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.