- I'm going to call to order the order the city of Bloomington Plan Commission for July 14th 2025. Glad to see so many people in attendance today. It's rare for us to get this kind of audience. So yay. Thanks for being here. We have a number of things on our agenda today.
- I'm gonna go through just the agenda to make sure that you know, you're in the right place We are we were delayed a little bit here at the start due to assuring that we have quorum today We have five members at least we'll do an official roll call momentarily to assure that we have the requisite number of planned commissioners today
- But our agenda is will approve some minutes. We will seek any reports resolutions and communications. Then we have a couple of petitions that have been sitting tabled S.P. twenty four dash twenty two zero thirty four dash twenty three zero one twenty five that are currently sitting. And then we have some active petitions or petitions we hope to act on this evening.
- One is S.P. twenty two dash twenty four Morningside Holdings LLC on forty six hundred East Morningside Drive. And then we have a series of seven that are associated with unified development ordinance the U.D.O. These are sections of
- that address allowed use and text amendments and associated allowed use changes. Well we're handling seven things separately. So that's the agenda for this evening. But before we do anything further we do need to make sure we have we know who's here. So would you mind calling roll please. Ballard here. Seymour here. Holmes.
- Kinsey here Stossberg here. All right. Thank you very much. All right. So we are at quorum with with five members and we're grateful to have a new member with us this evening and maybe we'll allow Eric or Jackie to tell us anything new about them or allow him to say hello but welcome Patrick. We're glad you're here. Thank you. Thank you very much. We first have some minutes.
- to approve. So do we want to do some minutes for June 9th. Everybody got those this afternoon or at least last Friday. We have a motion for the minutes to approve June 9th 2025 minutes. Second. All right. Any comments on minutes. They look good to me too. All right.
- We want to have a roll call vote on these then for minutes. Seymour. Yes. Holmes. Yes. Kinsey. Yes. Stossberg. Yes. Ballard. Yes. All right. So minutes from June 9th are approved. Any reports resolutions and communications first from staff. No. All right. OK. Well again I will just.
- Thank Patrick Holmes for joining us on the commission and really glad you're here. Thanks Patrick. All right. Ready to move right into some petitions if we don't have any other I should ask if any of the commissioners have any reports or announcements of any sort. OK. All right. OK.
- Let's move to petitions. So we do as I mentioned have several tabled. Those will just sit if there's nothing to report from staff so we can start right away with petition SP 22 dash 24 Morningside Holdings LLC 4600 East Morningside Drive and we have case manager Eric Grulick here to present.
- Eric Krulick development services manager. So this is a petition for 4600 East Morningside Drive. The petitioners are here tonight to request an extension of the site plan that was previously approved on June 10th 2024 under case number SP dash 22 dash 24. So real quickly and without going through the all the specifics of that petition I'll just kind of give a brief overview. This was a petition for major site plan approval.
- to allow for an approximately one hundred and ten thousand square foot self storage building over on forty six hundred East Morningside Drive. So the property was on mixed use medium scale in June of last year the planning commission heard and approved a site plan
- Petition for that site to allow for the site to be developed with a self storage building The site plan approval has one year for the petitioner to receive a site development permit There were several conditions of approval that were on that approval that the petitioner has spent quite an amount of time working towards So they've outlined that in the packet in their petitioner statement all of the things that they have been working on in that past year However, a site development permit was not issued before that expires
- They did apply for the extension before it expired. So they are coming forward tonight to simply request an extension for that. So with that, we are recommending that the plan commission approve their request for an extension. And we have outlined a one year extension.
- Certainly it can be up to the Planning Commission of a length of time that they would want to grant but we are recommending the maximum one-year extension and Just real quickly, you know, nothing has changed in the UDO That would affect this petition. The petitioners could have come forward and refiled the exact same petition Before it expired and we'd be still reviewing it under the same laws that were in effect So nothing has changed it from the UDO perspective that would impact this site plan
- So with that we're happy to answer any questions. All right. OK. Do we have the petitioner here. Thanks and please state your name. Daniel Butler by companion associates with me tonight. I have Tyler Curry and Tim Hansen. They're representing the ownership group.
- along with Bill bags he is with Bunger Robinson and He also can answer any questions as Eric was mentioning we feel like in order to answer some of the Conditions that were put on this project a year ago in order to have a timeline on that We took the time and put together a little you know kind of synopsis of how you know
- Our time was spent in order to get to this spot here and so we're asking for your extension tonight in order to keep going The project is currently in its last reviews. Well, hopefully last reviews with Engineering and planning and along with CBU we're on our third round with CBU at this time so we and there's only a couple comments left and then engineering and planning are in review of that as well, so we we believe reasonably that it should be we'll have a
- Approved site plan within the next month month or two But we're happy any of us to answer any questions that you might have Great alright, so do we have questions from the commissioners to either Eric from the office or our petitioner? I see zio 1925
- And it limits self storage to certain types of zoning. Is that the type of zoning that this will be put in. Is that going to change if this amendment passes. Yes. So this is the amendment that will be discussed later tonight would potentially impact future uses of this nature in this zoning district but it would not have any implications.
- on this exact extension request tonight because like I said they filed this request prior to any of the changes that were being brought forward tonight you know what is being brought forward tonight is not law yet it is not law until the council passes it and the mayor signs it so but yes it would be something that could be affected or type this type of petition
- Yeah, and please make sure your mic is turned on so that everybody can hear you if they're a little green light on Yeah, so it would not affect that because like I said They filed this so they were vested by the laws that were in place at the time that they filed So there the laws like I said did not impact the petition They could have filed for the exact same site plan approval and we would have been bound to review it by the UDO that was in place at that time
- So what happens does it become a non-conforming? Use exactly so so if this amendment one of these amendments that we're proposing tonight that would limit the zoning districts where self storage Is proposed to be allowed if that were to go through council and then ultimately signed by the mayor and become law This would be a non-conforming use. Okay, but their petition is judged and approved according to the way things were at the time it was filed initially so a change in the interim
- It doesn't affect them moving forward at all. Correct. OK. Any other questions. Yes. I actually know the answer to this because I called Mr. Grulick earlier and asked him but for the sake of the rest of the public and also the commission the recommendation includes a one year extension until June 9th 2026. Then can you tell everybody.
- what our options are for how long of an extension we could do. Yes as I mentioned in the presentation that's certainly up to the plan commission of how long they want to extend it. The UDO only allows for a maximum of one year. So you could do an extension of three months or four months or five months. You know if they don't get it accomplished if they don't get a site development permit within that time they can come back and ask for an extension again. But it would never be able to go past that one year from the June 10th 2024
- initial start so June 10th 2025 is when their one year could be the maximum extension from I guess I have one follow on from that the petitioner indicated that these things could probably be resolved more quickly than a year. So you are indicating some positive action on these issues. Is it your preference to have a year to complete these or would you prefer to have it
- Wrapped earlier. What's your preference on this? Our preference is a year, but we don't do not anticipate it taking but more than a month or two to have a permit in hand to be able to start working on the site and
- We anticipate starting construction this fall, of course, so I don't know how that would affect or what the ruling You know is on if we need another extension beyond that at that point We believe there would be a permit extension and not necessarily an extension of a major site plan review at that point But I don't see I Don't see why we would need a year. But at the same time, I mean if that's something that's prefer, you know Okay, then we prefer that
- Thank you. Yeah otherwise we would have to hear something again should some other condition or some other issue come up. But if your preference aligns with what staff is recommending we can continue this. OK. All right. Anybody else. All right. Any public comment on this proposal.
- And I know we have a couple people on Zoom. So if you are on Zoom and have a comment about SP 22-24, Morningside Holdings, LLC, if you have a comment, please raise your hand or communicate in chat that you would like your microphone to be turned on and we can do that for you. Anything, Eric? I see some chat.
- Something there but to this so again if there's anybody on zoom that would like to speak please use the raise hand function or send a message via chat and we can recognize you and I'm not seeing anyone making any movement in the audience here sensing you're no one leaning forward. All right. So if we don't have anyone on zoom and it doesn't look like anyone's going to approach the podium there we might
- be ready to move to a motion on this one. So last year I voted against this position at this petition and part of that was philosophical because self storage is a horrible use of land resources. And I kind of knew it was going to pass. It was basically written in. It was it was very close to being a by right kind of was a by right build. But I.
- did not want that kind of use over there in that area.
- At that time, I started working on trying to limit self-storage as an allowed use in Bloomington. And it's really frustrating to me that we're seeing this extension on the very day that we actually managed to see the petition to modify the UDO to change self-storage as an allowed use. So that's very frustrating to me. And I know that legally, we don't have much recourse right now in granting this extension. But I will not vote affirmatively on a year extension. The longest I will allow them is a three-month extension, which would validate it only until September
- 2025 so I don't know what other plan commissioners think about only allowing that extension of three months But that is where I'm standing firm this evening. Thank you All right, so We can take a motion if you would like to make a motion for a shorter time span I Guess
- They don't usually make plan commission motions. So I guess that would mean that I would recommend to approve the request for an extension with the following conditions of approval. One that all conditions of the approval of SP 2024 are still valid and to that the approval granted on June 10th 2024 shall be effective continuously from the original approval date through September 9th 2025.
- So we have a motion on the floor for a shorter time span for the approval. We have any comments on this. Do we want to talk about it before we second a motion. I know I was not here. That was the meeting one meeting I missed last year. I would have voted in favor of it because it basically is a by right project. I can understand your frustration. I totally get that.
- But I don't think there's any point in lessening it if if Eric is saying this is what we agree on petitioners already said this is what we agree on then we leave well enough alone and let them proceed because I don't feel like it's you know cutting it to three months. We know how things can happen. They didn't expect to be here a year later asking for an extension. So I don't think that's that's fair. As a good as it as we go forward with it then those changes can happen maybe tonight.
- Thank you. Have any other comments or concerns as a point of order? I think we need a second before we can talk about a motion, don't we? Probably yes. Yes, probably. All right. Okay. So do we want to act on this motion that was offered by Commissioner Stasburg? Do we have a second on this motion? If we don't have a second, then it would
- die for lack of a second. We'll give it a second. Or I should say a moment, not a second. Yeah. All right. Hearing no second for the motion that was proposed, it does not continue. Yes. All right. So now we're back to, do we have a motion on this one? Another motion.
- for an extension of the site plan approval with the following conditions all conditions of approval of S.B. twenty two dash twenty four is still valid. The approval granted on June 10th twenty twenty four shall be effective continuously from the original approval date through June 9th twenty twenty six. All right. OK so we have a new motion for consideration. And do we have a second.
- I'll second. Thank you. OK. We have a second on this motion. Now today is you know it's July in Bloomington. So we have five members present and we need five members to vote in one direction or the other to take action. So just so people are aware this is this is not typical for us. Normally we have a nine member commission and there's some there's some leeway for dissenters.
