So thank you for being here. And I'll just, if you're sitting on the end, if you see people coming in,
welcome them to your row. It's the continuation of a very welcoming neighborhood here in Prospect Hill.
So, and we have, Glenda, are you still the chair of the Neighborhood Association? Oh, you've graduated,
okay. Is Lily here?
Okay well thank you to friends in Prospect Hill for hosting us and I know we have McDowell
Gardens represented here. I just left another conversation where Paul was he's the chair of McDowell
Gardens neighborhood so he's likely coming over.
I just want to start with a really quick overview of where we've been with the Hopewell neighborhood
and then I'm going to turn it over to the team and they can talk a lot more about where we are now and
where we're headed with Hopewell as we move forward.
As you likely know, Hopewell has been a long visioning process for the city of Bloomington. And so when
the hospital announced it was gonna move, there was a series of input sessions in a steering committee
formed that was formed under the last administration, John Hamilton's administration. That group came
out with a master plan and that master plan
In a nutshell, a master plan to folks who don't work in planning and architecture insinuates that we
know exactly what we're doing and we know exactly where everything's going. A master plan actually is
just more of a dream list of this is what we would love to get here and this is if we had all the money
in the world and all of the resources, this is what
the community has given us input on that we'd like to put in this neighborhood. As we started actually
getting infrastructure together and and looking at what we realistically could do. What we knew was
the community was really committed to having housing of different affordability levels in this community
and in in in trying a really
a really compact neighborhood design so that we would have a really put together neighborhood that flowed
well, that had a park in it, et cetera, et cetera. What we have envisioned here and what we have put
together, you'll hear more about tonight, is actually a model that we are developing that will
enable us to build owner-occupied units that are of varying sizes. And those varying sizes set the price
point for the house. And so you can buy a very modestly sized house if you're downsizing and fixed income,
or if you are new to the ownership
the ownership market, you can buy a very modestly sized house, which we think is going to sell for less
than $100,000. Then you can go all the way up to a more traditional, what we think of as sort
of single-family detached larger home, and those will be
also more traditionally priced. Our housing market is pricing too many people out of the market right
now, though. And so you'll hear more about it. Paul has arrived. Hello, Paul. He's making a grand entrance.
We already talked about you. And Isabel Piedmont-Smith is the council representative for this area.
So thank you for showing up, Isabel.
As we move forward with Hopewell, we used it as a test process to test our own red tape in the development
process to see where the friction points were, what was adding cost, what was adding time to well-intentioned
development, and we found plenty of areas that we can improve on through the administration of the city and also
Parts of the UDO, the Unified Development Ordinance, they conflict with itself or they're just unclear
to a developer. So part of what we did is look at the Unified Development Ordinance and the transportation
plan for a very compact urban design in a neighborhood. And what we found out was
We needed too many changes to do the kind of housing development that we wanted to do a standard development
through the Unified Development Ordinance. So we ended up putting through with partnership from the
City Council, a planned unit development.
And that means that this is, it's a uniquely zoned area that has outlined what's gonna go there and
what the city streets are gonna look like and the sizes, et cetera, et cetera. So a brief history, and
then I'm gonna move on to what's gonna go there. Our planning,
started in 2020 with that master plan. So that was six years ago. And in 2025, we really looked at the
post COVID rising construction costs, the challenges with the original development model, and the potential
finances that we thought would be available to people who would want to live in this neighborhood.
And so we took the vision, we retained that vision, and we just tweaked the strategy to achieve it.
We had to change how we were gonna get there to get to a place where we had a neighborhood where lots
of different people could afford to live. So Hopewell South is the first phase of the neighborhood, well,
I'll say the core building is the first thing to be renovated. And then the first new construction phase
is Hopewell South. It advances 98 homes through this PUD at Hopewell South. And everybody who's ever
done a project of this scale knows it won't be simple.
and this has not been simple. But I think what we have landed with is really an incredible opportunity
for our community to see what this kind of housing can live like, what a neighborhood like this can
feel like, and to welcome new people into Bloomington, and importantly, to keep some people here that
aren't otherwise
able to afford to remain here. We're hearing lots about assessed values going up and taxes going up
for folks on a fixed income and so Hopewell anticipates responding to some of those needs. So I am going to
transition over to Anna Killian Hansen who is the director of our housing and neighborhood development
department who's going to talk to you further about the housing and some other things that are happening.
Thank you guys. Thanks for having me today. This is working okay. So I
Hopewell represents the city's most significant housing opportunity in a generation. Our vision is to
create a neighborhood that looks and feels like Bloomington. Human scaled streets, welcoming front porches,
a variety of types and streetscapes, and a diverse mix of residents living side by side. We wanted to
create a neighborhood that prioritizes people. That means smaller streets and lanes,
more compact residential lots, and a walkable design. We also wanted to create a variety of housing
options, not just one type of home or one type of streetscape, but a neighborhood with character, variety,
and opportunities for people at different stages of their life. And we challenged conventional development
standards to make that vision possible.
