- >> Hi, everyone. I'm going to encourage you. We don't usually sit up on a tall stage like
- this. This is a very formal auditorium. I'll encourage you to come as close as you want
- to come. I'm Mayor Carrie Thompson, and I have with me tonight the director of our Housing
- and Neighborhood Development Department, Anna Killian Hansen. And the way we usually do
- these things is we give you some high-level updates about what's happening in the city.
- Anna's here to specifically highlight some housing things. I'll give you some more general
- updates as well. And then we will take questions, and I think in this format we're probably
- going to take note card questions because Katz is up there and we need to broadcast the question.
- So we'll take note card questions and repeat them back. Lucas, can you wave your hand for
- us? So Lucas is around, he's on our comms team, and then Desiree and Paige will come in as
- well and they'll help facilitate the note cards. Were you offered note cards when you
- came in? Okay, great. If you want to pre-fill them out, it doesn't have to be anything related
- to what I'm saying or what Anna's saying. This really is your opportunity to ask whatever
- you want and really to steer the conversation. I do these town halls every other month and
- we travel to the different city council districts. You don't have to be from this district to
- come to this town hall. You're encouraged to come to any that you want. In the months
- that I'm not doing town halls, I do traveling office hours. That's a better opportunity
- to sit down one on one with me, talk about some things that you want direct answers to
- or you may not feel comfortable asking in public. This month, obviously, traveling town
- hall, traveling office hours in November. I can't even believe it's October already.
- We also do door knocking. I go out once a month with at least one of my team members,
- sometimes two or three. We go to different neighborhoods. If you want us in your neighborhood,
- just ask because we pick different neighborhoods every single time. We don't tend to repeat
- neighborhoods at least not until we cycle through them all. Rain or shine, we're out
- knocking doors once a month. That actually is where I sometimes get the very best information
- from people. Come on in, Eric. We're glad to have you. You who need no intro to the
- town halls. We are working on a new city website. For all of you who have had frustrations with
- the city website, join the club. I find it incredibly hard to navigate. And so I'm delighted.
- Desiree is leading that charge. She's our communications director. And in 2026, we will
- have a new and improved website that I anticipate will be 100 times more user friendly. So look
- forward to that. I want to start this evening by just talking
- about some public safety events that have happened in the past couple of weeks. You
- may have read that we had a shooting in close to the Hopewell neighborhood. I don't think
- I'm speaking out of turn. And if I am, they will reprimand me later. We are very pleased
- that we made an arrest today in that case. And we are, I'm really proud of the police's
- work in that case. We are committed to keeping Bloomington safe. And our police department
- is more fully staffed than it has been in a long time. We're working on getting it fully,
- fully staffed. And we're making great progress with that. We have, Wes is here from the fire
- department. Our fire department is fully staffed. And really delighted about that. And my thanks
- to Fire One, who has a brand new station, for responding so quickly to the first Christian
- Church fire this past week. They were on scene almost immediately and really made a bad situation
- not quite as bad. So my thanks to Fire. We dedicated the new, or we unlatched the hose.
- Is that what you say? Yeah. We uncoupled the hose today at Fire Three. The renovations
- are done there. And so all of that is part of the public safety grant, public safety
- bond that we've had for several years. And if you were watching those council proceedings
- during the approval of that, of course, the fire projects were to be prioritized because
- those were the top safety issue at that point. So we have prioritized those. We have one
- more fire project to go. And then that bond is pretty well spent. So let's see. I want
- to talk a little bit before Anna talks about housing housing. I want to talk about the
- challenge that is on many people's minds, which is homelessness. And of course, homelessness
- has everything to do with housing, and it also has many, many other facets to it. What
- we are seeing now is that homelessness affects everyone in the city, whether you are experiencing
- homelessness yourself, if you have a loved one who may be unhoused in this moment, or
- you are seeing the impacts of people who are living unhoused on our city. We're not unlike
- other cities in having a rise in homelessness. Heading Home is the umbrella organization
- that is set up to set best practices and get the teams working together to address the
- system and service gaps that exist with homelessness. We are, in my administration, really
- committed
- to working on the root causes of homelessness. That is a lack of affordable housing, so we're