- So if we're ready for a vote unless anyone has any other comments Yes, Commissioner seaboard Ask a question at this time. Okay Recognizing that I guess just to confirm with staff. So for what happens if they're If we can't pass either of the motions that have been proposed at this point what happens to the petitioner Need to make a motion to continue it to another event when you do have quorum
- Per rules and procedures in the absence of a majority to vote to determine final disposition the request Petition or resolution shall be administratively continued to the next regularly scheduled meeting So if the five of you don't vote to continue it and you can't agree on any one motion Then it will be administratively continued to the August Plain Commission hearing Okay, and in the interim that looks like their original approval has expired and so there would not be a permit issued until we
- Hypothetically, you'll have to talk to the legal department about that. Yes. Okay, not sure I'm not sure on the exact answer on that one Okay, and then if I could ask another question of the petitioner Understanding the situation that we might be in. Can you respond to concerns or ideas about? thresholds and timelines Again, we believe that we're very very close to having a
- Permit and we certainly I mean three months is tight Just because some of that is out of our hands sometimes CBU the other departments need more time to have an accurate review and get comments back to us and Have time to work. So we're asking tonight. Would you work with us on this timeline a little bit? So there isn't you know, all sudden three months passes. We don't have it Sometimes CBU needs their time to review and we understand that and so sometimes that's as much as we can it is
- It can be out of our hands sometimes we're asking for you to work a little bit on that timeline. If you're not comfortable with passing a year we understand but three months it may be a little tight just because of some of those factors. I do believe that it would have a month or two but that feels a little tight to us in my opinion. All right.
- So we have a motion that has been seconded and someone else is approaching the podium but we're not in a position to have a question or comment on this a public comment. Okay. You are the petitioner. Okay. Yes please state your name and indicate your affiliation for the record. My name is Tim Hansen with WS property group where the owners of the property and I don't know if you went through the packet
- One of the delays on this there are three conditions of approval that were placed on the petition and I have a timeline and that was I created the timeline that was me personally dealing with the easements that were requested by the city that we started on after the approval and after the conditions came out in June of last year we started in July working with AT&T on the permits and getting the easements from them so that
- our buyer could have those easements. And you can see that timeline took from July pretty much consistently until October. And then AT&T went dark. They stopped communicating with us. We went some back channel routes and wrote some other correspondence with them only to find out in January that they sold the property to rain capital. Both AT&T buildings in town were sold to
- a third party investor as part of a package deal across two years that I think was like one point two trillion dollars of AT&T residual properties. So we had to start over in January working with another company that wasn't familiar with us to get these easements done which we finally got signed and recorded in May of this year. So we couldn't proceed until May of this year. Then
- They started working on their final approvals and what was requested with CBU and getting their applications put together. So three months again I spent better part of a year working with one company that I couldn't control to try to get those conditions met. And I know they've been working for about a month with CBU.
- And I assume everybody's here is working in good faith to get these done. Three months can go by pretty quick when you're going back and forth on rounds of comments between three different departments with the city and getting back as well as the building department because they can't get their building permit till they got a letter of zoning compliance and that can take six months and a heartbeat. So I think three months.
- Where I think they would like to agree to three months. I think they'd be right back here asking for an extension. And really what the meeting is about tonight is do they have a valid reason to get an extension on approval that they received. Not about what the approval was for. Thank you. Thank you for answering the questions. All right. So yes. Commissioner Stasberg.
- you and I recognize that you've put a lot of work into this and I know that that AT&T building selling probably really like messed up your timeline but I'm still standing hard on that three-month extension and I'm doing so because self storage is a horrible use of land resources whether or not we allow it right now is like a different kind of legal question but the option that we have up here is Plan Commission in terms of whether or not we vote to approve this is how long we approve it for.
- Okay, how long we approve it for that's the choice that I feel like I have so I am prepared to give a three month extension and if that means that you're back here again, then that means that you're back here again and I'm okay with that and part of the reason why I'm doing this just for the multiple public who are here watching this meeting for other reasons, so I'm the district three council representative and that is in district three and I cannot count on two hands
- I don't even think I can count on my on my fingers and my toes. The number of residents who contacted me directly last year saying Hopi, how can like, how can we do this? How can we happen? And like, how can this happen? And then also can, can we make sure that this doesn't happen again? And then be moaning the fact that that was probably going to be the last self storage unit that that border residential areas in that way.
- And it is on a green way and and it was hugely problematic to me last year and it remains hugely problematic to me. So I'm sticking by that three months because that is the only like legal thing that I can really have any effect on changing at this point in this petition. So thank you. So we do have a motion on the table and I'll just add a comment that I I do not.
- want to relitigate the conditions of this proposal. I think that there's already been a vote on the recommendations a year ago. I'm not interested in reexamining all of that right now. And Commissioner Stossberg I respect your position because you also voted no.
- on the original proposal. So in some ways I completely understand the concern not to approve this as a way to continue your previous vote. However, I don't see the, I see the petitioner's concern as valid, a valid reason for a request for an extension. There's nothing new introduced in this. I thought the synopsis was well specified and if
- If they were able to meet all of the conditions to get the permit, it would continue without us granting an extension. So that's where I am right now. So unless anyone else has a comment to make about this at all. I mean, I think the point is, what are we voting for? A time extension. What's done is done. Everything was approved. We're at this step now.
- I think it's a slippery slope as commissioners and I'll say this while I respect it, I don't agree with being able to take your vote now and be able to subject it back a year ago. That failed. That didn't happen. I understand there was a lot of dissent and people didn't want it. What's done is done. I think a better use of our time is approving it based on the valid reasons they have, move it forward and then get something else on the agenda while a lot of people wait for something else. I don't think we should, yeah, stonewall this anymore.
- the original one that's completely legitimate to vote no on the extension I'll vote yes if we only extend it for three months I'm voting no to extend it for a year just to be clear and transparent with with my position I guess I'm not sure what three what the three month why three months why not six why not one month
- Can you explain that? It feels like the least amount of time that is potentially reasonable. I also just heard the petitioner say that he thinks they're actually one or two months away from this. Yeah, I guess in a spirit of trying to work to some sort of action here versus what sounds like it could be an administrative continuance otherwise, I'll invite the petitioner if you want to comment on this.
- We're trying to we're trying to work here. So I appreciate all of you discussing Hopi, you know, and we would over a continuance we would take three months. All right. It will take three months. I think that's what I heard.
- You take three months we believe we can do in that we'd take that over a continuance even though yes we would have to the other departments would have to work with us but we believe we're pretty far along and I appreciate will be working with us on that. All right. Does staff want to weigh in at all about that shift to a motion for the one year and has been seconded. So that would either need to be withdrawn and a new motion put forward. I'll withdraw the motion.
- Okay. All right. She can make her original motion again. All right. So I guess I'll move my original motion back again that to approve the request for an extension with the following conditions of approval. One all conditions of approval of SP 22 24 are still valid and to the approval granted on June 10th 2024 shall be effectively shall be effective continuously from the original approval date through
- September 9th 2025 All right, so that's motion do we have a second second All right. So now we have a motion and a second any further comment or concern on this one All right, we might be ready for a vote on this one if Yes Stossberg yes
- Ballard yes seabor yes Kinsey yes All right. Okay. Well, that's a way to work through this we needed five and we have five to take action So we this one passes with the three-month extension All right Are you ready to go on to the next? series of unified development ordinance UDO
- Approve as we are taking these one by one. So Eric would you like to lead us off please. This next and I'll just kind of briefly go through them in an overview overview and describe the process and then we'll present each one individually here public comment vote on that and then move on sequentially down the line. So we have a series of use table amendments that are coming forward tonight.
- One of these, the first one, the single room occupancy is prompted by a resolution from council directing the planning commission to prepare changes to the UDO in relation to single room occupancies. So that is the first thing. We have a petition to add a new use urban agriculture commercial to the use table, an amendment to modify the zoning districts where self storage warehouses are allowed, a series of amendments
- that have been grouped together due to their simplicity for fraternities or sorority houses, the office and artist studio use.
- Vehicle fleet operations. Those are all grouped together in one amendment as they simply amend small changes in the UDO in terms of you specific standards that some of those apply to those another amendment for vehicle fuel stations Another amendment for vehicle wash and then the last one for tattoo or piercing parlor So real quickly, these are all use table amendments. These were noticed to the public with a request
- request for a waiver from the required second hearing any changes to the zoning map Required two hearings by the Planning Commission and then they go to the Cal and Council for final action So the hearings tonight are simply the first of two scheduled hearings Some of these petitions tonight will be requesting a waiver for the second hearing some of them We will be not and I'll reference that as I go through each one of those specific petitions
- So as I mentioned, the first one tonight is one for single room occupancy. And as I also mentioned, this was generated from a resolution that came from the common council. So they passed a resolution last year, 2024 dash 25, which directed the plan commission to prepare a proposal consistent with their resolution that paid special attention to seven different aspects that were in that resolution. Real briefly, some of
- those.
- aspects were to pay attention to allowing flexible building types that could be accomplished through a single room occupancy distinguishing between this new use and an existing use that is was still is in the UDO called residential rooming house to look at permitting SROs in multiple zoning districts removing the owner occupancy requirement that is associated currently with residential rooming houses looking at ways to
- to encourage the use of SROs within the community as a way to offer lower rent and better housing options allowing them to be integrated into mixed use buildings and allowing two people per single room occupancy.
- So the single room occupancy is is very similar to an existing land use that we have in the udio Called residential rooming house. So that land use is characterized by a situation where you have one kitchen one bathroom facility In an area in a dwelling unit in a building and then everybody just simply rents a bedroom and you share those common facilities So we do have some of those in Bloomington. Those have predominantly been established by co-op
- slops where you have multiple bedrooms sometimes nine bedrooms sometimes more in residential neighborhoods. And so those have existed sporadically throughout the community for a while. We have had some situations where people have established these in commercial districts. We've had conversations where people have looked at establishing these as a possible reuse for a hotel and single room occupancy. These are something that you see in a lot of communities throughout the country and they're accomplished in a variety
- different ways.
- One of the challenges that we had as we were dealing with this amendment and specifically for our challenges here in Bloomington is how to try to address the housing needs that the council envisioned with this new change while not just finding a way to enable more rentals and student renters within our neighborhoods. So that's obviously something that we're very cognizant of and something that is always a fine line that we have to be careful of. And so that's why we've
- kind of.
- come forward with what is shown tonight. So again you know and just for everyone at home this is simply a starting point to kind of get some reaction get some comments. There might very well be changes to what you see on the screen and what's presented tonight versus what we see again next month. So I'll just kind of step through what we have shown right now and try to compare that a little bit with the residential rooming house use that is currently in the zoning code. So currently right now the residential rooming house land use is something that's allowed in
- in all of the mixed use districts and was allowed in the multifamily districts in the multifamily districts. It did carry with it an owner occupancy requirement. So we are proposing to remove that component and we are proposing to add this as a conditional use in the single family districts.