By rethinking lot sizes, street design, and how homes fit on the land, we created the opportunity for
98 homes across 64 lots compared to just 28 lots under conventional R4 zoning. That is a significant
difference. It demonstrates what becomes possible when we rethink the way we develop housing and focus
on removing barriers rather than accepting the limitations of conventional approaches. Our goal is simple.
A neighborhood built by locals for locals, one that creates more opportunities for Bloomington residents
to find a place to call home.
this might look like. We have a larger version here in just a second, too. As far as home designs, I
don't know if you guys noticed on the wall, as you came in, there are some renderings of what those
homes will look like, just to kind of put a fine pin on it. All right, next slide, please.
It wasn't enough to create more lots. We also wanted to make sure we were creating opportunities for
a variety of housing types and price points. We want Hopewell South to offer more than one
path to homeownership and create opportunities for people with different needs, budgets, and stages
of life. One of the ways we're doing that is by removing another significant barrier, the cost and complexity
of designing and preparing a home for construction.
Each lot will come with a pre-approved, permit-ready building plan tailored to that specific lot. That
means one won't have to start from scratch, hire separate design consultants, or navigate the entire
process on their own. We're doing a tremendous amount of the work up front. Ultimately, the goal is
to reduce time, uncertainty, and upfront costs, making it easier to deliver the variety of homes that we need.
The other important piece of this approach is making better use of our infrastructure investment.
Infrastructure is very expensive if you're not used to working in that world. Streets, utilities, drainage,
and other improvements are necessary to support the neighborhood, and those costs ultimately affect
what it costs to build a home.
By creating more homes within the same overall development, we can spread those infrastructure costs
across more lots rather than placing a disproportionate share on the cost of fewer homes. That creates
efficiencies in how we both use land and infrastructure, helping reduce the underlying cost of delivering
housing. That creates efficiencies in how we both
how we use both land and infrastructure, helping reduce the underlying cost of delivering housing. And
that's an important distinction. We're not just trying to create affordable housing through subsidies.
We're working to make homes more attainable from the outset by changing how we plan, design, and build
our neighborhoods. The goal is to make attainable housing a natural outcome of better development practices,
not something that requires subsidy on every home.
This is pretty close to the way the plat looks right now. It's a good rendering of what we're going
to be looking at. And if you look at the center block there, which is block nine, we do have
a pedestrian-focused walkway and something different that we piloted here in Hopewell South, which is
interior-facing frontages. So typically in our UDO, homes would need to face a street,
these homes are actually interior facing, facing the greenway. So right now, we're working on implementing
Hopewell South. There's a lot of work that happens behind the scenes to get this neighborhood going.
So we're working through these technical details that are required to prepare the lots for sale and
construction. That work
involves a tremendous amount of coordination. We have civil engineers, surveyors, architects, and an
internal team that are developing the detailed plot, lot-specific site plans, and corresponding building
plans. Our legal teams are preparing covenants, conditions, and restrictions, the legal structure for
two small condominium buildings, which is called a horizontal property regime, and the instruments needed
to sell the properties and preserve affordability.
We are coordinating home energy ratings and appraisals to prepare for each property for the next stage.
Every detail matters because our goal is to make it easier to move from a vacant lot to a completed
home, not create a barrier.
One of the things that makes Hopewell South special is that we're not just building homes. We're creating
a neighborhood where people can connect with one another and feel a sense of belonging. We invited the
Bloomington community to help name the lanes by a vote, and we're excited to introduce Hartwell Lane
and Possibility Lane, the first ever in Bloomington.
I think those names capture the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish here, creating opportunities
for people to put down roots and to find a place to call home. That same people first philosophy carries
through to the design of the neighborhood. Pedestrians are prioritized with traffic calming measures,
raised crosswalks, and an interior trail that will help people move through the neighborhood safely
and comfortably. We're also designing for visitability. So 99% of the homes
here, we were able to get at least one zero-step entry, which is a pretty big accomplishment considering
the grade over there. If you walked, it actually slopes quite a bit. I'm going to turn this over to
Kendall Kenoki to walk us through the site plan in more detail and the accomplishments that they've
been able to make. Thank you, Anna. Kendall Kenoki, City Engineering Department.