- working hard on that. We also are looking to county, state, and federal partners to
- help on the untreated mental illness. There is a real deficit in mental health treatment
- in our community and across the nation, and if you have read the president's executive
- order related to homelessness, you'll note that he orders mental health treatment. Unfortunately,
- that order cannot be fulfilled at this point because there's no funding and service providers
- available to fulfill that part of the mission. Otherwise, I agree, we need to increase mental
- health provision. While this is not unique to Bloomington, I am firm in my belief that
- if there is any city in this country that can solve homelessness, it is Bloomington,
- Indiana. Our numbers are relatively low compared to many other cities. We only have just over
- 300 people who are experiencing homelessness, and what that means in a city as innovative
- and compassionate as Bloomington is that we really have an opportunity to create solutions
- that others have not tried, and try them, and work on them together until we actually
- figure out what is dissolving the problem. Some say that you need as many solutions as
- you have people who are experiencing homelessness. I think you need probably as many different
- combinations. It's a discrete math problem. They're not all unique. We need different
- combinations of services for different people, but we have a new Lilly grant through the
- Community Foundation that's going to fund a lot of caseworkers, and we have some new
- reunification funds coming from Community Foundation, and then also the city of Bloomington
- has some reunification funds in our next year's budget, and that can help people who may have
- come here thinking that there were enough services for us to house everybody to get
- back to where their safety nets really are, back to where their parents are, their siblings
- are, and to reunify with that support system. There are 126 shelters in Indiana outside
- of Indianapolis and Bloomington, and so part of this reunification is let's get you back
- close to home. If you do need to be sheltered, let's at least get you to a shelter in your
- home community that can connect you with further case management and solutions. Stride is the
- organization that has used the Community Foundation funds for reunification, and I want to make
- sure everybody understands what Stride does. Stride is a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year crisis
- center here in Bloomington. We have Stride's cards at the table out there, and I have one
- in one of my pockets. If you all are in a place as many of you all are, if you eat downtown,
- if you walk the beeline, if you walk other places in town, I'm sure you may encounter
- people who are actively experiencing a crisis. Stride is the crisis center, and they have
- mobile outreach. That means they are the best place to call unless there is a dangerous
- criminal activity happening, and then, of course, call the police. But Stride has full-time
- mental health professionals. They are at the center, and they're a division of Centerstone,
- and what most people need when they're in crisis is not an interaction with the police.
- It is an entry into care that actually will help them, ultimately. Again, I don't want
- to discourage you from calling the police if there's criminal or dangerous activity,
- but if somebody is in crisis and there is no danger to you or others, I encourage you
- to call Stride. We have learned from Stride that it takes several interactions, sometimes,
- for somebody to engage in longer-term care with them, so if you're seeing the same individual
- over and over again, feel free to call them. It's about relationship building and trust
- building, and this is an incredible community resource that many, many communities do not
- have. So take a Stride card, put it in your pocket, better yet, plug their phone number
- into your phone. Again, it's 24/7, so that is a good thing to have with you. You will
- see, and I want to give a big shout out to Cook, around the community, there will be
- added marketing and advertising about Stride, because Stride can only reach as many people
- as they know about, and so we want everybody to know about Stride and use that resource.
- Cook has funded some marketing design, and we've already got at least one billboard up
- in town. You'll see a bus wrap soon. We really are advocating for people to use this incredible
- service. We really need everybody on the homeless front to be rowing in the same direction. We
- need high accountability. We need high service, and we need to make sure that we're proactively
- working towards solutions that actually work for our community. We have partnered deeply
- with many service organizations, all of them that are providing shelter, food, et cetera,
- and we are making progress on getting to solutions that actually work. This is not a short game
- though. This is not something we're going to solve tomorrow. It is something that's
- going to take years to truly get the systems in place that are going to solve this challenge.
- I am going to hand things over to Anna, because I've already talked for 15 minutes, and let
- her talk for a while, and then we'll take questions.
