether they struggle 01:12:51.581 --> 01:12:58.856 - due to a lack of applicants or a lack of appointments. There's a lot of ways that this can go. I think 01:12:58.856 --> 01:12:59.774 - a better fix 01:12:59.938 --> 01:13:07.941 - would be a code change that clarifies the quorum determination for advisory boards and commissions. 01:13:07.941 --> 01:13:16.505 - Currently city code states that a quorum consists of a majority of members serving being present. Counting 01:13:16.505 --> 01:13:24.988 - the empty seats, I personally don't believe empty seats can be members and they certainly aren't serving. 01:13:24.988 --> 01:13:29.470 - So I think getting some clarity on quorum determination 01:13:30.626 --> 01:13:37.406 - would solve the problem in a way that I find preferable to removing seats. Because furthermore, if you 01:13:37.406 --> 01:13:44.054 - reduce seats and then interest swells, there are fewer residents who are allowed to be appointed and 01:13:44.054 --> 01:13:50.702 - serve and do the work. So yep, thank you all for your attention and your efforts on this matter. I'd 01:13:50.702 --> 01:13:57.284 - be happy to discuss it with anyone at another time if that's so desired. So thank you. Thank you so 01:13:57.284 --> 01:13:59.390 - much. Next in council chambers. 01:14:06.114 --> 01:14:12.159 - Hello, City Council. My apologies if I'm not very articulate right now. I'm working off of a 14-hour 01:14:12.159 --> 01:14:18.383 - day with very little sleep. But my name is Carl Geiser and I am the vice president of the environmental 01:14:18.383 --> 01:14:24.368 - commission. However, tonight I am only here in my individual capacity and my opinions are my own. I 01:14:24.368 --> 01:14:28.318 - deeply respect and appreciate the intention behind this proposal. 01:14:28.418 --> 01:14:33.744 - Applaud the proactive approach taken by Commissioner Stasberg and other council members to make sure 01:14:33.744 --> 01:14:39.070 - our boards and commissions are working effectively for the city of Bloomington As proposed this will 01:14:39.070 --> 01:14:44.660 - indeed fix the quorum issue. That's been plaguing our Commission for a while now However, I am ambivalent 01:14:44.660 --> 01:14:50.039 - about this proposal while it will help us in the short term I think in the long term this is going to 01:14:50.039 --> 01:14:53.150 - hinder the performance of the Environmental Commission and 01:14:54.050 --> 01:15:00.872 - With fewer members, we will necessarily have fewer people hours to dedicate to environmental research 01:15:00.872 --> 01:15:07.896 - and community outreach for the city. Things like, you know, Bugfest, Eco Heroes Art Contest, we do Earth 01:15:07.896 --> 01:15:14.718 - Day stuff, and we also do other research projects like the aforementioned light pollution previously. 01:15:15.394 --> 01:15:21.560 - Fundamentally, I do not think tree City USA has a lack of interest in environmental issues Rather I 01:15:21.560 --> 01:15:28.218 - think that we have an advertising issue Fundamentally, this isn't to disparage city efforts to get interest 01:15:28.218 --> 01:15:34.816 - in boards of commissions. I think they're doing quite a bit But as an example, I am currently a first-year 01:15:34.816 --> 01:15:39.070 - law student at IU after a decade of working as a molecular biologist 01:15:39.458 --> 01:15:46.222 - I have now had the opportunity to speak with many members of the Environmental Law Society on campus, 01:15:46.222 --> 01:15:53.119 - many who were completely unaware of the EC, but excited when I told them about the opportunity. We have 01:15:53.119 --> 01:15:59.486 - had talks on the Environmental Commission regarding increasing membership and doing some active 01:15:59.486 --> 01:16:04.990 - self-recruitment, and I think we have plans in motion to affect that type of work. 01:16:05.122 --> 01:16:12.277 - All this is to say I would like to ask that the City Council delay this resolution to give us time to 01:16:12.277 --> 01:16:19.292 - recruit and fill our ranks F after a reasonable time we fail to do so then I will have no objection 01:16:19.292 --> 01:16:26.377 - if you want to come back and pass this But I would ask for maybe a few months if possible. Thank you 01:16:26.377 --> 01:16:27.710 - Thank you chambers 01:16:30.274 --> 01:16:35.746 - Hi, my name's Greg Alexander. I want to talk about the change to representation on the Transportation 01:16:35.746 --> 01:16:41.110 - Commission. I really respect the goal. It's very important to include schools in our transportation 01:16:41.110 --> 01:16:46.582 - planning. For example, it's now 25 years since the city adopted official policy that we were going to 01:16:46.582 --> 01:16:51.678 - provide a safe bike and ped transportation connection to North High School. And across decades 01:16:51.678 --> 01:16:57.150 - of implementation, we spent about $5 million towards that goal. Almost every single penny of that was 01:16:57.150 --> 01:16:58.974 - spent on recreational facilities. 01:16:59.234 --> 01:17:05.185 - that don't have any transportation goal whatsoever. As a result, when my son, this isn't hypothetical 01:17:05.185 --> 01:17:11.020 - as this is happening now, when he stays after school for an extracurricular, he walks home on State 01:17:11.020 --> 01:17:17.263 - Road 37, where he walks in the middle of the street during rush hour, because that's when extracurriculars 01:17:17.263 --> 01:17:23.390 - get out, and he shares the street with cars going 40 miles an hour through a park. It's a damn travesty. 01:17:24.674 --> 01:17:30.715 - I'm speaking very mildly to you. You deserve much worse. But unfortunately, this proposal is exactly 01:17:30.715 --> 01:17:36.816 - backwards. MCCSC is both actively and passively antagonistic to safe transportation for its students. 01:17:36.816 --> 01:17:42.858 - For example, last year, the principal at Tri-North simply forgot that they had a plan for walkers to 01:17:42.858 --> 01:17:49.019 - use the back door, and they started locking that door. They just didn't even know that they had a plan 01:17:49.019 --> 01:17:54.462 - that people walk to school. The only reason they reversed course is that I happened to see 01:17:54.594 --> 01:18:01.310 - a stream of students walking in the driveway with drop-off traffic, and I was like, you can imagine. 01:18:01.310 --> 01:18:08.625 - And so they reversed course because I brought it to their attention. Another example, the planning department 01:18:08.625 --> 01:18:15.474 - had to convince the developer who was just by North High School to include a path to North High School 01:18:15.474 --> 01:18:22.190 - in the plat for their subdivision. And MCCSE staff opposed that path. Again, the path was ultimately 01:18:22.190 --> 01:18:24.318 - included because I made a stink 01:18:24.706 --> 01:18:30.700 - I care more than the entire MCCSC about this, duh, right? MCCSC is essentially unchanged from 01:18:30.700 --> 01:18:37.077 - the organization that about 60 years ago closed the downtown high school and made two suburban high 01:18:37.077 --> 01:18:43.646 - schools. They view their mission as serving the suburban population and not the urban one. MCCSC needs 01:18:43.646 --> 01:18:50.087 - to follow, not lead. Our planning staff needs a seat on the MCCSC school board. The MCCSC staff does 01:18:50.087 --> 01:18:52.446 - not need a position in our planning. 01:18:53.090 --> 01:19:01.430 - Infrastructure, unfortunately, they're a bad actor in this space. We need to reform MCCC We do not need 01:19:01.430 --> 01:19:10.011 - to give them more authority. Thank you, and I'm so sorry to bring this news Next in chambers Good evening, 01:19:10.011 --> 01:19:11.134 - Justin Vassel 01:19:11.362 --> 01:19:18.099 - I would also like to speak on the proposed adjustment to the number of seats on the environmental commission 01:19:18.099 --> 01:19:24.404 - I want to reiterate some of what's already been said just an appreciation for the council's attention 01:19:24.404 --> 01:19:30.647 - to this and specifically to the committee on council processes for You know thinking about ways that 01:19:30.647 --> 01:19:37.199 - that commissions can you know better do their work and be set up for success? In this particular instance 01:19:37.199 --> 01:19:39.486 - about the environmental commission I 01:19:39.970 --> 01:19:46.605 - I was looking through you know the ordinance that that set up the environmental commission earlier today 01:19:46.605 --> 01:19:53.239 - and Discovered this is one of the older maybe one of the oldest commissions in the city That was brought 01:19:53.239 --> 01:19:59.811 - to be back in 1971 and so I found somewhere in the archive the ordinance and and they had 12 seats from 01:19:59.811 --> 01:20:06.382 - from the beginning so You know this this change would be a significant structural change after 55 years 01:20:06.382 --> 01:20:07.646 - of sort of the same 01:20:07.842 --> 01:20:14.249 - You know set up so Not to say that that means that it's not a good change to make it may very well be 01:20:14.249 --> 01:20:20.718 - But I think it's worth taking a deeper look into sort of what the ramifications of such a change would 01:20:20.718 --> 01:20:27.376 - be as some of the others mentioned There have been some quorum issues, but those you know may be resolved 01:20:27.376 --> 01:20:33.406 - based on how you know the part of the municipal code that refers to quorum for our sort for the 01:20:33.570 --> 01:20:39.747 - The non statutory commissions is written in because for example We've had in our bylaws that it's based 01:20:39.747 --> 01:20:45.687 - on the number of filled seats Not the number of total seats and that's worked well for us for years 01:20:45.687 --> 01:20:51.686 - So in the immediate term, it seems that the Commission could continue to operate But of course, it's 01:20:51.686 --> 01:20:57.804 - not ideal when when five members or when there's five vacancies on a body of 12 members, right? That's 01:20:57.804 --> 01:20:58.814 - a pretty big gap 01:20:59.010 --> 01:21:06.475 - So my background, I'm an experimental PhD physicist. So data analysis is sort of one of my bread and 01:21:06.475 --> 01:21:14.014 - butter skills. So I went on to onboard and I downloaded the seat history for all the seats on the EC. 01:21:14.114 --> 01:21:20.666 - Made some charts. I won't talk you through them right now, but happy to share with anybody. Just looking 01:21:20.666 --> 01:21:27.031 - at how the vacancies and filled seats sort of played out over the years. And there's some interesting 01:21:27.031 --> 01:21:33.646 - stuff in the data. So for example, the five seats vacant at one time is not a unique thing. It's happened 01:21:33.646 --> 01:21:40.323 - at least seven times over the last 10 years. And there have also been sort of large stretches of vacancies 01:21:40.323 --> 01:21:41.758 - for a particular seat. 01:21:41.858 --> 01:21:48.323 - There's one seat right now that's been vacant for two years that has happened in the past. So it's not 01:21:48.323 --> 01:21:54.601 - completely novel. These are sort of statistical anomalies, outliers. And there's definitely ways to 01:21:54.601 --> 01:22:00.878 - get around that. But one thing that I found interesting that I want to just mention in the last few 01:22:00.878 --> 01:22:07.155 - seconds here is that if you take the monthly average number of commissioners over a 10-year period, 01:22:07.155 --> 01:22:11.486 - there's 10.2 seats filled. So reducing to nine would then reduce the 01:22:11.714 --> 01:22:17.347 - Effectiveness of the Commission. Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anyone online who'd like to 01:22:17.347 --> 01:22:23.318 - comment and then we'll come to back to you. Mr. Mitchell No one to you, sir Hello council Julius Mitchell 01:22:23.318 --> 01:22:28.950 - from the office of the mayor I just want to say that the administration is largely in favor of this 01:22:28.950 --> 01:22:34.696 - ordinance. We just have one small request Councilmember Stossford was kind enough to mention it which 01:22:34.696 --> 01:22:38.526 - I appreciate I just wanted to share a request with the full council 01:22:38.658 --> 01:22:43.143 - Currently the proposed ordinance would remove two council seats and three mayoral seats from 01:22:43.143 --> 01:22:48.255 - the Environmental Commission We would just ask that you consider moving two council seats and two mayoral 01:22:48.255 --> 01:22:53.512 - seats to keep representation from the appointing bodies even If part of council's desire with this ordinance 01:22:53.512 --> 01:22:58.576 - is to have an odd number of commission members We would ask you to consider removing three council seats 01:22:58.576 --> 01:23:02.964 - instead of the three mayoral seats if it is your preference Our personal preference is for 01:23:02.964 --> 01:23:08.414 - even representation from the appointing bodies, but we're open to either option Thank you for your consideration 01:23:11.010 --> 01:23:17.556 - Thank you very much. Other comments? Coming back to council then. Any comments? Councilmember Stasberg 01:23:17.556 --> 01:23:23.911 - and then councilmember Rallo. I just want to make clear because several public commenters mentioned 01:23:23.911 --> 01:23:25.246 - the issue of quorum. 01:23:25.378 --> 01:23:32.276 - with this commission, and when the CCP first started talking about this, there was a quorum issue mentioned, 01:23:32.276 --> 01:23:38.983 - and that may have spurred the conversation, but if you notice, there's not actually anything about quorum 01:23:38.983 --> 01:23:45.438 - in the whereas clauses, because I thought that that was solved by the decision that quorum was out of 01:23:45.438 --> 01:23:51.070 - the number of seats that were appointed, and that was my impression like two months ago. 01:23:51.298 --> 01:23:59.116 - And so that did not make it into the whereas clauses. Instead, it's about those long-standing vacancies. 01:23:59.116 --> 01:24:06.338 - And so to Mr. Vassil, I would love to see your charts and the fact that there have been multiple 01:24:06.338 --> 01:24:14.305 - long-standing vacancies over the time that this commission has been in existence is actually justification 01:24:14.305 --> 01:24:19.294 - to reduce the seats because there's clearly been regular vacancies 01:24:19.426 --> 01:24:27.323 - including a couple that have been vacant right now since since 2024 and I will just reiterate to the 01:24:27.323 --> 01:24:35.299 - administration I appreciate wanting to keep it even and I am I did not want to get rid of a seat that 01:24:35.299 --> 01:24:43.431 - somebody was actually appointed at and so I'm Would not consider taking more council seats down because 01:24:43.431 --> 01:24:47.966 - of the actual appointments that have been made. Thanks. I 01:24:49.378 --> 01:24:56.903 - I didn't I want to interrupt anyone if they wanted to make any further comment Anybody else have comments 01:24:56.903 --> 01:25:04.143 - before the motion comes more clarity and then we can go back to customer Flaherty and then the motion 01:25:04.143 --> 01:25:11.384 - Thank you for the the ordinance I don't have especially strong feelings about it. I do appreciate the 01:25:11.384 --> 01:25:15.998 - public comment it feels relatively low stakes to me like I think 01:25:16.578 --> 01:25:22.092 - Fully constituted nine-member environmental Commission with people who are excited to be there and ready 01:25:22.092 --> 01:25:27.658 - to serve like will be highly effective and I don't really think there's like I know that's not the desire 01:25:27.658 --> 01:25:33.172 - of the commissioners who spoke tonight, but I don't I don't feel like there's a there's a major downside 01:25:33.172 --> 01:25:38.528 - on the transportation Commission front I appreciate mr. Alexander had to say I Tend to lean like give 01:25:38.528 --> 01:25:44.094 - let's give it a chance, you know, like it maybe perpetuates some of the problems that he was citing if we 01:25:44.546 --> 01:25:50.155 - don't seek to bring MCCSE to the table, and if needed, positively influence their appointments or their 01:25:50.155 --> 01:25:55.602 - superintendent or whoever it is on issues of safety and sustainability with routes to school through 01:25:55.602 --> 01:26:01.264 - the work of that commission. So I think I tend to lean in favor of that, which was already part of code, 01:26:01.264 --> 01:26:06.711 - the desire to have somebody working on that be part of the commission, and we just haven't been able 01:26:06.711 --> 01:26:12.158 - to get that done. So I understand, again, the critique, but I think I tend to lean in favor of that. 01:26:12.322 --> 01:26:18.785 - Just final note on the EC appointments thing. I was self-interested as a council member, but I think 01:26:18.785 --> 01:26:25.632 - I like bodies with odd numbers for the sake of deciding things, which is good. And I think it's reasonable 01:26:25.632 --> 01:26:32.159 - on advisory commissions in particular for the council to have the slim majority of seats for a couple 01:26:32.159 --> 01:26:38.622 - of reasons. First of all, that's not true for most of the statutory boards of commissions by a mile. 01:26:38.622 --> 01:26:41.502 - And second is that I think it's kind of like 01:26:41.890 --> 01:26:48.584 - easier for the single unitary entity of the mayor to have kind of a strong influence on their appointments 01:26:48.584 --> 01:26:55.215 - because they're just one person, whereas we're a deliberative body that conducts public-facing interviews 01:26:55.215 --> 01:27:01.596 - to appoint most of our seats, things like that. It tends to be a little bit more distributed in terms 01:27:01.596 --> 01:27:07.038 - of its outlook and things like that already and harder to probably influence by way of 01:27:07.330 --> 01:27:14.433 - You know from the appointing body role because again, we're nine different members who are meeting in 01:27:14.433 --> 01:27:21.398 - public only so For those reasons, I think it's honestly just entirely reasonable for us to have the 01:27:21.398 --> 01:27:28.083 - majority where we have that You know odd number of seats and so I would support that piece too. 01:27:28.083 --> 01:27:35.048 - That's all. Thank you. Thank you so much something I Appreciate my colleague bringing this forward, 01:27:35.048 --> 01:27:36.510 - but I am skeptical I 01:27:36.674 --> 01:27:45.235 - I served eight years on the Environmental Commission and I regard it as a lot of complexity. It doesn't 01:27:45.235 --> 01:27:53.877 - have a single domain expertise. It's composed of people who have various interests and it handles things 01:27:53.877 --> 01:28:02.191 - as varied as erosion and air quality and land use and biodiversity and a lot of different things. So 01:28:02.191 --> 01:28:06.142 - I would be skeptical about reducing the number. 01:28:06.274 --> 01:28:13.749 - I'm agnostic right now about the appointments of Transportation Commission, but in any case I would 01:28:13.749 --> 01:28:21.298 - like time for both commissions to Consider this and come come up with recommendation for the council 01:28:21.298 --> 01:28:28.848 - And so I will move to continue deliberation on ordinance 20 26 21 be continued to the City Council's 01:28:28.848 --> 01:28:31.838 - regular session meeting of November 4th 01:28:32.514 --> 01:28:44.132 - Which gives time for both commissions to to meet and discuss and maybe send a memo to us Hold on when 01:28:44.132 --> 01:28:55.635 - did you just We have to move it to second reading I think at our next regular session and then we'll 01:28:55.635 --> 01:28:59.166 - and Then we will probably okay 01:29:00.130 --> 01:29:08.104 - I'll amend it to move to our next regular session of October 14th for second reading All right, there's 01:29:08.104 --> 01:29:15.925 - a motion to second any discussion Seeing none all those in favor say aye Any opposed? All right, that 01:29:15.925 --> 01:29:22.366 - will be moved for second reading. Thank you very much. Are there any other motions? 01:29:26.882 --> 01:29:33.677 - I move that ordinance 2026-22 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only. Second. 01:29:33.677 --> 01:29:40.605 - Motion and a second. Any discussion? I'll just say that if the body wanted to just vote for this today, 01:29:40.605 --> 01:29:47.467 - I would. But I think for the sake of time, it would be better for us not to spend a lot of time on it. 01:29:47.467 --> 01:29:53.662 - So anyways, just saying that for the good of the order. All those in favor of it being read? 01:29:55.138 --> 01:30:06.154 - Any opposed? All right. Will the clerk please read. Ordinance number 2026-22, prohibiting use of automated 01:30:06.154 --> 01:30:13.566 - license plate reader technology and certain video surveillance systems. 01:30:13.762 --> 01:30:22.754 - The synopsis is this ordinance prohibits the acquisition and use of automated license plate reader technology 01:30:22.754 --> 01:30:31.092 - and surveillance camera systems within the city of Bloomington and by any city agency. Thank you very 01:30:31.092 --> 01:30:39.675 - much. Any other motions? Seeing none, let's move to legislation for second readings. Move that ordinance 01:30:39.675 --> 01:30:42.046 - 2026-20 be read by title and 01:30:42.242 --> 01:30:50.714 - Be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only Motion in a second all those in favor 01:30:50.714 --> 01:30:59.270 - say aye Any opposed? All right. Will the clerk please read? Ordinance 20 26-20 amendments to title 20 01:30:59.270 --> 01:31:07.825 - of the Bloomington Municipal Code to improve sustainability and housing for affordability pursuant to 01:31:07.825 --> 01:31:10.174 - council resolution 20 26-05 01:31:10.914 --> 01:31:23.057 - The synopsis is, scroll down, sorry. This ordinance contains amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance 01:31:23.057 --> 01:31:35.422 - per directives outlined in resolution 2026-05, a resolution to initiate a proposal to amend Title 20, the UDO, 01:31:35.554 --> 01:31:44.477 - The Bloomington Municipal Code in order to improve sustainability and housing affordability Thank you, 01:31:44.477 --> 01:31:53.141 - I move that ordinance 2026 dash 20 be adopted All right councilmember Flaherty and then I assume we 01:31:53.141 --> 01:32:01.977 - have folks from planning. Yes We did have some presentation and discussion What was it two weeks ago? 01:32:01.977 --> 01:32:03.710 - Something like that 01:32:04.098 --> 01:32:10.519 - I did want to share just a little bit, just a reminder of the process. As far as the genesis of this 01:32:10.519 --> 01:32:16.940 - ordinance, it started with a lot of engagement directly with staff, planning staff in the year 2024. 01:32:16.940 --> 01:32:23.425 - That ultimately led to the creation of a resolution in early 2025. For reasons I won't get into, this 01:32:23.425 --> 01:32:29.974 - body voted no on introduction at that time. But then when we discussed Hopewell South PUD later in the 01:32:29.974 --> 01:32:33.534 - year, we were considering a lot of these concepts then. 01:32:34.018 --> 01:32:39.757 - Seemed clear there was you know council support also, maybe increasingly mayoral support for a lot of 01:32:39.757 --> 01:32:45.946 - these kind of evidence-based policy solutions on affordability and sustainability So I brought the resolution 01:32:45.946 --> 01:32:51.572 - back beginning of the year. We passed it 20 26 05 and from there staff assisted planning Commission 01:32:51.572 --> 01:32:57.255 - in proposing this ordinance planning Commission recommended it favorably and I just wanted to credit 01:32:57.255 --> 01:33:00.574 - staff who I think did a really good job of navigating some 01:33:01.378 --> 01:33:07.189 - kind of open and complex questions that the resolution invited and also met all the statutory and legislative 01:33:07.189 --> 01:33:12.472 - deadlines with it. So again, the overall goals are what the title of the ordinance speaks to, which 01:33:12.472 --> 01:33:17.808 - is a through line of sustainability and housing affordability. Some of the public comment we heard a 01:33:17.808 --> 01:33:23.197 - few weeks ago seemed to kind of like not quite understand how some of these pieces fit together. They 01:33:23.197 --> 01:33:27.582 - were like, why is electrification part of this? Why does that matter? Why parking? 01:33:28.162 --> 01:33:34.134 - But they really do all have strong sustainability and affordability dimensions. And so, you know, we're 01:33:34.134 --> 01:33:40.049 - doing multiple things here, but all of them should increase the affordability of both existing and new 01:33:40.049 --> 01:33:45.849 - housing in terms of construction costs, in terms of operational costs. It will reduce greenhouse gas 01:33:45.849 --> 01:33:51.763 - emissions, allow folks to live closer to where they, you know, work and play in smaller homes that use 01:33:51.763 --> 01:33:52.510 - less energy. 01:33:52.674 --> 01:33:59.130 - And enabling that you know that development to be unlocked. So so that's kind of how it all fits together 01:33:59.130 --> 01:34:05.343 - why these things are in a package You know looking at really allowing Smaller modest homes on smaller 01:34:05.343 --> 01:34:10.398 - lots kind of a guiding principle was if you can build an ADU at the home. Why not? 01:34:10.850 --> 01:34:15.934 - Be allowed to make that actually a separate home on a separate lot of record Probably more likely to 01:34:15.934 --> 01:34:21.069 - be under occupied more likely to happen because you don't have to finance the thing for 200 grand You 01:34:21.069 --> 01:34:26.154 - can actually just sell a lot to a developer and it could be really nice option for a lot of folks It 01:34:26.154 --> 01:34:31.289 - could be an option for income for income constrained folks who've been in their homes a long time and 01:34:31.289 --> 01:34:36.222 - have a backyard that You know could be could be subdivided to create another small home Let's see 01:34:36.770 --> 01:34:42.554 - parking minimums become a barrier to housing construction and there's really quite a lot of evidence 01:34:42.554 --> 01:34:48.453 - and research on that and I'll talk about that more in a moment. On electrification, it's the only path 01:34:48.453 --> 01:34:54.410 - that's consistent with our climate action plan is we should be using electricity, which is increasingly 01:34:54.410 --> 01:35:00.194 - clean, already cleaner than using gas in your home, even in the grid here in Indiana, that we should 01:35:00.194 --> 01:35:05.406 - be using electricity for space heating, water heating and cooking in homes and residences. 