- So in the R1 R2 R3 and R4 this is proposed to be a conditional use with the use specific standards. There would also be these use specific standards would apply in some of the mixed use districts. So what we are proposing tonight is in the R1 and R2 districts a maximum of three bedrooms would be allowed in each SRO.
- In the R3 and R4 districts a maximum of five bedrooms are allowed. We've proposed that there would be a limitation or a prohibition more specifically on these bedrooms having bathroom facilities immediately adjacent to that. And the reasoning for that is we typically see those associated with student rentals. Those uses typically always have bathrooms immediately accessed by the bedrooms. So one of the purposes with the single room occupancy
- is that we're trying to promote a lower rent a lower footprint for the building that you're utilizing and make sure that you are using those common facilities and that is being
- Use in the way in the way that we've envisioned. So that's why there is the prohibition on bathrooms within there We've also proposed a 150 foot buffer that would carry along with these So in the situation and the resident in the single-family and the r1 r2 r3 and r4 There would be 150 foot buff buffer established around those SROs that would last for two years So that's something similar that we've seen with the duplexes So that would kind of prevent an aggregation
- or over saturation of them in a particular area. And so with the conditional use that would have to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals. So the Board of Zoning Appeals would review that. So this is this is just creating a path for these to come forward. It would still have to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals if somebody wanted to establish these in the R1 R2 R3 or R4 districts. We also have.
- Another use specific limitation or requirement that newly created ones would have to be similar in design to adjacent buildings again something that we see with the duplexes. So this is something that we're trying to.
- balance between allowing something new and different within the neighborhoods. Well again as I mentioned trying to make sure that it's not monopolized by student rentals and just a way to get more rentals in areas where we're not trying to you know that's not the housing need that we're trying to fill with this proposal.
- So with this it would carry with it also a change to the maximum parking table that would require the renaming from the residential rooming house to single room occupancy as well as some modifications to the definitions removing the previous references to residential rooming house replacing those with single room occupancy. We've also proposed changing the definition of residential rooming house to what is shown in the packet. So again this is just trying to accomplish
- what is envisioned with these where you have somebody who is renting a room simply a room in the building and making use of other shared facilities throughout the building. So kitchen areas living areas bathroom facilities and so yes also just kind of striking some of the other references to residential rooming house and replacing those with single room occupancy.
- So as I mentioned we expect there will be a lot of dialogue a lot of input on this one so tonight we are just simply treating as a Path to hear those thoughts and suggestions from the Planning Commission as well as the public So we are recommending that this be forwarded to the required second Planning Commission hearing in August and with that I'm happy to answer any questions Great. All right. Thank you. All right, so I
- We don't have a petitioner for this one so we go right to write the comments and questions on this one. Do we have some from commissioners. So there we currently have residential rooming house and you want to change it to a single room occupancy would the single room occupancy.
- be allowed any place where residential rooming houses are currently not allowed. Yes. So we are proposing to add that as a new conditional use in the R1 R2 R3 and R4 zoning districts houses are not allowed in our one correct. So this would be a way to
- get these established in other areas where somebody is trying to reuse a house or make better use of a house now and they want to do something different. So if you had a five bedroom house and so the reason you know in these particular districts in the R1 and the R2 we're proposing a maximum bedroom of three in those districts in the R3 and R4 we're proposing a maximum bedroom of five. You know the R3 and the R4 districts are the core neighborhoods. They're closer to facilities and services. You know you've already kind of got a lot more compact urban
- than you have in the typical more suburban subdivision. So it felt more appropriate to have a higher bedroom count in areas closer to the downtown and the established areas.
- And so that's that's the differences between those two districts, but it would be a conditional use in all of those districts the single family that I mentioned Okay, and conditional means what? Great question So this is as I mentioned this is just establishing a path that if a project wanted to do this They would also then have to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals on a situational basis when they wanted to establish this on a certain property And what's the standard for decision on that?
- So the conditional use has seven or eight different standards in the UDO that they are evaluated on. Some of those are just compliance with the general standards of the UDO. That would also mean compliance with the use specific standards, compliance with any other applicable regulations that might exist for state or federal government, compliance with the CBU, compliance with the comprehensive plan, a phasing plan if that was a component of one of these.
- the basic other requirements for a conditional use review was it like a hard checkbox yes or no it complies with those and if it does it gets passed or how much discretion it can be a little bit subjective. You know the comprehensive plan encourages uses throughout the community and a wide range of forms. Certainly neighbors and situations there might be one where this use might not be appropriate there. So it's hard to generalize but it can be subjective. Some of them are objective. Obviously you meet the
- The bedroom count you know the use specific standards are for the most part pretty objective the comprehensive plan can be a little bit more subjective and certainly neighbors can have a say in this. You know that's why it's a public process. That's why there's another approval that would be heard when somebody wants to establish this at a specific location. So that's where neighborhood input would come into play as part of that.
- Okay thank you and then the other question I had you mentioned that they're trying to not have these be dominated by student housing and maybe you could explain that again how like what what part of this is designed to achieve that end.
- Yeah, so again, that's hard because we can't control who somebody rents to. What we can try to address are the things, the commonalities that we see in things that make things more enticing for student rentals. So that would be the bathrooms that every single bedroom has. So when we see these new developments that are going in throughout the community, especially anything that's oriented for students, every single one of them has a bathroom attached to the bedroom. So by eliminating that, hopefully that makes it a little bit less likely. There are other things
- things that could be incorporated such as a maximum bedroom size. You know that could be something that keeps it at a smaller scale. But otherwise you know that that was something that was a challenge for staff of you know how do you make sure that it is not being utilized by this because you can't discriminate against that. So it's that's that's a hard one or certainly open to other ideas. So I have a lot of like
- Questions on this slash concerns about how it's currently worded So I guess the first thing I want to ask is we because because you were just talking about the maximum number of bedrooms and I really do feel like that's a little bit reversed because our one and our two districts tend to have larger houses and larger lots and our three and our four tend to have smaller houses and smaller lots I just checked our UDO and we don't actually have a definition of what a bedroom is and so
- Is there a state definition of what constitutes a bedroom legally? I don't I don't from a building code perspective There are probably requirements such as a window egress I don't know that there is a minimum bedroom size But that's certainly something that we can look into and get you some more information on Well, I'll take generally like my questions and concerns about this center around
- health and safety of residents and not, whether the residents are students or not, not jamming too many people into a small space. And if you have a typical, say, three-bedroom house, and all of a sudden somebody goes, ooh, if I turn it into an SRO, then I could actually make five bedrooms in there, and can I turn the living room into a bedroom? Can I turn this into a bedroom? So I feel like our definition of SRO might need some
- improvement to define how many common spaces do we really need to have, or could every study or living room be turned into a bedroom? And that maybe could be guidance that would need to be given to the BZA, specifically around SRO development, or maybe putting it into the definition.
- like into the standards as they are. And I also wonder, so if you can have a maximum of five bedrooms, do you have to have five bedrooms? And could the BZA somehow be given guidance around what would be appropriate in any particular petition for an SRO in terms of how many bedrooms would be appropriate per square footage, per something?
- That was like half a comment and half a question. I don't know. It's kind of a question, but I don't know if it's a question you can answer right now. I think comments are appropriate at this stage of early. Early. Do you have a response back, or are you just writing that down? I am writing those down, and I will try to have some responses by next time in terms of BZA determining number of bedrooms.
- That makes me a little bit squeamish. So we'll research what you're trying to look at and see if we can have some responses maybe that might try to I hear what you're saying and what you're looking for. Yeah. I mean it makes me squeamish to to like I mean I think that anything going through the BCA needs to be like I think the BCA needs to get really good guidance on approvals and what they should approve and we should try to take out as much of the
- kind of personal judgments as possible. So yeah the latter part there is certainly that we try to take out the subjective aspects as much as possible from the BZA to make that process a little bit more predictable and not so legally challenging. But I hear what you're looking for. Yeah. I have more things to say that are unrelated to that. So I don't know if you should see who else might want to comment before I go.
- Hand permitting process, what's their input on this? Yeah, so they would they would inspect these and register them Yeah, they're the oversight yeah, so they would be doing the inspections on these okay. Thank you All right, I guess I have a question about One is the whether there could be a use specific description of
- that might specify the shared space requirements. And I wonder if there was any consideration in describing and the use specific standards. Is there any value or possibility for describing the shared space in a way that might help clarify expectations for shared space? That's a question. I don't know. Maybe you already know the answer to that.
- No I don't I don't have an answer and we don't have any similar regulations right now that I can point to and say this has been our experience with that. You know you see a wide range of shared spaces. You know those could be study halls or not study halls but study rooms. You know there could be living areas that could be you know gaming areas or other common facilities. So you know it's hard to lump it all together with one thing as well as to say you know this is too much.
- You know the controlling the number of sleeping rooms helps control the number of occupants which controls, you know impacts on adjacent properties, which is something that we hear from neighbors a lot when it terms to you know regulating density or how that's approach and impacts on neighborhoods. So the number of people within a facility really kind of correlates to the impacts that we is what our typical experience has been.
- Yeah okay thank you for that clarification and I guess my other question that I had it right from the outset was you know what what happens to the rooming the old rooming house the residential rooming house is there any effect on the places and sites that have already been granted or have that status. So those are all grandfathered you know if there are any of these situations that were established and were legally
- Developed those are all grandfathered if they don't meet something certainly they can also you know choose to you know if there's a standard here that would enable them to have a greater capacity you know they can certainly come forward for one of these approvals. Yeah that was one of the questions I had was how much this might allow them even more space or to do things even more offer even more opportunities.
- for the ones that are already dedicated as residential. Yeah you know there are only a handful you know maybe 10 or so rooming houses and co-op houses kind of scattered around the residential areas. All right. Any other questions comments comments are OK at this point too. I have more if we're ready for round two.
- I guess following up on the last thing you said so like current my understanding because I've asked this is that there aren't any current residential rooming houses but we do have current like cooperative living houses. There are some grandfather's rooming houses that are not co-op houses. There's only a few. OK. And this change won't affect them and won't affect the like cooperative living houses that we currently have. Like they will be like totally fine. Yep.
- Okay, great, I wanted to make sure of that. And then kind of to follow up on actually what I was saying before, because I had another thought about the bedroom thing and privacy, because all of a sudden I was like, ooh, should we require that each bedroom in an SRO have a locking door, like a lock from the inside, so that each SRO resident has the ability to lock their things in their room away from other residents?
