- Welcome everyone, we're gonna have an intimate town hall. We're gonna have a town gathering tonight.
- I am Carrie and I'm the mayor here in the city of Bloomington and I have with me tonight our brand spanking
- new interim director of planning and transportation, Lynn Coyne. And for those of you who haven't been
- at a town hall before,
- What we usually do is we start with some updates about what's going on in the city and then we do a
- Q&A. Happy to do more of a conversational Q&A tonight because we're low on numbers. So feel free to
- ask a question that needs a more in-depth answer. Lynn and I love the hard questions. Yeah, love them.
- And then I'll just say again, you have to speak into this microphone, even though we don't need a lot
- of projection because we have friends at home who are, it's like romper room, who are listening on cats.
- So to include them, that would be awesome. We have time going on at the city, some celebration points.
- our public works department just got accredited and that is a process that they have been working on
- since 2023 and they got 100% rate of full compliance on their accreditation. So it was a whole team
- effort to reach that accreditation and it is really an exemplary effort.
- exemplary recognition so we are incredibly proud of them but we already knew they were doing great work
- and taking care of all of our basic city service needs. Our police department also just got recertified
- as CALEA certified and so that's the commission on accreditation for law enforcement agencies
- This is their third time being CALEA certified and only 5% of all law enforcement agencies across the
- nation reach that accreditation. So we're really proud of them. It entails a lot of different data points
- that they have to meet in order to get accredited. And we just have a terrific police department that's
- committed to safety and being welcoming to all people.
- Another celebration point we just got awarded a 7 million dollar ready 2.0 grant that is that that particular
- ready grant is targeted to create affordable artist studios and that'll be in the showers admin building
- not to be confused with showers North showers or showers West. This is a building that is
- up the street from City Hall and it's just north of 10th and Morton. So we're really pleased with that.
- The arts industry is really growing in Bloomington. We've always had the gem of having lots of great
- artists here and this will really help with business training and regional connections and new professional
- opportunities for those artists. So really glad to be
- in that partnership and the university and other partners are bringing match to the table for that grant,
- including the new arts activities that are happening at Switchyard Park. So if you haven't been to Grand
- Faloon this summer, I have been to two of my favorite nights in Bloomington this summer at Grand Faloon
- concerts. And the next one is at the end of August. So look that up and come to that show. It's gonna
- be awesome.
- We published our budget book today. So if you are a sort of municipal government nerd, you might have
- been on line waiting for that to come out. That went live at about noon. And if you're really nerdy,
- you've fully digested that. I'm ready for all of your questions about it, not really.
- We will be presenting in a series of four presentations. Each city department presents their budget
- to the city council and those start two weeks from tonight. So we'll do Monday, Wednesday presentations
- for two weeks. Those start at five o'clock instead of our regular 630 time. You're invited. The budget
- presentations are really in depth and they really give you
- pretty good snapshot of where we're headed as a city with programming and also services for the next
- year. No surprise to anyone, we are really focused on essential city services. What can the municipal
- government uniquely do? We have SEA-1 impacts, which was a revamping of the tax code which cut
- funding to all counties and cities in the state. That is a very serious cut that we are accommodating
- at this point. And by 2029, we will be losing at least $30 million a year in what we're used to. So
- as things get more expensive, we are anticipating less income coming in. So things that are not critical
- for the municipal government to do, we are gonna be looking at
- and not doing them. And you will see in our budget that we're not expanding a bunch of new shiny programs
- this year. We are committed to doing things like keeping our streets up and running, making sure your
- water is clean and your trash gets picked up, and that we're seeking balance in all of those things.
- Speaking of those essential services,
- We have now as of today, this is a statistic I love, filled 8,661 potholes this year. So kudos to our
- Public Works Department. Hi Bill, come on in. We also made a decision not to close Kirkwood Avenue this
- year, that came to council later on and you may have
- noted that I vetoed their resolution to reopen or re-close Kirkwood. I did that for a number of reasons
- and there's a memo out there about it, but first and foremost it was because we had really a great listening
- session and lots of input from the public that we're just not ready yet. That doesn't mean that
- we're not gonna close it in the future. It means that if we do it and when we do it, we need to put
- some significant investments into doing it right so it's safe for everyone, there's shade, it's a nice
- place to be, and that it actually is, closing the street to cars means we're opening it to everyone
- and everyone can use it. There really were significant barriers to being used.
- well by people especially with limited mobility. I wanna talk for a minute about housing and homelessness
- and then I'm gonna cut my updates a little bit short and hand it over to Lynn. Housing and homelessness,
- we are partnering with Heading Home and a number of other providers launching a new initiative called
- Streets to Stability.
- This initiative will begin closing areas of downtown to sleeping and we will begin doing that this month.
- When we seek to close a district to sleeping, we will partner with the people who are currently sleeping
- there with a by name list that Heading Home is gathering. We will work with service providers and then those
- individuals will be partnered with housing resources one by one on an individualized basis. So this
- program is called Streets to Stability.
