- Hi, everyone. I am Mayor Carey, and I have with me tonight David Hiddle, who is the Director of our
- Planning and Transportation Department. And welcome. I see some new faces to Traveling Town Hall. So
- thank you for coming. We do usually start with a children's book. So I picked out hedgehogs don't wear
- underwear, but they're my size tonight.
- And we don't usually actually start by reading a book, but I will tell you there are great books here
- to buy. And so when we're done with Town Hall, I encourage you to have a cup of coffee or peruse the
- book selection and find something silly or serious to take home with you. We are really grateful to
- Morgan Stearns
- for having us tonight. Matt welcomed us well as did the rest of their staff. And these conversations
- are really meant to be conversations. So I'm gonna give sort of high level update on what I'm working
- on in the city. And David's gonna tell you a few things he's been thinking about, but then we'd really
- like to take
- questions from you all so that we can target some of our comments and information to exactly what you're
- interested in. And we are doing a sociological test this evening. The most comfortable chairs were placed
- right in the front, yet everybody still chose the wooden ones. So if you would like to blow the sociological
- experiment instead of
- confirming my bias here. You may sit in these comfy chairs. Oh, yes. See? Welcome. And you won't even
- be on cats. I think you'll be out of the picture. Isn't it great? Yeah. If you had an ottoman, it would
- be perfect. Yeah.
- So thank you all for coming. I do these every other month, and we move around throughout the city so
- that we can get into different neighborhoods, we can get into different places.
- And that's all targeted not only to be close to you wherever you live, but also to provide comfort for
- people who don't love to come to City Hall. So of course I meet with people at City Hall every day.
- So does David. But these traveling town halls get us into different neighborhoods and hopefully meeting
- different people. And I usually bring one of the members of my cabinet with me and we always invite the
- the city council member from the district and unfortunately Dave Rallo whose district we're in tonight
- wasn't able to join us this evening. He's at a Jack Hopkins meeting but he sends his he sends his regrets
- and I'm sure he'd love to hear from all of you.
- Let me talk a little bit about what's been going on in the city from my perspective. Last week, of course,
- we had State of the City. If you want more statistics and a full rundown of everything we've been doing,
- go onto CATS and watch that recording. It is good nighttime viewing. And I'm happy to go into more depth
- on some things that we covered there.
- high level. This year we have gotten fire fully staffed for the first time in a very long time. So we're
- really proud of that. When I came into office I was wanting to work on three primary areas, housing
- and homelessness, economic development, and public safety. So public safety,
- Fires fully staffed. We anticipate being fully staffed in police by the end of this calendar year. So
- we're really excited about that. We got unanimous union votes on those union negotiations, both in fire
- and police. And we're back at those union tables now. We did a short round to do some catch up. So.
- That's what's going on with fire and police. And I will talk about Seminary Point in a minute. We have
- a sign holder. What did you say? Okay. Well, I will tell you honestly everything I know about it. Let's see.
- So that's a good thing to talk about now, housing and homelessness. One of the big things that we're
- talking about right now is the new state legislation, which is Senate Bill 285, which goes into effect
- on July 1st. And that illegalizes sleeping outside on public property. And so we are working together
- with Heading Home and the county to
- work with people who are living in two remaining public encampments. One of them is on city property,
- one of them is on county property. And so we've been working really hard on encampments since I came
- into office. And the way we do that is that we approved a process
- during my first couple of months in office where we reach out to people who are in encampments. And
- we have somebody here tonight who knows a whole bunch about this process. We reach out to people who
- are living there and we send outreach workers and then our own city staff is out there. We give at least
- a 30 day notice before we set that date to clear the camp.
- And lately we've been really successful in partnering with people who are living outside and the last
- two camps that we've had to clear nobody's been living there by the time the date comes to.
- to move so we are proud of the process that has been in place and we're also really grateful to all
- of our partners that have outreach workers and health workers and housing partners along the way. The
- other significant housing piece that we're working on is the Hopewell South neighborhood and Hopewell
- South is the first phase of
- the housing development that will be where the old hospital was and Hopewell South is now in front of
- council. It got a unanimous support from Plan Commission.