01:35:05.506 --> 01:35:11.324 - And so using voluntary incentives to move that forward. There were some questions about the legality 01:35:11.324 --> 01:35:17.200 - of that from the city legal department We can talk about that more folks want I think our council has 01:35:17.200 --> 01:35:23.076 - also weighed in that they feel confident that this Is not violating any Indiana laws that prohibit us 01:35:23.076 --> 01:35:23.998 - from regulating 01:35:24.130 --> 01:35:29.532 - The use of gas in in homes this this ordinance does not do that It creates voluntary incentives that 01:35:29.532 --> 01:35:34.934 - folks can take up to do something beyond what code already allows in every instance every lot in the 01:35:34.934 --> 01:35:40.497 - city there will be an option to pursue it with with gas infrastructure if they want and even if someone 01:35:40.497 --> 01:35:45.953 - pursued Electrification incentives they would still you know, that would be non-binding on any future 01:35:45.953 --> 01:35:48.734 - occupant, you know future folks could still run gas 01:35:48.866 --> 01:35:54.375 - to their home if they wanted to in whatever processes the local gas utility uses to authorize that. 01:35:54.375 --> 01:36:00.160 - Finally, I did want to talk a little bit more about parking minimums because I know we have an amendment 01:36:00.160 --> 01:36:05.890 - on it later. It seemed like an appropriate time now though because I'm not the author of that amendment 01:36:05.890 --> 01:36:11.454 - to talk about the policy rationale vis-a-vis the ordinance as a whole. So just a few reminders. This 01:36:11.938 --> 01:36:18.572 - Ordinance that was directed through the resolution removes parking minimums citywide. It does not change 01:36:18.572 --> 01:36:24.954 - maximums as much parking as someone can build now They continue to be allowed to build it just gives 01:36:24.954 --> 01:36:31.399 - flexibility and doesn't require them to build parking that may not be utilized it gives that you know 01:36:31.399 --> 01:36:34.558 - judgment to a housing builder essentially we have 01:36:34.818 --> 01:36:40.851 - good examples of that being used productively in the past in the city, but it's always had to go through 01:36:40.851 --> 01:36:46.941 - some sort of special exception process. This would allow it as just a matter of course. Also worth noting 01:36:46.941 --> 01:36:52.687 - where I think there's been some concerns voiced in, you know, residential neighborhoods where there 01:36:52.687 --> 01:36:58.777 - might be a neighborhood parking zone, virtually all existing homes either already have off-street parking 01:36:58.777 --> 01:37:04.638 - or they have the ability to add off-street parking through the procedures in the UDO if they want to. 01:37:05.314 --> 01:37:12.002 - Another thing to note is that this change does not directly affect who has access to on-street parking 01:37:12.002 --> 01:37:18.884 - within a neighborhood zone. And that's another issue that has come up recently, I think all my colleagues 01:37:18.884 --> 01:37:25.701 - are aware of it, with folks in small homes not having the ability to get access to neighborhood parking. 01:37:25.701 --> 01:37:29.662 - That's a policy change that was made in 2018 by the council. 01:37:29.762 --> 01:37:35.455 - to prohibit anybody other than folks living in single-households detached dwellings from getting the 01:37:35.455 --> 01:37:41.261 - privilege of storing their private vehicles on the public right-of-way. So we just allow that one type 01:37:41.261 --> 01:37:47.349 - of housing resident, all other housing residents in the same neighborhood can't use the public right-of-way 01:37:47.349 --> 01:37:53.043 - to park their cars. I think there's been some temporary accommodations made, but it's poor policy in 01:37:53.043 --> 01:37:57.214 - my view. I tried to change it last council term. That didn't go anywhere. 01:37:57.506 --> 01:38:03.845 - I think we need to change it and so just noting that that is a distinct issue though though. I think 01:38:03.845 --> 01:38:10.434 - it's come up as related and if we adopt this ordinance You know the in particular the portion on minimum 01:38:10.434 --> 01:38:12.254 - parking requirements I think 01:38:13.026 --> 01:38:18.617 - Future change to the neighborhood zone policy that would update and improve that based on best practices 01:38:18.617 --> 01:38:24.102 - is absolutely needed and warranted I think we need to expand eligibility if you live in a neighborhood 01:38:24.102 --> 01:38:29.055 - you should be able to get access to neighborhood zone on equal terms not on segregated terms 01:38:29.055 --> 01:38:34.540 - and Additionally, I think if we have challenges with managing demand or supply rather we should manage 01:38:34.540 --> 01:38:36.670 - that through through through demand and 01:38:36.834 --> 01:38:43.663 - That's easily done through pricing and other design changes to the parking permit program in neighborhoods, 01:38:43.663 --> 01:38:50.429 - which right now is more or less nominal. Folks can get an annual guest pass for a similarly fairly nominal 01:38:50.429 --> 01:38:57.195 - fee. There's only a few of our neighborhood zones that are even constrained from a parking supply relative 01:38:57.195 --> 01:39:03.708 - to what people want to use. And I think pricing is the tool for that, not limiting housing development 01:39:03.708 --> 01:39:06.174 - through a parking minimum requirement. 01:39:06.306 --> 01:39:13.425 - I sent you all and my colleagues a fair amount of research and evidence on that front from places like 01:39:13.425 --> 01:39:20.405 - the UCLA Center for Parking Policy, which is one of the leading parking research and reform shops in 01:39:20.405 --> 01:39:24.414 - the country, other think tanks that work on these issues. 01:39:24.674 --> 01:39:31.508 - Included a study from commissioned by the Colorado Energy Office supporting a near statewide elimination 01:39:31.508 --> 01:39:38.212 - of parking minimums that found that a land use study that found that Parking reforms could could boost 01:39:38.212 --> 01:39:44.916 - home building by 40 to 70 percent So this really does unlock more housing. It keeps costs down. That's 01:39:44.916 --> 01:39:49.342 - very well documented This is also not novel or or innovative or new 01:39:49.442 --> 01:39:55.238 - Hundreds of cities across the country have done it. They've not gone back college towns like ours liberal 01:39:55.238 --> 01:40:00.870 - places like Bloomington Even about about eight or ten states have also if not fully eliminated parking 01:40:00.870 --> 01:40:06.557 - minimums really severely restricted municipalities ability to have them we may even see that in Indiana 01:40:06.557 --> 01:40:12.189 - in some time just the same way that you know, we weren't really acting much on housing reforms and the 01:40:12.189 --> 01:40:17.438 - state finally Walked in said actually cities have to look at these types of housing reforms. So 01:40:17.538 --> 01:40:23.602 - As this becomes better appreciated that this is actually a barrier to housing availability and affordability, 01:40:23.602 --> 01:40:29.555 - I think we're just gonna see it more and more. I'm hopeful that the council's ready to act on that tonight. 01:40:29.555 --> 01:40:35.068 - If not, that's okay. I wanted to make the case. So that's everything from me. Happy to turn it over 01:40:35.068 --> 01:40:40.746 - to staff if there's anything else they wanted to share beyond what we shared a couple weeks ago. Would 01:40:40.746 --> 01:40:43.998 - Director Coyne or Grulick, would you like to add anything? 01:40:44.578 --> 01:40:52.652 - We've already obviously discussed presented fantastic. Otherwise, we have I think three amendments so 01:40:52.652 --> 01:41:01.043 - for five now We have lots of amendments, so let's do them sort of in the order that they're in the packet 01:41:01.043 --> 01:41:09.593 - I think I'm councillor Puma Smith you you have the first one Sorry, go ahead I would like to move amendment 01:41:09.593 --> 01:41:12.126 - one Motion in a second go ahead 01:41:12.354 --> 01:41:20.776 - So amendment one replaces the minimum bicycle parking requirement. So that was something that the our 01:41:20.776 --> 01:41:29.032 - original resolution I think said vehicle And vehicles actually defined in state law and it excludes 01:41:29.032 --> 01:41:37.289 - bicycles, but Plan Commission by a vote of five to three Decided that they wanted to remove minimum 01:41:37.289 --> 01:41:42.078 - bicycle parking as well because they wanted to consider a 01:41:42.466 --> 01:41:49.142 - Bicycles to be vehicles. I was one of the three that dissented and so this is my dissent is putting 01:41:49.142 --> 01:41:56.085 - it back in I'm putting it back in exactly the way that it was I did meet with planning staff to discuss 01:41:56.085 --> 01:42:03.162 - Making any changes and if any changes made sense and I kind of read through it again some of the concerns 01:42:03.162 --> 01:42:10.038 - brought up at planning Commission had to do with cost of requiring minimum bike parking and especially 01:42:10.038 --> 01:42:11.774 - as I read through it that 01:42:12.002 --> 01:42:20.527 - Except for the residential uses First of all, the residential uses are one space per five bedrooms. 01:42:20.527 --> 01:42:29.564 - So, you know that that means some bicycle parking like There would be some nominal costs there the bigger 01:42:29.564 --> 01:42:39.198 - you get right, but if you only are having a relatively small Development then you're nothing there and the other 01:42:39.330 --> 01:42:46.232 - Uses have to do with what percentage of vehicle parking spaces are provided. So if you're a business 01:42:46.232 --> 01:42:53.066 - or You know, you're moving in somewhere and you're not actually providing any vehicular parking and 01:42:53.066 --> 01:42:57.918 - I'm thinking about small businesses that you know might be adjacent to 01:42:58.146 --> 01:43:06.278 - Large parking areas and they're not actually creating any parking themselves. They're just depending 01:43:06.278 --> 01:43:14.732 - on other parking They wouldn't actually have to add any bicycle parking that just would not be something 01:43:14.732 --> 01:43:23.025 - that would be this big cost on it so I Don't know that I have to say anything else about it tremendous 01:43:23.025 --> 01:43:27.614 - any questions Would staff like to comment on this at all 01:43:29.570 --> 01:43:38.403 - Excellent. We'll now then go to public comment. Would anybody like to comment on Amendment 1? 01:43:38.403 --> 01:43:49.022 - I guess it's me. Hi there, Zach Ammerman. I just want to say that I'm in support of adding bike parking back in. 01:43:50.178 --> 01:43:56.152 - I think that's a no brainer. It's a relatively low cost thing to do. It doesn't cost a lot for businesses 01:43:56.152 --> 01:44:01.845 - to add bike racks. They're relatively low expensive or not expensive. So I would support adding that 01:44:01.845 --> 01:44:07.650 - back in. I also want to say having lived in DC for 10 years, an alternative way of doing this, I think 01:44:07.650 --> 01:44:13.286 - we should keep the bike minimums. But on top of that, something that the DC government does that is 01:44:13.286 --> 01:44:18.302 - awesome is they allow anyone to request a bike rack on 311 and the city will install it. 01:44:18.882 --> 01:44:23.245 - And sometimes takes six months, nine months, a year, but they will install a bike rack wherever they 01:44:23.245 --> 01:44:27.650 - can. You just upload a picture, it shows, hey, a bike rack would be great here, and they will install 01:44:27.650 --> 01:44:32.056 - it. It's a relatively low cost part of the DC government program. It doesn't cost a lot of money, and 01:44:32.056 --> 01:44:36.375 - it's a great program. And I think it would be great for Bloomington to do something similar to that 01:44:36.375 --> 01:44:40.997 - here. That would be kind of the opposite end. We could have the required minimum for bikes for businesses, 01:44:40.997 --> 01:44:45.576 - but we could also add sort of a carrot on the other end, allow people to request extra ones where they're 01:44:45.576 --> 01:44:46.526 - needed. So thank you. 01:44:47.138 --> 01:44:54.978 - Thank you so much. We'll come back to chambers. Go ahead. Hi, I'm Jordan Connor, and I'm a member of 01:44:54.978 --> 01:45:02.896 - Bloomington Homes for All. I'm speaking more specifically about the entire ordinance, but I hope it's 01:45:02.896 --> 01:45:10.814 - not inappropriate to speak now about that. I'd like to ask that the council support ordinance 2026-20 01:45:10.914 --> 01:45:17.808 - For many in my generation and those younger homeownership is a fantasy accessible primarily to those 01:45:17.808 --> 01:45:24.635 - of privilege and fortune The solution to this affordability and housing crisis must be multifaceted 01:45:24.635 --> 01:45:31.597 - There's a point of order. We're only talking about amendment one at the moment So you can talk you'll 01:45:31.597 --> 01:45:38.014 - get another chance to talk generally about this one. Gotcha Just the amendment one It'll come 01:45:39.426 --> 01:45:50.637 - All right, anybody else wanna comment on amendment one? Another person online, go ahead. Hello, can 01:45:50.637 --> 01:46:02.521 - you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, thank you. Paul Rousseau here, Bloomington resident. I generally support, 01:46:02.521 --> 01:46:07.230 - strongly support bicycle parking minimums 01:46:07.746 --> 01:46:14.635 - I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that there is a chronic problem with lack of bicycle 01:46:14.635 --> 01:46:21.799 - parking for commercial space in this town. It's been going on for a long time. Perhaps the poster child 01:46:21.799 --> 01:46:28.964 - of this is the Kroger on South College Avenue, which is on the B line for goodness sakes. And they have 01:46:28.964 --> 01:46:35.646 - space for something like four bicycles, maybe six. But they have a massive parking lot for cars. 01:46:36.834 --> 01:46:43.331 - And apparently there's no, the bicycle parking that they have, they just voluntarily did, but there's 01:46:43.331 --> 01:46:49.763 - no requirement for them to create more. That just seems like a travesty to me. So I strongly support 01:46:49.763 --> 01:46:56.196 - any minimum, I've not been able to read this current amendment because I've been too busy with work, 01:46:56.196 --> 01:47:02.820 - but when I hear bicycle parking minimums, strongly support it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there 01:47:02.820 --> 01:47:04.094 - anyone else online? 01:47:05.474 --> 01:47:10.991 - Tremendous will come back to council any comments before we vote the councilmember Flaherty Points for 01:47:10.991 --> 01:47:16.347 - creativity to the planning commissioners who brought this I think they're not wrong in terms of the 01:47:16.347 --> 01:47:22.185 - letter of the text It's not what I intended with the resolution. I do think biking is meaningfully different 01:47:22.185 --> 01:47:27.648 - variety of reasons explicitly in city goals We are trying to encourage more biking trying to get mode 01:47:27.648 --> 01:47:32.094 - shift to happen That's not true cars the other major change or difference is that? 01:47:32.226 --> 01:47:37.470 - We allow the use of public right-of-way for people to store cars virtually everywhere citywide If every 01:47:37.470 --> 01:47:42.765 - block of the city had one space of that right-of-way dedicated to bike parking We could have a different 01:47:42.765 --> 01:47:47.808 - story about you know Whether or not we needed the folks to to build it and put on the sidewalk, but 01:47:47.808 --> 01:47:52.952 - like it's just not the same So it's really not an apples-to-apples comparison. Finally, the costs are 01:47:52.952 --> 01:47:57.994 - really quite negligible relative to the the cost involved of adding Car parking so it's not as much 01:47:57.994 --> 01:48:01.726 - of a Rationale I think on the you know lowering development costs from so 01:48:01.858 --> 01:48:09.990 - Happy to support it, thanks for bringing it. Excellent, thank you. Others? Councilman Morello? I just 01:48:09.990 --> 01:48:18.123 - want to thank the sponsor, Councilman Stasberg, for this amendment. I'll be supporting it. Fantastic. 01:48:18.123 --> 01:48:26.335 - All right, let's vote then. Can we voice vote on this, or do we need a roll call? Okay, will the clerk 01:48:26.335 --> 01:48:31.358 - please call the roll on amendment one? Councilmember Stasberg? 01:48:34.754 --> 01:48:51.746 - Piedmont Smith Sorry, yes Daily, yes Rallo. Yes rough Rosenberger. Yes and Flaherty. Yes That carries. 01:48:51.746 --> 01:49:01.150 - Thank you very much. Let's go now we have Seven one, yes 01:49:02.754 --> 01:49:13.088 - We now have another amendment amendment to Yes, I move amendment to to ordinance 20 26-20 as amended 01:49:13.088 --> 01:49:23.934 - We'll say that when it's we're done with the amendments, okay, so amendment to Rejects one of the changes 01:49:23.934 --> 01:49:31.710 - that the plan Commission passed that was not mentioned in our resolution is 01:49:32.034 --> 01:49:48.531 - asking for changes, and that is that there was an elimination of retention of existing tree canopy that, 01:49:48.531 --> 01:50:00.158 - so the changes from the plan commission deleted the exception, no, sorry. 01:50:00.482 --> 01:50:08.029 - This is kind of a meta thing here. It's like somebody came with this and we're deleting and adding. 01:50:08.029 --> 01:50:15.803 - Okay, so in the UDO, there is a requirement for retention of existing tree canopy, and there's a table 01:50:15.803 --> 01:50:24.030 - in section 20.04.030 saying how much of the tree canopy needs to be preserved. The planning commission added 01:50:24.386 --> 01:50:31.336 - This does not apply to existing lots of record in r3 and r4 that are less than 5,000 square feet so 01:50:31.336 --> 01:50:38.356 - I want to Delete that exception and have it still apply to those small lots Any questions councilman 01:50:38.356 --> 01:50:45.514 - Flaherty Yeah, I had a good conversation with our two planning staff members here on Friday about this 01:50:45.514 --> 01:50:51.422 - specific thing and it's kind of Genesis like why it's being brought and that kind of 01:50:51.842 --> 01:50:57.343 - Ration offer that I did want to ask staff if they could share that Like I think I think it was about 01:50:57.343 --> 01:51:02.898 - When you're consistently seeing a variance for the same issue over and over again And they're usually 01:51:02.898 --> 01:51:08.617 - being granted like they're meeting the hardship that you know, you try to fix it via a code change Could 01:51:08.617 --> 01:51:14.336 - you could you elaborate maybe mr. Grulick if that's appropriate? Just for the benefit of yeah colleagues 01:51:14.336 --> 01:51:15.262 - in the public. I 01:51:18.946 --> 01:51:25.733 - Manager so as councilmember Flaherty kind of alluded to one of the challenges that we have encountered 01:51:25.733 --> 01:51:32.322 - especially on small lots Is when you have the presence of closed canopy it very oftentimes severely 01:51:32.322 --> 01:51:38.911 - restricts the Developability of that lot and so as we are looking at making lot sizes even smaller, 01:51:38.911 --> 01:51:45.566 - you know we're going to still encounter that situation and so you know in these situations we have a 01:51:45.730 --> 01:51:52.224 - Had to take these to the Board of Zoning Appeals for variances in those situations Those have been approved 01:51:52.224 --> 01:51:58.237 - pretty much all the time with a remediation plan But we still acknowledge that there is an inherent 01:51:58.237 --> 01:52:00.702 - problem that is created on these lots of 01:52:00.866 --> 01:52:07.263 - And the smaller you go, you're just gonna have that same problem Maybe even more so because the presence 01:52:07.263 --> 01:52:13.355 - of that closed canopy does severely with strictly develop ability of that lot Certainly tree canopy 01:52:13.355 --> 01:52:19.447 - coverage retention is certainly very important but you know as I as I mentioned we do routinely see 01:52:19.447 --> 01:52:26.149 - this challenge occurring and you know as the resolution was looking for ways to improve housing attainability 01:52:26.149 --> 01:52:27.550 - remove barriers to and 01:52:27.650 --> 01:52:33.507 - Providing housing within the community, you know, we identified this as something that could help make 01:52:33.507 --> 01:52:39.364 - that path easier and Alleviate the need to seek a variance, you know, the 5,000 square foot number was 01:52:39.364 --> 01:52:45.165 - just something that we suggested certainly that could be adjusted Yeah, and you know anytime there is 01:52:45.165 --> 01:52:50.965 - a subdivision on a property They would be held to these standards to the tree preservation standards. 01:52:50.965 --> 01:52:55.230 - So this language is just exempting development on existing lots of records 01:52:57.474 --> 01:53:03.733 - Thank you. May I follow up with the question please? Yeah, mr. Gerlich in Item four in the same section 01:53:03.733 --> 01:53:09.811 - of code it says for parcels of land less than two acres the preservation standards and table of zero 01:53:09.811 --> 01:53:16.130 - four dash eight may be altered by the city planning and transportation to director to allow preservation 01:53:16.130 --> 01:53:22.329 - of individual specimen trees or tree lines along property lines in lieu of minimum required vegetation 01:53:22.329 --> 01:53:25.278 - canopy has that not helped with this problem and 01:53:25.570 --> 01:53:32.489 - Sometimes sometimes not, you know, oftentimes at a staff level we tend to be more conservative and more 01:53:32.489 --> 01:53:39.209 - preservation minded So in that regard, yes, there is that allowance But we do you know usually often 01:53:39.209 --> 01:53:45.862 - look at it of you know, unless there's an individual specimen tree which is clearly kind of what we 01:53:45.862 --> 01:53:53.048 - were trying that that language was trying to direct us to you know, very rarely is that maybe the situation 01:53:53.048 --> 01:53:54.046 - but you know a 01:53:54.690 --> 01:54:02.956 - Scattering of trees that do create that closed canopy. So there is an allowance for that And we can 01:54:02.956 --> 01:54:11.470 - utilize that but you know, historically we've tried to err on the side of more conservatism Thank you, 01:54:11.470 --> 01:54:18.910 - thank you so much other comments or questions here questions then council member Stasberg 01:54:20.962 --> 01:54:27.636 - conversation about this at Plan Commission about that number 5,000 square feet and so when I met with 01:54:27.636 --> 01:54:34.702 - planning Whenever it was last week, maybe And we looked at different lots in terms of how many are actually 01:54:34.702 --> 01:54:41.507 - below 5,000 feet and would qualify for this Exemption it didn't seem like there were actually that many 01:54:41.507 --> 01:54:48.508 - of them but I guess I want to ask the sponsor of this if As opposed to scratching it if you would consider 01:54:48.508 --> 01:54:50.078 - lowering that number of 01:54:51.522 --> 01:55:00.888 - to like 4,000 square feet or 3,000 square feet so that we are actually like targeting those very smallest 01:55:00.888 --> 01:55:10.165 - lots and not generally allowing some kind of tree clear cut. Well, I would appreciate hearing from other 01:55:10.165 --> 01:55:19.354 - council members. I mean, if there is no appetite for deleting this exception altogether, then of course 01:55:19.354 --> 01:55:20.414 - it would be 01:55:20.770 --> 01:55:27.810 - Better than nothing to say it applies to lots smaller than 5,000 square feet. I mean, in my synopsis, 01:55:27.810 --> 01:55:34.713 - I of course give some of the reasons why I love trees. With increasing density and more built area, 01:55:34.713 --> 01:55:42.029 - more permeable area, it's especially important to retain minimal tree cover to counteract the heat island 01:55:42.029 --> 01:55:49.415 - effect. And of course, all trees provide natural ecosystem services like shade, carbon dioxide absorption, 01:55:49.415 --> 01:55:50.174 - et cetera. 01:55:50.466 --> 01:56:01.047 - I'm sure you all know that but this is where I'm coming from Okay, seeing none and we'll go to public 01:56:01.047 --> 01:56:11.732 - comment on amendment to And of which we have five anyone want to comment specifically on the amendment 01:56:11.732 --> 01:56:20.446 - about tree cover Hurry again is that game room? Unless there's somebody in the room 01:56:21.122 --> 01:56:28.541 - Okay, sorry. Go for it. Sorry. I can't tell what's going on in there. I just want to point out, the 01:56:28.541 --> 01:56:36.332 - amendment is eliminating something from section 2 of that, the subsection 2. The version that was passed 01:56:36.332 --> 01:56:43.751 - by the Plan Commission, and if you look on page 187 of the jumbo packet, was added to subsection 1, 01:56:43.751 --> 01:56:48.574 - the applicability section, not the retention of existing canopy. 01:56:49.506 --> 01:56:55.331 - So on page 187, if you look at it, except existing lots of record within R3, et cetera, that is the 01:56:55.331 --> 01:57:01.564 - applicability section, meaning it's going to everything else in the entire section, not just the retention 01:57:01.564 --> 01:57:07.506 - of tree canopy, is being eliminated by this, if it were to stay in. Not the retention of existing, if 01:57:07.506 --> 01:57:13.623 - it were just the retention of existing canopy, that would exempt only the table below, but if everything 01:57:13.623 --> 01:57:17.118 - else in the entire tree section. So for example, right now, 01:57:18.114 --> 01:57:23.924 - If this were to pass, as it was approved by the Planning Commission in Section 1, there would be no 01:57:23.924 --> 01:57:29.792 - obligation for their trees to be protected during construction whatsoever. Subsection 7 would not be 01:57:29.792 --> 01:57:35.776 - there. There would be no obligation for conservancy or tree preservation easements. Anything else that 01:57:35.776 --> 01:57:40.830 - might be added to this section would not apply to lots 5,000 feet or less in R3 or R4. 01:57:40.994 --> 01:57:47.438 - So it's the applicability section that is really why I've written you guys on it in opposition to this 01:57:47.438 --> 01:57:54.069 - and why the Commission on Sustainability and Resilience wrote a letter to you also opposing this, because 01:57:54.069 --> 01:58:00.513 - anything else in that section, it no longer applies. If it's just the tree canopy section, tree canopy 01:58:00.513 --> 01:58:04.830 - retention, I can understand the rationale there a little bit better. 01:58:05.058 --> 01:58:11.247 - because it is harder to do construction when you're having to retain 90% of the tree coverage. But everything 01:58:11.247 --> 01:58:16.987 - else in there that is in there now or would be added in the future is exempted under the version that 01:58:16.987 --> 01:58:22.782 - was passed by the Planning Commission, which again is in the section one, not section two. I just want 01:58:22.782 --> 01:58:28.521 - to point that out. Thank you. Thank you. We'll continue online from anyone else online and then we'll 01:58:28.521 --> 01:58:29.534 - come to chambers. 01:58:34.338 --> 01:58:42.416 - All right, person online. Hi, this is Kari Bennett, Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County. Habitat supports 01:58:42.416 --> 01:58:49.971 - the tree preservation exemption for residential small lots because it can be incredibly difficult to 01:58:49.971 --> 01:58:58.049 - retain trees and still be able to build a home on a small lot. This exemption can be particularly impactful 01:58:58.049 --> 01:59:02.238 - for homes that are affordable for low income residents. 