- They are, they, Heading Home has a grant to fund some rental units that people will go directly into.
- Others are gonna need something other than a conventional rental unit. And so as we move through this
- process, we'll need to be looking at other resources as well. But the plan is month by month to increase
- that area of downtown where sleeping is not allowed and to get people who are sleeping outside
- inside. I'm going to talk quickly about Hopewell because some folks here have been involved in that
- conversation as if you've been very involved in that you know that we had a unanimous vote from both
- Plan Commission and ultimately City Council
- to approve 98 new homes at Hopewell South. Those are compact lots. There's some multifamily there and
- the core building is still getting ready to open, but will be opening soon. This is the first phase
- of Hopewell.
- Farmers Market is there every Tuesday. You all can help by sending people to Farmers Market Tuesday
- afternoons. We're activating that with bands every single week during the summer. And it's right now
- an intimate gathering, but we would like to really expand that Farmers Market on Tuesdays at Hopewell.
- This month we expect to plait Hopewell.
- And so then we can get moving on construction thereafter. And just to set the expectations, getting
- started on construction means infrastructure, not digging foundations for housing quite yet. So just
- to set a municipal timeline that's realistic.
- I am going to hand things off to our fabulous friend, Lynn Coyne, who's going to talk, I think, a little
- bit about the permitting audit and whatever else he wants to talk about. Thank you, Mayor. Hello, everybody.
- Yeah, I thought this is my third week, I think. So I'm completely up to speed. Ask me anything you want
- about the UDO. So I talk about a few things that are going on and what we're looking for in the future.
- As the mayor mentioned, there was an audit of the planning process done by an engineering firm. And
- they went in and looked at past cases, how that worked, and talked to our staff and others in utilities
- and others and just how does this process work. And then suggestions on how it could be done better,
- more efficient, and really quicker. Quicker is very important. Time is money.
- getting a project in and out the door if it meets the qualifications is very important. And so two things,
- two primary things came out of that audit that I see. One is the process improvement and two, communications.
- So in the process improvement part, we've begun a staff-led program to organize all the different improvement
- and approval processes. There are more than you can imagine.
- and they're all segmented and whatever. And what happens is if you come in and ask for a permit, the
- planning department goes down its checklist, what's your zoning, have you met the specifications of
- the different parts of the UDO, which is the zoning code, and then there are others involved beside
- us, for example, engineering and utilities, and then we hand it to them.
- and then they do their thing, and then they hand it to engineering who does their thing, who hands it
- back to us, and we take what they did, and we redo our thing and hand it back to them. So you could
- imagine what that is like for a petitioner. It just looks like a game of ping pong, actually. So what
- we're going to do is we're moving toward what we call concurrent processing. And with the help of our
- consultant, the engineering firm,
- and the help of information technology services at the city who are terrific, we have a software in
- place. We just need to beef it up. And what'll happen is, is when you bring a permit application into
- planning and we intake it into that system, we do a little screening with you and make sure you've filled
- out the boxes and have what you need, and we put it in that system, it will automatically populate to
- everybody who has something to say about it.
- whether it's utilities, engineering, whoever it may be. So it will simultaneously go to everyone. There
- will be timelines for responses so that within a certain timeframe, they have to get their responses
- back. Those responses will all be centralized so everybody can see them at the same time, including
- the applicant. There will be a portal for the applicant to watch that process and see what's being said.
- Hopefully what that will do is coordinate, get things through the pipeline quicker, more accurate, which
- gets to communications. But that's our goal. And right now our timeline is to have that completed by
- the end of November. And we're coordinating this with utilities. Kat Zeiger over there is doing her
- thing just like I am. And then we're coordinating together.
- and feeding that into information technology so it gets into the software. And we're very, very optimistic
- that we can get that done within the next three months, four months, at least by November. And what's
- exciting about that is it's staff led. The staff of the planning department is doing this.
- So they know the system. I mean, they are the experts. They know how it all works. And they are the
- best ones to fix it. And so they're on board. We've had our kickoff. We're rocking and rolling. We're
- ready to go. So that's moving along. The second part of it is communications. There's a number of things
- that are under that umbrella. But one of them is how we communicate to a permanent applicant when they
- file something.
- If you file something and it doesn't meet the code, we will tell you it doesn't meet the code, but we
- will also tell you where in that code that is so that you can go look at it yourself and find out what
- we're talking about as opposed to just giving a random comment or something that it doesn't comply or
- being a little vague. We will cite to the code every time possible so that you know exactly what we're
- saying. A lot of times what
- what happens is you may ask for an application or a certain permit, and we say, sorry, but you can't.
- Well, we do that because our uniform development ordinance says you can't. We didn't make that up. The
- city council passes the ordinance, we enforce the ordinance. So we want to make that very clear to everybody
- why we say no when we say no or
- where there's something missing, why it's missing, what the requirement is that you have to meet. So
- that you have a clear, clear understanding all the way along the process. And that's, we think that'll
- help greatly with people understanding, you know, it's not necessarily someone in our department saying
- something, we didn't make it up, it's the way it is. So we're doing that. Also, getting out and communicating
- that to the community at large.