- That is proposed to be 98 homes and the price range starts well anticipated if we could build them this
- year but now it's been delayed. The anticipated starting price was $83,000 for an owner occupied place
- and those go all the way up and those are small studio homes. It goes all the way up to
- a home that we anticipate costing about $600,000 and is more of a four bedroom larger home. So those
- are right on the beeline. We're really proud of what we've proposed there and we're really happy to
- have that in front of council. Council has a number of things they'd like to see in that neighborhood.
- We are working through that with council and I really believe we'll get to some
- some kind of common ground there and I'm committed to working towards a neighborhood that actually works
- well. The affordability is the most important thing to me though because we increasingly have people,
- especially
- younger folks in Bloomington who move here and they can't find a place that is affordable for them to
- live. So this is a way into home ownership where you can buy something small that's within your price
- range and then you can move up as your household expands or as your finances expand or both. So we're
- really excited about Hopewell and I'll say just a
- Just to note about Seminary Point, we've had some folks talking about the very affordable units that
- are sort of near the corner of Second and College. They are part of the county-owned property. The city
- is not involved in that land deal, but they are scheduled to be,
- vacated because the county is giving that land to the capital improvement board as part of the convention
- center project. So that's a county land deal and the commissioners are working on that. I'll take questions
- later but I actually didn't hear what you said.
- question, you were asked what you thought about that and you said you wanted to speak positively of
- your colleagues and say they were just doing their business. So in the in the Herald Times I was quoted
- as saying that I was supportive of my county colleagues. What is what is my understanding of the of
- their dealings with that building is that since they
- Since the convention center was planned and since they acquired that property, it's always been their
- intention to take that building down and that's been communicated for a long time to folks surrounding
- that building. So that's, thanks for your comments. Public safety, economic development.
- So economic development, we are a number of things happening on the economic development front. We've
- been working really hard with folks at the trades district, which is our tech park and trades district
- has really been filling up the mill and the forge opened recently. It's a class A office building and
- that is getting filled up pretty quickly.
- That is really our center for entrepreneurship and startups in the city. And that's going really well.
- Partnerships with IU and with Crane happening, as well as many, many different startups being incubated
- there. And that's important because as IU is really paving the way towards commercialization and innovation
- in their research,
- Students and faculty alike need a place to do business and a place to incubate those businesses. And
- so that's gonna be great for Bloomington. And that is part of our strategy to grow wages here in Bloomington,
- which is critically important. We also are thrilled that the Convention Center's finally coming out
- of the ground and really excited about various redevelopment pieces that are gonna go on on the South
- College and South Walnut
- corridors and what else do I need to talk about? I think that covers it and I know you all are gonna
- ask more questions of me, but I will hand things off to David and let him talk for a few minutes about
- all of the very exciting things that are happening in planning and transportation. Thank you.
- Yeah, my world is all about housing, housing and housing right now and probably will be for a while.
- One of the things that we're in the planning world, the world of urban planners realizing is that we've
- spent, and I'm speaking about Bloomington, but really everywhere, is that we've spent the last 60 years
- just making our ordinances bigger and bigger and adding layers of rules on top of layers of rules.
- And they don't really make the place that they serve better necessarily, but they do make it a lot more
- expensive and a lot more hard, a lot more difficult to build things. So we're taking a close look at
- our ordinance to see what we can reasonably take out, for lack of a better phrase, just to make it more
- friendly, more intuitive, and more useful and more valuable.
- We need to be able to allow for more types of housing to be built. Right now, it's pretty easy to build
- a house, a conventional house, and it's pretty easy just to build a big student housing mega complex.
- And everything in between has kind of been lost in the wind over the last decade. So we kind of want
- to restore our ordinance to be able to allow for that. So that's a change to ordinance. We also want
- to change our processes, which have kind of taken the same tack.
- In the past decades, they've just become more complex. Rules on top of rules, my department,
- other departments, the utilities, really everybody having to do with development. There's a lack of
- coordination and it's just really tough to build things here. So we've commissioned a third party external
- audit of our department and utilities department, other departments.
- to help us figure out where we've just put in one step too many, where we have communication
- gaps, redundancies, bottlenecks, things like that. So again, make those processes easier. It'll make
- it less expensive to build, more predictable. And those are costs that eventually find their way or
- a lack of costs that find their way to the consumer. And it should have a positive effect on housing
- prices down the road.