Engineering's been tasked with managing the design of this project, and it has been a fun project. It's
a very unique project. It's been a very challenging project. I just wanted to talk at a very high level
some of the specifics, and I kind of gave you the super bullet points, and I'm going to go into a little
bit more detail just to kind of help everyone appreciate what we're doing here on Hopewell South. So
overall site plan, just so everyone's aware, this is the area
south of First Street. This is where the old medical office buildings used to be. This is really the
part of Hopewell that ties into McDowell Gardens. And it's kind of bordered by Wiley, Rogers, Fairview,
and First Street. So I just wanted to talk about a few things. So connectivity, if you could go to the
next slide. Yeah, so the major streets through the development, obviously Wiley and First are already
there. Fairview is already there, but it's gonna be
improved so right now it's a one-way street I believe south it's going to become a two-way street there's
going to be some street parking on it it's going to have sidewalks on both sides where it's adjacent
to the development it's going to have tree plot so it's really going to become more of a neighborhood
street rather than right now it's kind of got the feel of an alley and then we're also building Jackson
Street so this would be a new section of Jackson Street between First and Wiley again our standard street
section tree plot sidewalk parking on the street
If you go to the next slide, you can kind of see the larger plan to connect everything and rebuild that
street grid and Hopewell. So this area to the north is what they call Hopewell West, and it's already
been platted. So eventually Jackson Street and Fairview Street will go all the way to Second Street.
So we're really kind of restoring that connectivity. And then University, which is kind of the brick
street that was built in Hopewell East, that'll extend all the way.
west through Hopewell West as well. So you can kind of see on the map here how we're building those
two south legs. We've already built a portion of Jackson adjacent to the core building, and then eventually
the plan is to build out this whole network. So we're working towards that. Hopewell South is kind of
tying into that larger vision. If you go to the next slide, then Anna touched on this. This is a really
cool and unique aspect of this project. We're introducing a lane. It is not an alley, and it's not quite a street.
But it is 20 feet wide, so fire trucks can use it for fire access, trash can use it for trash, and it's
a pretty wide, I mean, 20 feet, 7th Street, if you're aware, that's a 20-foot street as well. So these
are full-size lanes, but they don't have your traditional tree plot, sidewalks, and things. They're
kind of a blend of the two. So these are new that are gonna go in, and then if you go to the next slide,
we also have this
this internal grid of pedestrian only infrastructure. So what Anna was talking about is a lot of the
homes are fronting onto the actual pedestrian infrastructure and then accessing from the lanes to their
driveways and garages, parking spaces, things like that. So this is a really cool and unique aspect
of this project. As you can see, we're kind of trying to connect the grid into the existing neighborhood
and hopefully will be extended through Hopewell West in the future. There's East West, North South.
Again, these are pedestrian only.
areas and kind of a really cool and unique aspect of this project of course the main streets also have
sidewalks on them so it really creates this pretty large pedestrian network if you go to the next slide
I also wanted to highlight these are all in green raised crosswalks so this is where we're implementing
not only traffic calming but a prioritization for pedestrians so
We're just building straight, you know, we go in with our traffic calming program, we go into existing
streets and we build traffic calming. We're actually implementing that right away, because we know we
want this neighborhood to be a place where people are driving slowly, carefully, so just wanted to highlight
that. This is something that council has tasked us with, you know, trying to implement in this neighborhood,
and we were really able to, I think, innovate and be really creative with how we did that, and this
is one aspect of that. Just wanna go to the next slide.
Another unique thing, so the lane design, I mentioned these are 20 foot wide streets. But what we're
doing is we're actually, the center 10 feet of those lanes is gonna be a colored stamped concrete, and
then the five feet on each side is gonna be regular white concrete pavement. And the goal with that
is to try to visually narrow the roadways, so you feel like you need to drive in a more constrained
area. We're also making the lanes totally pro-ag compliant for wheelchairs.
So wheelchair users will be able to roll down these. Kind of the vision is that these are very calm,
very low speed areas that where traffic is very minimal, only for access. This could be areas for the
neighbors to hang out, just socialize with one another. So it's not meant to really be a road or a street.
It's really a low speed environment. So this is another kind of unique and cool aspect of these areas.
If you go to the next slide, we're
Parking has been another question that I've gotten a lot about this project. So we're actually installing
108 new parking spaces as part of the development. So this does not include anything that already exists
on say Wiley. And with 98 new units, this is over one space per unit. We have eight accessible spaces
right now throughout the development. And all of these are either off-street or new on-street parking spaces.
If you go to the next slide, this is our 99%. So the blue squares here are some type of accessible unit.