- And is that written in here anywhere? Should it be? Not I mean usually I mean, there's nothing I would guess preventing us from adding that in here I mean obviously that would be each person's choice and I go out on a limb and say if you probably went into the co-op houses each of these probably have locks on the doors now because that is their only real personal space, but I can't guarantee that I
- But usually that's something you know you would leave up to the tenant or that person if they felt like that was necessary then they can certainly do that. But regulating it you know hand would have to inspect that and be something specific that they would not possibly know to look for typically. But I don't know that we could certainly put it in. I don't see a reason not to. I guess I would be interested in potentially putting that in and then potentially putting that in under like
- what defines a bedroom and that I think it might be useful as part of this SRO allowance or SRO definition to define what an SRO bedroom consists of so that then we don't have people trying to convert living rooms into bedrooms.
- If we define what a bedroom is and I think requiring a locking door, you know, maybe ask Hand would be doing the inspection Yeah, so if there was a living room they got transformed into a bedroom, you know, they would be the ones catching that right But yeah, I mean, but if we define I mean we'd have to have a definition of bedroom So maybe hand has a definition of bedroom But I think that that just might be something that's useful to have in the context of an SRO and I think that making sure that there's a locking door
- I just I don't want landlords to take advantage of tenants. And so having requirements like privacy is one way to do that. Anything else. We moved to public. Well I have one more. OK. I think it's my last one is about the definition of family. Let me find it.
- So in the SRO definition in 12 C you set a maximum of one adult or a group of people all of whom are related to each other by blood marriage or legal adoption or legal status can reside per bedroom but then farther down dwelling unit definition just refers to the definition of family and part of our definition of family is
- So it says a dwelling unit occupied by more than one family shall be constructed and regulated as a single room occupancy but are like big UDO definition of family is three unrelated adults. And so I know what we're trying to do with the 12 C. But I think that that's.
- I think the dwelling unit definition like contradicts that a little bit. And so I just want to be an exception. So if something is an SRO then it has a different application of that. OK. I didn't read that as being like super clear. So I don't know if we just need to improve the language to really state that like SROs have their own more narrowly defined definition of family.
- which I'm supportive of by the way just to be clear because I once again like I'm concerned about health and safety of residents and jamming like three unrelated adults into a very small space or in our definition of family five unrelated individuals over the age of 55 and to one as our bedroom I think is would be kind of contrary to health and safety of our residents. So yeah we can look into that and try and make sure that that is clear. Yeah that would be great. Thank you.
- Okay we want to hear some public comment on specific to 0 18 dash I'm sorry sorry 0 3 dash 25 the text a minute related to SROs. Do we have any public comment on this. Yes please approach the podium there and state your name and then sign in please.
- And I know, Eric, we haven't been using the timer because we haven't had public comment of late. So let's renew that timer. We have five minutes here to make your comment. I won't take nearly that long. My name is Thomas Payne. For what it's worth, I'm the new president of the Near West Side Neighborhood Association. And I think, Eric, you've already answered this question. And that is, I was very happy to hear about the architectural conformity considerations of this.
- I'm assuming that hand in their permitting process would take into account that if a neighborhood is an historic district that those guidelines would be the ones that would be followed. Otherwise for nonhistoric districts you're still looking for architectural conformity but you don't have the same enforcement maybe is the right word. I don't know whether you can answer that now but I wanted to throw that out there for you and that's all I have.
- Thank you very much for that comment. Yes. So just to remind people that as it works with public comment there's no direct way for the staff or us to answer a question that's posed. Please raise your question and then we can take it up if we want to or feel it deems a response or can be offered a response. All right. Anybody else have on the SRO proposal I see someone coming real quick. We do have two people at least two people online. Great.
- Okay. All right. Since we have someone approaching the podium and just folks online be ready. Well we'll call on you next. So again if you're at the podium please state your name and sign in. Thank you. Hi I'm Doug Curry and I live on Azalea Lane and I live in Walnut Creek subdivision and we just had the problem with the sober living house called Malibu house and I think this
- Procedure here is just trying to rename what was going on at Malibu house and We are a residential one neighborhood and It was really funny to me when I found out about the Malibu house I live on Azalea and then Malibu houses on Chris Lane Which is the corner closest to me and so I would be out there in my yard working and I'd go
- Wow, Chris Lane gets an incredible amount of traffic. I would say like every, all the cars that would go down Azalea Lane, more than half of them would turn up Chris Lane. And we had this, what would be now called an SRO on Chris Lane. And Chris Lane is only a one-way entry, one-way out. And so if you have multiple people living in this house that didn't have
- east or west to go to. It was always south and then through Azalea Lane. So when these residential neighborhoods are made their initial part of their world widths and all that is due to the engineering goes through well a residential house every day has this many additions to traffic like two or three out in the morning and then two or three out two or three coming home at night.
- So say six trips per house and then the streets design that way. So we were having like 10 trips per house with the house that was be called SRO. So it completely like blew up the streets when we had that house on a single entry road. And then talking about wanting to spread this all around and everything. So within my neighborhood,
- I would say within a square half mile we have housing for mental problem people next to Montessori school. So we already have that kind of housing which is I talk to those people all the time. They stop and talk to me when I'm on a walk and everything. No it's no big deal. But I'm just saying we don't need this SRO and R1 and R2 because there's multiple
- types of housing spread throughout the whole city already and then within that square half mile of my house is Crawford House on Highland and there's just this this density that's being requested doesn't need to be requested. It already exists and it's spread out through the city very well. And then on top of that you have these gigantic apartment complexes and their whole idea
- is to rent rooms from the beginning. And they're just, that's the contract, but the people that live there is for the room. And I mean, Brownstone Terrace got torn down and something got rebuilt there so they could do this one room rental scheme on that real estate. So I just think that requesting SRO and R1 and R2 is unnecessary.
- Thank you for your comment. Thank you. All right. I said we would move to the zoom participants next. So if someone from Zoom Eric if you can make a choice there for Chris Sturbaum you should be able to speak. Yes Chris Sturbaum. I spent many years on the plan commission so I know how how important your decisions are to our community.
- I want to speak and request that you add owner occupancy as a requirement in the residential zones. Allowing single room occupancy, SROs, in single family residential zones with an occupancy requirement is a great idea. With that requirement, the homeowner living in the house in question can rent out a room or rooms to a student or caretaker. Fantastic idea.
- But this same zoning change without an occupancy rule opens the door for investors to profit by creating over-occupancy that the two persons per bedroom SRO allows. A duplex with two bedrooms in a single-family zone could have eight occupants, and there are two parking spaces required. I don't know how well you know the core neighborhoods, but it's almost all on-street parking.
- And the reality is it becomes unlivable if you add five, six, two, or three cars to some blocks. Then do the math with a triplex and a quad. The investor's obvious profits are at the expense of the quality of life of the neighborhood residents. The investor's opportunity, which this zoning change creates, and zoning change always affects property value.
- This also creates the housing value and increases the cost in these neighborhoods. This works directly against homeownership as cash investors and profit seekers outbid potential homeowners. Combining that with the degrading quality of the neighborhood, Bloomington is already almost 70% rental. It is really
- hard for people to buy houses in Bloomington. My employees on my contracting business are buying in the county and beyond. That's where they can find a house. And this just pushes that in that direction. And you know, no matter how much you dress this up, I've watched for 40 years. The game in Bloomington is rent to students.
- And I think it's clear that you can't say these people cannot be students. And there are a lot of students who need affordable housing. There's no question about that. But if you keep the requirement of a single room occupancy to ownership, it's a very simple way to keep the single family neighborhoods livable, single family,
- and opening up this old tradition of having a caretaker live in your house. It's much easier with this new rule. And I totally support that. And having a student live in the house. And as people age, it's wonderful to have someone who can do a little shopping for somebody or take care of them. So 100%, this is a really good idea. But in a college town, opening the door to,
- I think it was five bedrooms in these residential core neighborhoods. Think about that. It's really not good for the core. And if you have that person who lives in that house, at least you have a guarantee of sorts that that person is caring for the place, is taking care of what is happening there. I'm old enough to know before the zoning came
- And since I repaired houses for rental properties, I know how people got squeezed into this and that hole and the little bathrooms that were downstairs in these kind of places. I mean, be careful. I'm not going to say slums, but you really have to be careful the door you're opening because it has multiple consequences. And if you make one simple change,
- I would support the rest of this entire proposal. One simple change require owner occupancy in the single family zones are one through our four. Thank you for taking public comment. I very much appreciate it. Good luck with your decision. Thank you very much. And do we have another. Yes Isabel Piedmont Smith you should be able to unmute.
- Hello Council Member Piedmont Smith from District 1 City Council. I'm the one who sponsored the resolution that you're now taking action on and so I wanted to just give a little bit of context of why I brought this forward. I think it does need some work and that something that I'm happy to
- You know, I've already talked to staff about some changes that might be needed. But I just want to read a few paragraphs from my memo that went with the legislation last November. So single room occupancy units are generally defined as small, private, furnished living spaces for one to two occupants, and they share a kitchen and or bathroom with other units in the same building. So the definition
- as far as the federal government is a shared bathroom or a shared kitchen where both are shared. So that's a little different than what Mr. Burlick said. They're often rented by the week or by the month rather than on typical annual lease. Specific definitions vary between jurisdictions. SROs were commonly known as rooming houses during earlier periods in American history and became widespread in cities during industrialization. They were bottom rung housing.
- Not great, but better than nothing. As there were few, if any, health or safety regulations, these rooming houses were often unsafe and unsanitary, as property owners took advantage of renters who had no other place to go. After stricter zoning regulations were enacted, rooming houses were shut down in the 1970s and 80s, and the properties were often raised to make room for higher-end housing that was more profitable. But there was no low-cost housing
- created to replace the lost SROs. In recent decades, as homelessness has become a growing problem across the country, SROs are making a comeback as one piece of the solution. After the COVID pandemic shut down travel and tourism, some hotels were successfully converted into SROs to house people who were previously unhoused or who were at risk of being unhoused. In some cities, new construction is underway to create SROs or micro apartments
- provide more affordable options for a range of residents. At the September 11th, 2024 consensus building activity session of the Bloomington Common Council, council members discussed SROs with members of the public as one way to address our community's homelessness problem. There was widespread support from the attendees who brought up a variety of related recommendations, such as offering onsite support services for previously unhoused people moving into an SRO,
- integrating recently unhoused folks with students, retirees, and others who want to live in an SRO, allowing SROs in neighborhoods so they can be integrated into the community along with single-family homes and small multi-family homes, and having full-time staffing in the building for security and oversight. So that's just a part of my memo and kind of gives you some context that really what I was after and I believe what the purpose of
- the council and the reason we got a unanimous vote on council to send this forward is that we are seeking more affordable housing options for people in Bloomington. So that is the goal and we might want to revisit some of these text amendments, some of these revisions in order to achieve that goal. One thing that seems clear to me is that we need a better definition of single room occupancy because currently,
- It really doesn't seem any different than a house that's rented to multiple students. So if there's a way we can attach an affordability requirement to it or some other way to distinguish it from a student house rental then I would be in favor of that. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you for your comments. Thank you.