- I've worked other places and Bloomington, everybody has this problem, everybody has issues with their
- zoning ordinances, everybody has issues with their processes, but Bloomington has a big issue. We just
- have lots of rules, lots of invested in engaged people with lots of projects and concerns.
- Those get written into the rule book and you have those coming from five, six, seven, eight, nine different
- types of special interests and it just makes things really tough. So that's one of the things that we're
- working on right now. We also following, interestingly enough, a big, big bucket of state legislation
- that kind of came into February.
- really big and kind of breathing fire and promising to change things really significantly. It would
- have compelled every Indiana city, town, and county to dramatically loosen how they handle housing,
- a lot of it in a good way, some of it not so much. But by the time that bill got enacted, as House Enrolled
- Act 1001, it had been completely gutted and all of the juice taken out of it. So a little bit of a letdown there.
- The upshot is that we have to report to the state now every year on our housing activities, our efforts
- to make housing more accessible, efforts to change the zoning ordinance, things like that. So it's a
- reporting mechanism that came from that, not too much more. What's interesting though is that other
- states, coastal states, blue states, and increasingly red states have kind of gone down this preemptive
- state legislation road in the past.
- This is Indiana's first year trying to get some legislation moved. And what happens is typically the
- first one, the second one, maybe the third, they get shot down or they get dramatically gutted like
- ours was, and then they come back year after year with something more meaningful. So like a state like
- Montana, which is ruby red, but which has a very engaged governor and housing issues, has really progressive
- zoning reform and they've been working at it for about five years, six years.
- So that, I think, if we're all hopeful that that is something that might happen in Indiana, next year
- there'll be another package. Might go a little bit further and have a little bit more teeth to it. But
- for this year, it was a big puddle of, big puddle and nothing at the end of the day. So anyway, that's
- what's exciting. If you can call that exciting in the world of planning these days. Did we open it up now?
- I think, you know, I think, David, you've been a star of evening reality TV lately. So I think that
- means that planning is, it is exciting, right? It is entertaining. If you watch Board of Zoning Appeals
- hearings or Plan Commission hearings, it's reality TV. So much fun. So we will open it up for questions.
- And just to make space for lots of questions,
- It's best if you really do ask a question.
- that you want to hear about. I am happy to hang out afterwards and hear about issues or talk to people
- about issues if you have an opinion to share. But we'd really like to hear from you about what you'd
- like to hear from us about so that we can share information that's targeted to your interests. And if
- you are not somebody who loves to raise their hand in public and speak, there are some note cards on
- the back table. And I can't see Jennifer.
- Jennifer's back there. There's Jennifer. If you just slip your note card to Jennifer, she can read questions
- from people who don't want to speak them. Additionally, another reason that it's hard to take long comments
- is because Katz is recording this on TV. And so I will repeat your question back so that the camera
- can take it in and people at home can know what's being asked. So who has a question?
- Oh, lots. Okay, let's take this one first. Hot topic at the moment is the Bloomington Iron and Metals
- property there on Rogers, let's call it Rogers and 10th, that is just kind of a dirty field at the moment
- or, you know, open space, but is supposed to be something monstrous.
- That's the iron fail property. Yeah, gray star is a developer that's they had some variances they went
- for and I think they have to go for major site plan approval for apartment complex to pretty much fill
- up that site.
- of the plans for the hotel for the convention center? Yes, so the question is asking for an outline
- of the development of plans for the hotel for the convention center. Right now, there are no plans drawn
- for the hotel for the convention center. The CIB, which is the Capital Improvement Board, which is a
- shared board, county and city appointees, but it's outside of
- elected officials, so it's meant to be non-political, which is a genius move. So they manage this, and
- they selected a hotelier. The hotelier selected a site that is owned by the city. And that hotelier,
- in order to get their vision accomplished, needed some incentives to get that done.