- Can you hear me? Is this working? Okay, great. Hi, I am Anna Killian Hansen. I am the Director
- of Housing and Neighborhood Development, and I'm also the Executive Director of the Redevelopment
- Commission. I'm a townie. I've been here my whole life. I've worked in real estate or
- been around real estate literally my entire life. I've had the pleasure of helping residents
- from all walks of life find a place to live for 25 years. One thing is for certain in
- the housing world, housing is an ecosystem. Your housing needs change over time. The first
- place that you live after leaving the nest is likely not the same place that will fit
- your needs over time. Space needs change. What you can afford changes. Physical needs
- change. How you live your life changes. The progression of needs through different stages
- of life is often referred to as a housing ladder. Unfortunately, right now Bloomington
- is the most housing cost burdened metro area in the state. High cost, low wage. 60% of
- our households are cost burdened spending more than 30% of their monthly income on housing
- costs. The demand for our housing has outpaced our growth of housing development. And 72%
- of our workforce do not live in Bloomington. A lot want to, but they can't. I don't know
- if any of you have bought or sold a house since 2020 or experienced what the market
- was like. But if you did, you likely understood that if you wanted to buy a house, you had
- to compete with at least eight other buyers. You had to likely waive inspections. You had
- to bid well over asking price. And oftentimes you had to ask for an appraisal gap. At that
- time interest rates were so low that it really was tolerable. The payments were tolerable.
- But right now we are experiencing something called the golden handcuffs. Folks are restricted
- from moving or buying a new home due to the low interest rate on a current mortgage. The
- golden handcuff effect occurs because refinancing or selling to buy a new home with current
- higher interest rates would significantly increase monthly payments, making it financially
- difficult to move even if other opportunities arose. Middle income households have been
- forced to either occupy lower quality housing that would traditionally be available for
- low income households or become cost burdened in upper income housing. So what exactly does
- that mean? It means we do not have the movement in our housing ladder that we normally would.
- People are staying put. Most homeowners tend to stay in their homes for around eight years
- and then move up or down in the ladder. That's not happening at the pace it normally would
- right now. If people are listing their homes, for the most part, we're seeing some reality
- checks. People can't afford to pay the prices they did when rates were low. Housing is an
- ecosystem. I talk to a lot of people and the perception of many is that we should just
- go build affordable housing, but it really is just not that simple. Developers face scarcity
- of available land, high land costs, zoning restrictions, high interest rates, and increased
- construction costs, tariffs, all of which add cost to the overall project. You cannot
- just go build affordable housing, not without significant subsidies. Projects just cannot
- pencil out. A lot of effort went into developing our current unified development ordinance,
- which is our land use restrictions. I believe that it was developed with the best of intentions.
- That being said, the market has changed significantly since that document was developed. Our local
- community has developer fatigue. Currently, developers have to sink a lot of money into
- fully-baked plans on the front end for projects that may or may not get approval. Only outfits
- with very deep pockets can afford to pay to play, many of whom are from out of town. Those
- costs add up on the project total and the overall price, and that's what we're feeling.
- Our permitting process may take more than six months, and if it does take more than
- six months, developers lose their financing. More time means more carrying costs. More
- carrying costs means inflated end price. Projects have to pencil out. So we have a lot of
- challenges
- right now, but this administration is working very hard to address these challenges. We've
- been focusing a lot on housing policy and the UDO, and we've been focusing a lot on
- our policy. Housing policy must be comprehensive and cohesive. We need to make it easier to
- build more types of housing in more places, for more people, without compromising unique
- neighborhood character. We want a UDO that supports a thriving diverse housing market,
- not one that inadvertently makes it affordability harder to reach. We're currently performing
- an analysis of our permitting process to identify obstacles to faster and more efficient approvals,
- and we're evaluating the UDO. Hopewell is the former hospital site, is one of the few
- areas within city limits that could potentially put a dent in our housing needs. We currently
- have a project going with the Housing Authority, who's working on an adaptive reuse of the
- former, the original hospital site, the core building. It's a limestone facing Rogers,
- limestone building facing Rogers. If you've driven by lately, you'd see the construction
- ongoing. But Hopewell is also an interesting case study, where the city is now a passenger
- to what developers go through as they try to navigate our own red tape. Our community
- has been incredibly vocal. Residents have asked for real options for first time home
- buyers, working families, long term neighbors, not just more of the same. In June, the Redevelopment
- Commission took a new approach that uses pre-approved home designs on platted lots to save time
- and money, welcome local builders to the table, and supports a healthy mix of attainable and
- market rate homes. This course correction reflects a more realistic community centered
- strategy that gets us where we want to go. This new path is geared towards providing
- a diverse mix of housing types at a range of price points, creating options for first
- time home buyers, the local workforce, and families, not just luxury apartments or student
- rentals. This pilot will demonstrate innovative solutions. We are also piloting an interest
- rate buy down program to help incentivize folks to unlock those golden handcuffs and
- climb up or down in that housing ladder, influencing the overall market. Our community needs attainable
- housing for the residents that work here. This administration is prioritizing just that.