- whether you're a builder or a homeowner, whatever it is, I'm available. We'll explain how it works,
- how the system works, what we're looking for, and help people understand that better. The staff is super
- busy. They have plenty to do, so sometimes they don't have time to do all that, but we're going to try
- to find a way to make that happen, have a communication strategy and get out with everybody and be clear
- about what's going on.
- So those are a couple of things. The two main things are process improvement and communication that
- we're working on right away. And it's been great. Staff's been terrific and they're on board working
- hard on it as we speak. So that's the update there. There are other things as we move along and we find
- little spots here and there we can improve.
- There are often times that when we say to you, for example, you need a landscaping plan for this particular
- site. And it turns out there's a 10 foot utility easement and you can't put landscaping in that easement.
- So they conflict. Well, how do we resolve that? We do the best we can with what we have, but there may
- be ways that the UDO could be adjusted to accommodate those things. More and more,
- we see other regulations impacting us. They could be stormwater or wetlands or a fire department. We
- had one the other day, the fire department has their code that they have to comply with and we need
- to adjust to that. In that case, we tell you that, we tell you where it is and if possible, we may seek
- amendments to the UDO going forward to provide a way to resolve those conflicts. I think it can be done.
- We also have the same firm that did our process audit. We'll soon begin an analysis of the
- uniform development ordinance looking for conflicts like that. It's a 380 page document. It's not an
- easy thing to do. So we will have them do that and also propose solutions. It's one thing, if you've
- been in the business, it's one thing to have a problem, it's another to bring the solution, right? So
- we're looking for solutions to those problems once we find them.
- And that's gonna be a major emphasis probably after we get done with the process improvement, we'll
- begin doing that and passing it along. So let's see. I think that about covers it. I'm still learning
- the technology, thank you. But we have a wonderful IT department. Bless their heart. They're on speed
- dialing. So with that, any questions? I will say a couple of comments
- If you haven't seen the Showers Admin Building, it's really, it is one of the coolest buildings I've
- ever seen. It's got an open floor plan on the first floor. This is where the Showers Brothers main offices
- were, and it is quite nice. I highly recommend it. It'd be perfect for an arts program. It's just great.
- It's the Showers Admin Building, which if you're like me, you don't even know it's there.
- But as Kerry said, it's just north of 10th Street on Morton. On the west side of the street. It's tucked
- in there. The next thing up would be the mill. And then behind it is a parking lot. But it's a terrific
- building. Sample. That's on the corner of 10th and Morton. Yeah, the northwest corner. Maybe it's the
- same building.
- Could be, you're thinking sample building as in samples of material and things. Yeah, yeah, that's probably
- correct. Yeah, yeah, I was thinking of the gates. No, that's probably what they called it, but it was
- the headquarters, very nice building. With that. Let me just do some framing for questions. So we do,
- we have 40 minutes, so feel free to ask the hard questions.
- be aware though that we have plenty of people here that may want to ask questions. So we'll just make
- sure that before anybody asks two questions, we will open it up for others to ask questions. So who
- has a question or a comment inquiry? Well, thank you guys for doing the town hall. Super wonderful to
- see you in the community and thanks for all the public service that you do.
- My name is Dave Huber. I grew up here in Bloomington, went to Kelly for entrepreneurship, and then did
- grad school in human-centered design, and now work remotely for IBM, leading their design thinking program.
- Very fun. And I've applied some of that stuff to some cool city projects. I've worked on kind of a Hopewell
- reimagining and a Kirkwood project reimagining. So I'm applying kind of technology and facilitation
- to reimagine our public spaces. And so I guess my main questions are around, I guess,
- density and infilling and creativity. You know, I really love, in another life I probably should have
- been an urban designer. So that's why I keep kind of poking my head in these spaces. And I'm just really
- excited about the opportunities for more community gatherings. I loved what you said about Switchyard
- Park and the Grand Faloon. Those are my favorite moments too. And I just love seeing Bloomingtonians
- out mostly for free, hanging out, having fun. I think that's what makes such a special city. It ends
- up being kind of an economic driver as well. So whether it's Hopewell or Kirkwood,
- or even now this new UDO, I'm also kind of a landlord and real estate owner here and I'm looking at
- some infill opportunities. So I'm curious about the process for both infill density and just the creativity
- that's there and how do we, in my mind, push the envelope around what's possible in those ways? Well,
- a lot of that is underway. As you may have noticed, there was
- Last year, a lot of conversation about plexus and things like that. We're looking at an ordinance now
- amendment that allows the division of a lot, a large lot, into two. And that seems like a very simple
- thing. No, it's not. Let's say if you have a large lot and you have a house on the front and you want
- to have room for another house behind it, there are requirements about frontage and I mentioned the
- fire code.