And then the green check mark means we were able to get an accessible barrier-free entry route to that
building. So there is, from some direction, you can go in on a wheelchair. You can roll yourself right
into the building. And this was something that we were challenged to do. And I'm really proud of our
team for being able to do this
all but only one building on this site. I mean, this site is so hilly. It was really a challenge to
do that, and we were able to do it. So I'm pretty proud of that. 65 of the 66 buildings barrier-free
entry. So that was really cool. And then just a few other things. So there will be improvements along
Wiley and Rogers. So you can see there, as required by the subdivision, Rogers is going to get a 10-foot-wide
sidewalk and a 5-foot tree plot.
along the Hopewell property. Wiley's gonna get a new sidewalk on the north side with a tree plot as
well. We're also gonna implement some bump-outs, rain gardens on Wiley, and some new crosswalks on 1st
and Wiley Street. And we're also replacing the water main in Wiley, which is a 1934 water main. We're
replacing it all the way about halfway down west of Fairview until we tap into the brand new 1970 water
main, which is like almost
for CBU is almost new. And then we're going to repave, of course, Wiley and a lot of the streets adjacent
to the development. So a lot of improvements happening. Curb ramp is part of the resurfacing and everything
as well, curb ramp upgrades. So there's a lot going into this. And also lighting throughout the whole
subdivision will have street lighting, of course, to light up the neighborhood. So those are just a
few of the high level items that the design. I think I'm handing it now back to Anna maybe
finish us off on south and move us into core. So thank you. I'll be back. So what's coming next? Well,
first of all, we are going to be going out to bid for infrastructure very soon. And what does that mean
for you guys in the neighborhood? It is that you're likely to see some heavy equipment on site.
So that is just to get the infrastructure work in place. So that's first and foremost. You're also going
to see a developer RFP go out as well, and that will be for
builders to actually build the homes that we have. And they will be likely taking down somewhere between
three and seven lots per builder. At least that's kind of what we're envisioning at this point. We'll
have to see what the actual absorption rate is. But if you're interested in purchasing a home at Hopewell
or having one built for you, you cannot select a different home plan than what we've already predetermined
on the lots. You'll need to sign up for updates and we can pair you with a builder
as those RFPs go out. We will also have a website coming soon that will lay out all of the details of
the floor plans that are available and walk you through the RFP process. Let's see, what else are we
doing? Really, those are the biggest things that we need to get done to get these homes built.
Next slide, please.
one of the things that you will
see happening very soon is the core building will be opening in December. It's a little bit delayed,
but it will be opening in December. It's the original hospital site. This project is delivering 38 permanent
supportive housing units, which are all affordable in a partnership with the Summit Hill Community
Development Corporation. That was only possible because they received low-income housing tax credits,
historic tax credits,
Home Investment Partnership, the city put in more than $1.2 million towards that project to create those
38 units. But the exciting thing is that this property is now on the historic register. So coming in
December. Next slide. And so I'm going to turn this over to Mayor Carey to talk about the 714 site,
which is just up the road.
So 714 South Rogers is, of course, the old convalescent center. There were lots of discussions about
what to do or not do with this building. There were conversations about tearing it down, et cetera,
et cetera. And we looked at several possibilities, one of which, of course, being housing. And it was
not affordable at all to turn it into any kind of housing that people would actually want to live in
at this point. The way it's chopped up and various issues that it has. But it sort of looks like a police
station and so we thought we would
see if that might work since our police need a new home. They are really under housed right now, very
cramped and packed into the space they have, has some water penetration issues, et cetera. And so what
we're looking at for 714 is to move our police department there and
We also will have an emergency operations center in the building as well as moving dispatch into the
building. And so this is, we're still going through some due diligence to make sure that it can work
and it can work on a budget that works for the city. But right now it really does look like it's a good
possibility for us to move the police there.
We're looking at some additional assessments that go on during the architectural process. But I want
to be clear about a couple of things. This is a bigger building than our police are currently in. That
is because it's also going to house Emergency Operations Center and dispatch, which do not currently
co-locate with the police department. And we anticipate we still will have some extra space in the building,
although until the architects start looking at all of the programming that needs to be done there, we
won't know for sure. This is not a signal that we are increasing the police force, that we're hiring
lots of new officers, we still aspire to get to our full staffing of 106 officers. We're not there yet
and that's our only staffing goal at this point is just to get to fully staffed. So we're excited about
this possibility and we'll continue to update folks as we move forward with our due diligence and the
architectural process for this building.
I don't know who I'm handing it back to. And now, I'm handing it over to Parks. I think I might be the
only one here to talk about what we've already done for Hopewell. So, hello everybody, I'm Rebecca Swift.
I'm the Operations and Development Director for Parks and Recreation here in Bloomington. And I'm here
to talk about what we already have as an asset to this neighborhood, and that is Hopewell Commons, which
is what we like to refer to in our department as an anchor for this community. We're here to build spaces that
build and bring community together. So we started off with a bang and with a beautiful green space.
So at Hopewell Commons, we kicked things off with a wonderful ribbon cutting event in 2025. Since then,
we've put in a lot of effort to activate the space, and we've done so in a variety of ways. You can
go to the next slide. Through fun, it is part of our mission and park situation to create recreational
and positive use experiences. So we've done so at Hopewell Commons by bringing our Tuesday market to
the property.