- Anyone else in the room want to make a comment? All right, it looks like we have one more person approaching the podium Jillian. We have two more folks online. Excellent. Good. Well, we'll go to back to zoom after we hear from the person in the room here Yeah, hi, I'm Steven affinity I live in Walnut Creek I live on Chris Lane
- We kind of got the double whammy there. We have a lot of Penn Dragon properties and then we had Malibu house renting Penn Dragon properties. I think the city failed to take into consideration what was happening where it was happening at like was said earlier from my neighbor over there. We're on a cul-de-sac.
- And to allow something like Malibu houses like denying the fact that these people are going to have vehicles. It's a safety issue. It was the traffic was unbelievable. We have a lot of kids on our street. We also have the Penn Dragon properties where there seems to be a revolving door of residence. And I get the purpose of this. But I worry about the oversight. That's going to take a lot of oversight for this to happen especially from hand.
- I don't think they're keeping up with what they got now, especially if you look at our street and the Penn Dragon properties. It's been terrible and it's terrible to the values of our homes. I get the gist of the idea here. It's a good idea, but I think the guy that talked a couple people ago about owner occupancy and everything else is probably something's gonna be needed for something like this because
- Like I said in our street doesn't seem like there's any oversight with the rental properties. We've had to call several times for houses where cars were parked. There were so many cars are parked on the front yards that doesn't blend with the rest of the community. I mean Malibu would have never blended in if that was the idea because it was just overwhelming to everybody around us. So they got to do a better job trying to get things to blend if they want this to work. Thanks.
- Thank you for your comment. Thank you. All right. Are we ready to move to another zoom participant. Eric you should be able to unmute. Good evening. Can you hear me. Yes. Yes. Yes. Good evening everyone. My name is Eric ghost and thank you for the opportunity to offer
- this public comment. If I heard correctly during the introduction of the petition, the number of adults per bedroom was stated to be 2. And perhaps I didn't hear correctly. But I wanted to mention and point out that the public version of the petition states a maximum of one adult per bedroom. And that appears on page 51 of the 120 page meeting packet.
- This fundamental element of the petition should be clarified and perhaps act with public comment. That could be one of the first points to be addressed. And as this petition moves forward, it will be helpful to clearly and precisely define what a bedroom is and is not. I was a little surprised to hear that that wasn't readily at hand, but certainly it could be determined. The effect of rezoning
- to allow SROs as a permitted use in all zones is intended to allow the creation of SROs in all neighborhoods. Yet neighborhoods having covenants prohibiting rooming houses or other similar sorts of housing would not allow these uses. This will have the effect of focusing the development and construction of SROs in neighborhoods that are already dense
- and already predominantly market rate rental housing. As Mr. Sterban thoroughly described, requiring owner occupancy for SROs is a good idea. And it actually helps achieve the objective of affordable housing. The existing market will focus on the highest invest use of a property. And that means maximizing the return on the investment.
- At a time when our community says we want to prioritize and incentivize home ownership, the current formulation of SROs would directly motivate the development of market rate student housing. Yes, let's earnestly work to achieve the idea and the goal of affordable single room occupancy housing rather than market rate student rental opportunities. And just notice that SRO also could stand for student rental
- opportunities. But it's also progressively worked to preserve opportunities for greater levels of owner occupied homes. Our community does not simply need more housing where people sleep. We also need more homes where people live. Please think about what our community is actually trying to do and what the current petition will really do. Thank you. Thank you very much.
- We have another zoom participant. Carrie, you should be able to unmute. Well, I'm trying. There we go. Hi. Hi, everybody. I'm Carrie and I live
- pretty near Azalea where the first speaker was one of the first speakers was talking about. And I have to say that this neighborhood feels pretty saturated with residents. And we do have quite a few intensive uses
- And I certainly think if this is going to go through, it definitely needs to be owner occupied. That's just the way it has to be or the character of this neighborhood is going to change. And we're already a little bit stressed out. Another congestion area that no one's talked about was that Bloomington South is right in this area.
- So that's thousands of cars every day. And Wiley Farms, which is one of the main ways to get to Azalea, that is a bike trail. So we are trying to have that kind of peaceful, safe streets for the bicyclists that use it as a bike trail.
- I'm for someone being able to rent a room in their home to a student, maybe two, or to a caregiver, as one of the speakers pointed out. But to just allow this to become what I kind of think it would become is a great idea that's going to be taken advantage of for commercial gain. Thank you for listening to me. And I'll sign off now.
- And carry one other matter for the public record. Could you indicate your last name either verbally or in chat just so we have that for the public record. Sure. I'll put it in chat. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. Anyone else. Yes one more. Paul Russo you should be able to unmute. Hello can you hear me. Yes.
- OK, this is Paul Rousseau. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I didn't have time to review the proposal, so I don't have much to say. Just a couple of points. One is that I support what Mr. Durban, I think it is, had to say about the, well, the capitalist marketplace is notoriously exploitive, and I feel like
- Bloomington already has more than its share of exploitation going on with regard to real estate. So I think his comments are very well met. The second point I would make is about parking and cars. When I went to university a long time ago, one out of four students had a car. Now, I think it's at least three out of four.
- If I were king of Bloomington, I would make driving and parking more difficult. Try to encourage people to get out of their cars. Now, of course, this is especially true for people who are very able. And that's usually what a student population is. I'm not talking about people that grow older and cannot bicycle. And since we were talking about students renting these new housing units,
- I'm not really that concerned about them not having places to park. Quite frankly, I would like to see them on bicycles instead. Last thing I would say is that I have a friend who comes from out of town every once in a while to visit her family. She grew up in Bloomington in the sixties and she always comments about how dismayed she is that Bloomington has become so car centric. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you very much.
- And I think maybe we have another member in the public. Please state your name and sign in. My name is Joe Mitch and I live on Arlington Road and I am against this. We have several apartment buildings that have been added into our neighborhood and it has increased the traffic is what they're talking about. And I would want to know if you're going to have regulations of how many of these SROs that you could have and
- Is my neighbor if they decide that they want to have one of these and they don't live in that house are they going to be able to do that. And I just don't see the benefit of it. I would rather see about getting houses that people could afford maybe rent to own. But I just don't see how this is going to benefit. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Anyone else. Public comment either in Zoom or in the room.
- Okay so go back to the commissioners now if there are any other comments that this has evoked or if you want to ask any questions. Yes. Commissioner Stossberg go ahead. Thank you. This did evoke some some comments and hopefully clarifications for me because several people mentioned Malibu House and the
- The issues surrounding that either because you're a neighbor or maybe because I mean know that a lot of people have talked to me about it over the last few months and I just want to clarify that Malibu house and other group homes Like that that serve specific populations of people potentially in recovery Like Malibu house does falls into a completely different categorization under the UDO. It's counted as a group home
- small or large, depending on how many residents there are. And so those are a completely separate thing from the SROs. So I just wanted to clarify that those are like two different designations of housing. And so anything that is done around an SRO definition would not have effect on something like a group home
- That is serving specific populations and recovery or anything like that Okay, and then the second piece of clarification in terms of the difference between like current student housing Which is rented per room is those? Generally only allow one person and so one of the things like from the council perspective that we were trying to accommodate for was say a married couple Because right now if you're a married couple then you would have to rent two rooms in those
- student housing complexes. And we do have some married students, both undergraduate and graduate students, that might only want a room, but might want to be in the same room and only rent one of them instead of having to rent two rooms. This creates an option for married couples. And that was one of the things that we were trying to create an option for.
- The owner occupancy requirement is interesting Currently residential rooming house has an owner occupancy requirement So we were trying to actually take that out to some degree But currently residential rooming houses are also not allowed in the our zones at all. So that should be maybe a discussion of compromise for allowing Allowing this kind of use in a residential neighborhood and putting extra requirements on top of that to prevent some of the
- Potential abuse or exploitation that people are concerned about and I'm concerned about that too So I think that those were the things that I wanted to respond to and I just really appreciate that so many people Didn't just like come and comment and blast it but actually had specific
- thoughts and ideas on how to make it better and concerns that they had and and raising concerns gives staff and Planning Commission an Opportunity to address those concerns while still allowing a path for more diverse housing in Bloomington. So, thank you I Really appreciate common council putting this together Is well Peter Mott Smith in particular
- Think there's a lot of talk about affordable housing. This is action. I do see the owner occupancy is Something that being in the real estate industry and industry the way I am I totally could see where exploitation could happen. It is about ROI So I think that needs to be weighed very heavily And then the last point is this is still conditional use This doesn't mean anybody and their brother can just go do this so I sit on the BZA and have for several years and I can relate this to I think
- a little bit of the duplex issue, the plexes. When that first came around, there was a lot of people up in arms, understandably. But the BZA, from my experience, is a good checks and balances. We take it case by case as they come. And I think if the plexes show us anything, that's been a very good use of the conditional use process. So thank you for that. All right, other comments?
- I wonder if we could take up one is the first comment or mentioned some architectural conformity issues in the historic district. And I wonder if staff could comment on whether the architectural or the historic district issues would would comply or would that come into play here.
- dealt with in two different ways. One, the historic district always applies. So any historic district has specific design guidelines that they always have to receive a certificate of appropriateness for anything that's constructed in those areas. Two, but the BZA would then review those use specific standards that I mentioned would be in play in terms of making sure that it was compatible and similar to other structures in the area. So the BZA would review that aspect. Hand themselves would just be reviewing the
- outside and monitoring inspecting it on a on their routine cycles but the design of it from the outside would be accomplished through the BZA and the HPC. Thank you. And then to take up one more some of the comments that were about traffic on a single lane or a roadway that's not really compatible to or it doesn't work very well with with traffic or a cul de sac. I think that was the other example.
- That is also something that the BZA would consider for a conditional use isn't it. Somewhat you know with with an SRO you know it's not expected to be a high traffic use that that use in and of itself would you know be the breaking point for a road. You know it's a very low traffic use. You know it shouldn't have that much more use honestly in terms of average daily trips than a single family residence or a duplex. So I wouldn't necessarily say that an SRO would be
- be denied simply because a road might be less wide than is perceived as necessary. I mean it could be but I wouldn't necessarily say that that would be a factor. OK. But I can imagine if it was a particularly large home that might accommodate six or so maybe more bedrooms that that could increase on a narrow or some small lane space. It could. I mean right now you are.