- there wasn't an incentive package that ended up working for them for that site. They moved to a different
- site and then they ultimately have moved on. The CIB is putting a new request for proposals out. So
- there is no plan yet and I just wanna just take an opportunity to explain to folks that convention center
- hotels operate differently than
- other hotels. They have to guarantee reduced rate room blocks. That's part of their contract. And so
- their financing mechanisms are a little bit different. And it is pretty typical for convention center
- hotels to receive some kind of incentive package from somewhere because they're going to be bringing
- in a bunch of visitors and
- essentially tourists who are going to spend money in the community. So CIB has put that back out for
- bid, and I actually can't remember the timeline for selecting the new hotelier, but then they'll go
- back to selecting a site. So no drawn plans. I have take it outside, and then the person right behind
- him will be next, and then we'll get to the very back.
- You're taken outside. Is it all right if I ask each of you all a question? Is that all right? OK, so
- I'll ask you first. My sister, she sometimes needs a wheelchair. And I'll go around town. I'll notice
- my sister would have a hard time getting around this or around that. Is your administration going to
- improve the ability of people in wheelchairs to get around town without a car?
- Yeah, that's a very good question. One of the things that, oh yeah, Mr. Take It Outside's sister is
- in a wheelchair and has trouble navigating the city, getting to where she needs to go in a nutshell,
- right? And what are our intentions to try to ease that burden? So we have an awareness that the universal design
- regulations in our ordinance are pretty primitive. They touch on the idea of making the world accessible
- to as many people as possible, but it's not done in a very thoughtful way. And so one of the things
- that we've committed to looking at is examining some places that are doing it a lot better.
- Bullingbrook, Illinois is a city that does it wonderfully. And so we're gonna update our ordinance.
- And with that, then new development, the way that the front doors are situated and arranged relative
- to the sidewalk, the way the sidewalks are arranged, the way that you're able to get from one place
- to the next is intended to be just a much more accessible environment for everybody. So accessibility
- has been a big topic of conversation on Hopewell.
- And the development consultants have pledged to do really quite a bit more than what the ordinance requires
- right now and make a good number of the homes accessible. We're learning from that and I think what
- we're putting in place there is going to look a lot like what we do when we improve our ordinance.
- number of things in the pipeline for ordinance amendments this year that is still on the table is something
- we want to get done in twenty twenty six. But beyond the ordinance amendment I think there's just sort
- of a need for awareness what we have the CCA the Community Council Community on accessibility. Very
- very active in town and they make sure that their voices are heard whenever there's
- amendments to ordinances whenever there's a development and we've engaged them and are committed to
- work with them as we improve our ordinance. So that's kind of the nutshell answer. And I want to give
- just another little bit of an answer there. Outside of our official planning and transportation department,
- of course, Bloomington Transit is not a city department, but it's affiliated.
- And they have been taking lots of steps to try to serve people better, including a pilot that we did
- last summer called Blink, and it was microtransit. So you could arrange for the bus to come, and it
- was a small bus, and literally take you door to door.
- When Bloomington Transit does these kinds of pilots, it's so important that people help us get the word
- out because we can fund programs like that and our normal transit.
- by ridership and that's how all the federal dollars are attracted as well. And so would be interested
- to hear barriers that your sister or others that people know of are having to accessing Bloomington
- Transit. And we have a really forward thinking director there and he's always open to hearing how we
- can do better. So would love to hear from you. And I'm looking forward to your next question.
- So I value my privacy. I mean, we're Americans, we all do. But I've been noticing a lot of these new
- Flock AI cameras. And I mean, they track so much. I mean, where you're going, who you are, who you're
- with. And according to the website DFlock, there's a couple around town. I mean, just on the way here,
- Third Street's got a few. But anyway, some of those are even monitored and maintained by IUPD.
- Should we expect more flock cameras? And what do you say to concerned citizens about that amount of
- surveillance? Yeah, so the question is about flock cameras, but specifically flock AI cameras. And it
- was noted that IUPD. OK. OK, what you said was IUPD.
- but okay so it was noted that BPD has some there are actually so.
- What BPD has are license plate readers, not the AI cameras. And so there are 11 of those that are owned
- by BPD. And I want to thank, there's been a number of people involved with raising flock awareness to
- us over the past several months. And I want to thank you for bringing it up.