01:59:02.338 --> 01:59:10.899 - While trees are very beneficial for a host of environmental and aesthetic reasons, the best and highest 01:59:10.899 --> 01:59:19.212 - use of a residential zone lot is a home. Thank you so much. Hi, my name's Greg. I'm sorry to use all 01:59:19.212 --> 01:59:28.020 - your time. I just want to speak very briefly. It is your time, not ours. Go ahead. Against this amendment, 01:59:28.020 --> 01:59:30.654 - if I'm understanding correctly, 01:59:30.882 --> 01:59:35.835 - I do love trees. I love trees in the city. But the fact of the matter is trees are extremely difficult 01:59:35.835 --> 01:59:40.739 - in the city. I can't have trees on my lot because on both sides of my lot, which is very small, there 01:59:40.739 --> 01:59:45.644 - are power lines. And so it's very few places I could plant a tree that they're not going to go in the 01:59:45.644 --> 01:59:50.597 - power lines. We had to get rid of a tree at the rental because it had Dutch Elm disease. We had to get 01:59:50.597 --> 01:59:55.934 - rid of another tree because it was dropping limbs on the house. It's very difficult to have trees in the city. 01:59:56.194 --> 02:00:02.409 - All sorts of problems and the simple fact the matter is the more housing we have in the city the less 02:00:02.409 --> 02:00:08.501 - housing We have in the forest and so if we want to preserve forest, it's best to urbanize the urban 02:00:08.501 --> 02:00:15.020 - areas. Thank you Thank you so much is there anyone else online Okay, anybody else in chambers on amendment 02:00:15.020 --> 02:00:20.382 - to That will come back to council. I think that's where Flaherty had a comment Go ahead 02:00:21.186 --> 02:00:28.369 - Sorry to sneak in here, but I think mr. Ammerman was absolutely right and I made a mistake in drafting 02:00:28.369 --> 02:00:35.343 - my amendment So the the phrase except existing lots of record within the r3 and r4 zoning districts 02:00:35.343 --> 02:00:42.386 - that are less than 5,000 square feet That was actually with item 1 applicability and not with item 2 02:00:42.386 --> 02:00:49.918 - as I have it in the amendment. So my apologies I Guess I would like to make an amendment to my amendment. I 02:00:52.130 --> 02:01:06.263 - Okay, that's a thing that has been done Yeah, yes, I think Attorney Allen is preparing that in the meantime 02:01:06.263 --> 02:01:19.481 - comes one for there. Do you want to make a comment? Good catch by mr. Ammerman I Agree that the well 02:01:19.481 --> 02:01:21.182 - more broadly 02:01:22.530 --> 02:01:28.368 - I think A, there's a mechanism for the director to exercise some discretion already, even if they haven't 02:01:28.368 --> 02:01:33.931 - really been using that. And B, through the conversation I had with staff about the variance process, 02:01:33.931 --> 02:01:39.493 - I generally agree with the rationale. If something is repeatedly causing a variance to be brought to 02:01:39.493 --> 02:01:45.386 - BZA and it's repeatedly being granted, we should fix it in code. But I'm not sure if this little carve-out 02:01:45.386 --> 02:01:50.398 - exception proposed by staff is the fix. And in particular, what's been happening at BZA is 02:01:50.530 --> 02:01:56.710 - folks have been proposing remediation plans. And that's not, we could require that via code or something 02:01:56.710 --> 02:02:02.714 - like it. And it could even go so far as to say if you can't, so there's a method or can be method for 02:02:02.714 --> 02:02:08.659 - calculating remediation if you're losing a certain square footage of canopy, plant X number of trees 02:02:08.659 --> 02:02:14.662 - that are gonna reach that level and Y number of years. And if it can't be done on the site because of 02:02:14.662 --> 02:02:20.254 - it just being too small, you could do it elsewhere. And so plant a street tree somewhere else. 02:02:20.578 --> 02:02:26.533 - And so, you know, we could preserve canopy in the aggregate in the city through remediation plans where 02:02:26.533 --> 02:02:32.259 - that's necessary and just make that clearer and like a clear set of rules folks can follow and kind 02:02:32.259 --> 02:02:38.100 - of codify the practice that's already kind of emerged or more organically I think in the BCA process. 02:02:38.100 --> 02:02:40.734 - But I think that's too tall of an order to... 02:02:41.346 --> 02:02:49.439 - to get done right now. But I think it is worth doing, and I encourage staff to maybe bring that at their 02:02:49.439 --> 02:02:57.302 - initiative with future UDO changes. So that's my two cents on it. Happy to vote for your amendment to 02:02:57.302 --> 02:03:05.010 - the amendment and the amendment. Thank you so much. Attorney Allen, is that ready yet? And if you'd 02:03:05.010 --> 02:03:10.174 - like, we could recess for a minute. Oh, there it is. Wow. Wonders. 02:03:13.282 --> 02:03:23.019 - All right, you already talked about this, but I'd love to give you another chance if you need it. I 02:03:23.019 --> 02:03:32.950 - don't think you need it. If we could just make that bigger, that would be good. Thank you. Thank you, 02:03:32.950 --> 02:03:42.590 - Mr. Allen. And so here is the amendment as reflected. Any comments on this? Any further questions? 02:03:43.810 --> 02:03:53.261 - Parliamentarian, do I need to go to public comment again for amendment two as amendment? Okay, I have 02:03:53.261 --> 02:04:02.896 - to go to public comment again. So anyone like to comment on amendment two as amended, as being proposed 02:04:02.896 --> 02:04:10.494 - to be amended? Anyone online? All right, come back to you all. You ready to vote? 02:04:11.266 --> 02:04:20.980 - All right, will the clerk please call the roll on amendment two as amended? No. On the amendment to 02:04:20.980 --> 02:04:31.568 - the amendment, and then we'll vote for amendment two. Got it, yes. So can you call the roll on the amendment 02:04:31.568 --> 02:04:40.894 - to the amendment, please? Councilmember Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Asari? Yes. Daly? Yes. Rallo? Yes. 02:04:41.474 --> 02:04:54.231 - Rough Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Stasburg. Yes Okay, that carries a zero will now unless there's 02:04:54.231 --> 02:05:08.008 - any comments a vote on amendment to as amended All right, well the clerk please call the roll Councilmember 02:05:08.008 --> 02:05:10.814 - sorry, yes daily. Yes 02:05:11.106 --> 02:05:22.808 - Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stossberg. Yes. Piedmont-Smith. Yes. That motion 02:05:22.808 --> 02:05:34.064 - carries 8-0. Amendment 2 passes. Let's move on to Amendment 3. Oh, that's mine also. OK. You want to 02:05:34.064 --> 02:05:40.862 - move to move? I move Amendment 3 to Ordinance 26-20. Second. 02:05:41.026 --> 02:05:50.117 - Motion to second, go ahead. So this amendment deletes the Bloomington Municipal Code 20.04.060 in attachment 02:05:50.117 --> 02:05:57.707 - A and replaces it with a new version. Basically, I'm rejecting the deletion of all parking 02:05:57.707 --> 02:06:06.047 - minimum requirements in the UDO and instead proposing to delete only the minimums for the following 02:06:06.047 --> 02:06:10.718 - uses. Dwelling live work, dwelling cottage development, 02:06:10.914 --> 02:06:19.186 - dwelling, mobile home park, non-commercial urban agriculture, student housing, or dormitory. Let me 02:06:19.186 --> 02:06:28.038 - explain my rationale for this. We have a problem in the city that there's not enough space on some streets 02:06:28.038 --> 02:06:36.145 - in some areas for the number of vehicles that people want to park on those streets. This includes 02:06:36.145 --> 02:06:39.454 - neighborhood residential parking zones, 02:06:39.586 --> 02:06:45.686 - as well as areas that are not in neighborhood residential parking zones. In those zones, on-street parking 02:06:45.686 --> 02:06:51.444 - permits are only allowed per code to residents in single-family houses. In areas outside such zones, 02:06:51.444 --> 02:06:57.202 - on-street parking is a benefit we are providing for free to everybody. Where parking demand is high, 02:06:57.202 --> 02:07:03.016 - I think we should look into charging every resident who wants to park on the street for the privilege 02:07:03.016 --> 02:07:06.494 - of doing so. But in the meantime, we have a parking problem. 02:07:07.266 --> 02:07:14.973 - Problem will only get worse if we get rid of parking minimums for duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes in 02:07:14.973 --> 02:07:22.756 - the R1 through R4 zoning districts and for multi-family buildings within or adjacent to R3 districts. 02:07:22.756 --> 02:07:30.691 - This amendment reflects what I see in my district happening, that there are streets, often quite narrow 02:07:30.691 --> 02:07:36.414 - streets, where people park on both sides sometimes and do not allow enough 02:07:36.866 --> 02:07:44.516 - passage space for emergency vehicles and These are streets where single affordable single-family homes 02:07:44.516 --> 02:07:51.944 - are being torn down to be replaced by duplexes that are less affordable and Come with more bedrooms 02:07:51.944 --> 02:07:59.371 - and end up having more vehicles that need to park So parking I think we have a problem in this city 02:07:59.371 --> 02:08:03.902 - with on-street parking. We need a comprehensive solution and 02:08:04.066 --> 02:08:11.988 - And until we have one, and I'm willing to charge everybody for parking, but until we have that, this 02:08:11.988 --> 02:08:20.067 - is only gonna make the problem worse, removing the minimums. The minimums are minimal, let me say. For 02:08:20.067 --> 02:08:28.068 - a duplex, you only need one space for both sides, so you need half a space per unit. So it's not such 02:08:28.068 --> 02:08:32.382 - a high requirement, and I think that getting rid of it 02:08:32.642 --> 02:08:41.330 - Minimums at this time is unwise and I'm happy to work on comprehensive solutions to the on-street parking 02:08:41.330 --> 02:08:49.526 - problem Throughout the course of this year before the neighborhood zone permits are up next summer. 02:08:49.526 --> 02:08:57.968 - Thank you Thank you any questions Would staff like to comment on this Okay, seeing no questions, we'll 02:08:57.968 --> 02:09:01.246 - go to public comment on amendment three 02:09:09.378 --> 02:09:16.100 - My name is Greg Alexander. I was really disappointed by a comment made by this amendment sponsor a couple 02:09:16.100 --> 02:09:22.695 - weeks ago. She suggested that complaints about the scarcity of parking in neighborhoods south of campus 02:09:22.695 --> 02:09:27.070 - is evidence that parking scarcity doesn't induce bike and ped trips. 02:09:27.266 --> 02:09:32.787 - It doesn't work that way. For example, when I lived on the Upper West Side of New York City, there was 02:09:32.787 --> 02:09:38.522 - about one parking space per 100 residents. And people fought over those spaces. They were always occupied. 02:09:38.522 --> 02:09:43.882 - They were severely oversubscribed. The tiny minority that drove was always complaining. The sponsor 02:09:43.882 --> 02:09:49.403 - would look at this vocal demand for limited parking resources and say it proves no one is walking. The 02:09:49.403 --> 02:09:54.977 - biggest driver of bike and ped trips is proximity. If you build more housing in city limits, there will 02:09:54.977 --> 02:09:56.478 - be more bike and ped trips. 02:09:56.642 --> 02:10:02.294 - The second biggest driver is simply restricting car space, especially parking. When people do not complain, 02:10:02.294 --> 02:10:07.631 - it means they don't even notice the resource they're consuming. They're taking it for granted. But if 02:10:07.631 --> 02:10:12.916 - they are complaining, they're aware. They're confronted with this cost with awareness. They can make 02:10:12.916 --> 02:10:18.149 - rational decisions. The underlying fact of the matter is that for about 70 years, we have displaced 02:10:18.149 --> 02:10:20.190 - residences from city into the suburbs. 02:10:20.290 --> 02:10:26.149 - commuters have a nearly insatiable demand for parking, and yet we have satisfied that need. That's amazing. 02:10:26.149 --> 02:10:31.738 - Consider how much parking demand we have created, and yet we still have enough parking. People commute 02:10:31.738 --> 02:10:37.271 - here from all over. But we do have a housing crisis, a housing crisis, a crisis! It is existential to 02:10:37.271 --> 02:10:42.860 - every aspect of the city. It is causing a downward spiral in the quality of our public spaces as local 02:10:42.860 --> 02:10:48.448 - character is driven, that was created by our residents, is being replaced with a corporate soul driven 02:10:48.448 --> 02:10:50.238 - by the exploitation of visitors. 02:10:50.658 --> 02:10:55.014 - It is causing a crisis for government funding as we provide services for people who live outside of 02:10:55.014 --> 02:10:59.588 - our taxation umbrella It's causing a crisis for our school district Which is seeing declining enrollment 02:10:59.588 --> 02:11:03.944 - because families can't live here And it is most of all causing a crisis for those of us who do live 02:11:03.944 --> 02:11:08.126 - here because we find ourselves priced out in neighborhoods that aren't even really built for us 02:11:08.610 --> 02:11:14.430 - And in the midst of this price crisis, Councilmember Piedmont-Smith wants to introduce the non-sec order 02:11:14.430 --> 02:11:20.028 - that bike and ped trips aren't increasing because people complain about parking. Mr. President, bike 02:11:20.028 --> 02:11:25.793 - and ped trips increase any time you build more housing near campus, and people complain. Let's act like 02:11:25.793 --> 02:11:31.557 - our housing crisis is more important than preserving an oversupply of parking. I'm asking you to accept 02:11:31.557 --> 02:11:37.266 - the driver complaints that are inevitable in all desirable places. Please vote against this amendment. 02:11:37.266 --> 02:11:38.430 - Thank you very much. 02:11:38.722 --> 02:11:50.221 - I see another comment in in chambers strapping gentlemen And then we'll go online Cons members Steve 02:11:50.221 --> 02:12:00.126 - Olin chair of the transportation Commission, but I'm not speaking for the Commission I 02:12:01.506 --> 02:12:07.954 - Speak in support of section 5 of this ordinance as written and against this amendment It's high time 02:12:07.954 --> 02:12:14.338 - that we stop requiring the provision of parking in our built environment Driving is a privilege the 02:12:14.338 --> 02:12:21.106 - state requires someone to have a license to operate a motor vehicle The existence of the driver's license 02:12:21.106 --> 02:12:27.554 - shows that driving is not a human right There are other ways to get around many Bloomingtonians walk 02:12:27.554 --> 02:12:29.150 - bike scooter and carpool 02:12:29.410 --> 02:12:35.570 - We have the public transit system with the highest per capita ridership in the state by far But the 02:12:35.570 --> 02:12:41.915 - car is such utility and convenience that the majority Bloomingtonians use one the use of a car is such 02:12:41.915 --> 02:12:48.383 - an extraordinary Convenience that it can feel like a right being revoked when it is made less convenient 02:12:48.383 --> 02:12:51.710 - It is nevertheless a convenience based on a privilege 02:12:52.418 --> 02:12:59.291 - For many decades, we've made that convenience a requirement in local construction. Requiring land, let 02:12:59.291 --> 02:13:06.031 - alone structures for parking, is an extraordinary expense that all taxpayers bear, not just drivers. 02:13:06.031 --> 02:13:12.770 - It has also taken away space that could have been used for more housing units. In both ways, minimum 02:13:12.770 --> 02:13:16.574 - parking requirements have driven up the cost of housing. 02:13:16.674 --> 02:13:22.572 - Whether it's in a garage and a lot on a street in a neighborhood or downtown, there is not a need for 02:13:22.572 --> 02:13:28.701 - parking. There is not a right to park next to one's home. There is only a demand, and there will continue 02:13:28.701 --> 02:13:34.715 - to be a demand as long as there are more cars looking for places to park than there are spaces. Because 02:13:34.715 --> 02:13:40.728 - we do not have the money to build as much parking as some drivers demand, the only fair way to allocate 02:13:40.728 --> 02:13:42.174 - it has been its pricing. 02:13:43.746 --> 02:13:49.953 - the we need to adjust the price of parking to manage that demand the Problem that councilor Piedmont 02:13:49.953 --> 02:13:56.283 - Smith worries about will not emerge that quickly That's why after you approve the ordinance as written 02:13:56.283 --> 02:14:02.551 - There's more work to do to that end if you're worried about parking in neighborhoods any neighborhood 02:14:02.551 --> 02:14:08.697 - For example know that literally half of our neighborhood zones have a surfeit of demand and half of 02:14:08.697 --> 02:14:10.110 - them are underutilized 02:14:11.266 --> 02:14:17.030 - In the next few months, I'll personally be pushing the Transportation Commission to develop legislation 02:14:17.030 --> 02:14:22.572 - for your consideration to create prices plural for parking in some neighborhoods The price needs to 02:14:22.572 --> 02:14:28.170 - go up and some it actually needs to go down The same is true for metered parking one price no longer 02:14:28.170 --> 02:14:33.712 - fits all the price of parking needs to vary by area But I'll also be pushing for the development of 02:14:33.712 --> 02:14:39.310 - parking benefit districts which I can talk about with the ordinance as a whole but for now don't let 02:14:39.310 --> 02:14:40.030 - this concern 02:14:40.162 --> 02:14:49.469 - Fix the pricing over the next year instead New housing or new parking won't or new housing won't get 02:14:49.469 --> 02:14:58.684 - built so quickly to overwhelm the parking that councilman Smith is concerned about. Thank you Thank 02:14:58.684 --> 02:15:07.992 - you very much. Is there anyone online wanting to comment on amendment 3? Let us go to them then This 02:15:07.992 --> 02:15:09.374 - time this time 02:15:09.954 --> 02:15:19.107 - Person online, please take it away. The first commenter is John Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence or Dr. Lawrence. 02:15:19.107 --> 02:15:27.996 - Hi, actually this is Jan Sorby. Hey. But there are two people using this computer as confusing as it 02:15:27.996 --> 02:15:36.974 - may be. First of all, I want to say I support this amendment. It's a thoughtful amendment that's been 02:15:36.974 --> 02:15:38.910 - worn out by evidence. 02:15:39.010 --> 02:15:47.724 - The streets of many of the R1, excuse me, R3 and R4 were built before cars were something that everybody 02:15:47.724 --> 02:15:56.107 - had. They were built when only the rich had automobiles. And I know in my own neighborhood, the rich 02:15:56.107 --> 02:16:04.821 - never lived here. These are very, very modest houses. We have streets that flat sidewalks, storm sewers, 02:16:04.821 --> 02:16:06.398 - curbs and gutters. 02:16:06.914 --> 02:16:14.375 - There's no place for people to walk safely on many of the streets when they become wall-to-wall cars. 02:16:14.375 --> 02:16:21.689 - Where are the pedestrians supposed to walk? Where are the bikers supposed to ride their bike? Where 02:16:21.689 --> 02:16:29.223 - are the parents supposed to push strollers and walk dogs? Where are the children supposed to learn how 02:16:29.223 --> 02:16:35.806 - to ride their tricycle? These are very, very real problems that exist in my neighborhood. 02:16:35.938 --> 02:16:45.270 - and they've already emerged and they are real and they're happening every day. And when a bigger building 02:16:45.270 --> 02:16:54.339 - that offers six bedrooms is built, it takes all of the parking away. There's no shared street anymore. 02:16:54.339 --> 02:17:01.470 - So for these very real problems that were talked about by Isabel Piedmont Smith, 02:17:01.986 --> 02:17:09.291 - I ask you to please support this. Please support the small neighborhoods that were built with insufficient 02:17:09.291 --> 02:17:16.390 - infrastructure, and we all have to share that street. So please support them, and thank you. Thank you. 02:17:16.390 --> 02:17:23.695 - I think we have another commenter online. Hi, Zach and everyone again. First, I apologize if I was jumping 02:17:23.695 --> 02:17:27.518 - in too early before. It's hard to tell what's going on. 02:17:27.650 --> 02:17:36.280 - Anyway, I enjoyed it made exciting, but let us reset your time wait Okay, cool to the matter of hand 02:17:36.280 --> 02:17:44.825 - Generally have a lot of respect for councilmember Piedmont Smith, but so And thank you for the tree 02:17:44.825 --> 02:17:53.626 - amendment. I appreciate that On this one though. I think I think I just disagree with you. I just want 02:17:53.626 --> 02:17:56.958 - to point out a couple of facts quickly 02:17:57.602 --> 02:18:03.119 - Looking at the Parking Reform Network's website right now, I found that 3,772 cities around the world 02:18:03.119 --> 02:18:08.636 - have reduced parking minimums of some kind. 129 have completely eliminated parking minimums in the US 02:18:08.636 --> 02:18:14.207 - and Canada just in the past few years. And I just want to list some of those cities that have done so. 02:18:14.207 --> 02:18:19.670 - Buffalo, New York, Hartford, Connecticut, San Francisco, South Bend, Indiana, Berkeley, Minneapolis, 02:18:19.670 --> 02:18:25.241 - and St. Paul, Raleigh, North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina, Anchorage, Alaska, Lexington, Kentucky, 02:18:25.241 --> 02:18:27.134 - San Jose, California, Gainesville, 02:18:27.234 --> 02:18:32.745 - Burlington, Austin, Texas, Denver, and Baltimore, and that is not exhaustive. These cities are doing 02:18:32.745 --> 02:18:38.692 - fine. These are frequently much cities that have much larger populations, much more drivers than Bloomington 02:18:38.692 --> 02:18:44.366 - does, and they seem to be handling the situation fine. I also think some of those cities or cities that 02:18:44.366 --> 02:18:46.494 - have seen their housing costs go down, 02:18:46.882 --> 02:18:52.869 - In recent years, Raleigh is one of them. Durham is one of them. Austin, I think, is another one that's 02:18:52.869 --> 02:18:58.682 - actually seen housing costs as one of the few places where housing is actually kind of leveling off 02:18:58.682 --> 02:19:04.495 - a little bit and going down. So I think that's a good sign. Parking is expensive to put in. I think 02:19:04.495 --> 02:19:10.307 - requiring parking to be put in for construction just raises housing costs. Just let builders decide 02:19:10.307 --> 02:19:16.062 - whether they want to put a parking in or not. That's all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you so much. 02:19:16.482 --> 02:19:26.222 - Anyone else online? Anyone else in chambers? All right, we will come back to council for comments on 02:19:26.222 --> 02:19:36.058 - amendment three We Councilman Rosa burger Hi, I love these opportunities to bring out a book and talk 02:19:36.058 --> 02:19:44.062 - about parking this is Jeff specs walkable city rules super famous city planner and 02:19:44.290 --> 02:19:52.143 - This is pretty old now, but rule 16 eliminate on-site parking requirements There's a lot on this And 02:19:52.143 --> 02:20:00.074 - it's a lot of what people have already said. I think when this came out Wow, maybe 2012 there weren't 02:20:00.074 --> 02:20:07.927 - a ton of cities that did it and now it sounds like over, you know around 150 across the US that talk 02:20:07.927 --> 02:20:12.126 - about it Washington DC was big on it back in 2012 and 02:20:13.378 --> 02:20:20.263 - Removing off-street parking requirements will not eliminate off-street parking but will instead stimulate 02:20:20.263 --> 02:20:26.952 - an active commercial market for it I think it's important to to note that if we require parking on our 02:20:26.952 --> 02:20:33.512 - properties and we're looking at decreasing Lot size this is going to mean housing cannot be built on 02:20:33.512 --> 02:20:35.006 - the smaller lots. So I 02:20:35.266 --> 02:20:41.880 - we have an impervious surface coverage. Like it really is a question of do you want a house there or 02:20:41.880 --> 02:20:48.756 - do you want nothing there? Because we can't fit a house and parking and green space in our code on these 02:20:48.756 --> 02:20:55.370 - smaller lots. So it really is a time that we need to be talking about housing humans and not housing 02:20:55.370 --> 02:21:02.115 - cars. And we're not saying developers do not get parking. They can choose to add parking whenever they 02:21:02.115 --> 02:21:04.734 - so desire. And it is just their choice. 02:21:05.666 --> 02:21:12.495 - So I hope everyone up here can just get on board with trying this out. Thanks, colleagues. Thank you 02:21:12.495 --> 02:21:19.459 - so much. I'm Council Member Piemont-Smith and then Council Member Flaherty. Yeah, I just want to point 02:21:19.459 --> 02:21:26.356 - out that there is no parking requirement for single-family detached or single-family attached houses. 02:21:26.356 --> 02:21:33.185 - So if you want to build a single-family house, you don't need to put any parking. Thank you, Council 02:21:33.185 --> 02:21:34.334 - Member Flaherty. 02:21:34.946 --> 02:21:41.197 - Yeah, a few things. Thank you First of all, I appreciate customer Piedmont Smith's commitment to you 02:21:41.197 --> 02:21:47.881 - know, additional parking reforms I've said throughout this process from when we first heard this resolution 02:21:47.881 --> 02:21:54.193 - that additional parking policy changes are needed and are also warranted if we adopt this code change 02:21:54.193 --> 02:21:59.454 - But this is a UDO amendment modifying the neighborhood zone permitting scheme is not 02:21:59.554 --> 02:22:05.134 - like really appropriately in scope, I don't think, for like the UDO amendment. But again, I plan to 02:22:05.134 --> 02:22:10.882 - take that up. I think it's needed. I've always kind of committed to that. There are some other parking 02:22:10.882 --> 02:22:16.630 - issues that my colleague identified, like narrow streets, say, Wiley Street and Bryant Park. If people 02:22:16.630 --> 02:22:22.657 - park on both sides of the street, which is technically allowed, you may have issues with emergency vehicles 02:22:22.657 --> 02:22:27.902 - or other cars passing. That actually is a violation of existing requirements. You can't block 02:22:28.066 --> 02:22:33.816 - Passage and so if that's happening people either need to be ticketed or we need to fix it through policy 02:22:33.816 --> 02:22:39.457 - and so widely I think probably only you know further stretch from Lincoln to Henderson probably should 02:22:39.457 --> 02:22:45.098 - only have parking on one side of the street if that's not something staff has brought something we can 02:22:45.098 --> 02:22:50.630 - bring actually because it's in code so that's that's a Kind of bespoke and surgical fix though for a 02:22:50.630 --> 02:22:55.230 - particular problem. That's not in my mind like part of comprehensive reform I think 02:22:55.330 --> 02:23:00.371 - Anecdote from when I lived in Bryan Park. I had some neighbors Who always parked in the street and not 02:23:00.371 --> 02:23:05.462 - in their garage? Just because they wanted to and I think that's like pretty common like a lot of people 02:23:05.462 --> 02:23:10.356 - just kind of like if it's there and it's free or next to free and it's abundant People just kind of 02:23:10.356 --> 02:23:15.250 - park there. They don't appreciate that. We're giving this public space away for that purpose and so 02:23:15.250 --> 02:23:18.334 - yeah, you know adding more people to neighborhoods or allowing 02:23:18.690 --> 02:23:25.084 - more people besides single-family home dwellers in neighborhoods to park in the zones. That does increase 02:23:25.084 --> 02:23:31.116 - competition for the limited public space. That's why we price it. That's why we should price it. We 02:23:31.116 --> 02:23:37.208 - should redesign that program. But again, it's a supply and demand problem. The idea that we're gonna 02:23:37.208 --> 02:23:43.240 - prioritize some incumbents' preferences on how they wanna store their private views on public space 02:23:43.240 --> 02:23:48.126 - over housing affordability and housing development, I think, is just a misguided 02:23:48.258 --> 02:23:57.264 - policy aim. I think flexibility here is important. The bicycle apartments, I've referenced several times 02:23:57.264 --> 02:24:06.183 - in prior conversations. There's no parking. Did my mic die? Yeah. Mine is too. Some. There's no parking 02:24:06.183 --> 02:24:14.932 - there. People who live there either don't have cars and they self-select, or they have a car and they 02:24:14.932 --> 02:24:16.990 - park it somewhere else. 02:24:17.346 --> 02:24:23.264 - nearby that has free street space, and that's a choice they can make. It's reasonable. I don't think 02:24:23.264 --> 02:24:29.534 - we have to require it. I don't think it's some major catastrophic problem. I think it's a very incremental 02:24:29.534 --> 02:24:35.686 - thing that can be managed easily through parking policy rather than this code instrument. Earlier, Kerry 02:24:35.686 --> 02:24:42.014 - Bennett said something about the highest and best use of land is a home. I think that applies here. We just 02:24:42.850 --> 02:24:48.685 - It's just more important. I mean the empirical evidence on this from across the country is really quite 02:24:48.685 --> 02:24:54.856 - abundant and clear It is a fact that this amendment will have the effect of both limiting housing development 02:24:54.856 --> 02:25:00.466 - and increasing housing costs And I I don't think that the parking preferences of some people Should 02:25:00.466 --> 02:25:06.132 - trump those goals. So I just think we should be clear about the trade-off. Thanks. Thank you so much 02:25:06.132 --> 02:25:11.518 - customer floating. Sorry for all the Mike stuff during that any other comments customer Morello 02:25:12.802 --> 02:25:20.411 - Yeah, I'll be supporting this. I mean, I think it's, I guess what we fail to mention a lot of times 02:25:20.411 --> 02:25:28.172 - is that we are an exceptional community because of the high population of students that make up about 02:25:28.172 --> 02:25:36.010 - 60% of Bloomington's population. About 70% live off campus. They invariably bring cars with them. They 02:25:36.010 --> 02:25:42.782 - invariably park cars somewhere. If they park on streets where homes do not have parking, 02:25:43.426 --> 02:25:52.253 - because they were built, say, early last century, which a lot of the small neighborhoods, a lot of the 02:25:52.253 --> 02:26:01.165 - neighborhoods around campus are, then we're essentially in competition. Those people are in competition 02:26:01.165 --> 02:26:10.420 - with the student population. So that is the reality. And I think because of that, I appreciate my colleague 02:26:10.420 --> 02:26:12.734 - for bringing this forward. 