- All right. So if you will, Paige is over here, Lucas is here, they have empty note cards.
- They will just raise your hand and they'll grab them from you, give you new note cards.
- While they're doing that, I'm going to talk for a minute about economic development. Thanks,
- Paige. Housing really is the backbone of economic development in any community. If you can't
- house the people who work here, they're not going to come to work. When we look at affordability,
- of course, the cost of the housing is one part of affordability, but how much you make
- is the other part of affordability. My administration on the other side of this is also looking
- at how do we grow wages in Monroe County. We are working with several partners on that
- wage growth and the 21st century economic development really surrounds innovation and
- entrepreneurship.
- What's happening in the trades district and at the mill is critically important to the
- future of our wages here in Bloomington and Monroe County. As we grow those companies
- through the trades district, we hope to be able to house many of those folks not only
- at Hopewell, but in the upcoming summit development as well. We hope that the new UDO, whatever
- changes are made to the existing UDO is how I should say it, will help facilitate great
- housing. That's housing that really works for Bloomington and keeps Bloomington's character
- and the cohesion of neighborhoods alive. You'll be seeing some branding coming out in the
- next four months or so that will really speak to who Bloomington is and who we want to attract
- after we've been working with a group called Civic Brand to help tell that story and we've
- had lots of stakeholder involvement on that. We're also just incredibly excited about the
- new convention center. That is rolling along quite nicely and we hope to get the hotel
- rolling around along just as nicely. Now we have so many questions, I'm going to be quiet.
- Let's see. I think this is a comment, not a question, but you can ... There's a comment
- that CDFI-friendly Bloomington can help finance housing and hope well. True, there are many
- possibilities to add to the original capital stack or to the mortgage possibilities there.
- We do plan to have a larger conversation with lenders about providing mortgages at hope
- well. CDFI-friendly, of course, we are incredibly lucky to have them here in Bloomington and
- know that we will engage them for those conversations. This is another comment maybe. Lack of input
- from real estate professionals in planning and zoning considerations and their actions
- which ignore the realities and vacancies in the new apartments and building more and more
- apartments geared to students. We actually have had quite a bit of input from realtors
- and we will continue to have stakeholder involvement as we get input on what might go into any
- UDO changes and we don't have a great way of actually tracking vacancies in Bloomington
- and those apartments. There is some indication that some of the newer student apartments
- have vacancies and that's why my administration's priority is to create new housing that really
- targets people who are working here rather than that student population. Occupancy rates
- are really challenging to track because apartment complexes or property managers have to self
- report. So there's a number of platforms that actually are tracking but it's limited
- data and it is self reported. I actually took an intern team last year and we did some secret
- shopping of all multifamily complexes that were over 50 units. Of that study, we were
- around 98% occupied. However, I will say that I do believe that that rate has dropped significantly
- since that time. What I've been hearing pretty consistently that there are vacancies in properties
- that had never had vacancies previously. So we are starting to see that occupancy rate
- drop. I will tell you that HUD calls a healthy rental rate 60% occupied. So we know that
- we're higher than that at this time. I know it's misleading. You see some of these buildings,
- you think that they're probably not occupied. But look, we have an undergraduate admission
- rate of 48,000 students on campus at IU. They only have about 13,000 beds on campus. So
- there is demand for some of these apartment complexes. But again, it is really difficult
- to try and track. It is something that we're kind of keeping our eye on the ball, both
- with the platforms and the data that is available and then trying to privately track what's
- going on. Okay, this question is what happened with Crawford and Union? And I'm assuming this
- means Union at Crescent. But I can update you on what happened with Crawford. Crawford
- was well out of rental code compliance. We worked with them really over years to try
- to get that back into compliance. My history is with a housing organization. I was committed
- to building decent housing so people who lived there could actually get on their feet and
- really thrive. When you are living in an apartment that is not safe, there is no possibility
- that you can do much more than just trying to meet your basic human needs. So we are
- very serious about our housing compliance. And these are not the only two properties
- that we have taken action on this year. We also took action on a number of other properties
- which have also been in the press. The Crawford is a permanent supportive housing unit. And
- in order to really take people who are in highest need and offer them housing, they also
- need a lot of support or the housing won't be maintained. The housing was not maintained.