I'm sorry to talk about it right now saying that the season's already ended for Tuesday Market, but
you still have an opportunity to support farmers market vendors by going to Switchyard Park, which is
where our winter market has moved. But during the summer season, we will start hosting or continue to
host our Tuesday Markets at Hopewell. We also plan to increase our concerts in the park, and actually
one of our new wonderful event coordinators is here today, who's gonna be putting on more concerts in
the park and maybe spoken
art, different things like that. We are also gonna have more family-friendly events. We do Zoo in the
Park, Zoo for You, so family-friendly events like that, but we are also really looking to activate our
teen park users, so look at our program guide for upcoming parks and recreation events. We also, in
that photo, sorry, I got a little excited, but you can leave it on this. We also have some temporary
pickleball courts, another joke in Parks and Rec, if you build it, they will come.
We put in pickleball courts, they got activated with less than 24 hours. We are gonna continue to promote
that temporary pickleball court because it is actually still own that property, that parcel by the RDC.
And if they wanna turn that into affordable housing, we will not stop them. But until then, we consider
the pickleball courts to be a community asset and we will continue to manage as such.
And then right behind me on the photos, we are getting ready to finally install our public art piece.
This was part of the original Hopewell Commons concept. And through just some project coordination,
we finally have it manufactured and shipped. The footers are in, shout out Anna, good work. And it should
be being installed in early December. So public art is also a place of, I guess, placemaking, and we
will continue to support public art in our parks whenever we can.
Next slide. And I'll probably be the only one talking about Building Trades Park today, but it is still
part of your community. It's in your backyard. We have not forgotten, haven't forgotten about you. I
will be at your next public meeting until they will invite me to tell you that I have not forgotten
about Building Trades Park. We have already made some investments in phase one, which included putting
in a new accessible picnic shelter. We also put in all new accessible trails in there. If you went to
Building Trades before the improvements, there was an old
boardwalk that if you were a wheelchair user, we would just launch you right down it. So we've learned
some things about development. So we're making improvements on that. And if you haven't heard in the
news, there's a really great grant opportunity for parks in the state of Indiana through the Lilly Endowment.
Bloomington Parks could go up for $10 million. We're going to go for all of it. That does not mean we
will get every dollar. But a big part of part of our investment strategy is calling out parks like Building
Trades Parks.
It's a beloved neighborhood park that just needs a little bit of extra love. So we are already eyeballing
some phase two improvements, including new playground features, also the sports court there, looking
into some universal sports court design to allow all of our user groups, not just basketball and pickleball
that are allowed user group, but also our bicycle polo group, and our Quidditch players, and a lot of
other wonderful user groups that showed up to our public meetings to advocate for their needs.
Parks and Recreation, the city, we are listening to the needs. We cannot be everything to everybody,
but we do try to be as responsive as possible. So we are really looking forward to the neighborhood
developing around the park to just get more positive activation in the site. I think my torch is now
passed back off to Kendall in 2nd Street. Thank you. Always excited to hear about all this stuff going
on at Parks. All right, 2nd Street. Who was in this room two years ago when I had a meeting?
Okay, so there's at least like, wow, five, six, maybe nine, I think I recognize you from that meeting.
Haven't seen you since, so it's nice to see you again. Some of you come to all the meetings,
so you know. But yeah, we're back, we're actually under construction now, so that's exciting. The Second
Street Project, just a little overview, goes essentially from the B line down to Walker. This is a federally
funded project, so it
It takes a while to go down the pipeline. I just found out High Street's not getting constructed till
27 now, and it'll go into 28. Federally funded projects are just slow moving, unfortunately, but we
are under construction. We're one way right now, so maybe some of you experienced that coming here tonight.
That will be in place until the end of November. Then we're gonna go back to being open to two-way traffic,
and I've been told by my project manager that we're not gonna close the road again until we're done.
and then we'll be done. So we're not gonna close it again. It's possible that unforeseen conditions
require us to do another closure, but at this point, there's no full closures planned after the one
way. I'm kinda skipping ahead of myself here, but it was on the mind. We will have another closure of
the B line to do the north side and then do the brick work. So that'll happen in April of 27. And the
plan is for the project to be done with by May of 27. So we're getting there, we're working towards
it. If you could go to the next slide.
So I just kind of wanted to give a brief overview for those who aren't aware, who weren't here two years
ago. The plan is to install a two-way protected bike lane on the north side of the road. It's also to
replace both of the traffic signals on either end of the project at Rogers and at Walker. I think the
most money is going towards stormwater improvements.
There were not a lot along Second Street. If you are familiar with the street, we are doing a ton of
storm sewer, a ton of excavation. Of course, everything's in rock. So that's just how it goes. But we
are doing a lot of storm sewer work as part of this project, which is really exciting. And then,
of course, curb ramp improvements, all new street lighting all the way down the corridor. Level boarding
bus stops. There's going to be four bus stops that are 14 inches up.