02:26:14.882 --> 02:26:23.612 - Thank you so much. All right, Council Member Stasberg, and then I'll call for a vote if that's okay. 02:26:23.612 --> 02:26:32.255 - I'm really having a hard time with this one. Partly, I think I'm having a hard time with it because 02:26:32.255 --> 02:26:41.417 - I see everybody's arguments as totally valid and legitimate. And one of the things that I've been dealing 02:26:41.417 --> 02:26:44.702 - with right now over in District 3 are 02:26:45.794 --> 02:26:53.700 - Boy how many are there right now five six seven New duplexes that have been put up in the last year 02:26:53.700 --> 02:27:01.843 - That the the statistic that gets thrown at me is that there used to be about ten people living in this 02:27:01.843 --> 02:27:08.958 - stretch and now there's 80 because it's a particular area where it's owned you can have a 02:27:09.058 --> 02:27:16.560 - five unrelated adults per dwelling unit, and they're all duplexes. So there are now 10 people per dwelling 02:27:16.560 --> 02:27:20.766 - unit per side, and it is a serious vehicle parking problem. 02:27:20.866 --> 02:27:27.577 - And partly, that is because they are students, as Councilmember Ola just said. They are coming from 02:27:27.577 --> 02:27:34.288 - out of town, and a whole lot of them are bringing cars. And when there's maybe two or three parking 02:27:34.288 --> 02:27:41.066 - spots for them behind each of those buildings, and there's 10 students who all came, even if half of 02:27:41.066 --> 02:27:47.845 - them brought cars, there's still this overflow that has to go somewhere else. And, you know, I got a 02:27:47.845 --> 02:27:50.462 - constituent comment recently that was, 02:27:51.106 --> 02:27:58.357 - Really solution based and part of the solution In his mind was saying hey, maybe they need to buy iu 02:27:58.357 --> 02:28:05.609 - parking passes and iu needs to you know somehow house these cars right on their property which which 02:28:05.609 --> 02:28:09.342 - might be a solution that's worth talking about with 02:28:09.474 --> 02:28:14.990 - IU, but at this current point in time, there is not another solution. And I have a real hard time saying 02:28:14.990 --> 02:28:20.402 - like, okay, well, we're gonna do this thing. It's gonna create this problem while we don't really have 02:28:20.402 --> 02:28:25.656 - a solution for this other problem that it's gonna create. And so that's part of the reason why it's 02:28:25.656 --> 02:28:30.174 - like, well, I kinda wanna support this because this is definitely creating a problem. 02:28:30.434 --> 02:28:37.167 - Right, but I also don't want to support it because I do think that it also increases housing prices 02:28:37.167 --> 02:28:44.101 - especially in the dwelling multifamily and that it's really more complex maybe and I'm looking at this 02:28:44.101 --> 02:28:51.170 - chart that just says all other zoning districts and the MD zoning district and it's all based on housing 02:28:51.170 --> 02:28:57.566 - type it's not based on zoning district and Maybe our zoning maybe maybe there needs to be more 02:28:57.890 --> 02:29:04.310 - Refinement you can say around this where neither one of these solutions are great where we shouldn't 02:29:04.310 --> 02:29:10.793 - you know councilmember Piedmont Smith Adjustment It is maybe sort of going to solve this problem, but 02:29:10.793 --> 02:29:17.594 - it's going to create this other You know issue that's still going to remain with you know the the dwelling 02:29:17.594 --> 02:29:21.726 - multifamily these large buildings like the bicycle building that 02:29:21.858 --> 02:29:29.307 - You know, we don't necessarily need to require that they have parking in those big buildings, but maybe 02:29:29.307 --> 02:29:36.612 - we do need to require it in some of these districts, some of these areas that are bordering campus in 02:29:36.612 --> 02:29:39.262 - such a way, you know, these older... 02:29:41.122 --> 02:29:47.375 - These neighborhoods that have been around for a very long time and when they were developed they have 02:29:47.375 --> 02:29:53.567 - narrow streets They have houses that are close together They may or may not be served by alleys that 02:29:53.567 --> 02:29:59.820 - stuff like some some of those places have alleys that are developed and some don't and so There might 02:29:59.820 --> 02:30:05.950 - not actually be a way to add parking to the actual lot Because there's no way to access the parking 02:30:06.082 --> 02:30:15.175 - They can't like leap over the house and there's not enough space between houses. And so Yeah, all that's 02:30:15.175 --> 02:30:24.181 - to say I'm having a really hard time with this one and I don't even know yet what I'm gonna vote Thanks 02:30:24.181 --> 02:30:33.534 - Thank you, I'm councilmember daily and then we will vote What she said That's all I'm likewise very torn so 02:30:35.074 --> 02:30:40.992 - Yeah, I don't have anything precious to add. Thanks councilmember Rosenberger redeeming your time We 02:30:40.992 --> 02:30:46.969 - want to hurry this along but I think we have two councilmembers who don't know what they're doing yet 02:30:46.969 --> 02:30:52.829 - So it's okay if we keep talking about it I am aware that single-family homes do not require parking 02:30:52.829 --> 02:30:58.806 - on site. I don't think that is super equitable It's the lowest density type of housing that's getting 02:30:58.806 --> 02:31:00.798 - a park that no other housing type 02:31:01.218 --> 02:31:07.429 - If we really want to encourage denser housing in our city We actually need to switch that and require 02:31:07.429 --> 02:31:13.884 - single-family homes to have on property parking and allow others not to I do think some public commenters 02:31:13.884 --> 02:31:19.973 - made great points We are very much more worried about where people will park their cars rather than 02:31:19.973 --> 02:31:26.063 - where we can house our humans IU does offer parking passes for students at the stadium students are 02:31:26.063 --> 02:31:27.646 - just hoping or wanting to 02:31:27.906 --> 02:31:35.004 - to park their car close to where they live. And if they can't, they won't. And they'll park it somewhere 02:31:35.004 --> 02:31:41.765 - else. It's not a problem. I lived in the dorms. I didn't have a car. I eventually had a parking lot 02:31:41.765 --> 02:31:47.038 - where I lived. You change your behavior based on where you can park your car. 02:31:47.426 --> 02:31:54.212 - Still think like if you are trying to build a duplex on a small lot You cannot fit a duplex with parking 02:31:54.212 --> 02:32:00.739 - and the appropriate green space in our neighborhoods and our walkable neighborhoods need things like 02:32:00.739 --> 02:32:07.266 - duplexes I think that's all I have for right now. This isn't a Crazy unique thing that we're that is 02:32:07.266 --> 02:32:13.793 - getting proposed. It's not something that's never been done It's getting done all over the place and 02:32:13.793 --> 02:32:16.830 - it's it's successful. Thanks Thank you so much 02:32:18.178 --> 02:32:28.907 - I Just want to make sure that everybody knows that I am not more concerned about housing cars than humans. 02:32:28.907 --> 02:32:39.234 - I'm very concerned I am I'm very concerned about housing humans. I volunteer at two different homeless 02:32:39.234 --> 02:32:45.150 - shelters I support the vast majority of this ordinance and 02:32:45.794 --> 02:32:53.744 - I recognize a lot of research has been done that says eliminating parking minimums is good for communities, 02:32:53.744 --> 02:33:01.327 - but I also see what's happening in my district and What's happening is that? Duplexes are being built. 02:33:01.327 --> 02:33:08.688 - They're already being built and The current parking requirements are not preventing them from being 02:33:08.688 --> 02:33:14.430 - built as a matter of fact usually they have more parking than the minimum and 02:33:15.202 --> 02:33:26.408 - And it's causing safety issues for other people on the streets because There's too many cars trying 02:33:26.408 --> 02:33:36.830 - to park where there's not enough room So that's what I'm trying to address here. Thank you I 02:33:37.346 --> 02:33:44.505 - My way and I'll say I'll say one thing which is maybe two things. I think The first echoing 02:33:44.505 --> 02:33:52.364 - what Councilmember Flaherty said that I'm not convinced that this is the right Mechanism to be using 02:33:52.364 --> 02:34:00.301 - to address This issue if it is an issue second that I'm not though. I'm not particularly sure that it 02:34:00.301 --> 02:34:02.558 - is an issue because again if 02:34:03.074 --> 02:34:10.152 - I mean, there's a market argument, which is that if people would not move there if there is not parking, 02:34:10.152 --> 02:34:17.096 - then presumably people would build said parking. And so eliminating the parking minimum shouldn't make 02:34:17.096 --> 02:34:24.107 - a difference really to this problem. So I think the discussion to me identifies very clearly that there 02:34:24.107 --> 02:34:30.174 - really is something else going on. And I'm always really concerned that we over-adjust to 02:34:30.722 --> 02:34:36.427 - sort of anomalies in our market, if you will, or in demand. You know, and then by that, you end up sort 02:34:36.427 --> 02:34:42.078 - of skewing things in the first place, and then you get other results. So you sort of squeeze here, and 02:34:42.078 --> 02:34:47.783 - then you get something else here, but we're never actually addressing the real problem. So I think sort 02:34:47.783 --> 02:34:53.378 - of just thinking about the theory of change here, that it makes sense to not really play with this in 02:34:53.378 --> 02:34:57.438 - this method. So that would be my position for whatever it is worth. Okay. 02:34:57.794 --> 02:35:12.167 - Everybody let's vote now. We have many we have many other amendments. So will the clerk please call 02:35:12.167 --> 02:35:25.822 - the roll on amendments? Three go ahead Councilmember daily Rallo yes, Roth. Yes Rosenberger no 02:35:27.458 --> 02:35:53.758 - Clarity no Stasberg Yes Piedmont Smith, yes Sorry no It fails for four or four okay that fails for four I 02:35:56.290 --> 02:36:02.856 - I'd like to move Amendment 4 to Ordinance 202620. Second. All right, Amendment 4. Is that yours? 02:36:02.856 --> 02:36:09.895 - That's mine. Please, go for it. It's got a kind of mix of things that we packaged. My one request would 02:36:09.895 --> 02:36:17.205 - be that if folks support some elements and not others, that they just make a motion to divide the question, 02:36:17.205 --> 02:36:24.515 - and you would just vote on the paragraphs separately or just one paragraph separately if needed. Otherwise, 02:36:24.515 --> 02:36:25.598 - we can proceed. 02:36:25.698 --> 02:36:35.508 - Apologize to do this, but we're gonna have to do a very quick amendment to the amendment at the outset 02:36:35.508 --> 02:36:45.413 - based on some confusion that referencing the variances section introduced. So if we could maybe display 02:36:45.413 --> 02:36:54.270 - Attorney Allen. This is the, so now I'm moving amendment one to the proposed amendment four. 02:36:54.370 --> 02:37:02.373 - This would strike a Thank you. Yeah, that would strike a sentence Does it show There was a sentence 02:37:02.373 --> 02:37:10.617 - that said or a really a portion of a sentence that said pursuant to section 20.06 208 OB variance that 02:37:10.617 --> 02:37:19.020 - has been removed and So that's what the amendment does it removes the reference to the variance section, 02:37:19.020 --> 02:37:23.102 - which I think invited more more ambiguity actually 02:37:23.234 --> 02:37:28.441 - And the reason being is that most of the things in the sustainable development incentives are not subject 02:37:28.441 --> 02:37:33.501 - to the variance process. If you agree to pursue the sustainable development incentives and have to put 02:37:33.501 --> 02:37:38.463 - solar on your roof, you don't get to then get the benefit of the incentives, but then later come and 02:37:38.463 --> 02:37:43.572 - say, oh, I need, it's a hardship to put solar on my roof. Like that doesn't make sense. And so the fact 02:37:43.572 --> 02:37:48.190 - that we were creating some specific exceptions for electrification for like a large PUD, say, 02:37:48.354 --> 02:37:53.477 - Where you're building a restaurant on site and we might want to allow gas for the commercial kitchen 02:37:53.477 --> 02:37:58.752 - I was trying to create some flexibility for Technical electrical grid constraints some other some other 02:37:58.752 --> 02:38:03.825 - reasons that well you might need to have some exceptions to electrification But it was trying to do 02:38:03.825 --> 02:38:09.100 - that through defining them explicitly in the incentive section rather than through the variance process 02:38:09.100 --> 02:38:14.223 - and so Thanks to also city legal for identifying that and giving some feedback on it. That's why the 02:38:14.223 --> 02:38:18.078 - amendment to the amendment I'm happy to answer questions if folks have them 02:38:20.930 --> 02:38:28.106 - Any questions on the amendment to the amendment? Okay, we'll go to public comment on the amendment to 02:38:28.106 --> 02:38:35.283 - the amendment Anyone wishing to speak on this updated language? Anyone online? Coming back to council 02:38:35.283 --> 02:38:42.459 - any further comments on this? Seeing none will the clerk please call the roll on the amendment to the 02:38:42.459 --> 02:38:48.510 - amendment and then we'll take up discussion on on the amendment as amended. Thank you 02:38:49.634 --> 02:39:09.625 - Sentence I've always wanted to say really Ruff yes Rosenberger Okay, sorry clarity yes Stasburg yes 02:39:09.625 --> 02:39:17.022 - Piedmont Smith. Yes Sorry, yes daily 02:39:17.250 --> 02:39:24.714 - Yes, that motion carries seven zero. Okay now amendment as amended. Thank you Yeah, i'll talk through 02:39:24.714 --> 02:39:32.178 - this if we could also maybe display on screen that would be helpful. Thank you attorney alan or staff 02:39:32.178 --> 02:39:39.716 - okay, so the first two paragraphs of this amendment slightly modify the Lot size minimum and lot width 02:39:39.716 --> 02:39:46.814 - minimum for the r3 and r4 districts if you'll recall the resolution we passed Gave some specific 02:39:46.914 --> 02:39:53.861 - examples of PUDs that have been had small lots and Also just the existing form of our older neighborhoods, 02:39:53.861 --> 02:40:00.872 - you know to look to to guide the updated dimensional standards for these districts and I found a reasonable 02:40:00.872 --> 02:40:07.754 - number of lots just with a brief kind of search that would still Be non-conforming even with the proposed 02:40:07.754 --> 02:40:13.662 - updates from Staff and Plan Commission essentially, there's a good number of lots that are 02:40:13.922 --> 02:40:20.005 - a little smaller than 2,500 square feet, which is what's in the ordinance now. And there are some lots 02:40:20.005 --> 02:40:25.969 - like those on the beeline south of Hopscotch that are narrower than 30 feet. If we're trying to also 02:40:25.969 --> 02:40:31.933 - allow creation of small lots, I could see that being an issue. It's not a huge thing, but I think we 02:40:31.933 --> 02:40:37.898 - are taking... Again, we're creating... We're not ameliorating as many non-conforming lots as I think 02:40:37.898 --> 02:40:42.622 - we could reasonably do so. And then, also, I think we're probably blocking some 02:40:42.914 --> 02:40:48.815 - Modest home development if we don't adjust these a little bit. So that's the modest change in our three 02:40:48.815 --> 02:40:54.772 - and our four 2500 square feet down to 2000 and then lot width from 30 feet down to 25 You'll also recall 02:40:54.772 --> 02:41:00.446 - that the ordinance actually proposes eliminating lot width minimums and lot area Minimums for other 02:41:00.446 --> 02:41:06.517 - districts, but staff suggested they didn't want to do that in our one through our four just out of caution 02:41:06.517 --> 02:41:09.694 - essentially and not wanting to Freak folks out. So like 02:41:09.794 --> 02:41:18.111 - So anyway, that's paragraphs one and two. Paragraph three is about, yeah, eliminating it. So the minimum 02:41:18.111 --> 02:41:26.111 - lot and widths I just mentioned in RM and RH are proposed to be eliminated altogether. Staff brought 02:41:26.111 --> 02:41:34.269 - that. That's consistent with best practices in form-based codes. You don't generally actually regulate 02:41:34.269 --> 02:41:38.942 - the width. Sorry, the minimums. You regulate the maximums. 02:41:39.074 --> 02:41:45.338 - And so this is kind of a broader effort to move in that direction. And I was thinking MN and MM could 02:41:45.338 --> 02:41:51.541 - have the same treatment. In particular, looking at the Hopewell site, the rest of Hopewell is zoned. 02:41:51.541 --> 02:41:57.743 - I think it's MM. It's one of those two. And you'll recall when we did the Hopewell South PUD, one of 02:41:57.743 --> 02:42:04.007 - the rationales for the PUD was that, you know, existing zoning wouldn't allow them to do small enough 02:42:04.007 --> 02:42:07.262 - lots. So I don't think there's a real downside here. 02:42:07.714 --> 02:42:13.442 - The vast majority of the time, this is not going to be used. People are not going to make very small 02:42:13.442 --> 02:42:19.113 - MM and MN lots, but if they want to, make a small mixed-use lot that's 20 feet wide and fits into a 02:42:19.113 --> 02:42:24.898 - little space where it just happens to make sense. I don't know, say like next to... This is different 02:42:24.898 --> 02:42:30.626 - zoning district, but next to the apartments by Crazy Horse there, there's a small narrow, narrow lot 02:42:30.626 --> 02:42:34.142 - that could be built out, but probably doesn't meet standards. 02:42:34.306 --> 02:42:41.333 - That's paragraph three. Paragraph four is about PUDs. It's exempting PUDs that are providing 100% affordable 02:42:41.333 --> 02:42:47.781 - housing from having to meet the sustainable development incentives. So this was brought up, I think 02:42:47.781 --> 02:42:54.679 - by folks at Habitat when we discussed this last. I looked at some other best practices across the country. 02:42:54.679 --> 02:42:59.966 - It's not uncommon to exempt from all electric building codes, affordable housing, 02:43:00.098 --> 02:43:05.735 - Developers sometimes especially at that hundred percent level this could apply not just to developers 02:43:05.735 --> 02:43:11.262 - like habitat But other affordable housing developers including a land trust, you know BHA others So 02:43:11.262 --> 02:43:16.788 - a hundred percent affordable housing is so much above and beyond what the the housing Affordability 02:43:16.788 --> 02:43:22.536 - incentives that we require PUDs to meet that that I thought that was a reasonable accommodation There's 02:43:22.536 --> 02:43:28.670 - also a broader issue here, which is that the sustainable development incentives aren't especially well crafted 02:43:29.026 --> 02:43:35.642 - for the context of single and missing middle residential housing, we probably actually just need a third 02:43:35.642 --> 02:43:42.005 - option or pathway within the sustainable development incentives that speaks more to the methods that 02:43:42.005 --> 02:43:48.495 - are more commonly used to assess sustainability for those types of properties beyond the scope of this 02:43:48.495 --> 02:43:53.598 - ordinance. Finally, on electrification, this change, paragraph five, as amended, 02:43:54.082 --> 02:43:59.460 - Was a little bit of confusion There's a sentence that's being struck that says the Plan Commission may 02:43:59.460 --> 02:44:04.786 - consider proposed exceptions for specific uses based on best practices in all electric building codes 02:44:04.786 --> 02:44:10.165 - That sentence comes verbatim from the resolution we passed It was meant to be instructions to the Plan 02:44:10.165 --> 02:44:15.439 - Commission for the development of the proposal not as language to go in the UDO and so sorry for any 02:44:15.439 --> 02:44:17.214 - confusion there so instead I just 02:44:17.314 --> 02:44:22.859 - worked myself to look at all electric building codes from across the country and identify the kind of 02:44:22.859 --> 02:44:28.730 - main reasons why exceptions are granted, and these are them. You know, kind of like technology feasibility, 02:44:28.730 --> 02:44:34.220 - so like deep fryers for instance, they exist in all electric, they are very expensive and maybe hard 02:44:34.220 --> 02:44:39.874 - to get, so I thought it was reasonable to exempt commercial kitchens, who generally run on pretty tight 02:44:39.874 --> 02:44:44.766 - margins as it is. Technical infeasibility due to physical or electrical grid constraints. 02:44:44.962 --> 02:44:50.203 - If you're adding a lot of electrical load to the grid, there may be grid upgrades entailed that aren't 02:44:50.203 --> 02:44:55.496 - easy to come by immediately. There might be a backlog for Duke Energy, for instance. So there's reasons 02:44:55.496 --> 02:45:00.584 - like that. And then finally, you know, critical services, hospitals, healthcare, emergency response 02:45:00.584 --> 02:45:05.673 - providers, you know, have, I think, a valid rationale for generator backup power, things like that, 02:45:05.673 --> 02:45:10.761 - or even just a supplementary source. So those are the exceptions to electrification that try to get 02:45:10.761 --> 02:45:13.662 - a little more flexibility there and make this, you know, 02:45:13.858 --> 02:45:21.090 - cost-competitive and reasonable Which is you know the goal so? Those are all the changes happy to answer 02:45:21.090 --> 02:45:28.185 - any questions again Just would request if you have one of these paragraphs that you don't support, but 02:45:28.185 --> 02:45:35.141 - you support the others Please do make a motion to divide the question as necessary. Thank you. Thank 02:45:35.141 --> 02:45:42.718 - you so much councilman for the questions I'm customer P. Smith The for the electrification change Is this for 02:45:43.202 --> 02:45:51.181 - PUDs or for use of the incentive. It can't be the use of the incentive if you're asking for an exception. 02:45:51.181 --> 02:45:58.709 - So is it for PUDs? This is in the sustainable developments Incentive section I think it could apply 02:45:58.709 --> 02:46:06.764 - for the incentive still if you have a large multifamily property that has for if it's a mixed-use property 02:46:06.764 --> 02:46:10.302 - for instance as a commercial kitchen in it and 02:46:11.234 --> 02:46:16.457 - And I think it could apply to the incentives if there's a reason why you could... So there's uses that 02:46:16.457 --> 02:46:21.730 - could exist within a single mixed use development that those particular components of the project would 02:46:21.730 --> 02:46:26.800 - be exempted. And again, if there was electrical grid constraints that make this impossible, I don't 02:46:26.800 --> 02:46:31.922 - think we should prohibit somebody from using the sustainable development incentives. They would just 02:46:31.922 --> 02:46:37.144 - have to follow the rest of the sustainable development incentives. So I think it reasonably does apply 02:46:37.144 --> 02:46:41.150 - to both the incentive section and to PUDs when making use of those incentives. 