- The fire code, more than you need to know, a standard fire hose is 150 feet long. And they have to be
- able to get from that right away, the main street, 150 feet back. So the building can't be any more
- than 150 feet from the, you know, from that truck on that hose, as measured by the hose. So we have
- to work that in. You also have to, a lot of those rear lots don't have stormwater drainage facilities.
- And how do you deal with that?
- because it's a small parcel. So those are some of the challenges we make. But we're working on it. We
- think we've figured out ways to do that. And we're excited by that. That's exactly what we're trying
- to do. And so you need to find ways to make that work. Because at first blush, it wouldn't work. But
- I think if you're creative, you can make that work. So that's what we're doing. And then as things like
- Hopewell come up,
- How do you use that land in the most efficient way like they're doing with 98 lots, I think you said,
- which would be terrific. And also the summit development is the same way. So that's a major emphasis.
- That's in everything that I think the city council is looking at and that we're executing on. And this
- process improvement then will help speed that up. If we get it right the first time, then you should
- be able to come in. That's called a class two permit. And then we just move you on.
- and help you get there. So that's our, one of our main goals or targets. I don't know, does that answer
- your question? Okay. So, you know, we talk about wanting to do more through the UDO. And what we also
- are cautious about is that every time we complexify the UDO, we create opportunities for it to contradict itself.
- we create pathways for things to actually make it harder to build good things. And one of the comments
- that we frequently get at the mayor's office is, why do you keep letting people build all these ugly
- apartments? Well, because the UDO allows them. And so, you know, what I would love is that we get to
- a place where we have a checklist of things that you really need to do
- But we want it to be ultimately very easy to build great things and difficult to build bad things.
- Right now, sometimes we have that backwards. And just to give an example for folks, accessory dwelling
- units, great idea. I own a piece of land. It has room for another small unit on it.
- I want to build it there. Well, by right you can. Yes, go do that. But unfortunately, financing means
- that you have to, unless you are personally wealthy, you have to remortgage your primary house to get
- a loan for that ADU, unless you can divide the lot. If you can divide the lot, you get a different mortgage.
- And so in today's interest rates,
- Almost nobody wants to remortgage their main residence in order to build an accessory dwelling unit.
- So in theory, the by-right zoning should perhaps even double the number of homes that we have for people,
- but the difficulty in getting there, which is not just about the UDO, makes it harder to do that. Who
- else has a question?
- Hello, I'm Colin Nielsen. I've lived here since I was seven, and I graduated the O'Neill School with
- a Master's in Public Affairs and Environmental Science. And I recently became employed with Patriot
- Engineering doing construction materials testing, mostly with concrete testing. So I've actually gotten
- to see some of the
- projects that are going on right now like with Kirkwood and the you know seeing things that I've advocated
- for in the past like curb bump outs and speed humps and things like that actually seeing those built
- is a pretty cool process and yeah well I used to complain about the construction during the summer back
- in the day but now it's keeping me employed so but anyways I have one question you mentioned about
- You first mentioned about Kirkwood and how there needs to be significant investment into that rather
- than a half approach. But I, you're also mentioning that you've had funding cut like in 30 million dollars
- from state law. So I'm wondering is Kirkwood, are Kirkwood improvements something that would not be
- prioritized with a budget shortfall like that or is that something that would still be on the table?
- The way the budget works is the administration presents a budget and the council can cut things, but
- they can't add things, right? That seems like a pretty straightforward approach. Our administration,
- my administration really tries to lead collaboratively in everything that we do.
- The council, we've invited and the council has provided their priorities to us for the past two years
- and then we get those ahead of when we prepare the budget. We respond to those in terms of here are
- our priorities and here's where we see some common ground and then we do our best to prepare a budget
- that meets those priorities. Talking about funding for something like Kirkwood is not
- as straightforward as just how much do the dollars, how many dollars does it cost to make these improvements?
- Because of course, a major improvement to Kirkwood could potentially increase economic development in
- the area, and that would have tax implications. And so it's not a, we have to look ultimately at the
- total anticipated ROI, including our investments in quality of place, right?
- And so it's not as cut and dry as, because we don't have a lot of money, we're not doing this. We have
- an RFP out for the Kirkwood corridor plan, and that takes the transportation plan into account. The
- transportation plan calls for Kirkwood to be a shared street, which means it's shared by all modes of
- transportation. That doesn't mean that
- It needs to be a big wide two lane 30 mile an hour road. It can be many things. And so I envision working
- not only with the council, but importantly with the public on how I'm getting input for that corridor
- plan and then trying to find a best case scenario for Kirkwood, whatever that may be for all of the
- people who live here and want to live here.
- Hi, my name is Emerson Aronte. I am actually not from Bloomington. I grew up outside of Boston, lived
- in Denver or Boulder for about 15 years. I married a girl from the Midwest who went to IU. And when
- we had our second kid, she said, we're moving back to the Midwest. And so I thought, well, OK. And we
- picked Bloomington because it's a great community. I affectionately described Bloomington as 70% of
- Boulder for 50% of the price.