The bus pulls up. It does not have to lower itself. And if you're in a wheelchair, you roll right onto
the bus. Trying to do this more around town, but these will be the first four in the city. Very exciting.
So of course, with every project we do, accessibility is part of it. Lots of street trees being planted.
I think I'm like at a seven to one from existing to proposed trees. So we were planting a lot of trees.
But yeah, all kinds of improvements happening as part of the project. If you could go to the next slide.
Yeah, here's kind of the overall concept. I think I showed this two years ago. We're still doing it.
It hasn't really changed. So if anyone has questions about specifics, I can absolutely address them.
I still get questions from residents. I don't know if any of you are here, but I'm still emailing people.
Always happy to answer questions about the project, so can continue to do that. One thing I did forget
to mention, if you go back, Refuge Island in front of Building Trades Park. So that'll help with the
crossing there for anyone who's
going to use those phase two improvements. I don't know where Rebecca went, but you can now get there
easier. And then I snagged this this morning. We do have a construction camera. This is kind of what
it looks like today. So as you can see, they've closed the street. It's one way, and they're doing a
lot of digging in that area where eastbound traffic used to go. So work is progressing. It's pretty
exciting. And again, the plan is for us to be wrapped up May of 27.
That is the second street update. I think Jane is next with Opportunity Zone. Thank you. Yeah, you know,
I think it's kind of a tough gig to close out an event that has cool pictures and parks with obscure
financial tools. But hey, we're gonna give it our best. If you can read the words on the screen, they're
basically describing a major incentive that we were just
that was just designated here in Bloomington. So the Opportunity Zone is original Trump administration
initiative that actually has deep bipartisan support. So it works to attract private sector investment
into distressed census tracts. And in the first iteration of this program, it worked pretty well in
cities who had it. We had one Opportunity Zone, or sorry, we had two Opportunity Zones and we maybe
had a few investments,
Bloomington didn't really get that much out of it. So we really have been working hard to get
more designations for this 2.0 round. And Hopewell is one of them. And get ready, Kendall, for my map.
It's amazing. These are, sorry. The opportunity zones are in pink. And then Hopewell is outlined in
red. And I did this all by myself, you guys.
But I think the point is just to illustrate that the opportunity zones are pretty large, right? So these
are three highly distressed census tracts that we want to attract outside investment to. So the one
on the right, tract 301, contains Hopewell East. And then it also contains the Seminary Park area and
area south. So we'll be working on some ways to
in-site development in that area. And then the green vertical line to the west is tracked 401, and that
contains Hopewell West and Hopewell South. So I don't think we need to get too far in the weeds, but
basically in a nutshell, the federal government designates a zone, and then within that zone, designated
funds can make investments. And when those funds make investments, they can receive protections from
capital gains for 10 years. So basically,
We apply for this designation, but we don't have to put any of our local dollars on the table. And the
idea is that this will be attractive to developers who want to do some of the remaining work in Hopewell
after the city is done with our piece. So I think that's kind of it. It's nerdy, you don't have to understand
it, but it's a pretty big deal and we're really excited about it. And with that,
I think we're ready for questions. Yeah, Anna Dragovich has note cards. So if you can, and I was supposed
to tell you that at the start, if you can fill out note cards and the whole team will field them as
appropriate so that we can get through as many as we can.
Okay, so this one, I don't know if this is really a question, but I do just wanna, first it says praise
for the city and for the council for approving this and getting it to where it is now. And next, how
will this impact the quality of life and property values in the area? We are, as,
Any of us who live anywhere close to this development may know and have experienced when you have any
vacant land, it can become problematic.
putting 98 new homes and potentially a police department and with the core building going in,
first of all, you're gonna have a good concentration and a walkable neighborhood there. Those all equate
to increased quality of life and that sort of naturally happens. We really are looking to
The neighborhood design, the intentionality behind that was to create a neighborhood that really interacts well with
one another and where houses face one another and there's a common green in the middle of a large area
with a pedestrian walk. So this is a place where neighbors will interact with neighbors. And of course,
it's not exclusive. And so we very much hope that everyone from surrounding areas puts us on their walking
path. And of course, what we know is that it's close to all of
the great things, the resources that we need. The Kroger's right there, Beeline's right there, walk
to Trades District, City Hall, Square, restaurants, et cetera. So this neighborhood should really attract
people who want that lifestyle and frequently cannot afford it right now. And that will be a positive
impact for
the whole community surrounding. Streetlights, yeah. I know we took all the old streetlights down and
we didn't put any back yet and I'm really sorry about that. I did get some temporary lights up when
they accidentally took them down closer to Kroger for about a year and a half, but we are installing
the conduit now and I expect then
We will ask Duke Energy to come and install the light poles, and then Duke will, at their leisure, come
and install the poles. So I'm going to say they will be installed by the time we're done next year,
May of 27. Hopefully it will be sooner. I know winter is going to be long and dark. So we'll try to
help motivate Duke Energy to get those installed. Is this one for me too? The trees already on Wiley
Street. Yes.