- folks have had one-on-one conversations with me, with our police chief, with others. And as you may
- know, I don't know if you do know, we have a report that we'll be giving to council that's to be delivered
- by April 15th, and then they'll take it into their discussion on the 22nd of April, I believe. So we
- are looking at
- at all kinds of things with flock, but I wanna be clear that the cameras that you see up on streets
- are not the AI cameras, they're just the license plate reading cameras, still privacy concerns. And
- so my job as mayor, obviously, is to help keep our community safe and we are very carefully weighing
- people's privacy
- and how those flock cameras have been used in other places with our ability to solve crimes as well.
- And so we're in the middle of the study that we will be producing for council in a couple weeks. Yes.
- I also have two questions, if that's allowed. One is directly related to flock. Okay, great.
- what extent, and if you can name people, I would love to hear it, are you working with privacy or security
- experts in figuring out what your policy is? Because it seems that universally the public is against
- this. Like the general public, I haven't met a single person who's in favor of being surveilled like
- this. So I would imagine there must be a good reason to outweigh the security and privacy concerns.
- But I'm wondering what those conversations are like.
- if there's any, I guess, very good reason that you would have for going against what the majority think
- of it, what the majority are concerned about. I know the report's forthcoming, so I know I'll have to
- sit tight for a little bit, but I'm just curious. So the question is, who's involved in consultation
- as we go through this process, et cetera?
- and a statement that the majority are against FLOC. We have a number of different folks that have been
- consulted and are still being consulted. That's why you don't have a report yet. And I'll just say that
- I don't, I just wanna be clear that we are getting both kinds of feedback in the mayor's office. So
- it's not 100%
- against flock and I would say may not be even a majority. Nonetheless, our job is to take everybody's
- concerns seriously and to see what we can do to protect privacy, but also there are serious concerns
- related to our immigrant populations, trans populations, all of the frequently already
- at risk populations, especially with the federal government we have right now. And so we are taking
- it really seriously and I can tell you that no decision's been made yet because we really do want to
- do a good job with this decision. And yet another question. Yes, this one's related to seminary point.
- I know you mentioned that this is a county issue
- Largely, the county is selling the property to the CIB, and the CIB wants to make it a part of this
- convention center development. But I don't know if you've been made aware, people have talked about
- this to you personally, but especially some of the people who live in those homes have expressed concern,
- people in the community have expressed concern about just getting rid of 29 units of affordable housing
- at a time where everyone agrees that there's a housing crisis.
- And there actually seems to be a decent plan that's within the city's power to promote and to act on,
- to have the CIB, once they receive the land, to then sell it to the city. And the city can spin it off
- into whatever, what have you, to be a cooperative, a land trust, details aside. But is there any reason
- why that plan is unworkable? Well, first time you heard about it. Is there any reason that plan is unworkable?
- of why alternatives are not being considered. So this is a question about Summit Point and an acknowledgement
- that, sorry, I'm sorry, Seminary Point. Summit is a different housing project that we're working on.
- And question about the loss of 29 units of affordable housing and, you know,
- is a city considering intervening essentially and taking on that project. That is not under our consideration
- right now partially because, partially because first of all, it's county owned and they already have
- something going with the CIB.
- I have not looked at the details of that building, but from talking to others that have, it is prohibitively
- expensive to get those apartments even up to code. They don't meet our rental code now. And so it would
- cost some significant money to bring them up to code.
- I hope that the people who are living there have reached out to our housing and neighborhood development
- department to see if they can help them with housing resources. I don't know what the timeline is with
- those either, but I would encourage you to talk to your county commissioners who have this in their
- hands at this point. Can I just have one follow-up question? Sure.
- Is the main reason why you're not considering it because this hasn't been brought to your attention?
- Or is it because you have looked at it and you've just considered it prohibitively expensive, even with
- the affordable housing fund? We have not looked at it. We simply haven't looked at it. And I'll tell
- you, we don't have capacity to take on another project right now. We simply don't. If you're tracking
- what's happening at the State House
- Senate Enrolled Act 1 has significantly cut the income that Bloomington will have. HUD has made cuts,
- et cetera, et cetera. And so financially, we don't have the means to take on another project at this
- point. Our TIF is maxed out. I mean, we're just, we're at a point in the city where we really are looking
- at how do we maintain what we already have?