- And I know Bloomington has a cost of living issue. I'm not trying to be tongue-in-cheek about it. But
- if you did the math, it is literally half the cost, which is insane. So I'm very optimistic and very
- invested in this community, so much so that I've decided to start a business, which has prompted me
- to engage with planning. And depending on the day, I can't tell if I feel bad for city planners or if
- I just disdain them. And I think the interpretation I've come to after looking at the UDO is that,
- I mean, they are doing what they're supposed to be doing, but in doing so, it strikes me as so nonsensical,
- the conclusions. And so I'm hoping you could elaborate on this concept of interpreting the UDO and how
- we can make it more sensical. And I'll give you an example. We're redoing the outdoor landscaping.
- We have a, I believe it's called Bradford pear. It's an invasive tree.
- The planning department emails me, we'd love you to get rid of the tree, we can't force you, but we'd
- love you to. Well, cutting trees now is expensive, you know, it's a big part of the canopy, I want the
- shade, I can't get rid of it, I'm sorry. Next email, okay, you need a tree protection plan for this
- tree. Right, and this person's doing their job, they're a very hardworking member of city government.
- But on my end, I think, OK, I'm paying an architect $125 an hour. They have to resubmit plans. It's
- another week of my life. I already signed the lease. My lease is now up for a week. And you do the math,
- and you think, that's real money for me. I mean, despite how I look, I'm not a millionaire. And so I'm
- putting a lot of personal capital in this business. And so these things, they just really piss you off.
- And so again, can you talk about?
- interpretation of the UDL and maybe how we can make it a bit more common sense. Well, a longer answer
- than you probably anticipated, but the way the system works is there is a state statute that enables
- Bloomington to do zoning. Any community, just any community. And it has a lot of things in it. You gotta
- do this, you gotta do that. So that's our overall. Then it comes down and the city council
- adopts this ordinance. And then it comes to planning, and we have to enforce it, right? We have to interpret
- it and enforce it. Interpretation is, we don't like the beer. We'd rather it told us what to do. And
- part of our communications plan I mentioned earlier is when you have a situation, you have a Bradford
- beer. That's an invasive species. OK.
- we can say, you know, that's an invasive species, but we can't tell you to get rid of it. And if you're
- gonna keep it, any tree needs a protection plan. I realize that seems contradictory. Yeah, but that's
- not for us to say. And what our communications plan, in the future when we would communicate that, we
- would tell you that the UDO does not require you to do this. And whether you do it or not, your permission
- will not depend on that.
- We need to take that out of the equation. You know, you won't be held back. You won't be penalized just
- because we suggested something. We won't do that. And as far as coordinating all that, that's what I
- talked about in this process of approval. We're going to look at just what you said. We do hear that
- quite a bit. Okay, wait a minute. Let's get organized here. Let's understand what we're doing and get
- you to that yes a lot quicker.
- Now, sometimes if you want to do things the UDO doesn't allow you, we will tell you and we will cite
- you the provision of the UDO that says you can't, okay? The UDO says you will have a tree protection
- plan, okay? Then you will. And that is it, okay? But we should be able to make that clear to
- you, understandable. Some of it we can explain, some of it we cannot. It was a policy that was established
- a long time ago. And often what we do is we learn from your situation.
- We go, wait, this is not practical. It doesn't work here. And then we have a process by which we keep
- a constant list of that, and we propose amendments to the UDO to eliminate those. Now, that doesn't
- help you. You don't want to be the guinea pig for this, but we are constantly doing that and looking
- at how we can make that better. But first, we start with our communications with you to make sure they're
- clear, they're timely,
- and we don't have you coming back and forth. I've been on your side of the fence for many years, have
- been involved in zoning for many years, and I understand cost. Okay? And we talk a lot about that now.
- You know, what does it cost when you walk in the door, how much have you spent by the time you come
- in? When we tell you to change something, you've got to go to your engineer and your architect. What
- does that cost? Okay? If you've borrowed the money, what's the cost of carrying the money? Those are
- real costs that delay causes
- what you're saying, your costs continue to increase, and there's nothing coming in the door. We're aware
- of that, and we do talk about that, and that's one of the main drivers of getting this process more
- efficient, quicker, and get it out the door. Or not. If it doesn't meet it, we'll tell you right away.
- But it's a speed thing, it's a process thing. I don't have a good answer for you right now, but I'll
- look at it, and we'll see where you are and what we can do.
- That's the best I can do. Have I sort of answered your question? No, you haven't. OK. I wanted to say
- more. Did you create a destruction plan for the invasive species? Yes. A protection plan. Well, no,
- we don't have a budget for it. We can't reward you.