North side of Wiley between the parking lot and, or the old parking lot and the road, those are gonna
go. And originally, the architect really wanted to save those, but we, with all the grading and all
the utility work and all the services and everything we had to do, it just, we were gonna end up killing
them anyway. So they are gonna go, but we are planting a lot of new trees, I will say that. Any more for me?
Do you want to take these Carrie? There are some questions about specific timelines. Yes, so this question
is I'm still unclear about how someone chooses a house design or plan and gets it paid for and built.
So this is a great question and I'll just tell you
We don't have all of the answers to this yet, but we do have the path forward. And so, as Anna mentioned,
we are taking names to put on a distribution list of people who are interested in potentially purchasing
a home at Hopewell. The home sites are matched with
the type of house that fits there. And so if you, for instance, want to live in one of the B-bomb houses,
those fit on particular lots. So you would have, ostensibly, you would have a choice of which B-bomb
house, what B-bomb lot you might like.
Lots of these will be conventionally financed. We are working with financial partners that can help
with some down payment assistance, other kinds of things for people who need it. Others are just gonna
buy a conventional home and they may be able to just qualify for a conventional home and get a typical
mortgage. Others who may be downsizing,
will probably just buy it outright or do a short term loan until they sell the house that they're downsizing
from. Part of the way the housing market is stuck right now is that though we have mostly one and two
person households looking to purchase houses, we have a lot of those households, the one and two person
households that are still in a house that may have
three or four bedrooms. And there's nothing smaller available for them. And so part of getting some
movement is providing some stock that is available to people who don't want to live in quite as big
a house so people who do need a bigger house can move there. And so we know already from talking to
some folks that are interested in doing just that,
that we will have some people downsizing to these homes. Okay, height and density. Why not go higher
and more dense for such an urban and central project? Why not taller and more dense housing? So I'm
just gonna identify roles here.
The city administration takes in the building permits and approves them or doesn't approve them based
on the code. The code is approved, it's developed and approved by plan commission and the city council.
So the legislative body does the code stuff. We are in charge of what you can build within that code.
Going higher doesn't meet code. There are a swath of UDO changes that are going through. Some of them
have already been approved. Thank you, City Council. That will make some of these kinds of things, the
very things we're trying to do at Hopewell, just doable by right. And you won't have to apply for a
lot of variances. Hopefully you can just come in and say,
this meets code and this is the kind of neighborhood that we envision in this area, right? That's part
of why we're doing Hopewell the way we're doing Hopewell. And the plans that Anna talked about will
be available and we anticipate approving them, pre approving them for building throughout the city.
So that will be a faster process for everybody. So I will say that this really is,
as compact as we could make it. Increased density here would have necessitated more height. There was
nothing more we could do within the transportation plan and the unified development ordinance to get
more units in this area. I think it's going to live really well, though. I think it's going to walk
really well. It's going to feel like a great place to be.
want to look at when we're looking at how we are envisioning building our residential environments is
you know people many people don't like the word density really what we usually react to is what it feels
like to the human scale right and so a very tall building is
may feel really intimidating if it's set right against the sidewalk with no buffer or if it's not stepped
back some. So there are ways to get more density or more height that feel like a neighborhood and not
like a Soviet era block, right? And I just wanna say we have built some
not the city hasn't, but it's allowable to build those kinds of things because the code is the code.
So if you give us something that meets the code, you're gonna get that. And so a lot of times what I
am hearing from people when they're talking about fearing density is that they don't like the way it
feels and I don't wanna walk next to that. Well, what we need to do is incentivize this human
human scale housing that, and there are ways to do it with density. Okay, you want me to just take one?
Is there any way to discourage landlords and folks who already have a house from investing in the new
neighborhood? Yes. It's complicated and we are gonna take every possible step we can. It's complicated
because we can only do so much, but we have some tools in mind that will come with
these houses, these homes are intended for people who will live and or work here full time. They are
not intended as homes for a football weekend. They are not intended for somebody's second home, et cetera,
et cetera. We are creating this with every intention to get the people who need housing into housing.
So that's what we're doing and we can talk more details offline. I wanna try to get to all of these
questions before 6.30. I like all the housing opportunity, affordable. I'm happy for better, I'm hoping
for better emergency shelter and transitional housing in place. Is that in the plans anywhere near Hopewell?
So Beacon is doing some housing. Are you giving me a sign? Five minutes? Yes, okay. The Beacon Center
is going in on West 3rd Street at the western edge of the Prospect Hill neighborhood. That will be some
housing. We don't anticipate building any emergency shelter in the Hopewell neighborhood.
What's a process for street tree species selection in Bloomington? Do you want to take this one, Kendall?