- and do a really good job with that and try to meet people's expectations with the basic city services
- that we must provide. And so I've been talking for a year now about we're not taking on new projects.
- We don't have any capacity to do it, unfortunately. Yeah, you had a question in the back? So from your
- perspective,
- What is the single biggest barrier for Bloomington to becoming a top tier hub for entrepreneurship and
- innovation? And if you have to design one single initiative for Bloomington to overcome this barrier,
- what is it? So the question is, what is the number one barrier for Bloomington to become the top tier
- center for innovation and entrepreneurship?
- If I were going to design an initiative, what would that be? I'll tell you, the top barrier to any business
- development right now, honestly, is housing. What you're hearing about from several people, that's the
- answer. People can't move here and they can't grow businesses here because
- there aren't places for them to live and afford. Now, more directly, what levers in the entrepreneurship
- world can we pull? I think the most obvious one is how are we incentivizing or allowing student and
- faculty research to come to market and have them own their own IP? That is a resource that we have here that we
- you know, unlike most other communities, we have that here in spades. And I think we, you know, the
- administration at the university has been trying to move to commercialization. So I think we have a
- moment, but we haven't totally pivoted that. And so that IP is really a critical barrier from incentivizing
- the growth that we need.
- We do have amazing, are you involved already with Amplify? Yeah, okay. So I'm just gonna give a commercial,
- this is not for you, but Amplify Bloomington's doing an amazing job. They're over at the mill, used
- to be the mill, they've expanded what they're doing. And they're really becoming a fairly magnetic center
- of entrepreneurship and innovation.
- There's really no reason why Bloomington should not be the leader in the Midwest in innovation
- and entrepreneurship. The state of Indiana is among the bottom of all states in entrepreneurship and
- innovation. And if we could get that right, again, that's where our wage growth is going to come from.
- And so we really need to nurture those entrepreneurs
- help them keep working out of the box to generate some awesome things that come from Bloomington. Yes?
- You mentioned earlier, I think it was Montana, that do push through some bails in their state that made,
- I don't know if it was easier or better for transportation and building and stuff. Is there anything
- that's in their bills that we should be trying to push through here
- Because you said ours got gutted, but what did they get through that we didn't? Yeah, I don't know that
- they did it this year, but it's been in recent years that they've done it. Oh, I'm sorry. I had mentioned
- earlier that the state of Montana is, as a red state, kind of leading the pack of red states in terms
- of zoning reform for housing, kind of following on the heels of what a lot of blue states have already
- done, especially in the coasts. And he asked, what?
- did Montana do with regards to their housing reform. And they required, certainly required, they required
- that different types of housing be allowed, specifically in single family zoning districts. They required
- that ADUs or accessory dwelling units, also known as in-laws quarters, granny flats,
- that they be allowed in all residential zoning districts. We allow them here. Most of the rest of the
- state of Indiana doesn't, but in Montana, that law compelled every city, every town, every county to
- allow them by right in residential zoning districts. They put in place different incentive programs
- with regards to funding so that if you're a city that has made modifications to your zoning ordinance
- to be more housing friendly, then you're eligible for certain streams of funding. I believe that they,
- They dramatically decreased the minimum lot sizes, minimum structure sizes that the zoning ordinance
- usually imposes. We've done a lot of that here. We can still do a little bit more of that. But it essentially
- cut out the things that were driving sprawl, especially residential sprawl. Yeah, so those are the big things.
- 10 minutes to think about it. I'd probably come up with some more, but that's kind of the lion's share.
- And North Carolina's doing it. Tennessee has made some progress. So it's kind of spreading out from
- Montana to do what? California and Washington, Oregon, and some other more progressive or blue states,
- Minnesota. Minnesota's made some big changes, have already done. Sir?
- The population of Bloomington is affiliated with the university, possibly. And we have a housing shortage,
- yet the university isn't building dormitories and hasn't for years. Are you working in conjunction with
- the university to try to get the university to pick up some of that housing need?
- I'll take that one. The question was, you know, we're talking a lot about housing tonight, and yet the
- university is not actively building dorms. And are we talking to them and putting pressure on to help
- with the housing need? We do talk to them frequently about this.