- The support was not adequate. We talked and talked and talked and made agreements that
- were not met. And so ultimately we did file suit because we believe it is not safe for
- people to be living in those kinds of units. I am pleased to say we have gotten a long,
- long way with the physical state of that property. We are very nearly in physical compliance
- and we just need to get the supportive services operational as well. So that's where we are
- with Crawford. Union at Crescent has been a different kind, it's a different kind of
- housing development, a different process. We are equally serious about getting that into
- compliance and because of a couple of various things that have been out of our control,
- there's been delays. So we're not as far down the road.
- Yeah, I can comment a little bit. I think you've covered Crawford, but Union at Crescent,
- their rental permit expired earlier this year and they did schedule an inspection with our
- department which is we inspect and permit all the rentals within the city of Bloomington
- limits. We did perform an inspection, however, they had a deadline of I believe September
- 5th to make all of the necessary repairs. Unfortunately, they were unable to make those.
- The owners do have a right to file an appeal if they're not able to get material in on
- time or their circumstances outside of their control or they don't agree with what our
- reports say or requests. So they did file an appeal with the building housing quality
- appeals board. Unfortunately, when that was set to be heard, I believe the middle of September,
- the board did not have quorum. So it has been continued to this month that board only meets
- once a month. And so they have until the middle of October where the board will either vote
- to approve their appeal or extension of time or not. So that's where we are at this point
- with that particular property. They had a tax abatement on the property. We did indicate
- that they were not in compliance with that tax abatement because of the number of vacancies
- in the property. There were some 60s, some vacancies. And it is an affordable project
- which requires a certain level of occupancy. The City Council did find that the property
- owner was not in compliance but due to circumstances outside of their control. So they were able
- to keep that tax abatement at this time. Okay. I applaud the City effort toward preapproved
- housing plans. I also applaud this effort. It is -- I really think it's going to make
- an incredible difference not only at Hopewell but these plans will be approved for expedited
- permit approval throughout the city once we get through them. So it's a big deal. And
- we have a first draft of some of those plans. Not final at all. But they're gorgeous. And
- they range in size and also therefore in cost from truly affordable to build without government
- subsidy. And if you have not experienced the process of government subsidy, not only is
- it slow but it also can sometimes make things more expensive. And what we want is housing
- product that people can actually afford to build conventionally. So these plans I'm really
- excited about because of the variety of them, because of the look of them and because they're
- really created for Bloomington to fit our community. It goes on to say have you considered
- an RFP for 10 to 12 modular homes in Hopewell? At this point we are only working on Hopewell
- South. That's where we're digging into the detailed plans. And that's the area that is
- directly adjacent to McDowell Gardens. And so we really want that area of the neighborhood
- to sort of talk to McDowell and be a good transition from McDowell into Hopewell. We
- may look at things like modulars for other parts. And for those of you who are not in
- the building industry right now, modulars are great looking houses these days. And there
- are various kinds of modulars and they're well built. It's just that they get built
- in a factory and brought to you. So it's not the modular that you're thinking of that was
- created in the 80s and 90s. So I will tell you, when I started as mayor, I did not know
- how to make Hopewell work financially for the people to live there or for the city to
- finish it. And at one point I was the largest private home developer in the county for nine
- years running when I was with Habitat for Humanity. And so I have a good deal of experience
- making the finances of affordable housing work and Hopewell was a puzzle. We have gotten
- to a place that is not only hopeful, but it's really exciting. And I think Hopewell can
- really set the tone of what attainable housing can look like throughout the city and it can
- really be inviting to the young professionals we're trying to attract and keep here. You
- know, MCCSC is losing school population. We need those young professionals here in our
- community. We love retirees and we need to keep great schools if we're going to keep
- our economy going. So we're looking at all kinds of things for next phases of Hopewell
- with the standard of it has to be excellent. And it's really going to be the crown jewel
- of our downtown housing. And so it's walkable. It's got this awesome park. It's right next
- to Kroger. It's right next to two other parks. It's really going to change the tone and it's
- going to create really linkage to the rest of that economic development that's sort of
- coming down college and Walnut with the convention center going in. This goes on to say, I disagree
- with Heading Home's decision to serve those from outside our region. I'll make a note
- about that. I have been very public in my comments about our lack of ability to keep
- our heads above water if we're going to continue communicating to the world, really, that Bloomington
- is a place that has adequate services for everyone. My mind was shifted deeply when
- I sat at a listening session at New Hope for Families and had a mom tell me she moved to
- Bloomington because she was told there were services here, but we only have enough services
- to keep everybody homeless. That's not where we want to be. We want to be the community
- that gets our head far enough above water that for those people in our region, we actually
- know how to serve them so well that they can thrive and that they get into permanent housing,
- whether it's permanent supportive housing or permanent independent living. And so that's
- my goal. And every area of our entire state is broken down into a HUD region. So if every
- community would commit to just serving people from their region and they would do that well,
- we could be in a very different place in our state. So I have convened the mayors of Indiana
- in a roundtable on homelessness. We're working together proactively on plans for what best
- practices we can share, how we can agree to work together and importantly making sure that
- people in our region know how to get services in the region. So nobody should have to travel
- 200 miles to find a homeless shelter. They want a lot closer. So thank you for that comment.