02:46:42.082 --> 02:46:49.150 - Okay, can you remind me is the incentive section kind of a? Laying aside the PUD question, but is the 02:46:49.150 --> 02:46:56.080 - incentive section kind of a you know You pick two or three of them or you have to do all of them So 02:46:56.080 --> 02:47:03.217 - it's two paths option one option two the the change has been drafted by staff actually and as directed 02:47:03.217 --> 02:47:08.414 - by the resolution makes electrification part of both of those pathways and 02:47:08.674 --> 02:47:14.100 - So electrification is just like a base layer on the sustainable development incentives now. Option two 02:47:14.100 --> 02:47:19.473 - is about US Green Building Council and other similar rating systems for sustainability. Option one is 02:47:19.473 --> 02:47:24.741 - about cool and vegetated roofs, solar, and some other kind of stormwater features, things like that 02:47:24.741 --> 02:47:30.009 - that you have to do. So those are the two paths, and electrification would be part of either. Okay, 02:47:30.009 --> 02:47:33.854 - thank you. I was envisioning that you can pick electrification, but then 02:47:34.306 --> 02:47:41.545 - You'll get an exception to it. So that didn't add up to me, but the reason it's a base layer is because 02:47:41.545 --> 02:47:48.574 - it's really not adding cost We have people like that really test development in the north the summit 02:47:48.574 --> 02:47:55.535 - PUD that are doing it more or less voluntarily because it is actually More cost competitive. I went 02:47:55.535 --> 02:48:02.564 - for a large development with that Thank you. Thank you so much councilmember rough Yeah, I'd like to 02:48:02.564 --> 02:48:03.678 - ask the sponsor 02:48:04.066 --> 02:48:13.635 - I'm working from the email that Councilmember Flaherty sent us on the 14th What's amendment for on that 02:48:13.635 --> 02:48:23.481 - in that email How are we defining Affordable under a hundred percent affordable housing with the exemption 02:48:23.481 --> 02:48:33.694 - for a hundred percent affordable housing PUD from sustainable development requirements Affordable what what is 02:48:34.562 --> 02:48:44.723 - the reference to in terms of what we're defining like Defined as defined in the as defined in the affordable 02:48:44.723 --> 02:48:54.231 - Sorry the housing affordable housing incentive section, so that's that's the definition I Don't think 02:48:54.231 --> 02:49:03.646 - the amendment cites that section of code I Think it's relatively obvious, but if we need to add that 02:49:03.938 --> 02:49:15.557 - Citation that could probably be done Because the affordable housing incentive section is divided by 02:49:15.557 --> 02:49:18.462 - percentage so you really 02:49:18.562 --> 02:49:25.066 - can't site to the affordable housing incentives section because it can't be 100% affordable housing 02:49:25.066 --> 02:49:31.959 - under the affordable housing incentive section. It's like 60% affordable housing or 40% is the definition 02:49:31.959 --> 02:49:39.048 - that's included in the incentive section. However, under the UDO chapter 20.07, the definition of affordable 02:49:39.048 --> 02:49:40.414 - housing in this case 02:49:42.082 --> 02:49:49.891 - Excuse me is means residential developments with a recorded restriction that requires housing of a certain 02:49:49.891 --> 02:49:57.190 - minimum number of years to be rented or owned by qualified very low or low income households, which 02:49:57.190 --> 02:50:04.707 - are terms that are used by both hand and HUD to determine affordable housing. In your opinion attorney 02:50:04.707 --> 02:50:09.086 - Allen, I guess is the paragraph in the amendment as written 02:50:09.794 --> 02:50:16.294 - For how to interpret it vis-a-vis the UDO definitions because it falls within the UDO. It'd be subject 02:50:16.294 --> 02:50:22.604 - to the definition I just read right instead of but if you intended or the council wanted to Further 02:50:22.604 --> 02:50:28.978 - alter this to afford to reference in some way the affordable housing incentives. We could find a way 02:50:28.978 --> 02:50:35.414 - of doing that It would just take a little bit more finessing than just referencing that broad section 02:50:35.414 --> 02:50:39.390 - of code Okay, thank you follow up on that question because the 02:50:39.522 --> 02:50:49.106 - The looking at that definition as those with a recorded restriction and if part of this was This particular 02:50:49.106 --> 02:50:58.335 - piece of the amendment was in response to a habitat of humanity concern or habitat for humanity concern 02:50:58.335 --> 02:51:04.990 - I'm not sure if their Units have recorded restrictions requiring the house 02:51:05.538 --> 02:51:17.580 - or the dwelling stay affordable and I don't know if anybody knows that up here but I guess I'm just 02:51:17.580 --> 02:51:29.983 - concerned potentially about leaving that to refer to the definition. There are potential opportunities 02:51:29.983 --> 02:51:32.030 - to add that as a 02:51:32.130 --> 02:51:40.197 - the condition to that being filed. So in this case the PUD being recorded within the recorder's office 02:51:40.197 --> 02:51:48.030 - that restriction could be added to that document without a separate recorded item to it. Wait what. 02:51:51.778 --> 02:51:57.664 - You mean like in a piece so where it says recorded restriction All I'm saying is that already there 02:51:57.664 --> 02:52:03.844 - there needs to be recorded documents for PUDs and site plans that would be approved through the Planning 02:52:03.844 --> 02:52:09.906 - Commission which would have to go through this process This language would be added to qualify for the 02:52:09.906 --> 02:52:16.028 - potential incentives for PDs to be allowed to go forward That because it's a hundred percent affordable 02:52:16.028 --> 02:52:20.030 - housing. It's exempt from the requirements of the sustainability of 02:52:20.194 --> 02:52:27.020 - Sections that could be added language to either the PUD itself or to the recorded plat And that would 02:52:27.020 --> 02:52:33.779 - be like enough. It wouldn't have to be like Officially recorded with the property as it is official. 02:52:33.779 --> 02:52:40.471 - That is the official recording for the property It doesn't I'm just saying there's no special other 02:52:40.471 --> 02:52:47.296 - document that needs to be filed for an independent Lot or something like that. Okay, so to qualify to 02:52:47.296 --> 02:52:50.174 - for the definition Like that would qualify 02:52:50.498 --> 02:53:08.327 - Yes. Okay. It's just recorded, so. Anyone else? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to public comment on amendment 02:53:08.327 --> 02:53:20.158 - four. Anyone online? All right, some. Go ahead. Who is the first some? 02:53:20.930 --> 02:53:29.761 - Okay, Kari. Sorry about that. I was trying to figure out if it was me or somebody else. Kari Bennett, 02:53:29.761 --> 02:53:38.419 - Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County. We support this amendment overall, especially the changes to 02:53:38.419 --> 02:53:45.086 - lot size and width reductions, because they'll enable more homes to be built 02:53:45.186 --> 02:53:55.371 - and residential zones. We especially appreciate the exemption from the sustainability development standards 02:53:55.371 --> 02:54:04.896 - for 100% affordable housing planned unit developments. For Habitat, 100% affordable housing, I wanna 02:54:04.896 --> 02:54:13.950 - explain what that means. The people who we serve are at or below 80% of the area median income. 02:54:14.050 --> 02:54:25.036 - That is what HUD considers to be low income for all of the programs. And that is what our Habitat affiliate 02:54:25.036 --> 02:54:35.209 - and all Habitat affiliates in the United States that where we set our upper standard. It also means 02:54:35.209 --> 02:54:43.550 - that we set our homeowners mortgage payments at no more than 30% of their income. 02:54:44.290 --> 02:54:52.917 - We do that, when we have to do that, and it doesn't cover the full purchase price of the home or the 02:54:52.917 --> 02:55:01.715 - appraised value of the home, that's where we do a soft second mortgage, things that we've talked about 02:55:01.715 --> 02:55:10.342 - related to Hopewell. And in general, we'll look at the definition, but I think of affordable housing 02:55:10.342 --> 02:55:13.502 - and the UDO, but we think that what, 02:55:13.634 --> 02:55:25.631 - Larry Allen just said about how this language in the UDO would be interpreted. I think that generally 02:55:25.631 --> 02:55:36.687 - makes sense. Thank you. Thank you so much. Who is next online? All right, Eric. Good evening, 02:55:36.687 --> 02:55:43.038 - can you hear me? Yes, we can, go ahead. Good evening. 02:55:43.138 --> 02:55:54.192 - My name is Eric Ost and I appreciate this opportunity to offer public comment. I would ask that council 02:55:54.192 --> 02:56:04.928 - carefully consider this amendment for its likely impact. There's a housing explorer website that the 02:56:04.928 --> 02:56:08.542 - city of Bloomington publishes and 02:56:08.802 --> 02:56:19.759 - It appears that the number, since 2018, the number of ADUs has been fairly consistent, but the number 02:56:19.759 --> 02:56:30.609 - of plexes that have been built went from about two or three in 2022 and 2023 to 13 in 2024 and 27 in 02:56:30.609 --> 02:56:38.558 - 2025. There was a reference made to a District 3 streetscape that now has 02:56:39.074 --> 02:56:49.422 - housing for 80 individuals. And I want to note that the UDO revision that is still before the Plan Commission 02:56:49.422 --> 02:56:58.923 - not only removes the limit of duplexes, specifically in some residential zones, but also changes the 02:56:58.923 --> 02:57:08.894 - 150 foot limit. So what the combined effect in the current housing market in Bloomington, Indiana will be 02:57:10.466 --> 02:57:20.043 - is that what this amendment, these amendments will do is incentivize the conversion of affordable housing 02:57:20.043 --> 02:57:29.529 - to unaffordable housing. You will incentivize the creation, the potentiation of a $300,000 single family 02:57:29.529 --> 02:57:38.925 - home being converted into a $3 million revenue producing asset by subdivising that into three lots with 02:57:38.925 --> 02:57:40.190 - a plex on it. 02:57:40.962 --> 02:57:49.382 - So I ask that you carefully consider this. I have another comment to offer later, depending on how things 02:57:49.382 --> 02:57:57.485 - go, that will make a recommendation. But I think there are going to be, with all due respect, I think 02:57:57.485 --> 02:58:05.826 - this is very ill-advised. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Ost. Is there anyone else online? All right, 02:58:05.826 --> 02:58:08.606 - either John Lawrence or Jan Sorby. 02:58:12.514 --> 02:58:22.094 - Oh hey, now both of you. Hi. That's novel. It's me again, Jan Sorby. Wow, I'm just gobsmacked by the 02:58:22.094 --> 02:58:31.579 - comment that plan staff made that they wouldn't make these changes in R1 and R2 because they didn't 02:58:31.579 --> 02:58:39.262 - want to freak those people out. That's astonishing to me. You know, by the mall, 02:58:40.098 --> 02:58:48.242 - Well, first I have to say, what inequity is that? So the rich people get a buy, and again, the people 02:58:48.242 --> 02:58:56.705 - that live in the tighter, poorer areas have to shoulder all of the new burden of density increases again. 02:58:56.705 --> 02:59:04.929 - And I would really want you, like Eric Ost just said, to be really, really careful about these changes 02:59:04.929 --> 02:59:06.526 - that you're making. 02:59:06.658 --> 02:59:14.738 - I also wanted to say in some areas around the college mall, they have an acre, an entire acre per house. 02:59:14.738 --> 02:59:22.663 - This is where density needs to be made. Again, I'm just gobsmacked at this. But I'll go on to say that 02:59:22.663 --> 02:59:30.589 - housing policies take time to see results. People have to find land to build on. They have to actually 02:59:30.589 --> 02:59:34.590 - buy the land. They have to get architectural plans. 02:59:35.266 --> 02:59:44.491 - it takes time for results in housing policy. It was only in 2021 that we first passed any of the regulations 02:59:44.491 --> 02:59:53.209 - and changes to the UDO. It's when we accepted the UDO with massive, massive changes. And I don't think 02:59:53.209 --> 03:00:00.318 - we've had enough time to see the result. I mean, we're just starting to see, as Mr. 03:00:00.514 --> 03:00:08.597 - Osta said we see incredible changes in the neighborhoods already with our most vulnerable houses and 03:00:08.597 --> 03:00:17.161 - most vulnerable people being pushed out and areas being sold. Our cheapest houses, our NOAA, our naturally 03:00:17.161 --> 03:00:25.244 - occurring affordable houses are being torn down because now the land is more valuable than the house 03:00:25.244 --> 03:00:29.406 - itself. And I want to caution you, please let these 03:00:29.922 --> 03:00:37.425 - policies that we've already made have time to actually see the results of that before you start tinkering 03:00:37.425 --> 03:00:44.504 - with it yet again. We have to protect our natural occurring affordable housing. We cannot build our 03:00:44.504 --> 03:00:51.936 - way out of this housing crisis. We have to keep what we have and add to it. So please vote against this. 03:00:51.936 --> 03:00:56.254 - It's very dangerous. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. 03:00:58.786 --> 03:01:11.316 - Is there anybody else online? All right, Michelle? And if, Ms. Sorby, if you'd like to turn off your 03:01:11.316 --> 03:01:24.093 - camera, unless you're enjoying being on the big screen here. There you go, thank you. Oh, you like it, 03:01:24.093 --> 03:01:26.078 - okay. Michelle? 03:01:27.362 --> 03:01:35.708 - Good evening, everyone. I'm not quite sure if this is the best place for my comment, but seeing what 03:01:35.708 --> 03:01:44.467 - other comments are, I'm figuring that this is probably a good spot. Okay, great. Thank you for the timer. 03:01:44.467 --> 03:01:53.308 - Well, the intent behind this is really, I appreciate that and the housing to build a walkable, sustainable 03:01:53.308 --> 03:01:55.870 - Bloomington. We still have not 03:01:56.194 --> 03:02:04.708 - When looking at critical infrastructure, we do not consider our food supply. We could get people house, 03:02:04.708 --> 03:02:12.895 - we can get them water, we can help them make sure they have a place to park their bike. But where's 03:02:12.895 --> 03:02:21.982 - the food coming from? These severe structural vulnerabilities. I sent an email and there were over 20 of them. 03:02:22.594 --> 03:02:30.736 - 24, which I've not checked this week to see if any need to be added. But it makes me feel like Bloomington 03:02:30.736 --> 03:02:38.574 - is kind of like a castle. We're highly efficient, self-contained, convenient until the external supply 03:02:38.574 --> 03:02:46.259 - lines are cut. And in regards to food, those are the vulnerabilities. You know, I can appreciate all 03:02:46.259 --> 03:02:51.966 - these things we want to do, but like John and Jan and Eric have mentioned, 03:02:52.322 --> 03:02:59.838 - There are some things I think we need to be cautious about. I don't know if this plan actually does 03:02:59.838 --> 03:03:07.805 - that. I do know that there are some possible possibilities of creating houses that could be like carriage 03:03:07.805 --> 03:03:15.622 - homes with parking underneath and the home on top that would fit into small lots. But until we actually 03:03:15.622 --> 03:03:17.726 - look into how we can ensure 03:03:17.922 --> 03:03:26.411 - food sovereignty instead of shipping in our food for food security because there is a difference between 03:03:26.411 --> 03:03:34.900 - food security and food sovereignty. When throwing money at something with ever increasing prices doesn't 03:03:34.900 --> 03:03:42.985 - work and there's just no food there, whether it's from drought, from lack of butchering facilities, 03:03:42.985 --> 03:03:46.462 - fertilizers, there's a number of different 03:03:46.594 --> 03:03:54.632 - things that could go wrong in our food supply right now. So I just would like to make sure that we take 03:03:54.632 --> 03:04:02.592 - our time in ensuring that all of these things are considered instead of going full speed ahead on this 03:04:02.592 --> 03:04:10.397 - because we don't know exactly what we're going to be facing in the next six months or a year or in a 03:04:10.397 --> 03:04:13.566 - few years as we've seen with the Plexus. 03:04:13.794 --> 03:04:22.332 - Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Thank you so much, Michelle Anyone else online? Okay, 03:04:22.332 --> 03:04:30.788 - anybody else in chambers back to council comments on amendment for Yeah councilmember Rough Mr. Chair, 03:04:30.788 --> 03:04:38.998 - I would like to divide the question for amendment for The that exempts PUDs provide 100% affordable 03:04:38.998 --> 03:04:43.678 - housing from the sustainability development requirements 03:04:44.386 --> 03:04:55.540 - Okay, so your mic is acting up, I think. There's a second. So the motion was to separate the question, 03:04:55.540 --> 03:05:06.910 - divide the question, I'm sorry. Is that right? Yeah, Amendment 4. You want the whole thing separated or? 03:05:07.010 --> 03:05:14.324 - The exempt PUDs that provide hundred percent affordable housing from the sustainability development 03:05:14.324 --> 03:05:21.785 - requirements separated from everything else Okay That's been motioned a second. So do we need to vote 03:05:21.785 --> 03:05:29.173 - on the dividing the question? Okay, so on the motion to divide the question Can that just be a voice 03:05:29.173 --> 03:05:36.414 - vote? Yes is procedural all those in favor say aye. Aye all those opposed Thank you very much that 03:05:36.514 --> 03:05:45.617 - Question is divided. So we'll when we'll take a vote here in a second. We'll vote first for The non 03:05:45.617 --> 03:05:54.993 - divided bit and then we'll do a paragraph for okay any other comments Also pull out to vote separately 03:05:54.993 --> 03:06:04.095 - on number five electrification There's a motion in a second to pull out paragraph five all those in 03:06:04.095 --> 03:06:06.462 - favor say aye any opposed 03:06:07.138 --> 03:06:15.663 - Okay, that's also separated. Any other motions to separate the question? Again, that request of the 03:06:15.663 --> 03:06:24.188 - sponsor here. Okay, fantastic. With that, let's go to a vote if that's okay. All right, let's go to 03:06:24.188 --> 03:06:32.798 - a vote on everything minus amendment, paragraphs four and five. Will the clerk please call the roll? 03:06:43.042 --> 03:07:03.006 - Rosenberger. Yes Flaherty. Yes Stasberg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes. Sorry. Yes daily. No And bravo, yes 03:07:04.578 --> 03:07:13.911 - Well now that carries seven one Will now vote on paragraph four, which is the exclusion of PUDs Will 03:07:13.911 --> 03:07:23.337 - the clerk please call the roll? All right Councilmember Rosenberger What am I voting on the exclusion 03:07:23.337 --> 03:07:32.578 - of the of paragraph so paragraph four, which is the exclusion of PUDs from the if they're a hundred 03:07:32.578 --> 03:07:34.334 - percent affordable 03:07:35.042 --> 03:07:49.564 - Yes. Okay. Council Member Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont-Smith. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Daly. Yes. 03:07:49.564 --> 03:08:01.182 - Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. Okay. That carries. We'll now move on to paragraph five. 03:08:05.730 --> 03:08:16.978 - Was it paragraph sorry, okay, so so paragraph five as amended is okay So we'll move on to vote a vote 03:08:16.978 --> 03:08:27.564 - on paragraph five as amended. Will the clerk please call the roll? Okay councilmember Flaherty, 03:08:27.564 --> 03:08:34.622 - yes Stasburg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes I'm sorry. Yes Daley. Yes 03:08:35.586 --> 03:08:51.366 - Rallo? Yes. Ruff? Yes. Rosenberger, yes. That motion carries seven one. All right, so that is amendment 03:08:51.366 --> 03:09:05.022 - four. We'll move on to amendment five. I move amendment five to ordinance 2026-20, sorry. 03:09:05.314 --> 03:09:14.001 - I had to scroll way back to find what number ordinance we're on. All right. So this is... One second, 03:09:14.001 --> 03:09:22.689 - Council Member Piemont-Smith. I think there's a possible revote here. A motion to reconsider, is that 03:09:22.689 --> 03:09:29.758 - what I was hearing? Okay, so there's a motion to reconsider a vote really quickly. 03:09:35.138 --> 03:09:50.003 - You did you mean to vote to vote? Did you mean to vote no on any of those three? Yes So I'm four and 03:09:50.003 --> 03:10:02.366 - five those ones I meant to vote yes, but on the rest of them you meant to vote no I 03:10:02.690 --> 03:10:09.378 - Yeah, okay, so it's should do we need to redo the vote or can we just amend the councilmember it won't 03:10:09.378 --> 03:10:15.806 - change the outcome of the of whether it passes, but What's the what's the appropriate action here? 03:10:17.218 --> 03:10:23.917 - Yeah, it's a motion to reconsider reconsider and a revote to do the recast You can't just change the 03:10:23.917 --> 03:10:30.749 - vote retroactively as far as I'm so in comes more Flaherty stepped out So is it is it okay? Can we can 03:10:30.749 --> 03:10:37.447 - can we do a motion to reconsider in a moment? Like is that okay? Can we return to it? We can do that 03:10:37.447 --> 03:10:44.478 - at any time. I haven't necessarily heard the motion on the floor. So yeah, I think there's a Consider but 03:10:44.930 --> 03:10:55.879 - Haven't I have also not heard that motion. I think that that is what I make this I'll move that we reconsider 03:10:55.879 --> 03:11:05.933 - Amendment amendment for Yes, correct Is that correct? Motion to reconsider the vote on amendment for 03:11:05.933 --> 03:11:10.014 - paragraphs one two and three, correct? I 03:11:14.626 --> 03:11:36.158 - Can you ask the can you make that point of information? Oh, yeah, and do you have to be in the prevailing 03:11:36.158 --> 03:11:40.830 - party? This is what we 03:11:44.738 --> 03:11:50.647 - Just Sorry, just a moment of clarification. So by leave of council leadership, mr Askins just pointed 03:11:50.647 --> 03:11:56.672 - out by leave of council leadership a member can change their vote if it doesn't change the outcome even 03:11:56.672 --> 03:12:02.697 - though the vote has been announced which is what it typically is under Robert's rules, so if you'd like 03:12:02.697 --> 03:12:08.953 - to change your vote from Leave of council then that is permitted without having a full motion to reconsider 03:12:08.953 --> 03:12:09.822 - in a revote. I 03:12:10.018 --> 03:12:16.884 - Excellent, so if there's no if there's no issues here or no anybody against this I'd like to 03:12:16.884 --> 03:12:24.267 - allow councilmember rough to have his vote amended on Paragraphs one two and three to a no and he's 03:12:24.267 --> 03:12:31.724 - retaining his yes on paragraphs four and five Yes, thank you. Yes in my and I would like the same in 03:12:31.724 --> 03:12:37.630 - the same with so so to be clear that makes the and you did you also vote no and 03:12:38.434 --> 03:12:53.079 - Okay, so that means that it is five, three that carried the first motion, I guess. One, two, and three. 03:12:53.079 --> 03:12:56.318 - Okay. Everybody happy? 03:12:57.218 --> 03:13:05.512 - Thank you, and thank you for, yeah, I noticed that that's why I was laughing earlier. I was like, okay, 03:13:05.512 --> 03:13:13.806 - thank you. All right, with that, let us return, and thank you, Mr. Askins, also, for pointing that out, 03:13:13.806 --> 03:13:22.099 - as always. Okay, we are on Amendment 5, friends. 945, let's go. All right, so this amendment just seeks 03:13:22.099 --> 03:13:23.774 - to clarify language. 03:13:29.442 --> 03:13:38.594 - Confusing. Oh, yes. Okay. So this is about the the access for When if a lot is subdivided and there's 03:13:38.594 --> 03:13:47.925 - a lot There's a how a building or a house put behind the first house There were some requirements about 03:13:47.925 --> 03:13:56.898 - access, you know for fire personnel or vehicles And I found the language very confusing so I worked 03:13:56.898 --> 03:13:58.782 - with Eric Grulick to 03:13:58.978 --> 03:14:06.236 - Make the language more clear and that is what you see here in this amendment Thank you so much. Would 03:14:06.236 --> 03:14:13.351 - staff like to comment on this one? Fantastic. Any questions for the sponsor? Councilmember Stasberg 03:14:13.351 --> 03:14:20.679 - Motioned and who seconded that Well, I moved tonight somebody daily Or customer was that customer? Oh, 03:14:20.679 --> 03:14:28.008 - did you? Yeah, sorry comes from Rallo and then I interrupted the motion. Yeah, that's what did you get 03:14:28.008 --> 03:14:28.862 - that clerk? 03:14:29.154 --> 03:14:39.315 - Yes, it was before the reconsideration Thank you, I wanted that clarification because I I know that 03:14:39.315 --> 03:14:49.782 - I couldn't hear it and if I couldn't hear it I suspected that farther over also could not hear. Thanks 03:14:49.782 --> 03:14:52.830 - Any questions for the sponsor 03:14:53.858 --> 03:15:01.077 - Then we'll go to we'll go to public. I do have a really quick question. You worked with mr. Grulick 03:15:01.077 --> 03:15:08.297 - about this Was there any consultation with fire to make sure that? Did you just because I know that 03:15:08.297 --> 03:15:16.094 - no because it doesn't change any Substance, okay the ordinance it just makes it more clear. Okay. Thanks. I 03:15:17.026 --> 03:15:25.570 - We'll go now to public comment on Amendment 5. Is there any public comment on the clarifying language 03:15:25.570 --> 03:15:34.114 - of Amendment 5? No one in chambers, anyone online? No one online coming back to council. Any comments 03:15:34.114 --> 03:15:42.658 - on Amendment 5? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll? Okay, this is Amendment 5, correct? 03:15:42.658 --> 03:15:46.846 - Yes, ma'am. Okay, Strasburg. Yes. Piedmont Smith. 03:15:47.202 --> 03:16:01.714 - Yes, I'm sorry. Yes Daley. Yes Rallo yes rough. Yes Rosenberger. Yes clarity. Yes Okay, that motion 03:16:01.714 --> 03:16:05.342 - carries I'm excellent so 03:16:05.666 --> 03:16:16.942 - We are now with the ordinance 2026 20 as amended. Are there any comments? I'm sorry any further questions 03:16:16.942 --> 03:16:28.005 - on motion? I'm sorry on ordinance 2026 20 as amended a councilmember Rallo How many how many properties 03:16:28.005 --> 03:16:34.494 - would this affect in other words how many would be likely to 03:16:36.130 --> 03:16:44.613 - this To have a lot subdivided was there any estimation The subdivision I Mean in theory it could affect 03:16:44.613 --> 03:16:53.586 - every single lot in terms of you know being able to create a new lot You know using some of these provisions, 03:16:53.586 --> 03:17:01.825 - which is I mean obviously part of the goal, you know that any property could benefit from this well, 03:17:01.825 --> 03:17:05.822 - I would think that you know, it depends upon the 03:17:06.050 --> 03:17:12.232 - Lot size relative to the house, but yeah It would depend certainly on a lot of things a lot size where 03:17:12.232 --> 03:17:18.294 - the house where a house is on a lot You know is there even room to get a sick? I mean there you know 03:17:18.294 --> 03:17:24.476 - two different aspects obviously that were incorporated one is the six foot no build And then the other 03:17:24.476 --> 03:17:30.537 - provision was you know the 20 foot access road You know so the six foot obviously depends greatly on 03:17:30.537 --> 03:17:32.638 - where the house is on a lot and if 03:17:33.602 --> 03:17:41.964 - if someone bought a property, removed the house, that would, and then the subdivided lot could have 03:17:41.964 --> 03:17:50.995 - potentially two lots because there wouldn't be any restrictions in terms of setbacks other than neighboring 03:17:50.995 --> 03:17:59.776 - setbacks and for the potential access drive and that sort of thing. Yeah, certainly, yeah. Okay. I think 03:17:59.776 --> 03:18:01.950 - that's all I got, thanks. 03:18:02.466 --> 03:18:13.377 - Thank you so much. Any other questions? All right, we'll now go to public comment on all of the ordinance. 03:18:13.377 --> 03:18:24.389 - Now it's finally the time. And sorry, thank you for your patience. Ordinance 2026, 20. And out of courtesy, 03:18:24.389 --> 03:18:29.182 - we'll let the gentleman go first. Hello again. 