- Proposal is a maximum of five bedrooms. So that that wouldn't be any more than a five bedroom house. So again I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily say that a road that might be perceived as narrow would be a stopping block to an SRO. Thank you. And then one last one. I think we clarified the question about is it one or two people.
- in a bedroom so that yeah so our proposal is one the council resolution encouraged us to look at two people per bedroom. We've proposed one bedroom now. You know as I mentioned we might be reanalyzing a lot of these comments and might have a slightly different proposal in August when this comes back. But right now the proposal was one person per bedroom or family. So if everybody is related they could be in that bedroom or one adult.
- Okay and then one last one is that the comment that was raised about covenants and I want to just ask about you know what about covenants that wouldn't permit this. Yes we the city do not enforce or administer private covenants and restrictions. Those are up to the homeowners associations if they choose to enforce those or enact those go ahead.
- to has staff investigated where neighborhood covenants might prohibit SROs and how enforceable those are. We have not we know we got into this discussion a long time ago when we were talking about duplexes and there were a lot of covenants and restrictions that said one unit per lot you know so we did go through and look at some covenants and restrictions and saw that there are some neighborhoods that do have that but like I said we we don't enforce those a lot of those have sunset and are no longer applicable but those are up to the individual property
- owners within that subdivision to enforce those or bring those forward. But we don't factor those in and store those neighborhood covenants like if they exist or do they tends to would they probably only be enforceable in areas where there's a homeowners association which is
- I want to say different than just a neighborhood association. Like if you live in a place let me clarify this. So if you live in a place that has a neighborhood covenant that says that you can't have an SRO that's maybe like it's 60 years old or whatever but it's not a homeowners association. Right. So homeowners association would have to enforce those not the neighborhood association themselves but the homeowners association. So a lot of those neighborhood covenants unless they have a homeowners association might not be enforceable at all.
- Yeah might not but you know, we don't we don't comment on those, you know, that's strictly up to them to carry those forward I would really appreciate in terms of a request from staff any information about which neighborhoods would actually have covenants that that would be enforceable to disallow SROs and where those neighborhoods are just in terms of figuring out mapping that kind of That kind of I don't know difference in
- In class I mean I guess that that could end up being like a class separation kind of issue. So I would just be interested in understanding where those spots are if that was possible. Yeah we can try to see where the risk the covenants might be. But in terms of whether or not there's an active homeowners association that we don't know what don't we know where the HOA is are though. We have neighborhood association lists.
- But I don't know about active neighborhood association or I mean homeowners associations We don't have an active HOA list for Bloomington I not that I'm aware of but we can look into that and I can verify when next meeting Yeah, I think that's a it's a great thing to know if it's knowable and if hand has that information I think that would be useful to know
- At least from informing our perspective to see if this is really going to address the issue of increasing housing options if we're closing off a whole opportunity based on restrictive covenants or active homeowner associations. We could not be helping anything in this.
- I mean, you know, there are you know that we we also dealt this again with ad use And the chicken ordinance and a lot of things that might conflict with private covenants and restrictions But we're going to make our laws based on what is good for the city as a whole and you know it if there are neighborhood restrictions or something in that that Might deal with that separately. That's that's up to them. But you know, we'll make our decisions and laws accordingly Irregardless of you know, what might be something privately enforced
- Yeah. All right. I think those were all the questions I heard that were embedded in some of the comments. Anybody else have a comment or a question about this one. All right. So we can take some action on this to continue or what's our what's our action. Let's go ahead. I would move to continue petition 0 0 3 2 5 to the August 11th meeting.
- Great. We have a second for this motion. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion and a second to continue this one which means great comments this evening will help shape this for its next version and we'll see it again if we approve this. So are we ready for a vote. Okay. Can see. Yes. Stossburg. Yes. Ballard. Yes. Seymour. Yes.
- Holmes. Yes. All right. So this 0 0 3 2 5 will continue to the next August meeting. All right. Excellent. All right. So now if we're ready to move on to 0 18 dash 25 city of Bloomington text amendment for urban agriculture commercial.
- Amendment is Zio 18-25 and this deals with a proposed new land use urban agriculture commercial. So again as we single room occupancy we'll just kind of start with the why are we coming forward with requests or an amendment for this. So this is something that kind of follows through with a lot of topics that were addressed within our comprehensive plan that were. I'm sorry. Can you make it any bigger.
- It was bigger earlier. Either that or my eyes are really getting a lot worse. Possible. I think that definitely made it smaller. With keeping the closed caption on I think this is a little landscape as big as I can get it. All right.
- I'll just squint. Yeah, so I apologize. But I will try to do a good job summarizing here what I have on the screen. So the comprehensive plan deals with a lot of language in there about encouraging sustainability within the community, incorporating urban agriculture within the community, exploring ways to teach residents and provide access to safe and nutritious affordable food within the community.
- encourages the creation of agricultural zoning districts and permitted uses and just kind of encouraging those within the community. So we did incorporate some of that when we did the zoning meant or the zoning code amendment a while ago and incorporated the land use of urban agriculture non commercial. So since then we have occasionally heard requests and inquiries from folks who want to do a little bit more.
- on their properties in terms of teaching or having other expanded capabilities. And so we are coming forward with a proposal to add a new use urban agriculture commercial. So what we have proposed so far is incorporating this as a conditional accessory use in the some of the residential districts. So again what that means is we are just putting a path into the zoning code tonight that
- That would allow for this use to come forward with it being a conditional use. It has to go to the board of zoning appeals for a situational approval with it also being listed as an accessory use in the residential districts. That means that first and foremost there has to be a residential use on the property and that this can happen as an additional accessory use to that primary use.
- So we are proposing this to be a conditional accessory use in all of the residential districts and then a permitted use in the mixed use districts. So with this we looked at some of the use specific standards that are applicable to the non commercial use and we changed those a little bit to incorporate the broader
- perspective of what we were trying to accomplish with this. So with this use what we are looking to try to allow for more outdoor educational opportunities the ability to have classes on the site.
- So the home occupation allowance within the zoning code allows for some expanded capabilities on residential his own properties where somebody lives there. They can have various home occupations but all of those activities have have to happen within a building. And so.
- There is not an allowance there for anything to happen outside of the building. So with this use obviously there are occasions where somebody wants to have an educational component that is outside because this is a gardening.
- use. So you need to be able to be outside sometimes to teach and show some of these aspects. So this new use would allow for things to happen outside of the building. So we've incorporated language in here that allows for regulations on the number of employees and the class size. So the language that is in here allows for an employee and a class size based on the size of the lot. So you are allowed to have
- Two people per class and one employee per minimum lot size of the district. So for instance what that is saying is in the residential zoning district if your minimum lot size is seven thousand two hundred square feet on that seven thousand two hundred square foot lot if you received conditional use approval to allow for this use you could have one employee and two people per class if your lot size was twice that.
- You could have two employees and four people per class size. So it's a proportionality of lot size for the district versus lot size that you have.
- So again we were looking at this as you know what what seems appropriate if you're on a typical 7200 square foot lot and you know you wanted to have this you know one employee to manage that size lot certainly seems appropriate and two people per class size again also seems appropriate. So we looked at tailoring some of these standards for the lot sizes relative to what this use is trying to accomplish. And so those those are the standards that we are coming forward with.
- There is also an allowance here for an additional drive cut if your property is over 10,000 square feet. So again if you've got a larger lot and you've got this additional use an additional drive cut for a parking area could be appropriate and would be allowed for this this proposed use.
- So with this we did also modify the definition of urban agriculture and created a new one obviously because this is a new use. So there is a new proposed use and definition. So this definition is very similar to the one for the non-commercial but does incorporate language allowing for outdoor educational activities because this is specific what this one is tailored to.
- With this as I mentioned you know this is simply creating a path within the UDO for this used to be then approved at a later time situational by the Board of Zoning Appeals. So we are here tonight to simply discuss this proposed use some of the use specific standards that are proposed within this and we are recommending that the plan commission continue this
- particular zoning ordinance amendment as well to the August 11th hearing in order to give time tonight to hear public comment to hear comments or questions from the Planning Commission and then bring forward any possible changes to the next hearing. So with that I'm happy to answer any questions. Great. Thank you. All right. So first questions from commissioners. What questions do we have. All right. Commissioner Sasseberg.
- first First there were several letters about this and the packet and I once again will say that I appreciate Hearing from the public especially honestly beforehand because then I can kind of tailor questions to that So the first thing I want to ask mr. Grulick if you could so right now we have urban agriculture non-commercial as a permitted use in all zones of the city can you
- detail specifically the exact differences between the non-commercial and the commercial like what is if anything being changed between those definitions Yeah, no, that is a great question. And so on the screen here, I've got the
- You can see the top well hopefully maybe can the urban agriculture non-commercial urban agriculture non-commercial is a permitted use in every zoning district throughout the community. There are certain use specific standards to go along with that that regulate how tall hoop houses can be how much of a property can be covered with a greenhouse and then also has a
- component that deals with retail sales on the property that allows for you to sell things that were grown on the property but has a limitation of 180 days per year. So what we have modified or changed from that for the urban agriculture commercial use is allow for slightly taller greenhouses, allow for the greenhouses to cover a little bit more of the property so they would be allowed to cover 50% of a property and then it also allows for retail sales
- throughout the year, so you don't have the limitation of 180 days.
- This allows for educational components on the property outside of a building whereas a non commercial you are not allowed to have any educational component to it. Everything has to happen within a building. You can't have classes. You can't have customers visiting there without you know the home occupation approval but the home occupation approval limited everything to within a building. So that was one of the things that we kind of kept running into in situations where someone wanted to do this even with the home
- occupation approval you had to do everything within a building. So there was not a path there was not a use that allow for somebody to do anything outside of the building teach any classes outside of the building without a new use being added to it. So we've as I mentioned you know we've added to this new use to provide a path for somebody to come forward. As I mentioned there's still even if the planning commission approves this tonight or at the next hearing and says it's a common council the common council still has
- to review this and approve this as well. So even after if it becomes a law then as a conditional use the board of zoning appeals would have to approve it again if somebody wanted to come forward on a specific property for that. So the overall changes as you just kind of summarize you know allows for a little bit more of the property to be covered with the greenhouses allows for them to be a little bit taller allows for year round sales and gives a path for employees and an educational component.
- And a class size restriction and employee restriction. Did you guys talk about not say changing the greenhouse allowance. So the non commercial greenhouse allowance is 15 feet tall and not more than 25 percent of the property and the commercial proposal is 20 feet tall and not more than 50 percent of the property.
- Did was their discussion or consideration of just leaving that one the same. Yeah a little bit. You know as as we saw this as a slight step up.
- In terms of allowing a little bit more use on the property, it seemed appropriate to allow for a little bit taller structures. I don't know that that specific element was what I'll say is a deal killer that would prevent this from being a realistic use. So certainly if there are any problems or concerns with that, we can certainly look at reducing that a little bit. Like I said, we only raised it five feet. So the greenhouse went from a 15 foot maximum to a 20 foot maximum with this.