- This one is written just to make Anna Killian Hansen blush. You're welcome. Recently Ms.
- Killian Hansen was quoted in the HT is saying more or less that the administration is focused
- on streamlining the development process and not getting in our own way. I wanted to say
- thank you for that comment and attitude because it is very positive. One of the things we
- are committed to in my administration is pulling back every piece of red tape we possibly can.
- We want to make it really easy to build great things in Bloomington and hard to build junk.
- So we are committed to this. It is more difficult to get the zoning process simplified than any
- of us could probably imagine even if you've been entrenched in it. But we're committed
- to that and we're also committed to finding other ways to pull back red tape and that's
- one of the reasons that I really love to just be out in public talking to people in these
- forums and others because you all can tell me the areas that it's really hard to figure
- out how to get the government to help. So that's why we're here. Thank you for your
- comment, your positive comment. Anna, for those of you who don't know her whole history,
- she was raised in the housing industry and she comes from generations of builders and
- we are so, so fortunate to have her expertise leading our housing at the city. So thank
- you for your service, Anna. Okay, I'm running out of questions. So if you have more, wave
- your hands and we'll come get them from you. College mall is losing tenants. Lots of parking
- is there, which is made of impermeable materials, which is bad for the environment. College
- mall is privately owned, but what would the city like to see happen to this property if
- the city could influence college mall owners and decision makers? Well, I'll tell you,
- one of my ultimate visions for Bloomington is that we stop thinking in this way of we
- only have one downtown, because Bloomington has a city center, but then we have economic
- centers, commercial centers, both east and west, and we have a good little pod developing
- south and even some new interest north. And that's the way, as we grow population, grow
- wages, we really need to think of ourselves that way, that you can go to many different
- places and have a great experience in Bloomington, dining or shopping or going to a hardware
- store, et cetera. So my ultimate vision for college mall would be that it becomes vibrant
- again, that that piece of real estate becomes vibrant again. I think we know that for many,
- a traditional mall is no longer how people want to spend their time. And so we've seen
- lots of great redevelopment of mall properties in many different ways throughout the country.
- And so ultimately, if we could activate that area, I think we'd have a lot more vibrancy
- throughout that east side. And I will say that I think the stores that are facing outward,
- that little section that faces College Mall Road at the intersection of 3rd and College
- Mall, that does pretty well. So that should tell us something. But we've seen malls get
- redeveloped into housing, get redeveloped into mixed use, and really thrive. And so we have
- a real opportunity there should the owners of College Mall want to do something really
- fun in Bloomington, which we would love it if they did. More questions? We got one more.
- We never keep you past an hour either. I always promise to end so that you don't feel obligated
- to sit here. This may need to be answered by Anna. And sometimes what we say is we're
- going to have to check and get back to you. So I'm going to read the question, but I'm
- not sure that I'm aware of the answer. We do house the Historic Preservation Commission.
- We are the liaisons to that commission. But I'm not sure that I know the answer to this
- or that this has come up. What has happened to the historic restrictions that said the
- streetscape of East 10th between Washington and Dunn should remain as it was. However,
- lots of homes have been demolished. I'm not sure. I'd need to check. We have 13 historic
- districts within the city of Bloomington limits. Each district has their own restrictions on
- what they can and cannot do. And those are written by the neighborhoods in which they
- reside. But I am not aware of which district that is off the top of my head. We have quite
- a few. So I'd be more than happy to get back to you. My card is actually out on the table.