- Good evening, this is Chris Broomsey from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. Thanks for having
- this, it's always fun. And I have not gone through the budget yet, Mayor Carey, so. So you would get
- off the hook tonight. So I'm gonna make this a question and a comment for the ageless Lynn Coyne. One
- of the things with our members I've been sort of tracking for a while is that reuse. So property that has been
- unused for a while and then a leasy comes in, they want to say, the second street, I think was an example
- of emergency vet that took a long time and a lot of cash. We've had one with an insurance agent on third.
- What can we do on that one to make that sticker shock of going into code maybe a little bit better?
- And then a couple other items, I was just curious, three weeks in, what are a couple like, oh, I didn't
- know that, coming from
- not a planned department, you know, you're not, you just didn't come from West Lafayette. You've been
- doing in Ivy Tech and BDC, some other things. What surprised you like the most coming in to this position
- and the department itself? Good questions. Well, let's deal with the change of use. The change of use
- is one of those, you know, every square inch of land in Bloomington is zoned. It's in some classification
- somewhere.
- But it doesn't matter to you until someone builds something next to you or you need to build something.
- Then all of a sudden it's top of mind, right? And so these things have been out there a long time but
- all of a sudden you just crash into them. And change of use is one of those that tends to be a surprise.
- A property goes vacant and it sits there for a while and then a new tenant comes in or a new owner comes
- in and they assume they'll just unlock the door and do business.
- No, what that does is trigger a change of use. When a change of use is triggered, you have to bring
- it up to current standards, and that includes landscaping. Maybe you have too much parking because now
- we have maximums and you're over the maximum, and you need to take some out and put some landscaping
- in and do some other things, accessibility and so forth. And that's what Chris is talking about. And
- we are looking at an amendment right now
- cooperation with Jane Cooper Smith from the Economic and Sustainability Development Department. She's
- very interested in this for obvious reasons because we need to get those properties occupied. We need
- to get those people employed. We need to get the economy going and delaying five, six months and then
- costing tens of thousands of dollars doesn't get that done. But it is the way it is in the code. And
- so we have, working with her, we have
- A proposed amendment that will relieve some of that, maybe hopefully help that process out a little
- bit more. And then clear communications with the people who are involved. And again, what happens is
- we're not the only department involved. For example, if you have 15 parking spaces and the code allows
- 10, then you have to remove five, okay?
- But when you remove five, you may crash into a stormwater problem. Well, that's not anticipated in the
- UDO. That's over in utilities and stormwater. Well, there are ways you can say, well, you will do this
- unless it contradicts another policy, and then they make the choice which one takes priority. If stormwater
- takes priority, there you go. That's the answer to that question. So we need to draft those kind of things.
- and also to the speed and what really is necessary to get that property turned around. It is the way
- it is right now, but we are looking at how we can make that a little better. And Jane Coopersmith is
- very focused on that. As far as the things that surprised me, so having been on the outside for decades
- and done lots of things, I am very, very happy with the staff. They're very knowledgeable.
- They care a lot about the UDO and making sure it's accurate. They absorb a lot, unjustly sometimes.
- And that's part of the communication. Make sure that we explain why it is we're doing what we're doing.
- And it's not because we don't like you or you're in some disfavor group or something like that. It is
- the way it is. When we do that, then you have a better understanding
- of why it is and whether you want to do something about it or not. But we will help you with this process
- and be as clear and transparent as we can with you. And the staff's been terrific. I mentioned this
- staff-led process change. Who else knows it better, right? And so they've been super helpful to me,
- very, very cooperative, and I've been thrilled with that. So that's been a great,
- I won't call it a surprise, but it's been very pleasant. It's been really terrific. I'll call it a surprise.
- They're great. And I also have been surprised at the number of new friends I have. I do not bring my
- own UDO to this party, right? I already have one, so we'll have to deal with the one we have. So I don't
- know if that answers your question.
- And I'm looking very much forward to speaking with the chamber or any group at all about how it works,
- what we're doing, what you can do to help. So I'm available. Second Wednesday of the month, 1.30
- this evening. OK, send me an email. And I am the interim. So the mayor may decide to find someone else.
- pretty sure I don't know. No, I plan on being there for a while. Don't get your hopes up, Lynn. Lynn
- came out of retirement for the 15th or 16th time to serve the city in this way. We're really grateful.
- And I will also say the other department heads have been terrific. I mean, I didn't have to reach out.
- They all reached out to me and want to help, want me to help them and communicate. It's been really,
- really great. The mayor's office has been
- Gretchen has been super helpful, the deputy mayor. So it's been a very, very pleasant experience. Hello.
- Is this on Zoom or is it? Be careful. I speak loud enough you don't need the mic, but I have
- more observations and concerns than I have questions. First of all, I support
- the closing of the not closing of Kirkwood around town in my bicycle mostly and closing Kirkwood to
- traffic makes it much more difficult for me to go through there on a bicycle than when it's in its current
- condition. So I'm glad you didn't do that. I have a concern about
- of the city's reactions to developing. My neighborhood, I've lived in this neighborhood like a couple
- blocks from here. Initially on Kirkwood and now on 8th Street since 1971. So it's longer than most of
- you have been alive, I think. The previous administration had
- our neighborhood under attack. And we've been trying to resist that. And we've felt less under attack
- since the change of administrations. And we're happy about that. And we appreciate, you had mentioned
- clearing, sleeping in downtown area. We appreciate the fact that the big encampment
- just north of the track over here has been closed for over a year now. And we really appreciate that,
- because it is creating a lot of trouble. The previous year, I cleaned up four encampments on my own
- property. Last year, it was zero. Right now, there is a king-size, extra-thick mattress in my wood.