- And the non residential I think allows for 30 percent coverage for greenhouses whereas this is 50 percent. So it's it's a negligible or perceived negligible increase in terms of size for greenhouses. But that was just kind of to reflect a higher level of scope of this use. But certainly we are open I think to reducing those back a little bit if there's concern about that.
- I guess I have to some degree height concern honestly and and it's like I don't necessarily care, but I think that Community members that that might make a difference and I have to question Whether that extra five feet would make a real difference in terms of the of the user Like do they really need another five feet of greenhouse space? You know
- Vertical five and really that was just to match the accessory structure height for the district So in these districts 20 feet is the maximum accessory structure height. So it was really just kind of matching that You know certainly an accessory structure like a shed, you know Wouldn't be allowed to be this big necessarily because our size limitations for accessory structures But that height limit was just matching what the accessory structure height was To think about that a little bit
- Um, and the other thing, if I may, I'm also wondering about the, um, the employee and class enrollment, enrollment sizes, uh, and wondering whether, especially given comments, um, that I read, whether it would make sense to have a maximum limit. Like, so you can have one employee per minimum lot size up to a maximum.
- number of employees to because I mean in some of these districts like even if you you know if you do amass quite a large property I think maybe you can. I mean how many driveways would you possibly be allowed to have. And so that does potentially I mean create
- congestion issues potentially. So was that a consideration. Yeah. So you know again we tried to approach it from just a proportionality standpoint. You know if you had a five acre piece of property you might need more folks to help manage that size garden and a piece of property of that size. You know the class size would be proportional and could be appropriate to that larger lot. So certainly we could look at a maximum.
- You know if that's something that the Plain Commission would like for us to look at a number there but we just kind of approach it like I said from a proportionality standpoint, I guess I would like that to be at least thought about and considered I Think I have other things too, but I'll wait and see what other members have to say Yes, go ahead you and you may have said this I apologize if you did does the
- There's still a residential requirement that still has to be the predominant use of the property. Does the resident have to be the owner of the business. No we do not have that linkage just that there be a dwelling unit on the property first and foremost and then this use can happen secondary. And then so I get the differences you outlined between the commercial and the non-commercial uses like what policy goal is are you aiming at by adding the commercial element.
- to this, like if non-commercial was already allowed, so they're adding commercial, like what's the purpose of that? Why is that being added?
- Yeah so a little bit I guess that goes back to what I was talking about in the references in our comprehensive plan of you know allowing expanded abilities within the community for some more urban agriculture uses and teaching and promoting that use. So you know we chose the word commercial really because it just kind of symbolized you know a different level of that use that was more of you know had a greater
- range of services and you know just in terms of employees customers and then selling things on the property. You know it wasn't necessarily a naming thing that we tried to say oh hey this this is going to have a much higher feel to it but just you know an elevated level of services provided. Yeah. I don't know if that I don't know if that answered your question. I mean I get the elevated services that's sort of the what the difference is. But I guess the question is why.
- Like what policy aim is Yeah, it read to be honest, you know, but you can't spend how much time talking about the naming itself. It just seemed like You know the the next Progression for that use in terms of you know, we're raising what the allowances are and so it's getting a little bit more towards you know commercial you're trying to provide a higher service than
- You know we're just growing things on here for me to eat on my property and my neighbor to eat on their property we're trying to do a little bit more we're teaching we're taking in money possibly as part of these classes we're paying people for employees you know whether that's you know whatever means of compensation there are. So it is a little bit closer to a commercial service and commercial business. How many noncommercial.
- agricultural uses are there in Bloomington and you guys expect that those will become the commercial like are those the ones you expect to expand or do you expect that this is going to open up new opportunities for people who aren't doing it. Yeah. So in terms of.
- I mean there are to my knowledge other than you know some local food pantries that you know allow people to grow things on their property or some of the food pantries that grow things that then they sell on their property. You know there aren't many commercial businesses that have expressed an interest in this we have heard from residences that would like to do more on their property that they've got some large properties that they would like to be able to do more on. I don't know that we've
- specifically heard from a lot of commercial businesses per se but more its its residences within the community Thanks, I had a question about Setbacks or any types of regulations that might restrict how close to the roadway these elements were able to be you know a hoop house or whatever are there any
- I'm sorry if this was in here and I may have missed it. Is there anything like that about where they can be located or that particularly closer to the road or space. Is there anything about that. Yes. So these would still have to meet the accessory structure setbacks. There is language here that talks about they have to be at least 10 feet from any abutting lot with an occupied residential use from the front. They'd have to be 35 feet.
- And what about from the road or right of way? Well, so that would that would be your front. So if there is a structure like a greenhouse or a cold or a cold house, you know, those would have to meet those setback requirements. Can you can you let me I'm sorry, I'm going to rephrase that just a little bit. At least 10 feet from any lot line. So that would allow them 10 feet from the front. So not 35 but 10 feet from any lot line.
- Yeah I just I wonder if there might be some consideration. I'm trying to be responsive to some of the comments that were included in the packet about you know having something right up at the road almost. And I mean 10 feet. Sure. Yeah that's something that we can certainly you know listen hear comments on and revise that a little bit. Yeah. OK. That might be something to think about. And then I had.
- I had trouble with the operational standards in B6 with two people per lot size and I think I understand now the derivation for that formula as being about the district size. But man I could not figure that math out for the life of me.
- I appreciate what you were describing but I see a lot of opportunity here to really if you have a really large lot in an already generous district you could really have a good number of people working there. And yeah and you know like I said it felt like that made sense. If you have a really big lot you know if you've got a four acre lot that
- could be appropriate to have that number of people managing a facility on that on that size lot. Yeah. OK. All right. All right. Any other comments questions. Yes I just want to say to tag on to that. I'm not sure that it necessarily makes sense to me because in those residential areas it's supposed to be an accessory use not a primary use of the property. So even if there is a really big lot
- I think that there should be a maximum number of employees a maximum number of students like class participants because it it's an accessory use. The primary use is supposed to be residential. So and I have other things if other people don't have any but that are separate.
- time period for when power tools and things could be used I think it's dusk to dawn or dawn to dusk maybe restricting those 8 a.m. To 7 p.m. Or something a more limited range rather than as soon as the sun comes up in the residential area they can turn on the power to yes again you know that was just matching the noise ordinance and I wanted to follow up on that one too because when I saw that was another letter comment somebody mentioned that which kind of makes sense but it
- Immediately made me think of commercial lawn services. Do we have anything? Anywhere that restricts when commercial lawn services can start or is it just dusk till dawn? It's just the noise ornament. So that deals with certain heavy-duty machines pneumatic tools You know lawnmowers. I don't think that that probably applies unless it's over a certain decibel or you know uses specific machine the big commercial ones might be over that Decibel but anyway, that that's
- Maybe an interesting thing to pursue on a different day. I actually have one more question about the use of the new what to me is a new phrase the conditional accessories the C.A. designation was that created. I guess I don't remember seeing that in.
- Any other aspects of yes it is in the UDO. It was a tool that was put in there. There are no other uses that are listed as conditional accessories. So this would be the first one. OK. All right. Glad I was remembering that correctly. OK. So good to see a new category in there. All right. Anybody else. Sure. Just finish up. Yeah I still have a few actually. So one of the.
- Letters mentioned signage and I didn't see anything in here about rules regarding signage So did I miss that there was anything about like how big signs could be or is there something? So there was nothing in there about any additional sign allowance So there are like sign limits somewhere that would apply to this They get a one and a half square foot sign and that would be it how like one one and a half square foot sign Well, there's not a limit on the number but that would be the extent of it Okay
- I would like some investigation into potentially capping or otherwise defining how much signage could be used as part of this use. Let me just scroll down because I think that I have a couple others too. My next one on my list is
- What kind of property inspection process would go along with this? Like I don't know how often say commercial uses are inspected in any way. So if you could like what would that entail in terms of so we we would not do any inspections per se. You know if there were building permits for greenhouses or any structures obviously we would review those permits.
- But beyond that, you know, unless somebody complained about it, you know, we don't routinely do inspections on properties Okay, and then kind of similarly if a property was approved by the BZA For this use in a residential area within that property that would follow that property in perpetuity Yes, is there any way to like limit that so it's has to be
- Yeah, so it can be limited certainly to what is shown on there for the structures and the services being offered. You know, but typically conditional uses do run with the property. But we can explore that with legal to see if there's any way to tie that to a specific entity. But usually it runs with the property. I guess I would appreciate that. I think that having conditional uses in general that just kind of like stay with the property forever maybe
- are less than ideal. Let me just scroll through the rest and see if I have any others. I guess the other thing that I want to talk about is most of these public comments, of course, focused on one particular property
- And one of the things that got mentioned was traffic and street parking. And I drove over there today on my way and recognized that one of those streets is rather narrow. And I do want to clarify that in terms of legal street parking if you park on the street there needs to be 12 feet of right away remaining in order for other vehicles to pass. That's correct. I see Mr. Seabor shaking his head. Yes. So 12 feet is correct.
- And so would there be, I did not get out and measure that road, but I do not believe, based on how wide my car is, that if I parked on the side of it, there would be 12 feet of space remaining, even if I parked my daughter's little teeny Kia on the side of it, that there would be 12 feet of space remaining.
- Something like this was approved before the BZA what kind of recourse would you know be able to happen like what would there be options in terms of making sure that Public right-of-way is still maintained For pedestrians for bicyclists for vehicles needing to access that public right-of-way Yeah, so on-street parking, you know that that's a separate regulation obviously that would not necessarily be
- Tied to an approval for a house or this use You know certainly as part of the proposal for this, you know How a petition plans to provide parking could be something that the Board of Zoning Appeals could take into account You know as I mentioned this would be allowed an additional drive cut So they could have additional parking that would be, you know regulated per whatever this district standards are So that that is something that the BZA could take into account. We did not put parking on
- requirements for this use in here specifically for a very specific reason. You know this is supposed to be somewhat a neighborhood serving use. Obviously there are a wide range of opinions on parking and parking minimums and parking maximums. And so we did not go into that very specifically. You know that is something like I said though that they could take into account of you know what is the provision for parking for users of a property.
- And if you are a resident and you live say on or a budding a narrow street that is regularly getting street parking leaving less than a 12 foot right of way what can you do as a resident in that situation. So that would be something for the engineering department if there is on street parking that does not meet current requirements and that would be something that I would hope that we would look at independent of anything else.
- What our city engineer like to take that question less than 12 feet of a roadway available for vehicles to pass. The first thing I would do is I would call the police or parking enforcement and ask them to come and assess and potentially that's a violation of code and they could issue parking ticket or parking warning on site because that is already there.