- So if you want to let me know who you are, how to reach you, I can absolutely get back
- to you with that answer. And if you're not aware, it says -- so one of the things it
- does say is lots of homes have been demolished. So we actually -- if it is in a historic district,
- we have something called the demolition delay process. So it has to go before the historic
- preservation commission if it is a notable or outstanding structure. The HPC as we call
- it has to either designate it as historic or release it for demolition. So likely if something
- has been demolished, it wasn't a notable or outstanding structure and the HPC voted to
- release it and not forward it on to City Council for nomination.
- >> This question is would the administration consider out of the box thinking regarding
- development standards? For example, if sidewalks and something else weren't always required,
- then those costs wouldn't have to be passed on. That's just one example. There are many
- of fast track approval processes and other. The City will absolutely consider out of the
- box thinking. In fact, we're hoping that the input sessions come with some out of the box
- thinking. Whenever we have a builder or a developer with a challenge to how things are
- working now, we are sitting down with them and trying to figure out how we could have
- done it better. How we can stay committed to having great building form and make things
- easier. We will be creating, we won't call it a fast track probably, but we'll have expedited
- permitting for certain cases where essentially you're going to meet all of the codes and
- you don't need any variances. Right now things sort of get stuck in the queue no matter when
- they come in. And when I used to pull permits, we could get a permit in two weeks. That will
- not happen today. I want to get back to a similar timeline for the no variance, really
- clear this is going to meet all of the requirements. I'm going to put a plug in for tech week which
- is the first week of November. They're going to have a GovTech day. We are looking at things
- like AI to help us read through our UDO and find complications in it. There are many ways
- that we can innovate around simplifying the process. And that's what we seek to do. Is
- to, again, make it easy to build great things and hard to build bad things. And so we're
- open to ideas and anything's fair game for discussion. Sometimes there are surprising
- reasons that we can't say yes. But we -- I think we have a team that's committed to trying
- to get to yes whenever we can. Sometimes it's a yes and.
- >> You know, the other thing too I have to say is that this administration, Carrie's been
- in development and construction. I've been in development and construction. So we see
- it through a little bit of a different lens. We really are trying to make this what it
- needs to be for our community to thrive. >> If there aren't any other questions, I don't
- know if you're invited to participate in basketball practice or not. But we thought it would be
- kind of fun. I'll just note that we have some fun things coming up, including trick or treating
- downtown. There are many live music events and arts events happening. And of course this
- is the final month for summer farmers market. And then of course we'll have winter farmers
- market again this year. So lots to do in Bloomington. I know we have a couple football weekends
- left. And those have been exciting for Bloomington. >> Do you have other things to add? >> If you
- know any new renters, we actually have an R101 or how to be a good runner in Bloomington
- class coming up in a couple of months. There are some flyers out on the table. If you want
- to register, there's a QR code. But we go over everything from financial management
- to housekeeping items. Know your rights and responsibilities of both tenant and landlord.
- And then navigating just Bloomington, our sanitation process, our rental code, everything.
- So it's a great class. We also give you discounts or we get you discounts through some property
- management companies. And then also, if you know any new homebuyers, we do have a down
- payment and closing cost assistance program. So feel free to reach out to us. It is income
- eligible, but it can provide up to $50,000 in down payment and closing costs for homebuyers.
- We also have rental assistance, so deposit assistance as well that is income eligible.
- So Hand has a number of programs to help residents through all of their housing needs. Just feel
- free to give us a call. We also have a housing counselor on staff if you ever need foreclosure
- avoidance or bankruptcy counseling, anything like that, we're here to help. So please let
- us know how we can do it.
- I'm going to put a plug in for the Hopewell session, which is October 20th. We'll be going
- over a preview of what we're looking at for Hopewell. That's October 20th at 3.30 p.m.
- You can find more information on the website, and all are welcome, but we're really excited
- about what's happening at Hopewell. If you want more information, I just want to say Randy
- Cassidy is a member of our redevelopment commission. He's here tonight and has been heavily
- invested
- in Hopewell for years, as well as other projects. You heard that we didn't have quorum at an
- important public meeting. If you're a resident of the city of Bloomington and you want to
- serve one of these boards, we would welcome your application to any of the vacancies.
- I'm going to give you six minutes of your life back. I'll hang out to answer some additional
- questions that you may not have wanted to ask publicly, and thank you all so much for
- coming tonight. I see some of our neighborhood leaders here. I see some rental property owners
- and others that are invested in housing. Really appreciate you coming to be with us tonight
- and investing in your community. Thank you so much.
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