03:18:29.378 --> 03:18:35.571 - I'm Jordan Connor with home Bloomington homes for all. I apologize. I was thrown a little earlier there 03:18:35.571 --> 03:18:41.169 - was no time to come in on the previous ordinance To many could you bring the mic? Yeah. Yeah. 03:18:41.169 --> 03:18:46.648 - Is this better? Thank you To many of my peers and generations younger than me homeownership 03:18:46.648 --> 03:18:52.068 - feels inaccessible the solution to this affordability and housing crisis that we're facing 03:18:52.068 --> 03:18:55.998 - must be multifaceted but one part of that solution is density and 03:18:56.738 --> 03:19:02.031 - Shrinking and in some case removing the minimum lot sizes could do tremendous good for many people smaller 03:19:02.031 --> 03:19:07.274 - lots can means more houses Increasing the supply can mean more flexibility for developments and additions 03:19:07.274 --> 03:19:12.220 - and it means closer communities Again, this is not a full remedy for the inaccessibility of housing 03:19:12.220 --> 03:19:17.166 - in Bloomington and the rest of the country We also need to preserve our existing affordable housing 03:19:17.166 --> 03:19:22.162 - It is however an important and necessary step towards closing the gap between owners and renters and 03:19:22.162 --> 03:19:24.190 - making homes available to all. Thank you 03:19:24.994 --> 03:19:30.587 - Thank you so much next in council chambers. Hi, my name is Greg Alexander Sadly, there are no magic 03:19:30.587 --> 03:19:36.179 - bullets like all zoning changes. This will take decades to really have an effect It will still have 03:19:36.179 --> 03:19:41.772 - problems even after this policy is mature It will not solve financial speculation class antagonisms 03:19:41.772 --> 03:19:47.420 - or the town-gown divide But it is a good step in the right direction at the margins There has been a 03:19:47.420 --> 03:19:52.286 - steady trickle of developers large and small who have wanted to supply more housing to 03:19:52.386 --> 03:19:57.875 - in a denser form, and the city has said no. I mean, most of them are profit-motivated, right? They can 03:19:57.875 --> 03:20:02.990 - see that they would make more money if they could make a larger number of smaller houses. Well, 03:20:02.990 --> 03:20:08.532 - I'm for it. There's specifically a huge shortage of small houses, starter homes. My house is 700 square 03:20:08.532 --> 03:20:14.340 - foot on a 10th-acre lot. I feel like I bought the last small house in Bloomington, so I'm sorry to everybody 03:20:14.340 --> 03:20:19.829 - that came here after me. If somebody wants to make a buck building houses like mine in between all the 03:20:19.829 --> 03:20:21.374 - houses and every little gap, 03:20:21.890 --> 03:20:27.955 - I'm all for it. This UDO amendment will have the effect of producing marginally more supply, especially 03:20:27.955 --> 03:20:33.903 - in smaller and relatively affordable houses in existing neighborhoods. And it will be better than the 03:20:33.903 --> 03:20:40.318 - status quo, an effective ban on small houses and new urban development. But the status quo isn't quite a ban. 03:20:40.450 --> 03:20:46.622 - Generally, there's been a political process usually a PUD for profit developers nonprofits and most 03:20:46.622 --> 03:20:52.670 - recently the city itself have had PUDs That allowed smaller houses on smaller lots just like this 03:20:52.802 --> 03:20:58.226 - But the PUD process provides no opportunities for the smallest landowners. When I was a kid, I admired 03:20:58.226 --> 03:21:03.702 - the kind of landlord who housed my mother in this city. They would subdivide an old house, they'd build 03:21:03.702 --> 03:21:08.968 - a crappy addition on the back. When there was leaky faucet, they would send their son-in-law to fix 03:21:08.968 --> 03:21:14.339 - it. There were lots of downsides, but it was affordable. And the landlords were as local as my mother 03:21:14.339 --> 03:21:19.762 - was. And it is disappearing in part because existing zoning has basically made it illegal for the past 03:21:19.762 --> 03:21:21.342 - 30 years to build more of it. 03:21:21.474 --> 03:21:27.327 - Even for larger developers that can go through the PUD process, it sucks. I hate that it invites corruption, 03:21:27.327 --> 03:21:32.696 - because everybody has to start with a closed-door meeting with the mayor if you're gonna have a PUD 03:21:32.696 --> 03:21:38.226 - succeed. Also, hate it forces developers to run the gauntlet of NIMBY opposition. I hate that it drags 03:21:38.226 --> 03:21:43.596 - the process out for months, adds uncertainty and expense. And I would think you guys would hate it, 03:21:43.596 --> 03:21:49.502 - because micromanaging development, the way that you've been doing, it creates a bad environment in this room. 03:21:49.602 --> 03:21:57.059 - Please pass this amendment. Please normalize the kind of development we most want to see. Thank you 03:21:57.059 --> 03:22:05.112 - Hi, my name is Chris Dora my resident of Bloomington. I'm also a landowner. I'm in support of the ordinance 03:22:05.112 --> 03:22:08.318 - Increasing density is incredibly important 03:22:08.482 --> 03:22:16.590 - I'm always and certainly this ordinance does that but also measures that would allow more unconventional 03:22:16.590 --> 03:22:24.544 - housing like RVs converted school buses I have a converted school bus which I've lived in for a number 03:22:24.544 --> 03:22:29.950 - at different times but the fact that so many of our residents who are 03:22:30.178 --> 03:22:36.909 - working here, well actually they're not residents, so many people that are employed in Bloomington who 03:22:36.909 --> 03:22:43.639 - are having to drive half an hour, an hour to access this. Those of us who have worked with contractors 03:22:43.639 --> 03:22:50.370 - know this problem of people who are living an hour away and have problems with their vehicles. So it's 03:22:50.370 --> 03:22:57.035 - not just an affordable housing crisis, it's also just an affordability crisis. And I think this would 03:22:57.035 --> 03:22:59.518 - incentivize landowners, homeowners to 03:22:59.714 --> 03:23:07.938 - pursue additional building, additional housing. There would need to be some kind of financial incentive 03:23:07.938 --> 03:23:15.924 - as some sort of mechanism to assist them in building that. One of the comments earlier was on how, I 03:23:15.924 --> 03:23:20.510 - believe this example is a $300,000 house and if that gets 03:23:20.994 --> 03:23:27.195 - under this ordinance, more or less subdivided into three different things that would magically create 03:23:27.195 --> 03:23:33.701 - $3 million worth of private enterprise, which I find ridiculous. What it would do is provide more housing, 03:23:33.701 --> 03:23:39.841 - and we need to build more housing, we need more density, and in my neighborhood, Maple Heights, Kate 03:23:39.841 --> 03:23:46.104 - is my council representative, there's just so many big backyards that are literally just empty. People 03:23:46.104 --> 03:23:50.238 - don't use them. They're just sitting there. They have alley access. 03:23:50.370 --> 03:23:56.962 - I'm converting my garage into an ADU which again in terms of increasing density There's some problems 03:23:56.962 --> 03:24:03.426 - I have with that. I believe it was the state State initiative to facilitate that I couldn't have an 03:24:03.426 --> 03:24:06.334 - ADU or converted before because the lot size 03:24:06.562 --> 03:24:13.358 - But essentially, if we can incentivize people, developers in particular, who obviously own a lot of 03:24:13.358 --> 03:24:20.289 - private enterprise and private housing in Bloomington, that would certainly be a wonderful thing. But 03:24:20.289 --> 03:24:27.085 - we're in danger of losing Bloomington if we can't provide housing for our most vulnerable. It's not 03:24:27.085 --> 03:24:31.230 - even our most vulnerable. It's affordability at every level. 03:24:31.330 --> 03:24:39.257 - facilitate and allow people who are homeowners to have a financial incentive and financial gain in creating, 03:24:39.257 --> 03:24:46.675 - again, a separate, either selling half their lot or being able to build an ADU, et cetera. All right, 03:24:46.675 --> 03:24:53.438 - thank you. Thank you so much. Again, in chambers. I'm trying to sign and get out of the way. 03:25:00.450 --> 03:25:08.726 - My name is Kathy Berry and I have separately written the council earlier this week and I know I appreciate 03:25:08.726 --> 03:25:16.538 - council member Flaherty I know read my comments. I am again as I have all along asking for a no vote 03:25:16.538 --> 03:25:24.504 - on this. I believe that the changes from 2021 in the UDO can help people accomplish all the goals that 03:25:24.504 --> 03:25:28.990 - have been talked about tonight in terms of infill housing 03:25:29.442 --> 03:25:37.552 - And also in light of Hopewell, I feel like we're doing experiments right now that will show will this 03:25:37.552 --> 03:25:45.502 - become affordable? Will it do some of the things that we're saying about helping people who grew up 03:25:45.502 --> 03:25:53.214 - here live here? I noticed a number of you don't like cars and want to reduce the number of cars. 03:25:53.378 --> 03:26:01.005 - But as somebody who worked all my career in secretarial and customer service frontline type jobs, I 03:26:01.005 --> 03:26:09.014 - know so many couples, divorced couples or never married couples who are separately co-parenting children 03:26:09.014 --> 03:26:15.954 - and if one spouse lives in, one parent lives in one city and another in another, you can't 03:26:15.954 --> 03:26:22.590 - work in Bloomington and not have a car. You need every minute of your time in order to 03:26:22.850 --> 03:26:31.148 - have the shared custody of children. This is just one sort of random example. So so housing housing 03:26:31.148 --> 03:26:39.445 - humans instead of cars is is there's there's some sense to that slogan but it doesn't really always 03:26:39.445 --> 03:26:43.262 - answer what humans are doing with their cars. 03:26:44.130 --> 03:26:51.553 - I also am not against density and urbanization as far as a lifestyle choice. I totally get it. It's 03:26:51.553 --> 03:26:59.645 - great to walk everywhere. I am quite the walker. I love to walk to local places. But I also like a backyard. 03:26:59.645 --> 03:27:07.068 - And I looked up in most of the English, in many parts of the English speaking world, what we call a 03:27:07.068 --> 03:27:14.046 - backyard is called a garden. And the garden aspect of living in Bloomington is something that 03:27:14.402 --> 03:27:21.885 - It can exist even with more and smaller housing, but not increased just building right out to the street, 03:27:21.885 --> 03:27:28.944 - allowing this, especially the increase in impermeable surface. That's not going to create and allow 03:27:28.944 --> 03:27:36.427 - a diversity of housing in Bloomington. I also have not heard arguments that convince me that urbanization 03:27:36.427 --> 03:27:38.686 - anywhere creates affordability. 03:27:39.522 --> 03:27:47.691 - So I think that because it's only been since 2021 that we can have these kind of changes I believe that 03:27:47.691 --> 03:27:55.625 - the mechanism is in place to increase density This will keep it slow and it will keep the people who 03:27:55.625 --> 03:28:03.480 - want the density more local Thank you Thank you so much was very Is there anyone online? All right, 03:28:03.480 --> 03:28:05.758 - we'll go to you miss Bennett 03:28:11.010 --> 03:28:21.410 - Hi all, Kari Bennett, Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County. We support this amendment to the UDO because 03:28:21.410 --> 03:28:31.515 - it will enable more houses to be built in residential zones. We also offer a couple of recommendations 03:28:31.515 --> 03:28:39.070 - for additional ways to enable more houses to be built. First, rear setbacks. 03:28:39.202 --> 03:28:49.185 - The rear setbacks for all residential zones are greater than the front and side setbacks. We would like 03:28:49.185 --> 03:28:58.975 - to see additional flexibility by reducing those rear setbacks. So that's something that we ask you to 03:28:58.975 --> 03:29:07.806 - consider in this ordinance or in an ordinance in the future. Secondly, we would like to see 03:29:09.058 --> 03:29:22.453 - this ordinance allow for fronting of houses on public alleys. The proposed amendments do allow subdivision 03:29:22.453 --> 03:29:34.846 - of lots without access by easement for new lots. But we would also like to see that platted alleys 03:29:35.298 --> 03:29:43.805 - which are very common in core Bloomington neighborhoods, like the Near West Side, Prospect Hill, 03:29:43.805 --> 03:29:52.839 - Elm Heights, that they are also allowed. It would enable subdivision of larger lots into smaller lots, 03:29:52.839 --> 03:30:01.961 - and it would support more affordable homes. This could be done in the same way that the access easement 03:30:01.961 --> 03:30:05.118 - language in this proposed ordinance 03:30:05.250 --> 03:30:14.515 - would accomplish. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Bennett. Others online? All right, Mr. Ost. 03:30:14.515 --> 03:30:24.552 - Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. My name is Eric Ost and I appreciate this opportunity 03:30:24.552 --> 03:30:28.798 - to offer public comment again this evening. 03:30:29.762 --> 03:30:36.792 - The Unified Development Ordinance is an interconnected, legally binding framework that guides, incents, 03:30:36.792 --> 03:30:43.619 - and structures durable changes to our community's built environment. Revising it piecemeal through a 03:30:43.619 --> 03:30:50.446 - segmented pipeline of compounding largely irreversible changes without a comprehensive assessment of 03:30:50.446 --> 03:30:57.274 - their collective input, excuse me, impact would be ill-informed and unadvised. There have been prior 03:30:57.274 --> 03:30:58.558 - comments, and I've 03:30:58.722 --> 03:31:07.037 - know there's a general rule about not cross debating, but I want to say that this is not an abstract 03:31:07.037 --> 03:31:15.434 - concern in regards to or observation in regards to a $300,000 property being turned into a $3 million 03:31:15.434 --> 03:31:23.914 - rental revenue producing asset, not owner occupied. And I challenge anyone who doubts that to look for 03:31:23.914 --> 03:31:27.454 - themselves. I also note that the ordinance 03:31:27.778 --> 03:31:35.633 - talks about attainable housing, not affordable. Now I know, and we don't talk about attainable owner-occupied 03:31:35.633 --> 03:31:42.917 - housing. The market in Bloomington simply does not support significant construction or incentivize at 03:31:42.917 --> 03:31:49.630 - this point, and this ordinance, these amendments will not do that, of owner-occupied housing. 03:31:49.762 --> 03:31:56.839 - So I strongly urge you to examine the likely impacts to both vacant lots and parcels with existing naturally 03:31:56.839 --> 03:32:03.656 - occurring affordable housing that will be prompted and potentiated for redevelopment under this proposal 03:32:03.656 --> 03:32:10.473 - and its companion amendments now moving through the Plan Commission. The Council must carefully evaluate 03:32:10.473 --> 03:32:16.446 - the full cumulative impact of these policies as an ensemble before codifying them into law. 03:32:18.978 --> 03:32:25.812 - You have the authority to postpone consideration of this amendment to a specific date within the 90 03:32:25.812 --> 03:32:32.714 - day certification window. Moving to postpone to October 14th, 2026 keeps the council fully compliant 03:32:32.714 --> 03:32:39.753 - with state deadlines while giving the companion UDO revisions time to advance so you can collect fully 03:32:39.753 --> 03:32:47.134 - scoped data and deliberate on the full package of UDO revisions together. Please move to postpone ordinance 03:32:47.362 --> 03:32:56.917 - 2026-20 to a time definite of October 14th, 2026. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Ost. Is there anyone 03:32:56.917 --> 03:33:06.289 - else online? Okay, we'll come back to chambers where a man on a honeymoon is coming to give a comment. 03:33:06.289 --> 03:33:14.206 - Steve Olin, again, not speaking for the Transportation Commission, but a member of it. 03:33:14.434 --> 03:33:23.041 - Just speaking to section 5 in my initial comments earlier were Appropriate for this as well, but I just 03:33:23.041 --> 03:33:31.896 - want to urge you not to let parking policy lead housing policy We've always had the ability to fix parking 03:33:31.896 --> 03:33:40.254 - concerns outside of title 20 title 20 is not the place to To be saying hey Let's regulate parking in 03:33:40.254 --> 03:33:42.654 - a certain way. There's other 03:33:42.754 --> 03:33:50.205 - parts of code that are better for it. Perhaps we can even do it administratively outside of code altogether. 03:33:50.205 --> 03:33:57.177 - But the neighborhood zones that have been brought up several times tonight were a reaction to student 03:33:57.177 --> 03:34:04.149 - commuting. The first one was established in 1992. All of the first ones were established as they were 03:34:04.149 --> 03:34:09.822 - bordering the IU campus. But we've got zones that have gone farther afield now and 03:34:10.978 --> 03:34:18.079 - Even so, not all students have cars, and the neighborhood zones work. The only fair way to manage the 03:34:18.079 --> 03:34:25.249 - concerns that we may have about these public spaces that are being demanded by people who want to park 03:34:25.249 --> 03:34:32.489 - their cars is price. If it's true that the need for housing isn't necessarily gonna bring cars to other 03:34:32.489 --> 03:34:40.286 - neighborhoods farther afield from IU, then it's time for every neighborhood to think about a neighborhood zone. 03:34:41.666 --> 03:34:49.241 - That's the only way to fairly allocate the public right-of-way permits Any neighborhood with a perceived 03:34:49.241 --> 03:34:56.744 - shortage needs to think about a neighborhood zone We should need to charge for the privilege of parking 03:34:56.744 --> 03:35:03.454 - in a public space within a year or two You're going to know how much the permits should cost 03:35:04.002 --> 03:35:10.471 - We don't know how much demand is going to be except we already do know that there's some oversubscribed 03:35:10.471 --> 03:35:16.941 - neighborhoods and some undersubscribed ones But I also want to pitch you in the last minute on the idea 03:35:16.941 --> 03:35:23.161 - of a parking benefit district Which is also something we can do outside of title 20 after you fared 03:35:23.161 --> 03:35:29.381 - out the costs of implementing the zone Extra revenue in that zone goes to public works improvements 03:35:29.381 --> 03:35:30.750 - in that zone lighting 03:35:30.882 --> 03:35:37.522 - fixing curbs repairing those sidewalks at long last Anyone who objects to it should at first should 03:35:37.522 --> 03:35:44.626 - know that all that money should stay in the neighborhood I'm looking forward through proper more strategic 03:35:44.626 --> 03:35:51.333 - pricing and keeping excess revenues in the area Where demand requires pricing we can properly manage 03:35:51.333 --> 03:35:58.238 - the demand for parking without giving away our city I look forward to bringing model legislation to you 03:35:58.562 --> 03:36:06.257 - Hopefully through the Transportation Commission in the months to come. Thank you. Thank you so much, 03:36:06.257 --> 03:36:13.952 - sir anyone else in chambers Coming back to council for final comments and I'll start on my left with 03:36:13.952 --> 03:36:22.028 - councilmember Rallo and then I'll go to my right councilmember Flaherty Yes, thanks well, I won't support 03:36:22.028 --> 03:36:27.742 - this and It's because I support housing affordability and availability and 03:36:28.002 --> 03:36:35.855 - Back in 2021 Everyone realized that the changes in up zoning would increase density No one disputed 03:36:35.855 --> 03:36:43.864 - that however The argument was really about affordability and availability and it's been five years So 03:36:43.864 --> 03:36:51.953 - now we can sort of look back and we can see how that experiment went There hasn't been a study. So I'm 03:36:51.953 --> 03:36:57.214 - going anecdotally, but the ones that I've the experience that I've 03:36:57.730 --> 03:37:08.707 - And what I have noticed is that it is produced exactly the opposite effect We've had conversion of smaller 03:37:08.707 --> 03:37:19.171 - rentals that were once affordable say at $400 a month to yes more density but Duplexes three per side 03:37:19.171 --> 03:37:27.070 - that rent for 1200 per bedroom So it's actually excluded low-income people I 03:37:27.330 --> 03:37:35.413 - What I see happening here is similar, but a very and a similarly broad brush approach It wasn't targeted 03:37:35.413 --> 03:37:43.265 - I do believe that in some cases it could yield a good result You do have oversized lots that could be 03:37:43.265 --> 03:37:51.194 - subdivided another house could be placed there Particularly corner lots that should have been probably 03:37:51.194 --> 03:37:55.582 - you know preferentially targeted and that would actually 03:37:55.714 --> 03:38:03.981 - Be complimentary because it would allow street access fairly easily But this was you know our one through 03:38:03.981 --> 03:38:12.404 - our four it's broad-brushed as staff said How many properties would this affect potentially all properties? 03:38:12.404 --> 03:38:20.203 - I agree it in practicality it won't affect all properties because It will potentially increase land 03:38:20.203 --> 03:38:24.414 - values, but if the house that's there Won't be raised 03:38:24.802 --> 03:38:33.696 - to build two new houses. This will disproportionately affect smaller homes that are affordable. So you've 03:38:33.696 --> 03:38:42.087 - got a small house that is affordable and you have the property that will be more lucrative if there 03:38:42.087 --> 03:38:50.645 - were two homes there. So this is really a product of the fact that we are a unique community. I mean, 03:38:50.645 --> 03:38:53.246 - Bloomington is, as I said, 60% 03:38:54.818 --> 03:39:03.485 - students 70% of those live off campus I Think the demographics are that you know more and more students 03:39:03.485 --> 03:39:11.985 - have been able to afford very high rents in the community So as Charlie Munger the investor said show 03:39:11.985 --> 03:39:20.485 - me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome the incentive here is one that benefits developers the 03:39:20.485 --> 03:39:23.902 - rentier class people or corporations and 03:39:24.066 --> 03:39:33.878 - Who make their money by owning assets and charging rent? Those people will profit Actually handsomely 03:39:33.878 --> 03:39:43.980 - It will not benefit everyone it will come at a cost Right now sixty to sixty five percent of the housing 03:39:43.980 --> 03:39:52.830 - units in Bloomington are rentals. So we're the highest in the state in terms of rentals and 03:39:53.538 --> 03:40:01.907 - We have very a diminishing supply of housing available for owner-occupancy first-time home buyers and 03:40:01.907 --> 03:40:10.112 - This will diminish the supply further. It's not the only thing that's diminished it Airbnb's thanks 03:40:10.112 --> 03:40:18.317 - to the state not allowing us to intervene Have diminished our housing supply of a lot of affordable 03:40:18.317 --> 03:40:23.486 - homes by about a thousand a thousand units a thousand homes so 03:40:23.650 --> 03:40:30.261 - It will disproportionately benefit the renters who can pay high rents and want to live in whatever 03:40:30.261 --> 03:40:37.540 - neighborhood they want near campus. It will benefit the developers because they will seize this opportunity, 03:40:37.540 --> 03:40:44.218 - individuals or corporations that will come in, swoop in and convert the property. It will come at a 03:40:44.218 --> 03:40:49.694 - cost of low income residents, the first time home buyers, the low income renters. 03:40:50.018 --> 03:40:57.954 - Those will be the people who will be disproportionately affected and adversely and it will probably 03:40:57.954 --> 03:41:05.968 - affect obviously if the up zoning Example is relevant here. It'll affect the neighborhood as well So 03:41:05.968 --> 03:41:14.142 - I'll be voting no on this I wish that there was something here that I could vote yes on in other words 03:41:14.142 --> 03:41:16.126 - it would be targeted and 03:41:16.354 --> 03:41:24.163 - For the good result that we I think we want in terms of subdividing lots, but this is This revolt will 03:41:24.163 --> 03:41:31.744 - result I think in a mass casualty situation Thank you Thank You councilmember Rallo and we'll go to 03:41:31.744 --> 03:41:39.629 - councilmember Flaherty. Thanks Most of those things and think it can be refuted, but I won't spend time 03:41:39.629 --> 03:41:40.766 - doing that and 03:41:41.122 --> 03:41:46.706 - First of all, just thank you to my colleagues, to staff for working on this, and also to members of 03:41:46.706 --> 03:41:52.513 - the public who commented in a variety of different perspectives. I think broadly, we do generally share 03:41:52.513 --> 03:41:58.377 - the same aims and the high-level goals, even if we disagree significantly sometimes about what the right 03:41:58.377 --> 03:42:04.072 - policy path is to get there, so I do appreciate that and recognize that. Also, just wanted to briefly 03:42:04.072 --> 03:42:09.712 - address some of the comments from Kari Bennett on the alley frontage. I did explore that with staff, 03:42:09.712 --> 03:42:10.494 - and it's just 03:42:10.850 --> 03:42:18.642 - not feasible under fire code. Just so it just really can't be done. You can use, you know, a platted 03:42:18.642 --> 03:42:26.356 - alley as the access point for, you know, instead of a six-foot easement, for instance. So it can be 03:42:26.356 --> 03:42:34.225 - used in that way, but not as the fire access road itself. On the setbacks, I messed up. I intended to 03:42:34.225 --> 03:42:38.622 - bring an amendment to reduce rear setbacks to five feet. 03:42:38.818 --> 03:42:44.312 - and just had a very busy week and didn't catch that that wasn't in the amendment we put together. I 03:42:44.312 --> 03:42:49.971 - meant for it to be, and that's okay. It might be something that needs to come at a later date. I don't 03:42:49.971 --> 03:42:55.466 - think it's gonna be a huge issue. Those rear setbacks were reduced to 15 feet. I think it will be a 03:42:55.466 --> 03:43:01.235 - barrier in some small lot settings that we didn't get that reduced to 5 feet. The rationale for reducing 03:43:01.235 --> 03:43:06.839 - it to 5 feet is that's what it is for ADUs. So again, you know, if for an ADU and why not for a small 03:43:06.839 --> 03:43:08.542 - home? So I lament that, but... 03:43:08.962 --> 03:43:17.211 - You know, this can all be amended again in the future. So thanks for your consideration, I do appreciate 03:43:17.211 --> 03:43:25.461 - it. Anyone else wish to make a comment? Council Member Ruff and then I'll go to Council Member Stasberg. 03:43:25.461 --> 03:43:33.396 - I won't say anything about, I won't add to Council Member Rall's comments at all, except to say that 03:43:33.396 --> 03:43:38.110 - I agree with his, I agree largely with his analysis of what 03:43:38.306 --> 03:43:48.881 - what this will do in reality. That doesn't, and I'm not ignoring the intention of those who support 03:43:48.881 --> 03:43:59.456 - this and the sponsor are noble and certainly well-intentioned and admirable and aspirable, but it's 03:43:59.456 --> 03:44:04.638 - too blunt and too broad-based, too experimental. 03:44:04.802 --> 03:44:13.375 - Coming on piling on top of other changes that have been made for towards flexing and what's coming from 03:44:13.375 --> 03:44:22.030 - the Plan Commission You know some of my council colleagues I know I'm pretty confident, you know believe 03:44:22.030 --> 03:44:30.603 - they had they were elected with a mandate to aggressively pursue density in the name of of improvements 03:44:30.603 --> 03:44:33.406 - in affordability and reduction in 03:44:33.762 --> 03:44:45.587 - and carbon footprint, but things like that. And I certainly respect that. But I feel just the opposite. 