- Where they are with it is that they already are exceeding the percentage of undergraduates that are
- housed on campus. The challenge that we have in Bloomington is that we have so many undergraduates that
- are really
- ending up driving the cost of housing here. And the way that housing has been developed really since
- 2009, and it has to do with the lending markets and things like that, are that student housing has been
- some of the most reliably funded housing, because it's secure. The people who live in that house, by
- and large, do not source the income in the community that they use to pay for that house.
- And so as David spoke to earlier, our UDO, unfortunately, has made it really easy to build these large
- student buildings. And those are marketed directly to students. They have amenities, you know, pools
- and volleyball courts.
- weight rooms and the things that undergraduates really want. And it's really a lifestyle place to live.
- And so you wouldn't want to put a single mom with a couple of kids in there if you want your baby sleeping
- through the night, right? And so our challenge in Bloomington, and especially if we're not gonna get
- more on campus and we can talk to the university about providing more housing,
- but we have no significant lever to compel them to do this. And so where we are at the city is how do
- we incentivize housing for people who live here long-term and how do we get that built and how do we
- make sure that it's available at a price point that the people who are sourcing their incomes here can afford.
- So while we are working with entrepreneurship and innovation and business to try to drive wages up.
- We also need to really manage the cost of housing both rental and ownership and that's part of the great
- pilot project at Hopewell.
- And our hope is that it'll really set a pattern so that other folks can develop in that way, in a way
- that really magnetizes the people who live and work here long-term to want to stay. Other questions,
- Carol? Yes. So my first question is, keep talking about growing the region, but since the hospital
- Any discussion with the hospital about expanding that at all? So there's more room. So the question
- is that the hospital is over capacity. Is there any conversation about expanding the hospital? IU Health
- is very aware that they are over capacity. And so I know that they are looking at
- They have a floor that they can expand into. I know that they're looking at that very seriously. And
- for a community to be whole and healthy and thriving, we do need a health care system that is the same.
- And so I know those conversations are happening. I am sometimes part of them.
- But we've been clear and the hospital leadership is very aware that the model that was set for this
- hospital, which was that we get people in and that the new healthcare is that people don't stay overnight,
- right? We know that that's not necessarily true.
- And so, and we're a regional hub. And with the way that Medicaid and Medicare have gone, the regional
- hospitals are closing very quickly. And so more and more people are coming to hospitals like Bloomington's.
- So we're really seeing an evolution in healthcare that is concerning, not just in Bloomington, but across
- the nation. And so yes, that conversation is happening.
- on Crawford? Yeah, I actually am getting an update on Crawford. The question was, can I have an update
- on Crawford? I'm getting an update on Crawford, I think, on Thursday. So no status change on Crawford
- as of yet. Other questions? Are there any note card questions? Yes. Maybe you can clear up those.
- understandings or something. The state legislature moved to keep us from subsidizing low-cost housing,
- and at the same time, it seems that there are incentives
- So the question, and then I'm gonna have to ask a clarifying question to be able to answer the question,
- but the question is that there's confusing information out there about housing and that there's some
- state legislation that prohibits, prohibits what? Low income housing. Low income housing? The state
- legislature said that we couldn't do that.
- So, okay, so the question is there's something in the state legislature that prohibits low-income housing
- and yet we also have something that is incentivizing vacancies in apartments. Okay, I'm not familiar
- with the state legislation prohibiting low-income housing. Are you talking about a decrease in levels
- of federal assistance?
- There's a thing called inclusionary zoning, which is the state does not allow and has never allowed
- That is a situation where when you're building something, you have to build a certain amount of affordable
- units in it. Right now, we have those as incentives. So we don't say you have to include these. We say,
- if you want an extra floor or if you want a bigger building, then include some affordable units. So
- that's not really changed. The other thing that maybe came to mind, maybe not though, is that Fishers
- and Carmel just passed laws that limit
- rentals in certain neighborhoods. So you can have, in a given subdivision, like a maximum of 15% are
- not owner occupied but are rented. The state did strike those down. Now the prohibition of those laws
- doesn't go into effect for another two years. The state has essentially said you cannot say in this
- house there must be an owner occupant. There cannot be a renter, which is pretty common.