- I don't know how they got it. I'm going to have to cut it in pieces and put it in my trash, fill up
- my trash for several weeks to get rid of it. My neighbor is a little bit concerned that keeping people
- from sleeping downtown will move them back over here again. So we need to be cautious about that.
- One problem we had recently, there is an out of town national developer, with not a very good reputation,
- building a huge apartment complex on Roger Street, when it backs up to Fairview. There are two problems
- that we have with that. Well, somebody mentioned ugly.
- ugly buildings. They are pretty nice brick facing and the lower levels on the top. They're doing cheap
- work. When you see the building from our neighborhood is going to be ugly. But that's not a real problem.
- The real problem was the city decided to let them
- off you know the city rather than comply with the tree requirements rather than having the required
- number of trees they are having almost no trees and they're paying the city to do this they said well
- we are buying trees for the city they're paying the city city has been buying trees for
- for as long as I've been in town. There are probably more newly planted trees in the cemetery right
- over here that borders my property than there are graves in it. The city has access to lots of trees
- that can plant. So allowing this developer to forego having the number of trees on his development
- and laying and buying the city some trees really bothers me and other people in our neighborhood. The
- other problem with this development is that they're having one access for, I think there are 700 beds,
- 750 beds in this thing projected. So it's a big, big apartment complex. Five buildings, I believe.
- You know, five stories tall, I think.
- They have one entrance onto Roger Street, which is a busy street. That entrance is right next to the
- V-Line Trail, so there will be issues with bikes and pedestrians. And they're having another entrance
- onto Fairview Street. Now, those of you who are not walking, when you leave here, go to the corner of
- Fairview and 8th Street, right at the
- no corner of the school property. Okay, very briefly. The city allowed them to put do a traffic study.
- They hired some of the new traffic. So when you hire somebody to do a traffic, say they're going to
- give you the answer you want. They are putting an entrance on the very narrow street right
- by school. One way out is over by the funky intersection by the river overpass on 11th. And the other
- is right by the school on 8th Street. And the traffic backs up there every day, like 20 cars backed
- up there picking up kids. And they're going to dump hundreds of cars onto the
- And we think that they should not be able to do that. They should put the seats up, put the cars on
- the busy street. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just address, I was trying to take notes on the various
- topics. I will address the trees and the traffic study briefly and then talk about homelessness.
- I think you're closing Kirkwood comment probably stands on its own. So this concept that the city would
- be planting trees no matter what is actually not true. We do buy those trees. We are not able to buy
- as many as we used to. And there are various reasons in
- both in code and because of the new stormwater ordinance that trees can't just be planted anywhere on
- a new development. And so those trees are valuable to the city, even if they're not on the
- actual development. And I'll just tell you as the mayor, my priority in looking at how we balance development with
- the lived environment is that we are really going to strive every step of the way to make the pedestrian
- experience as pleasant as possible, which means having spaces that can be shaded during the summer and
- that are at sort of a human scale wherever possible. And there are
- While we are a tree city and we have a lot of trees and we have been planting them by the thousands
- every year, the truth of the matter is that trees don't live forever and we have to be on a constant
- replanting. And so if a developer is removing trees, replacing them is necessary. And on a site like
- the one you're talking about,
- doesn't have any tree cover really it's an old scrap metal site and so the addition of trees is is an
- addition to the city so I understood yes and so I just I want to sort of it sounds like there's a concept
- that the city's taking a bribe to not not put trees on this site that's not happening we are
- going to invest those trees, the developer will pay for those trees, they will be planted and they will
- be in excess of what we already have. Those traffic studies are fairly expensive to do and that's why
- the city does not do them ourselves. While I appreciate that data can be skewed in many different ways,
- It's really important for us to have those traffic studies and we are trying actually to disperse traffic.
- That is part of our Safe Streets Initiative, not to put all of the
- cars onto one road, but instead to use some side streets as through streets, that is how a healthy,
- thriving community with safe streets actually works. And so while it's counterintuitive, hey, this street's
- kind of quiet, why would you add any more cars there? It's actually intentional. And that's the science
- and engineering behind the Safe Streets Initiative. I do wanna just speak to the,
- The homeless encampments, we have at last official count, 120 people sleeping outside in our community.
- My administration has been very committed to when an encampment gets to be unsafe, we close it and we
- keep it closed. We have been very successful. In fact, we have been perhaps more successful than any
- other place in the state at keeping those camps closed.