03:44:45.587 --> 03:44:57.867 - I feel like I was elected in a mandate to proceed cautiously when it comes to the potential to dramatically 03:44:57.867 --> 03:45:02.302 - modify the livability of neighborhoods 03:45:03.106 --> 03:45:10.361 - There was a trade-off where affordability was definitely a good outcome and lots of small housing 03:45:10.361 --> 03:45:17.837 - opportunities starter housing opportunity for young people and That's a trade-off. I would make if I 03:45:17.837 --> 03:45:25.314 - believe that that was going to be the outcome, but as councilmember Rallo's I believe more much more 03:45:25.314 --> 03:45:31.902 - along the lines of councilmember all those comments. I don't believe the trade-off is is 03:45:32.482 --> 03:45:40.165 - We're going to result in a bunch of a large increase in affordability and a lot of of housing 03:45:40.165 --> 03:45:48.829 - that lower-income Folks in the community are suddenly going to find themselves having access to so Again, 03:45:48.829 --> 03:45:57.329 - just like has some role. I'm not opposed to those goals and I think there are ways we can incrementally 03:45:57.329 --> 03:45:59.454 - take some steps to really 03:45:59.618 --> 03:46:07.694 - Address on those issues. I mean I was a deciding vote on on 80 use in a former council term supporting 03:46:07.694 --> 03:46:15.613 - that and The idea of looking at how many corner lots we have that can be subdivided So the one faces 03:46:15.613 --> 03:46:23.689 - the one street the one unit could be facing one of the court one of the streets and then they The back 03:46:23.689 --> 03:46:28.158 - would be split created a lot that faces the other street 03:46:28.386 --> 03:46:34.930 - that corner and how much that we have I how many opportunities I know there's a couple situations in 03:46:34.930 --> 03:46:41.538 - the community where we have sections of street where we don't really need as much right away as as is 03:46:41.538 --> 03:46:48.276 - required under code that if that right away requirement was diminished we could get some lots buildable 03:46:48.276 --> 03:46:54.884 - lots without doing anything else except looking in a more targeted way at where our opportunities are 03:46:54.884 --> 03:46:57.022 - I just don't think that analysis 03:46:57.442 --> 03:47:07.615 - has been done in a responsible way that respects the potential negative impacts of this broad brush 03:47:07.615 --> 03:47:17.890 - approach. And so again, I respect the goals. I appreciate the effort. But I don't agree that this is 03:47:17.890 --> 03:47:25.214 - responsible or effective way to go about it. So I'm gonna be voting no. 03:47:28.002 --> 03:47:36.766 - You and councilmember Stasberg Hi, I'm really hoping that what I have to say it makes sense I First 03:47:36.766 --> 03:47:45.705 - I guess I want to like thank all of my colleagues for their very thoughtful discussion about this And 03:47:45.705 --> 03:47:54.557 - I similarly want to thank Plan Commission colleagues for their similarly thoughtful discussion about 03:47:54.557 --> 03:47:56.222 - this and changes I 03:47:57.634 --> 03:48:06.026 - I think that the little affordable house in Bloomington is a myth. It doesn't really exist anymore because 03:48:06.026 --> 03:48:14.026 - the underlying land value of where the little houses are is so extremely high. And I did a whole land 03:48:14.026 --> 03:48:21.870 - value comparison. I really went down a rabbit hole at some point on one of the county sites and the 03:48:21.870 --> 03:48:26.654 - assessment sites comparing, like you always compare your own 03:48:26.786 --> 03:48:34.981 - lake house and neighborhood and property to things, right? And just kind of being shocked, not really 03:48:34.981 --> 03:48:43.337 - shocked, but amazed maybe at the value of some of the very small plots of land because they are divided 03:48:43.337 --> 03:48:48.158 - into land value and improvement value, right? So even if my 03:48:48.354 --> 03:48:57.284 - home itself had a higher value, the underlying land had a lower value, and so overall, it was valued 03:48:57.284 --> 03:49:06.302 - lower than something half its size on a much smaller piece of property than my own home. So that myth 03:49:06.302 --> 03:49:15.320 - of... It's a really nice thought, but I don't think that it exists anymore in the way that it used to 03:49:15.320 --> 03:49:18.238 - exist in this town. And we can't 03:49:19.618 --> 03:49:29.237 - We can't make it exist again. I think that this tries to do that, right? To allow the smaller lots, 03:49:29.237 --> 03:49:39.242 - allow smaller houses. I think that it tried. It does what we can do because we have limited power. This 03:49:39.242 --> 03:49:49.246 - is market-driven, right? Everything about housing is market-driven. And what market drives Bloomington? 03:49:49.346 --> 03:49:56.074 - It is a market of students. And I don't mean to say that to disparage students in any way. Students 03:49:56.074 --> 03:50:02.802 - are part of our community. They're not just visitors. They are part of our community. They are part 03:50:02.802 --> 03:50:09.664 - of what makes Bloomington Bloomington, and students need to live somewhere. And we in city government 03:50:09.664 --> 03:50:16.392 - have zero control over how many students there are that are accepted to the university, that accept 03:50:16.392 --> 03:50:18.814 - their acceptance to the university, 03:50:19.330 --> 03:50:25.370 - that choose to live in different places and we don't have any control over that. And the market is going 03:50:25.370 --> 03:50:31.353 - to house them because once they get accepted and decide to come here while they're coming here and they 03:50:31.353 --> 03:50:37.451 - have to live somewhere, they're trapped in a whole lot of ways and those parents can't necessarily afford 03:50:37.451 --> 03:50:43.376 - it either. Those students can't necessarily afford it. They are all trapped. I had a kid go to college 03:50:43.376 --> 03:50:47.518 - this year and I'm trapped in that bubble in a whole different town now. 03:50:48.802 --> 03:50:55.694 - Okay, and I haven't quite figured out what the costs in that town are right But but it's an interesting 03:50:55.694 --> 03:51:02.520 - place to be So I wanted to say that and the other thing that I wanted to say which is also interesting 03:51:02.520 --> 03:51:09.147 - perhaps is You know we talked about the market and while the market will correct itself and there's 03:51:09.147 --> 03:51:15.774 - been a lot of conversation about vacancies and the one of the pieces the the zoning map change that 03:51:15.774 --> 03:51:16.702 - is coming and 03:51:16.834 --> 03:51:23.434 - to us from Plan Commission that was on Monday night, and there was very, I mean, we had three members 03:51:23.434 --> 03:51:30.164 - of the public at Plan Commission on Monday night, and we were talking about some pretty serious things. 03:51:30.164 --> 03:51:37.087 - Okay, and the three members that were there were all there about this rezone, where there is a multifamily 03:51:37.087 --> 03:51:43.817 - development that wants to change their underlying zoning district to a district that will allow hotels, 03:51:43.817 --> 03:51:45.758 - because they can't get enough 03:51:46.562 --> 03:51:53.613 - of tenants to fill their building. And my suggestion publicly at the time, as I said, Plan Commission 03:51:53.613 --> 03:52:00.594 - forwarded that with a negative recommendation to us, was to look beyond students as tenants, because 03:52:00.594 --> 03:52:07.575 - there's a whole lot of non-students out there that also need homes. And that is something that maybe 03:52:07.575 --> 03:52:14.142 - is gonna end up correcting itself at some point. And how it's gonna correct itself is the part 03:52:14.338 --> 03:52:22.705 - that's gonna be really interesting, because our single-family homes right now are priced based on the 03:52:22.705 --> 03:52:30.909 - rentals, based on being able to charge $900 to $1,200 for one bedroom in a three-bedroom apartment, 03:52:30.909 --> 03:52:39.358 - right? That's how it's based. You know, single-family home rentals are $3,000 a month, because they're 03:52:39.358 --> 03:52:43.870 - assuming three individuals each paying $1,000 a month. 03:52:44.002 --> 03:52:50.951 - and students will end up paying that because they don't have other options and because it's cheaper 03:52:50.951 --> 03:52:57.970 - than some of their other options and they gotta live somewhere. So we're in a real pickle as a city. 03:52:57.970 --> 03:53:04.920 - We're in a real pickle for everybody. And we all do want very similar things. And the real question 03:53:04.920 --> 03:53:12.286 - is, how are we gonna get there and how long is it gonna take to get there? And this is not perfect, okay? 03:53:12.418 --> 03:53:19.448 - love getting rid of all of the minimum parking right now in some of those places that we're having very 03:53:19.448 --> 03:53:26.275 - serious parking problems because we need to figure out those solutions. I don't love things that end 03:53:26.275 --> 03:53:33.238 - up feeling like giveaways to big corporations, but some of those giveaways are also gonna be solutions 03:53:33.238 --> 03:53:40.065 - for smaller individual property owners who can subdivide, who can do something slightly different on 03:53:40.065 --> 03:53:41.214 - their own little 03:53:41.538 --> 03:53:49.798 - Little plot of land and we can say well, you know, how many people is that gonna help? Well, maybe it'll 03:53:49.798 --> 03:53:57.743 - help one or two and Maybe that's all we can do right now. So I will be supporting this this evening. 03:53:57.743 --> 03:54:05.767 - Thank you. Thank you councilman Rosenberger. Do you wanna Have like a well of time like like start up 03:54:05.767 --> 03:54:09.150 - that you should use I'm going home at 1030 03:54:10.562 --> 03:54:19.620 - I hope this passes. I'm a yes vote on it. I think there are parts of it that could still be different, 03:54:19.620 --> 03:54:28.501 - but I am looking forward to the idea of having this amendment as part of our UDO. I think that just, 03:54:28.501 --> 03:54:37.383 - I don't know, thinking about what some council members have said, I think some said, you know, we're 03:54:37.383 --> 03:54:38.878 - in disagreement. 03:54:39.298 --> 03:54:49.078 - about Wanting maybe incremental changes. Okay, that's not okay. I'm sorry. I wasn't ready. Oh councilmember 03:54:49.078 --> 03:54:58.404 - is sorry Now I have a timer I love that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so I Think that I'm in agreement with 03:54:58.404 --> 03:55:03.294 - a lot of council members that incremental changes are 03:55:04.002 --> 03:55:11.685 - Great and the disagreement is I think this is incremental and you potentially don't I think changing 03:55:11.685 --> 03:55:19.521 - minimum lot sizes is something that has been talked about for years here. I think some council members 03:55:19.521 --> 03:55:27.585 - Who are opposing this? I think a lot of what they've wanted over the years is actually Part of it smaller 03:55:27.585 --> 03:55:33.214 - houses on smaller lots. We've heard a lot about criticisms about duplexes 03:55:33.922 --> 03:55:40.803 - This is not that this is not really plexes This is looking at smaller single-family homes on smaller 03:55:40.803 --> 03:55:47.684 - lots and trying to make that easier and trying to make that infill in our walkable neighborhoods and 03:55:47.684 --> 03:55:54.496 - so I think it's a little bit of a bummer that Some of those in opposition don't see that but that's 03:55:54.496 --> 03:55:57.630 - okay. I think too sometimes I'm like how much 03:55:57.922 --> 03:56:04.715 - Econ 101 do I want to get into and the answer is almost none. I think this is a supply and demand problem 03:56:04.715 --> 03:56:11.187 - as always As long as we have limited supply people can charge as much as they want to sell a home or 03:56:11.187 --> 03:56:17.595 - to rent a bedroom As soon as we have oversupply things get competitive and you can no longer charge 03:56:17.595 --> 03:56:20.158 - a thousand dollars a bedroom anymore. I 03:56:20.930 --> 03:56:27.167 - The musical chairs of housing is an article that came out years ago and it is so wonderful It is a lot 03:56:27.167 --> 03:56:33.282 - like car ownership. A lot of people can never afford a new car Some people can when those people buy 03:56:33.282 --> 03:56:39.459 - a new car they sell their old car That is the exact same thing as how the housing market works people 03:56:39.459 --> 03:56:45.635 - with more money and means by the newer houses and different people get to buy the houses that are now 03:56:45.635 --> 03:56:46.846 - 10 20 years old and 03:56:47.426 --> 03:56:54.009 - So we need to have a supply continuing of new houses being built so the musical chairs can Continue 03:56:54.009 --> 03:57:00.591 - and probably in a greater fashion A lot of times we're not comparing apples to apples We talk about 03:57:00.591 --> 03:57:07.305 - little houses in Brian Park that might be torn down and we specifically usually talk about Brian Park 03:57:07.305 --> 03:57:11.518 - because almost every other of our walkable neighborhoods is now 03:57:12.290 --> 03:57:18.797 - It's you cannot tear down a home because they are historically protected So we have not that much walkable 03:57:18.797 --> 03:57:25.060 - space that we can make these changes, but what happens? What can happen in Brian Park is that you will 03:57:25.060 --> 03:57:30.777 - tear down that single-family home and you will build a monster Single-family home that is 1.5 03:57:30.777 --> 03:57:37.040 - million dollars, but what we can now also get in Brian Park is duplexes So instead of housing a family 03:57:37.040 --> 03:57:42.270 - of four in a brand new home For over a million dollars we get a duplex that can house 03:57:43.010 --> 03:57:51.289 - Six or eight people. Six? I forget the numbers. I'm so tired. The last thing I want to say, I guess, 03:57:51.289 --> 03:58:00.059 - is that a public commenter on Zoom said only some neighborhoods have the burden of density. And I disagree 03:58:00.059 --> 03:58:08.338 - with that so very much. Density, to me, is not a burden. And density means people. So we are talking 03:58:08.338 --> 03:58:12.190 - about putting more people in our neighborhoods 03:58:12.322 --> 03:58:18.016 - And I like that. I like people. My neighborhood, Prospect Hill, used to have about 400 more people in 03:58:18.016 --> 03:58:23.822 - it, but households have changed the way they do kids per bedroom and everything like that. I would love 03:58:23.822 --> 03:58:29.628 - to have more people so it looked like the yesteryear. Just preserving the character of my neighborhood, 03:58:29.628 --> 03:58:35.211 - I guess. I think that's it, but I don't think density is a bad word. I don't think more people is a 03:58:35.211 --> 03:58:40.849 - bad phrase. So I hope this passes, and I'm looking forward to the small incremental changes it might 03:58:40.849 --> 03:58:41.854 - bring. Thank you. 03:58:43.362 --> 03:58:50.250 - Thank you so much. Any other first comments? Council Member Barallo for, I think, would we get two minutes 03:58:50.250 --> 03:58:56.751 - for the second time? Go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to make a quick response. I think the speaker was 03:58:56.751 --> 03:59:03.575 - talking, when they were talking about the burden of density, they were talking about what I was referring 03:59:03.575 --> 03:59:10.334 - to, and that is affordability and availability. That because they're approximate to downtown and campus, 03:59:10.882 --> 03:59:17.887 - They bear the burden as opposed to people on the outskirts. So it's gonna disproportionately affect 03:59:17.887 --> 03:59:25.243 - them negatively as I explained how it will and here's an example so 800 East Grimes People the investors 03:59:25.243 --> 03:59:32.248 - spent two hundred thousand dollars on that lot the household for hundred and fifty thousand It took 03:59:32.248 --> 03:59:39.323 - forty thousand dollars to demolish it. That was in November of 2024 It was so that two-bedroom house 03:59:39.323 --> 03:59:40.094 - rented for 03:59:40.290 --> 03:59:51.495 - or had a mortgage of $1,000 a month. So all this is verified. Now, there's a four-bedroom, large duplex 03:59:51.495 --> 04:00:02.593 - that is renting for $1,200 a room, and it's yielding $5,000 a month instead of $1,000 a month in terms 04:00:02.593 --> 04:00:08.734 - of profit, in terms of rent. So that's a huge incentive. 04:00:09.410 --> 04:00:16.852 - to demolish small homes and you can go to Zillow and find them. So I invite anybody to go to Zillow 04:00:16.852 --> 04:00:24.517 - right now at home and look and see around campus and downtown how many small homes there are. Some are 04:00:24.517 --> 04:00:32.256 - rentals. So let me also say that students are disproportionately affected, low-income students, because 04:00:32.256 --> 04:00:39.326 - if they're paying $400 per room and now they have to pay $1,200, obviously it's a class thing. 04:00:40.034 --> 04:00:48.776 - It's gonna disproportionately affect low-income students. So it's not about students or residents. It's 04:00:48.776 --> 04:00:57.518 - about whether you want affordability, real affordability, and the accessibility of owner-occupied homes 04:00:57.518 --> 04:01:06.008 - and the potential for them, or you want that conversion, which will yield density with higher rents, 04:01:06.008 --> 04:01:09.118 - higher mortgages. Thank you so much. 04:01:10.178 --> 04:01:28.878 - Any other final comments? Seeing none, I'll ask that the clerk please call the roll. Councilmember Stasberg? 04:01:28.878 --> 04:01:40.030 - Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Asari? Yes. Daly? No. Rallo? No. Roth? 04:01:40.994 --> 04:01:50.933 - Rosenberger yes clarity. Yes That motion carries five three Thank you all very much. All right. What 04:01:50.933 --> 04:02:00.380 - time does our rule set in? It is 1035 so keep that in mind. I forget what the rule is but maybe 04:02:00.380 --> 04:02:09.630 - Parliamentarian you can tell us what the rule is Okay, roll call vote on all introductions so 04:02:10.658 --> 04:02:19.600 - That is the rule and we need two-thirds two-thirds of people present to continue Motion for our point 04:02:19.600 --> 04:02:28.366 - of order I just want a point of information We have one two, three four resolutions left are any of 04:02:28.366 --> 04:02:37.308 - them more Urgent than others in terms of dealing with them tonight versus another night That might be 04:02:37.308 --> 04:02:38.974 - for attorney Allen 04:02:39.202 --> 04:02:46.451 - The CIB budget is the more urgent one because it's on a deadline So if you wanted to move something 04:02:46.451 --> 04:02:53.917 - up, I would for you to move both of those So both the CIB and the fab tech resolution a little earlier 04:02:53.917 --> 04:03:01.311 - okay, can I make a motion to amend the agenda then to Deal with resolution 20 26 20 and resolution 20 04:03:01.311 --> 04:03:07.038 - 26 21 as our B and C items second Motion second all those in favor say aye aye 04:03:07.266 --> 04:03:17.021 - Fantastic that that is done. Let's Let's do so then let's start with deep Well, what is that resolution 04:03:17.021 --> 04:03:26.401 - 20 26-20 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only Second motion in the second 04:03:26.401 --> 04:03:36.062 - with a clerk, please call the roll Yes, but we call the roll on reading it by title and synopsis, yeah 04:03:42.338 --> 04:03:52.240 - Almost. Almost. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont-Smith. Yes. Massari. Yes. Daly. Yes. Rallo. Yes. Ruff. Yes. 04:03:52.240 --> 04:04:02.341 - Rosenberger. Yes. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes, again. She started. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Will the 04:04:02.341 --> 04:04:04.222 - clerk please read? 04:04:11.042 --> 04:04:24.352 - Yes, please 20 26 20. Yes. All right resolution 20 26-20 requests to approve the 20 27 operating budget 04:04:24.352 --> 04:04:36.382 - of the Monroe County Capital Improvement Board for the Bloomington Convention Center synopsis 04:04:36.930 --> 04:04:45.804 - This resolution approves the Monroe County Capital Improvement Board's 2027 operating budget for the 04:04:45.804 --> 04:04:53.799 - Bloomington Convention Center pursuant to the interlocal cooperation agreement between the 04:04:53.799 --> 04:05:03.112 - city of Bloomington and Monroe County. The approved budget provides $3,287,597 in revenues and $3,287,597 04:05:03.112 --> 04:05:04.254 - in expenses. 04:05:04.354 --> 04:05:10.844 - Following City Council approval, the budget will be presented to the Monroe County Council for its review 04:05:10.844 --> 04:05:17.579 - and approval. Thank you. I move that resolution 2026-20 be adopted. Second. All right, to you, Mr. Underwood. 04:05:17.579 --> 04:05:24.191 - Good evening. My name's Jeff Underwood. I'm Comptroller and Assistant Treasurer for the Capital Improvement 04:05:24.191 --> 04:05:30.314 - Board. With me this evening is John Weichauer, President, and Talisha Copic, the Executive Director 04:05:30.314 --> 04:05:34.110 - of the Convention Center. And this is the first time since we 04:05:34.562 --> 04:05:40.406 - Capital improvement board now has taken responsibility for the operations of the Convention Center per 04:05:40.406 --> 04:05:46.137 - the inner local as noted the inner local says that we will present our budgets to both fiscal bodies 04:05:46.137 --> 04:05:52.265 - and have them improve it and We would come to you first. So this is the resolution to approve the operating 04:05:52.265 --> 04:05:57.598 - budget two things I want to point out is there is no city subsidy or any kind of funds in the 04:05:57.794 --> 04:06:05.273 - Convention Center operating budget. It's funded primarily through direct revenues from leases of the 04:06:05.273 --> 04:06:12.900 - facilities and in keepers tax this budget has been approved by the both the CVC and the CIB and we had 04:06:12.900 --> 04:06:20.453 - our initial budget hearing with the Monroe County Council this evening and they've Doing their series 04:06:20.453 --> 04:06:21.342 - of hearings 04:06:21.442 --> 04:06:29.496 - And it went very smoothly with them and then their public hearing and appropriation votes are in October 04:06:29.496 --> 04:06:37.396 - So at this point, I'd be happy to answer any questions related to this resolution. Thank you very much 04:06:37.396 --> 04:06:45.220 - questions Seeing none we'll go to public comment would anybody like to comment on resolution 20 26 20 04:06:45.220 --> 04:06:49.822 - Is there anyone online? Coming back to council for comments 04:06:54.498 --> 04:07:07.732 - None will the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember councilmember Piedmont Smith. Yes. I'm sorry. 04:07:07.732 --> 04:07:17.982 - Yes Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes rough. Yeah, Rosa burger. No Flaherty. Yes Stasburg 04:07:21.026 --> 04:07:31.677 - That carries six one. Thank you very much. We'll move on Resolution 20 26-21 be introduced and read 04:07:31.677 --> 04:07:42.648 - by the clerk by title and synopsis only Second motion in a second. Will the clerk please call the roll 04:07:42.648 --> 04:07:45.950 - on the motion to read? Hold on 04:07:58.018 --> 04:08:08.931 - Resolution 20 26-21 requesting the food and beverage Will you call the roll on the motion to read, please? 04:08:08.931 --> 04:08:19.233 - Yeah, I will Councilmember a sorry. Yes Daley. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Ruff Rosenberger. Yes Flaherty. Yes, 04:08:19.233 --> 04:08:27.902 - Stasburg Piedmont Smith Yes, that motion carries six one Will the clerk please read? 04:08:28.354 --> 04:08:36.979 - Let's do that again resolution 2026 dash 21 Requesting the Food and Beverage Tax Advisory Commission 04:08:36.979 --> 04:08:46.032 - to make a recommendation for expenditure of food and beverage tax revenues the synopsis is The resolution 04:08:46.032 --> 04:08:50.558 - this resolution is a request from the Common Council 04:08:50.658 --> 04:08:57.859 - for the Food and Beverage Tax Advisory Commission to recommend expenditures of food and beverage tax 04:08:57.859 --> 04:09:02.494 - revenues toward a 2027 budget for the Capital Improvement Board. 04:09:03.202 --> 04:09:09.907 - Thank you very much to you. Mr. Underwood. I move that resolution 2026 dash 21 be adopted Sorry to you. 04:09:09.907 --> 04:09:16.547 - Mr. Underwood Again, Jeff underwood controller assistant treasurer This is related to the construction 04:09:16.547 --> 04:09:22.993 - of the new facility and the remodeling of the existing facility Utilizes food and beverage funds in 04:09:22.993 --> 04:09:24.734 - addition to bond funds and 04:09:25.058 --> 04:09:32.983 - You all appropriate these funds as a part of the budget process We presented to you in August and the 04:09:32.983 --> 04:09:40.752 - numbers have not changed but a one little Difference in this one is that it has to go to the fabtac 04:09:40.752 --> 04:09:48.754 - the food and beverage tax Commission for a review and recommendation to come back to you prior to your 04:09:48.754 --> 04:09:54.270 - vote on the budget. So this resolution Just asked that the fabtac meet 04:09:54.466 --> 04:10:02.134 - Review that and make a recommendation back to the council prior to your vote on the overall city budget 04:10:02.134 --> 04:10:09.802 - We're happy to answer any questions. Yes, and this will be the last one Ever for this process. Oh, yeah 04:10:09.802 --> 04:10:17.397 - Thank you I have a first question. What's the timeline that it will come back to us? It will come back 04:10:17.397 --> 04:10:22.558 - prior to your adoption of the city budget so October the 7th 7th. Yes 04:10:22.722 --> 04:10:30.041 - Excellent. So what if you approve this tonight? Administrator will reach out to the county schedule 04:10:30.041 --> 04:10:37.872 - the fab tack We'll go and meet for that and then they'll send their recommendation back to you all council 04:10:37.872 --> 04:10:45.630 - members any questions Council member says Tosberg Figure out whether the question that I have is actually 04:10:45.630 --> 04:10:52.510 - attached to this resolution or the past or the one before this but I think that it's this one 04:10:54.562 --> 04:11:03.207 - There's a professional services contract for nine hundred and twenty two thousand. Is that this one 04:11:03.207 --> 04:11:12.544 - or the last one? That was the last no great then never mind. I'm good. Okay, and I can answer your question 04:11:12.544 --> 04:11:21.363 - just Moving to public comment is there any public comment on resolution 20 26 21 anyone online Coming 04:11:21.363 --> 04:11:23.870 - back to council any comments 04:11:28.578 --> 04:11:34.627 - Councilman Stasberg, I do have a question on this one. There's a contingency amount here of 2.6 million. 04:11:34.627 --> 04:11:40.733 - Is that the original contingency amount? Because there was a whole original contingency. Yes The original 04:11:40.733 --> 04:11:46.493 - contingency amount and it's just well, it's the 2027 part. It was a part of the overall contingency 04:11:46.493 --> 04:11:52.484 - So there's contingency in the construction fund and there was contingency in the food and beverage that 04:11:52.484 --> 04:11:57.150 - the council asks us to have 10% contingency. So this was a remainder of that and 04:11:57.506 --> 04:12:09.734 - Half of the contingency. Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Thank you Thank you very much with that will the coke 04:12:09.734 --> 04:12:21.841 - please call the roll Councilmember Ralla, yes rough Flaherty, yes Stasburg. Yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes 04:12:21.841 --> 04:12:24.958 - I'm sorry. Yes daily. Yes 04:12:25.250 --> 04:12:44.023 - I carry seven. Oh, thank you for your patience for being here for so long. Have a wonderful evening. 