- So the state did strike that down, two things that Fishers and Carmel did, which presumably because
- it's for renters would be people with lower incomes, but that's the only thing that really came to mind
- based on your questions. And I don't know of incentives to keep units vacant, but there,
- But I think what happens and what I've heard people talking about is that, especially in large developments,
- the landlords, it's more profitable for them to keep their rents very high, even if they have a few
- vacancies, than to drop the rent to get those filled. So I think it's mostly in economics
- discussion and that's why, and I do believe anecdotally that there are starting to be some vacancies,
- okay? Now, IU is increasing their enrollment and so they may get filled, but we believe anecdotally
- that there are some vacancies now. We've built a lot of housing that's specifically targeted to undergraduates.
- Yeah, you have another question? Yeah, I have questions for days. My question is that, given that we're
- in an election year and there is at least 10 Democrats running around for state house seats, for the
- win we get rid of the super minority status, which might stem the tide of terrible legislation coming
- from the state house, I'm wondering if in your conversations with Democrats around the state,
- If these conversations happen, is there some sort of plan for if you should reduce the single majority?
- What sort of steps that can be had at the state house that would affect places like Bloomington? Leveraging
- that non-super minority status to allow regulating landlord-tenant relationships, for example, or all
- sorts of other
- Yeah, I think that the, I think many of us dream of lots of things we could get done at the State House.
- And I won't say that there's a cohesive plan around that at this point. Most of the planning is going
- into how do we get people to vote? And that's the root of,
- a lot of problems that we have. We have very, very low voter turnout. And what that means, and I used
- to think that voting was like the minimum engagement in the democratic process, but it's actually, it's
- sort of up here now. People are so disengaged. And so I think if we got people voting, then no matter
- what party you were,
- you would probably be more representative of the people. And so that's where I think we should be working.
- We need people to get to the polls. And we need them to know that it matters. And you know that because
- you show up at all of these meetings and hold electeds accountable. But when I go knocking doors, which
- I do once a month, I hear from so many people that they just don't even vote because they think it doesn't
- make a difference.
- They literally tell me that. I didn't vote for you and I haven't voted in years and I'm not going to
- because it doesn't make a difference. Well, I'm showing up at their door to figure out how I can make
- a difference, right? But I need those folks to vote. We all need them to vote because that's how our
- communities are gonna get represented. Okay, we're running out of time.
- Is anybody waiting to be the last question? Somebody wants to be the anchor question tonight. I'm gonna
- ask the last question then. I want somebody, maybe multiple people, to tell me one thing they love about
- Bloomington. Yeah, what do you love about Bloomington?
- I like the small town feel and its proximity to both Indianapolis and national parks. Nice. Small town
- feel and proximity to both Indy and national parks. Yes? Wilmington Speedway has been here since 1923.
- It's one of about 10 of the oldest tracks that continuously operate and crash in the world. Wow. Wilmington
- Speedway has been here since 1943? 1923. 1923.
- one of the 10 longest continuously running tracks in the world. Apparently in the world. And I will
- say one more thing. I'm a race fan. You might have heard that. I have personally seen 24 people drive
- at Bloomington and driving the 500. I don't mean I saw 24 people drive here that did. I saw 24 people
- drive other places. This track is, I mean, it's national.
- OK, I want an invite to go to the track with you. I've never been. He's seen 24 drivers that have driven
- at Bloomington Speedway and up in Indy. Any Friday night? OK, awesome. I've heard it for years, but
- I've never been. Yes, Jeff. I love the Arts and Griffey Reservoir, a hidden gem. Yes, the Arts and Griffey
- Reservoir with new trails.
- Any other, why do we love Bloomington? We have fantastic teachers. Yes, we have fantastic teachers in
- Bloomington. Such great schools. Any last thoughts? Katz is gonna cut us off. Okay, I'll be here hanging
- out if you want to talk afterwards. Thank you for being here at Morgensterns. Thank you to our cafe
- crew who has,
- kept us caffeinated and well-hosted. And thank you to Morgan Stearns for hosting us. And thank you,
- David, for even more of your time by joining the town hall.