Well, I think the mayor summed it up pretty well. It's in the UDO. There's a list of approved tree species,
there's a list of prohibited species, and then there's a species diversity requirement. So you can kind
of pick off of that list and then
A lot of times the nurseries will tell you, we don't have this, but we do have this. And then ultimately
Haskell, our urban forester, reviews all of that and approves it. So he might select ones that are easier
to maintain, or if he knows we have a lot of, I think it's maybe maple or something we have way too
many of, so he wants other things. So that's how the street trees are selected. It certainly isn't me
who picks them. I have one that's specifically addressed to you, Anna, so I'm going to leave that for you.
Okay, more information on specifics of timeline. We anticipate breaking ground on the first homes in
Hopewell in spring of 27. We just didn't get the zoning through in time to build any homes this year,
and I appreciate that that means that there'll be
less affordable next year. We did our best, but it was a long timeline to get the PUD approved. The
infrastructure, however, is starting immediately, and so we'll be doing the groundwork. Potential police
station, we anticipate architecture's gonna take at least a year. We have to go through a bonding process,
and then it's probably gonna be a two-year build.
I'm gonna, I always think I'm under promising over delivering and yet with construction, sometimes I
don't get there. So these are our hopes. There's a question here about how the selection goes for the
more affordable houses. So the homes, from the city's perspective, the city is sort of the developer
of record.
So we are providing, we're providing permit ready lots and those permit ready lots will be available
to anyone to buy them. The city has some affordable housing programs. They can be paired here or elsewhere.
There are also other affordable housing
providers in the in in the city and There are some loan programs etc that we will be connecting people
with and so The city is not per se going to match people with affordability we are part in that affordability
has been to produce house plans and developed lots that are
affordable to build. And then the financing will have to be partnered. So there's not going to be a
lottery or a selection process for that that we anticipate. They're priced based on what they cost to
build. What do the winter months
look like for future residents with the snow and ice on the pathways? Great question. During the process
of approving the PUD, some of the pathways got pretty dramatically expanded in width. What that means
is that it becomes a pathway that the city needs to clear.
and unless it stays privately held. So the city is gonna, for those pieces, the city's gonna have to
figure that out. There are other shared pathways that will be cleared by the neighbors and there are,
you know, the sidewalks around anybody's home are the resident's responsibility for clearing.
And then Anna, you have one question addressed to you.
And you have an Anna question too. Anna, since the RDC city of Bloomington is the developer of Hopewell,
what was the biggest aha moment? Boy, that's a loaded question. You know, I've been in real estate for
a really long time and we hear a lot from the community about the length of time it takes
to get a project through and how that really impacts affordability. And this has not been any different
than that. So it was one of the moments that said, yep, this is how that goes. So unfortunately. Yeah,
this question is about over lighting and light pollution. I've been asked this question many, many times,
especially more maybe over the last year or so. And I think it's a great question.
For Second Street specifically, we were tasked with matching the level of lighting that was already
out there. That was something that I took away from the meeting we had two and a half years ago here.
We also, the UDO speaks a lot about street lighting, so we're doing pedestrian scaled lighting, which
means it's shorter and it spreads out more, which means it's not as dark sky friendly. The city also
utilizes Duke Energy's
neighborhood lighting program, which means they have a set menu of fixtures that you have to choose
from. You can't bring a new fixture in and say, this one's really dark sky friendly. Can we use this?
I will say I did a little bit of research because of a question I got via email. And actually, the Cobra
heads, the tall roadway lights, they shine down. They're actually more dark sky friendly than a lot
of the pedestrian scale lighting that shines out. So I guess I would encourage those of you who are
very interested in this
I think there needs to be some UDO changes that address dark sky. I mean, I think it's a great thing
that we should look into more. And I would also maybe try to facilitate a larger conversation about
should the city be using the Duke Energy lighting program? Is that limiting us too much? I think both
of these things need to be explored. It's kind of outside of my realm. But yeah, I think it's a great
question. And I would encourage you to get more involved.
Maybe the Environmental Commission. Is that a good place for them to maybe talk about this? UDO changes
would probably go through planning. So there's a lot of people that hopefully you can get around to
the right person that can help with this. But yeah, great question. Are there any other ones?
Yeah, so it's 6.30, so we're gonna commit to letting you go on time. We will continue to put out updates
about Hopewell via our city newsletters, et cetera. If you're not on that email list, it's a great thing
to get on because that's our most reliable way. We try to put things on social media, et cetera, but
we don't have a newspaper anymore that
we can rely on to update in real time on everything. So if you want to know what's happening with Hopewell
and otherwise,
get on our city newsletter email list, and if you're interested in buying in Hopewell or potentially
buying in Hopewell, we also would like your contact information, but we'll continue to give updates.
We hope to plan a big party when we are breaking ground on the first houses, so you'll hear about that
as well. Thanks for coming tonight, really appreciate you.