04:12:44.023 --> 04:12:48.670 - Appreciate it. Thank you 04:12:49.410 --> 04:12:57.807 - I move that resolution 20 26 dash 18 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis There's 04:12:57.807 --> 04:13:05.470 - a motion in a second with a clerk, please call the roll on the on the motion to read 20 26 18 04:13:36.482 --> 04:13:47.343 - Resolution 2026 Call the roll I think I'm getting tired Can't imagine why yeah councilmember rough Rosenberg 04:13:47.343 --> 04:13:57.607 - Oh Scott Flaherty. Yes Stassberg. Yes Piedmont Smith. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Daley. Yes. Thank you. Will 04:13:57.607 --> 04:13:59.998 - the clerk please read I 04:14:01.730 --> 04:14:12.573 - Oh and and Rallo, I'm sorry All right, so resolution 2026-18 a resolution of the common council of the 04:14:12.573 --> 04:14:23.731 - city of Bloomington Monroe County, Indiana approving certain matters in connection with the with removing 04:14:23.731 --> 04:14:29.310 - parcels from a certain economic development area and 04:14:34.146 --> 04:14:41.678 - Synopsis the synopsis is this resolution originated from Bloomington Redevelopment Commission to remove 04:14:41.678 --> 04:14:49.066 - certain residential parcels from the Bloomington consolidated economic development area and amend the 04:14:49.066 --> 04:14:56.961 - economic development plan Accordingly as these certain residential parcels are ineligible for tax increments 04:14:56.961 --> 04:15:03.262 - to be collected for the Bloomington Redevelopment Commission and cause difficulties of 04:15:03.426 --> 04:15:15.719 - Processing tax increment financing TIF that can be eliminated by their removal Thank you very much motion 04:15:15.719 --> 04:15:27.779 - To you sir Thank you very much for staying this evening this has been a long evening for you and really 04:15:27.779 --> 04:15:31.838 - appreciate it This is a resolution 04:15:31.970 --> 04:15:43.141 - Would support the declaratory resolution of the Redevelopment Commission to amend the consolidated TIF 04:15:43.141 --> 04:15:53.662 - to remove Residential properties that are ineligible to have the tax increment captured from the 04:15:54.786 --> 04:16:04.818 - consolidated TIF district and we have a two maps this one is an overview and the blue is the consolidated 04:16:04.818 --> 04:16:14.377 - TIF and the Little pieces there are hard to see so this is a zoom in of the top area of the northern 04:16:14.377 --> 04:16:24.030 - area and you can see these little places around town where there's these residential parcels that are 04:16:24.258 --> 04:16:33.619 - ineligible to be captured and in this next slide shows the southern area where there's some ineligible 04:16:33.619 --> 04:16:42.707 - properties as well. Justin Chang from Reedy Financial has actually been the one who suggested to us 04:16:42.707 --> 04:16:52.158 - to make this amendment to the consolidated TIF and he can explain more about the reasoning behind that. 04:16:54.274 --> 04:17:02.727 - Good evening, everyone. Good to see you all again. Just a quick overview for why we're doing this, and 04:17:02.727 --> 04:17:11.590 - I've sort of explained this before, but this is not something that's specifically happening in Bloomington. 04:17:11.590 --> 04:17:18.238 - This is for... There was a question about whether or not you introduced yourself 04:17:18.338 --> 04:17:26.738 - I'm Justin Chang with 3d financial group. I forgot I've been here so many times at this point. I'm just 04:17:26.738 --> 04:17:34.976 - kidding Yes, Justin Chang with 3d financial group. I'm the financial advisor for the city and the RDC 04:17:34.976 --> 04:17:43.215 - so essentially how this came about to sue our work with the RDC and annually what we do is we look at 04:17:43.215 --> 04:17:44.830 - the parcel list for 04:17:45.122 --> 04:17:54.378 - the RDC TIF allocation areas to identify what we call decrement, which is negative increment, essentially 04:17:54.378 --> 04:18:03.373 - parcels that are taking assessed values away from the TIF allocation areas. And this sort of goes back 04:18:03.373 --> 04:18:08.350 - to really prior to 2023, we can sort of just TIF parcels 04:18:08.450 --> 04:18:15.873 - Even if there are residential parcels, no, we cannot benefit from them But we but they also did not 04:18:15.873 --> 04:18:23.816 - hurt the TIF as either so it really didn't matter a whole lot whether they were in the TIF or not starting 04:18:23.816 --> 04:18:31.387 - in 2026 so starting in 25 assessment and pay 26 There was a software change where now instead of it's 04:18:31.387 --> 04:18:38.142 - being a neutral effect on the tip allocation areas We're actually seeing negative negative 04:18:38.242 --> 04:18:44.688 - effects to Capture increments. So that's why we're suggest suggesting this removal again It's sort of 04:18:44.688 --> 04:18:51.260 - just a correction. They should not have been in there in the first place. It just didn't matter so this 04:18:51.260 --> 04:18:57.833 - is just correcting what was done in the past and Making sure we're collecting incremental assess values 04:18:57.833 --> 04:19:03.710 - like we should have been Thank you so much questions on council councilmember Piedmont Smith 04:19:06.210 --> 04:19:18.527 - Yes, mr. Chang, could you explain the tax impact on overlapping units? Yes, of course, so Okay, perfect 04:19:18.527 --> 04:19:27.646 - So Dana what Dana has up here is the tax impact on the overlapping units but 04:19:27.842 --> 04:19:35.473 - Instead of looking just these numbers in isolation, I do want to share the total impact. So by removing 04:19:35.473 --> 04:19:43.031 - these parcels, what we're doing is we're adding $18 million in incremental assess value to the RDC and 04:19:43.031 --> 04:19:50.735 - essentially taking away $18 million in net assess value from the base units. So if we look at the impact 04:19:50.735 --> 04:19:55.358 - to the RDC, by adding $18 million in incremental assess value, 04:19:55.458 --> 04:20:01.595 - That's roughly around three hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars in additional value that the 04:20:01.595 --> 04:20:07.977 - city's RDC is getting annually So this isn't a one-time one-time impact This is where RDC will generate 04:20:07.977 --> 04:20:14.297 - three hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars every year for the next twelve years that the artists 04:20:14.297 --> 04:20:17.918 - that the tips are still active now what is showing here is 04:20:18.370 --> 04:20:24.855 - By taking away this 18 million dollars. What is the impact to the underlying until the underlying units 04:20:24.855 --> 04:20:31.341 - because we're taking away 18 million dollars to the base units So you'll see here really who's impacted 04:20:31.341 --> 04:20:37.639 - the most and it's Monroe County at $7,600 in circuit breaker impact, but Bloomington City is a close 04:20:37.639 --> 04:20:39.198 - second. We're looking at 04:20:39.298 --> 04:20:46.239 - You know $1,300 in circuit breaker impact if we look at total all the overlapping units If you add add 04:20:46.239 --> 04:20:52.977 - up that sixteen thousand that fifteen thousand, we're looking at a thirty one thousand dollar total 04:20:52.977 --> 04:21:00.053 - Impact to the underlying units, but we are gaining over three hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars 04:21:00.053 --> 04:21:06.926 - in the city's RDC. So overall, this is it's still a positive impact to To tax collections as a whole. 04:21:06.926 --> 04:21:09.150 - It's just we're shifting it from 04:21:09.378 --> 04:21:17.524 - entity to another So CB means circuit breaker and then the rate-driven funds impact is Yeah, so CB impacted 04:21:17.524 --> 04:21:25.143 - circuit breaker impact Rachel and funds impact are specifically to funds that are driven by rate but 04:21:25.143 --> 04:21:33.214 - not by levy so for the city and the county those would be our cumulative capital development funds because 04:21:33.214 --> 04:21:35.326 - those are fixed by rate and 04:21:35.714 --> 04:21:43.213 - If you change the assessed value that rate doesn't change So if we're applying a lower assessed value 04:21:43.213 --> 04:21:50.859 - to the rate, we're going to decrease our levies by that amount So that is actually dollars lost instead 04:21:50.859 --> 04:21:58.431 - of surga breaker adjustments Thank you, I have one other The I assume that there were some Residential 04:21:58.431 --> 04:22:05.342 - parcels that were left out of the original TIF districts because I know there are residential 04:22:06.978 --> 04:22:13.335 - Parcels looking at the map that that would That would be in the TIF consolidated district that are not 04:22:13.335 --> 04:22:19.568 - highlighted on the map So is that correct that that when the map was made some of them were left off 04:22:19.568 --> 04:22:26.110 - and some of them were That is correct and Dana may be able to better speak on this but I believe is to be 04:22:26.434 --> 04:22:32.912 - Make sure the TIF areas are still continuous because we can't have no parcel on this side of the map 04:22:32.912 --> 04:22:39.582 - and another one on this side So to make sure these two parcels connect we need to still have one parcel 04:22:39.582 --> 04:22:46.124 - in between and it just so happens to be a residential parcel So we have to keep it in Thank you other 04:22:46.124 --> 04:22:52.986 - councilmembers councilmember rough I'm sure I just misheard or I'm just confused in your opening comments. 04:22:52.986 --> 04:22:54.718 - You said something about a 04:22:54.978 --> 04:23:02.238 - This has become an issue mainly because of a software change or what? That is correct. I guess I don't 04:23:02.238 --> 04:23:09.498 - really understand. Could you elaborate on that a tiny bit a little bit? I can so essentially it's it's 04:23:09.498 --> 04:23:13.022 - a software change but not because the software is 04:23:13.154 --> 04:23:20.211 - sort of like, sort of up to the software's discretion. It's a DLGF guidance provided to the property 04:23:20.211 --> 04:23:27.338 - tax software on how they are treating residential parcels. So it's not even a county auditor's thing. 04:23:27.338 --> 04:23:34.185 - It's not even really a software. It's just a guidance from the state. Thank you. Other questions? 04:23:34.185 --> 04:23:41.312 - Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. Controller, you want to make a comment? Anybody else want to 04:23:41.312 --> 04:23:42.430 - make a comment? 04:23:43.010 --> 04:23:51.244 - Anyone online? All right coming back to counsel then for comments Seeing them will the clerk please 04:23:51.244 --> 04:23:59.478 - call the roll. Oh Council member Stasberg. I just want to thank these guys for sticking around this 04:23:59.478 --> 04:24:07.959 - long to To get this business done that will overall help the bottom line. Thanks. Thank you All right, 04:24:07.959 --> 04:24:11.006 - will the clerk please call the roll? 04:24:19.234 --> 04:24:29.230 - Don't know where I left off, so I'll just start with Ruff. Yes. Okay, Rosenberger. Oh, she's not here, 04:24:29.230 --> 04:24:39.420 - sorry. Flaherty. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Piedmont-Smith. Yes. Asari. Yes. Daly. Yes. Rallo. Yes. That motion 04:24:39.420 --> 04:24:48.446 - passes 7-0. Thank you again for your time. Any other motions? I move that resolution 2026-19 04:24:49.026 --> 04:24:57.996 - Introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only Have motion in two seconds will the clerk 04:24:57.996 --> 04:25:06.965 - we call the roll on the motion to read I'm gonna do this right this time Flaherty Yes, Stasburg. Yes, 04:25:06.965 --> 04:25:15.759 - Piedmont Smith. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Daly. Yes, Rallo. Yes, Ruff. Yes Thank you very much. Will the 04:25:15.759 --> 04:25:17.342 - clerk please read 04:25:36.962 --> 04:25:44.812 - Resolution 2026-19 a resolution of the Common Council of the city of Bloomington Monroe County, Indiana 04:25:44.812 --> 04:25:52.889 - Approving certain matters in connection with the formation of a certain economic development area Synopsis 04:25:52.889 --> 04:26:00.664 - this resolution originated from the Bloomington Redevelopment Commission to establish the new Hopewell 04:26:00.664 --> 04:26:05.118 - South economic development area the Hopewell South EDA and 04:26:05.634 --> 04:26:14.806 - and designating all of such area as an allocation area, having a residential housing program. Assuming 04:26:14.806 --> 04:26:23.889 - the statutory process is completed, this will establish what is commonly referred to as a residential 04:26:23.889 --> 04:26:33.417 - tax increment financing, TIFF, area for the Hopewell South allocation area. I move that resolution 2026-19 04:26:33.417 --> 04:26:35.198 - be adopted. Second. 04:26:36.770 --> 04:26:47.996 - Can you adjust your microphone? I can't apologize Dana Kerr with the legal department I work with the 04:26:47.996 --> 04:26:59.001 - RDC and the RDC has passed a declaratory resolution to establish the Hopewell South residential TIF 04:26:59.001 --> 04:27:05.054 - this is similar to the summit residential TIF that was 04:27:05.186 --> 04:27:14.776 - recently formed Where some it had several different neighborhoods? That would be different allocation 04:27:14.776 --> 04:27:24.367 - areas. This is a small tiff with one neighborhood. So there'd just be one allocation area and so what 04:27:24.367 --> 04:27:29.726 - the Premises is that the RDC will be expending funds and 04:27:29.890 --> 04:27:39.631 - Provide infrastructure for this development As it could not be developed without that and by creating 04:27:39.631 --> 04:27:49.277 - the residential TIF there will be the ability to capture the incremental Assessed value so that that 04:27:49.277 --> 04:27:55.294 - those funds can be replenished and used for other projects and 04:27:55.586 --> 04:28:04.591 - or used with inside the Hopewell South neighborhood itself as well. So to explain a little bit more 04:28:04.591 --> 04:28:14.316 - about residential TIFs, we have again Justin Chang with Reedy Financial. Justin Chang with Reedy Financial. 04:28:14.316 --> 04:28:17.918 - Remember to introduce myself this time. 04:28:19.586 --> 04:28:26.334 - So a little bit about residential tips you guys may have some recollection of the summit and Shasta 04:28:26.334 --> 04:28:33.216 - metals tip allocation area We created earlier this year. This is that exact same process, you know As 04:28:33.216 --> 04:28:40.166 - part of creation goes City Council is the third of the three set process So is that exact same process 04:28:40.166 --> 04:28:46.846 - and the residential tips works the same way? recently there's actually a legislation change that I 04:28:47.426 --> 04:28:53.907 - makes it so that a residential TIF's life extends from 20 years to 25 years. So since we're creating 04:28:53.907 --> 04:29:00.708 - this after July 1st of 2026, we are able to utilize that 25-year TIF life. We just completed a resolution 04:29:00.708 --> 04:29:07.702 - to remove residential parcels from TIFs. And the reason is because the consolidated TIF is not a traditional 04:29:07.702 --> 04:29:10.782 - TIF, and we're creating a residential TIF here. 04:29:10.914 --> 04:29:19.183 - the big difference is we are able to capture on residential parcels within this TIF because the plan 04:29:19.183 --> 04:29:27.698 - is for there to be residential developments here, but Happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. 04:29:27.698 --> 04:29:35.967 - I'm counselor Rallo Yeah, I wondered about whether An RFP had gone out for Hopewell development. Yep 04:29:35.967 --> 04:29:38.014 - That's my question, okay 04:29:41.954 --> 04:29:49.355 - Go ahead and ask him Yeah, I'd like to ask I'd like to ask when the RFP for Hopewell South is gonna 04:29:49.355 --> 04:29:56.903 - go out. That's good question. I'm sorry Oh, we'll ask it again No, the question the question is about 04:29:56.903 --> 04:30:04.600 - when the RFP for Hopewell South is going to be issued the RFP for the infrastructure for Hopewell South 04:30:04.600 --> 04:30:09.854 - going to bid that will Hopefully be going out later this fall the plat 04:30:10.082 --> 04:30:20.121 - process is still ongoing getting ready to submit the final plat to the Planning Commission or and the 04:30:20.121 --> 04:30:30.062 - which would be the next step for the planning department And so that was is next and then there will 04:30:30.062 --> 04:30:39.806 - be a review process There's Duke Energy has a review process that takes several months and so once 04:30:39.938 --> 04:30:50.052 - All of that is complete the construction drawings could be complete and then it could go out to bid 04:30:50.052 --> 04:31:00.267 - for the infrastructure the RFP for the first Set of homes will likely be going out this fall as well 04:31:00.267 --> 04:31:09.470 - Because it can be going along on a simultaneous track As well, but we need to get the plat 04:31:09.730 --> 04:31:22.595 - done and recorded and our covenants and Restrictions all created and all those in place and we are currently 04:31:22.595 --> 04:31:34.751 - working on those so we're Looking forward to to moving this along as the fall continues Thank you very 04:31:34.751 --> 04:31:38.174 - much for that great question 04:31:38.626 --> 04:31:46.930 - Thank you. So we just took residential properties out of the consolidated TIF because there was basically 04:31:46.930 --> 04:31:55.391 - a penalty for having them in there sir similar penalty for having a Residential TIF where there's something 04:31:55.391 --> 04:32:03.381 - that's not residential in there No, that is there's not the same penalty that is applied in that case 04:32:03.381 --> 04:32:04.478 - Thank you. Oh 04:32:04.578 --> 04:32:13.039 - raising my hand for myself. How does this interact with the proposed... How might this interact with 04:32:13.039 --> 04:32:21.834 - the proposed site for the police station, for example, and the development of other elements of Hopewell 04:32:21.834 --> 04:32:24.766 - when we get to that? Okay. For the 04:32:26.466 --> 04:32:37.711 - police station would be zero assessed value because it would be a RDC slash city-owned property so it 04:32:37.711 --> 04:32:48.956 - would have no impact How does establishing this residential TIF? Because it's only for it's it's only 04:32:48.956 --> 04:32:55.902 - for the south the south portion of Hope well, is that correct? 04:32:56.546 --> 04:33:04.700 - Yes, so so do does the administration envision that when we get to the other parts of Hopewell? The 04:33:04.700 --> 04:33:12.935 - the other parts of Hopewell development However, we choose to go about that that will also establish 04:33:12.935 --> 04:33:21.822 - a TIF for those other sections. Well, we have a north TIF as well Yes, that is unknown at this point because 04:33:21.954 --> 04:33:30.259 - There has not been firm plans on what exactly is going to happen with the rest of Hopewell It is very 04:33:30.259 --> 04:33:39.052 - possible that as Hopewell continues to develop and the other segments of Hopewell May end up being separate 04:33:39.052 --> 04:33:47.275 - tips but it really is too certain to tell because we're not certain what will Become of them at this 04:33:47.275 --> 04:33:51.102 - point. Thank you so much. Any other questions? 04:33:52.546 --> 04:34:02.278 - Councilman rough Last time when we discussed the summit tiff you were able to I may be Miss Remembering 04:34:02.278 --> 04:34:11.823 - but you were able to explain I think to us that This actually does enable local government to capture 04:34:11.823 --> 04:34:17.438 - some tax revenue that we otherwise would not be able to get 04:34:17.602 --> 04:34:24.766 - Capture because the state took us away taxes, right? Is this the same type of thing? We'll actually 04:34:24.766 --> 04:34:32.217 - be able to use this to capture revenues that Would have been lost to us. Otherwise, yeah actually there 04:34:32.217 --> 04:34:39.740 - was a circuit breaker impact slide that essentially Put this basically pictures out what you were trying 04:34:39.740 --> 04:34:40.958 - to say there and 04:34:41.890 --> 04:34:48.054 - The similar to the residential parcels we saw this for the residential parcel removal this is saying 04:34:48.054 --> 04:34:54.278 - if the development for hopal was to have happened even without the Infrastructure provided by the RDC 04:34:54.278 --> 04:34:59.832 - to make this development happen and the assessed value was to drop into all the base units 04:34:59.832 --> 04:35:06.361 - This is essentially what the base units would collect because for If this development was still to happen, 04:35:06.361 --> 04:35:07.582 - so we're looking at 04:35:07.714 --> 04:35:13.848 - Thirty two thirty three hundred thirty three thousand dollars now from if we just did a preliminary 04:35:13.848 --> 04:35:20.166 - estimate of different what TIF revenues could be we're looking at closer to hundred and sixty thousand 04:35:20.166 --> 04:35:26.485 - dollars in revenues from this development if we were to TIF it so we look at 160,000 versus what I say 04:35:26.485 --> 04:35:32.925 - thirty thirty two thirty three thousand dollars We're looking at a hundred thirty hundred twenty hundred 04:35:32.925 --> 04:35:36.606 - thirty thousand difference. So that would be the additional 04:35:36.802 --> 04:35:42.423 - property tax revenues that would be collected from this development and because we utilize a TIF and 04:35:42.423 --> 04:35:48.433 - that's independent those numbers are independent of The development itself, right? It's if it was developed 04:35:48.433 --> 04:35:54.053 - the same exact way the same exact intensity The same exact value with the tip first without the tip. 04:35:54.053 --> 04:35:56.446 - That's the difference you're talking about 04:35:56.802 --> 04:36:03.527 - There's no change to the development the same word in our example We're saying twenty six point nine 04:36:03.527 --> 04:36:10.252 - million dollars with a tip without a tip without a tip We'd be looking at thirty three thousand with 04:36:10.252 --> 04:36:17.176 - a tip. We'd be looking closer to 160,000 Thank you and then comes over to us one quick question. What's 04:36:17.176 --> 04:36:18.974 - the duration of the TIF? I 04:36:20.866 --> 04:36:28.727 - The so for residential TIF there was a recent legislation change. So we're looking at 25 year after 04:36:28.727 --> 04:36:37.059 - closing on a bond So okay right now there isn't a bond yet. So right now is to be decided. So substantial 04:36:37.059 --> 04:36:44.919 - amount of time Yes, okay. Great. Thanks Yes going back to the question about capturing property tax 04:36:44.919 --> 04:36:49.950 - revenues that we wouldn't otherwise capture Why why is it that? 04:36:51.010 --> 04:36:59.181 - Can you explain like why is it that we go from 33,000 to 160,000 if it's tipped? So the main reason 04:36:59.181 --> 04:37:07.597 - is Without going to too too deep into the details because we're a levy based state So if we're looking 04:37:07.597 --> 04:37:15.768 - at how we derive property tax revenue, we take the assessed value multiplied by the tax rate and we 04:37:15.768 --> 04:37:16.830 - get our levy 04:37:17.570 --> 04:37:25.538 - Well, the way Indiana works is the levy, we don't establish a levy. The state tells us what our levy 04:37:25.538 --> 04:37:33.585 - is. So when we increase assessed value by a bunch with the development, and levy does not change, the 04:37:33.585 --> 04:37:41.475 - only thing that can change the rate, so the tax rate will go down. We still collect the same dollar 04:37:41.475 --> 04:37:46.366 - in property tax revenues through the levy. But through a TIF, 04:37:46.466 --> 04:37:56.757 - We're sort of isolating this development to its own tax rate So it captures the entire tax rate without 04:37:56.757 --> 04:38:06.653 - looking levy doesn't does not apply when it's in a tiff I hope that helps explains a little bit I'd 04:38:06.653 --> 04:38:15.262 - be happy to clarify if that I'm still confused. I'm sorry Trying to think of a good So 04:38:15.906 --> 04:38:25.848 - Let's say just simple we're taking simple math, right if we're saying 10 times 2 equals 20 But now 10 04:38:25.848 --> 04:38:35.986 - increased to 15 15 times 2 equals 30 but the state is telling us It still needs to equal 20 at the end. 04:38:35.986 --> 04:38:45.246 - So we we can't The only thing that could change is that middle number which is our tax rate so 04:38:45.410 --> 04:38:53.673 - When we add a lot of assessed value into our base We can't increase what our property tax revenue is 04:38:53.673 --> 04:39:02.018 - we can only decrease our tax rate. Mm-hmm Oh, but but if it's in a TIF then We we are don't have that 04:39:02.018 --> 04:39:09.790 - limitation or correct if it's in a if it's the assessed value is in a TIF then what happens is 04:39:10.946 --> 04:39:19.459 - It is it is not part of that equation that I just gave you that 10 times 2 equals 20 It is almost separated 04:39:19.459 --> 04:39:27.578 - out it with as its own Property tax base and whatever tax rate design is being applied will just apply 04:39:27.578 --> 04:39:35.776 - to that Tiff Assessor value so it does that what I mentioned about levy being fixed does not apply when 04:39:35.776 --> 04:39:39.166 - it's in a tiff Thank you Thank you so much 04:39:39.682 --> 04:39:52.065 - Seeing no more questions, we'll go to public comment. Is there any public comment on this resolution? 04:39:52.065 --> 04:40:04.692 - 2619, anyone online? Back to council. Any final comments? Councilmember Stasberg. I'll once again thank 04:40:04.692 --> 04:40:06.270 - this crew of 04:40:07.810 --> 04:40:17.183 - Matthew numbers economic guys for Staying this late. Thanks. I would also add that I think it's pretty 04:40:17.183 --> 04:40:25.920 - impressive that you do math at 1130 at night. That's pretty cool All right, any other comments. 04:40:25.920 --> 04:40:35.384 - All right. Will the clerk please call the final roll? Stasburg yes, Piedmont Smith. Yes I'm sorry. Yes, 04:40:35.384 --> 04:40:37.022 - Daley. Yes, Rallo 04:40:37.410 --> 04:40:46.715 - Yes, rough. Yes clarity. Yes Yay that carries everybody voted for it now We have one last moment of 04:40:46.715 --> 04:40:56.486 - public comment if you have stayed this long and would like to Read an ode to the midnight. We'd be happy 04:40:56.486 --> 04:41:00.766 - to hear it anyone Anyone like to quote Camus? 04:41:01.122 --> 04:41:08.586 - It's too good. Okay. All right, we will Talk council schedule any important things councilmember Stossberg 04:41:08.586 --> 04:41:15.562 - fiscal committee meets at 830 on Friday and If anybody's interested in looking at that packet who's 04:41:15.562 --> 04:41:22.608 - not on the committee because everybody on the committee is gonna look at it, right? it has a lengthy 04:41:22.608 --> 04:41:30.142 - memo from sanitation about rates so that might be of interest to all of you and then of course that must be 04:41:30.274 --> 04:41:36.642 - task force meeting is at one o'clock on Friday. Thank you, and thank you for being our representative 04:41:36.642 --> 04:41:43.134 - there. Also just noting for everybody, as we said before, Attorney Rossman is gonna be, is still aiming 04:41:43.134 --> 04:41:49.502 - for that October 12th date. I'll be reaching out to all of you individually to set up some times both 04:41:49.502 --> 04:41:55.745 - for onboarding, but I think it would be really useful, as I think we discussed at several contexts, 04:41:55.745 --> 04:42:00.240 - for him to meet with everybody sort of individually once he gets going. 04:42:00.240 --> 04:42:06.503 - We'll set up those type of things here in the next couple of weeks. We will see you all next week. Thank 04:42:06.503 --> 04:42:07.934 - you so much. Adjourned.