- we plan to do that even while we are closing zones of downtown to sleeping. This is really SB 285 was
- a Senate bill that illegalized sleeping outside on public property. It is in many ways forcing our hand
- in a way that's a little more rapid than what we're prepared for in terms of housing. It can also be
- looked at though as a real opportunity to call the community together and say, people can't sleep outside
- anymore. And so we know we need to get people inside. I personally have always believed a human being
- cannot thrive if they're not living inside. And so I think it creates a real call to action for our
- community. We already were working on this.
- now we need to work on it a little faster. And so when you, Bill and I have talked about this before,
- but it's very important to say this publicly. If you see people who are starting to sleep on a property,
- it's really important that you let us know at the city, because usually when one person starts sleeping
- in an area,
- Soon you will have four people sleeping in that area. And it's much, much harder once people get established
- in an area to relocate them. And we don't want to disturb people any more than we need to. And so as
- soon as they come, we need to get them services that they need so that they're not sleeping outside.
- Other questions?
- Thank you, Mayor. My name is Clark Greiner. I'm with the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation.
- First of all, I'm here purposely to say thank you for the progress you're making on the built environment
- and the development standards. I think the report that came out from the consultant on our development
- standards was very spot on, and I applaud you for taking that effort to address those things.
- Number two, I think Mr. Coyne is absolutely the right choice for this because we're really
- good at enforcement, we're good at the administration, but we also have now a good economic development
- side of that, so really taking a look at that. Number three, I think the process review and evaluation
- of that is critical because I think understanding those steps, and that's how our developers and our
- development community really looks at things, it's a very process-oriented
- type of program that they're in. And then the other vital thing that you mentioned, I think, is the
- communication side of it. On the communication side, not only internally into the development community,
- but one of the things that I think, and I guess I really don't have a question, I just want to make,
- I guess, a statement, my apologies for that, but Hugh's gonna get me on it anyhow, is that I think the
- communication should also go beyond just that, the development community, and also talking publicly
- about it through these
- town hall meetings, because one of the things that's happening in our industry from an economic development
- perspective is that AI is becoming more and more prevalent by site selectors. And those are the deciders
- and decision makers of site locations. And so when they go out and scrape all the publicly available
- information that's out on our public systems, they'll see certain things that have been written about
- that. And I think it would behoove all of us, because we have a wonderful community, you've heard it
- from everybody here,
- wonderful things that are going on. If we could start that process now and talk even about some of the,
- even if they're small wins, it's worth talking about to start to populate that information out there.
- And it is great information to talk about. We'd be happy to work in collaboration with that if there's
- anything that we can do. But it's all about that. The housing that you're doing right now in Hopewell
- is gonna help bring more opportunities for people to live here, which is gonna increase
- you know, hopefully revenue with regards to the assessed value and everything else. So I think you're
- absolutely in the right track. I think being able to extend sewer out to the airport, if that need arises,
- I applaud you for that too. So thank you for all those considerations and moving in the right direction
- from an economic development perspective and from how we look and view that side of the world. So thank
- you very much. Thanks, Clark.
- Okay, thanks for joining us for a while, Bill. We have some here who have not asked questions. It's
- not required, but if you have a comment or wanna ask a question, please feel free. We're right about
- time, but I just wanted to not exclude people. Nobody's jumping up. Can you do it in like one sentence?
- Okay. Yeah, I suppose. I guess I suppose I could ask you a question about how your priorities might
- have changed regarding big projects such as, you know, the College and Walnut Corridor, the Third and
- Atwater Corridor, the Kirkwood improvements, or in like Second Street, for example.
- be putting in a bike lane there as well. I'm wondering if your priorities might be different compared
- to like the previous planning director or like what projects you care about more or which or what might
- be different going forward. There's actually no change in priority. Just want to make sure we're data
- driven. We know what we're doing. The background support for that is there and it is.
- The studies that have been done are solid. They use good information. And so when we come up with a
- plan or a strategy, we know that's the right way to go. And that's really what I've been doing, is just
- asking those questions. And it is. It's there. The data's there. So as we look forward to implementing
- those various things, so that you and I and everybody in the community can feel solid that it's the
- right thing to do. And that's been my presentation.
- Glad to have you, Lynn. Glad to have each and every one of you. Thank you for participating in the civic
- process today. And we are, I just want to wave to Jennifer. Jennifer is my assistant. She is sometimes
- the front door to getting things done, so it's important that you know who she is.
- We do, every other month I do a traveling town hall. The months that I'm not doing traveling town halls,
- I do traveling office hours. And so next month we will have traveling office hours. You do sign up for
- those because they're one on one and we don't want to waste your time waiting for other people to get
- done talking. But everybody is invited to traveling office hours if you have something that you need.
- some one-on-one time or just some more focused attention on. So enjoy the rest of your summer. Summer
- goes until the 21st of September. So we are, towny summer is about to end, but summer is still with
- us. Enjoy the rest of your summer and I'll hope to see you soon.