- If it's a recurring thing and parking would likely reach out to engineering to explore further action potentially resulting in amendments to city code and restricting parking altogether on a side or a section of a road. Thank you. All right. I think that those are all of my questions.
- Actually, I don't even have anything written down for the rest of the packet. All right. OK. Well, somehow I don't think we've really exhausted all your questions. But OK. All right. OK. All right. All right. So now it's time for public comment. And I still see a lot of people in the room. So I'm presuming many of you here. Can I just get a feel? This is not a commitment. But how many people expect to say something about this
- this particular piece, just to get a feel. And just so, you know, I'm gonna do a little quick math here. So if we have 10 people and each of you take five minutes, you can start to figure out how long this can go. And I'm not saying this to diminish anyone's speaking time. I mean, this is public comment time. But I would invite you, at least at the outset here, to consider if something has been expressed already and you feel like you're just here to
- reinforce that that you know you think about it in either introducing something new or maybe offering something that might expand on that idea just so we don't sit here kind of hearing things we just so you know to the this body you know this will hear this again and all of this will be considered by staff and other folks working on this and council later on as well. So there's there's time to
- work through the concerns that have been raised both in the packet that have been really explicit and that we've raised here today. However if you have a prepared statement that you have invested a lot of time in I don't want to shortchange anybody who's done that but I'll ask you for your at least consideration for your colleagues up here and staff who have been here already all day just to consider if you really need the full five minutes. So be gracious and kind to each other as we go through this. All right.
- But I'm not trying to limit anybody. Okay. So we have somebody that popped right up. So again, same rules apply. State your name and sign in. And then we'll also check for Zoom participants as well.
- Awesome. My name is Jesse Gilmore. I am currently in the MPA program at IU. Before coming back to school at IU, I got my master's in urban food systems from Kansas State University. And I worked for four and a half years as an extension agent, working with horticultural crop producers, specifically in fruits and vegetables. So I was super excited to see commercial urban agriculture on the plan for the urban agriculture,
- unified development ordinance. I did have a lot of small things to bring up, but in order to respect everyone else's time because I saw a lot of hands, I will refrain from most of those. I did want to bring up the two things that were mentioned by the commission.
- First, regarding the extra height in greenhouses, five extra feet doesn't seem like it would be a lot of extra space, but what really helps, what that really helps is with temperature management in the greenhouse. The more space you give above where the plants are growing, hotter rises, and that makes it less likely that the plants inside are going to scorch and potentially die from drought, especially in hard-bodied greenhouses made of polycarbonate or glass.
- The other thing that I wanted to bring up was your question about
- the manager of the urban agriculture enterprise basically, not needing to be the person who owns the land and residentially zoned properties. I thought that was a very interesting question that I did not even think of originally because land tenure and access to land is the biggest question mark when it comes to urban agriculture business creation. And so if someone's interested in starting an urban agriculture business but they don't feel like they have good access to land or
- The land is a really big question mark. They are a lot less likely to go into urban agriculture as a business. So providing that option for someone getting connected to a homeowner or a property owner who might want to lease the land out, for example, to someone who is interested. I think if you did not require the business owner to be the person who owns the land, you would see
- a higher likelihood of business formation, which I would very much like to see, but I am very pro urban agriculture. The only other thing that I will bring up regarding the things that I did have before your questions
- was in B1, it talks about retail sales for commercial urban agriculture. The standard as it's currently written reads that you are only allowed to sell raw produce in an unprocessed form from your property. I met with Eric on Friday and that was very enlightening.
- And there's a concept in urban agriculture called value added products. And basically what that means is it's gone through some level of processing. And when I say processing, it could be something as simple as just chopping lettuce and having chopped lettuce for sale. Having some kind of
- phrase in that particular standard. For example, produce grown on that site in raw or processed form would make it clearer to people who might be interested in starting a business that some amount of processing would also be allowed by the city.
- because value added products are where a lot of businesses stay financially sustainable in urban agriculture. So just something to think about. I have four other things but I'm not gonna bring them up right now. I would love to help with this if possible because it's a great combination of what I'm doing now and what I used to do and I wanna be helpful. So thank you for the opportunity for public comments and I look forward to seeing how you guys
- Implement urban commercial urban agriculture in Bloomington Thank you very much for those comments and just because you raised the issue that you have other comments to offer You can always send them to The city just like many other people did who and those were included in our packet So, please send them and that's true for anybody else as well So, thank you
- Hi, I'm Jeff Stake. I teach at law school. I teach property and land use controls. And in response to a previous section, whether something's an enforceable covenant is actually not an easy question to answer in lots of situations. So it's pretty complicated. But on this issue, next year, the USA celebrates an important anniversary. Oh, I should say one other thing.
- just outside the city limits. I did not oppose incorporation, and I would like to be incorporated, so I hope to be part of the city in the future, but I'm not right now. But I hope to be soon, or sometime soon. I know the state might not allow you. So next year, the USA celebrates an important anniversary, 100 years since Euclid versus Ambler Realty,
- That's the case that decided that zoning is constitutional.
- And one of the reasons it was expected to be decided just the opposite, the zoning would not be constitutional because it interfered with property rights. And in fact, the Supreme Court went the opposite direction because of property rights. It was seen as, zoning was seen as something to protect property rights, to protect property. It protects financial, emotional, historic, and human investments in property. It protects property. The agricultural,
- Urban Agricultural Commercial Amendment I think will do more to harm property than it will do good. More important, zoning protects happiness. It does so by enhancing stability and living up to the expectations of people in the community. People have relied on restrictions in zoning ordinances.
- Think about their reliance. People buy in reliance on the rules, the legal rules that are in place when they invest, in many cases, basically all the money they have in their homes. I also worry about the effect on neighborhoods. Allowing commercial farm uses will open a can of worms. It will lead to neighborhood strife, pitting neighbor against neighbor,
- as we've already seen. It will make the community more divisive. This is a new path, but it's a new path to more litigation, okay? It's already been mentioned that this is subjective, it's discretionary, BZA determinations are, and there will be more of them, and they will be litigatable, okay?
- There will be neighbor against neighbor litigation and there will be owner against city litigation also. If I were working for the Institute of Justice, I would love this because it gives me a big club to wield against the city when the city makes a essentially discretionary decision. And even if the city wins, it decreases the resources available for important city activities.
- And last, I worry that it will undermine faith in local government and respect for local government to maintain the legitimacy of government by respecting people's reliance on the rules that are there and to maintain the harmony of our city and our neighborhoods. Please reject this idea of commercial urban agriculture. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. All right. We'll take another one. I don't Eric if you're monitoring zoom please come. We have two people online so far with their hand raised. OK. Thank you. All right. So we'll take another public in the room comment. I'm Greg Stewart. I am a Bloomington resident of almost two decades and two and a half decades out in the county. Before that I am opposed to this particular amendment.
- It is almost a textbook example of special law There are many written explanations of the evils of special law including most of the city of Bloomington's filings Against the state of Indiana when Bloomington feels that it is a victim of special law in this particular case the difference between
- textbook example is special on what's being done here is the fact that the special nature of this modification is disguised by the geographic scope of The ordinance modification, but this is really about one property which brings me to my second objection to this Amendment I live on the east end of these first Street. I am up and down Covenant or almost daily on my bicycle and
- I know I'm gonna die sooner or later. I would presume I would prefer not to do it splattered up against the side of a vehicle that is taking up too much space on what is really now a residential road and that's really I think the core of the issue here if a property Activity requires that more than half of the space be occupied by a greenhouse that really belongs out in the rural areas outside of the city
- Increasing sustainability of things going on in the city more agricultural activities are great but commercial activities mixed into what are clearly designed and built as Residential areas, I think is a problem. I think the lack of inspection is also a big issue I have also Not taken a tape measure out to the property this at the heart of this discussion But I am vital by it
- Frequently I would be really surprised to discover that there's actually 10 feet of setback between public property and the existing agricultural activities, so while I support the underlying goal of increasing sustainability of Bloomington I think the way that this ordinance modification is written actually harms that goal rather than helping it Thank you Thanks All right
- Want to take one zoom just to mix things up a little bit if somebody's. Yep. So Sarah Hughes you should be able to unmute. Thank you very much for recognizing me. I am Sarah Jane Hughes and I live at the bottom of the southern part of Brooks Drive which is two blocks long. I did submit a comment and earlier today looking at all of the requirements that were here.
- I've put together something not in my comments, some specific suggestions, but they're too long. So I bring them to Mr. Graylick's attention and hope very much that we can come to some better understanding. I would especially like to compliment the remarks made by Jeff Steak and his concerns about strife
- divisiveness and more litigation in town and undermining faith in local governments. I applaud those as well of Mr. Stewart who I happen not to know because I absolutely agree with him that this looks like spot zoning and it and I agree unhappily for the
- primary proponent that this is disguised by a citywide geographic scope when there are, and I checked recently, very few parcels in the R1 and R2 zones anyway that are empty or available for a purpose of this type. So forward-looking, we still need to be very concerned about the quality, the integrity of neighborhoods.
- We need to be very concerned about traffic safety. In my comment, I pointed out, and I would highlight now, that on a corner of the same property owned by the proponents, the northwest corner of their property, which is the southwest, the northeast corner, the southwest portion of the intersection of Brooks and East Covenanter, the City Planning Commission
- denied permission to construct a small bicycle repair and water station a few years ago, cited safety and traffic concerns. So if that was the reason several years ago, I maintain that that reason now is a very important reason. I am very concerned about parking. I am very, very concerned about how narrow the street is, where it is not easy,
- to fix that because there's a culvert on one side. I also think that the number of people who would likely come to a neighborhood that had this facility in it is possibly very great and that the inadequate provision of parking on the property is a really serious problem because that's a bad stretch of covenanter.
- My neighbors fought for years to get those traffic bumps, speed bumps on Covenanter to help us and to protect pedestrians, runners, bicyclists, and those of us who are driving. So while I don't want to take all of the time, I want very much to thank you for the opportunity to contribute. And I will be sharing with you specifically
- As I shared with some of you directly my comment last weekend, some of the thoughts I have about specifics because the scale of the development that as proposed ZO 1825 would allow just seems entirely inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood and has contributed
- over several years to very considerable strife among immediate butters and those of us who are just down the road and trying to get by. Thank you again for your time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Why don't we go to a person in the room who's standing at the podium. Dev Mather Bane and my mother is down there. Diamond Mather. She's lived right across the street from what
- is being done for 60 years and I also grew up there. To me like what you said zoning ordinances to me they're there for a reason. They're to protect what people's neighborhoods from commercial businesses and it preserves the character of
- Area it's an old residential area that people even tried to save the houses in architecturally They've come in and in Brooks Drive is a very narrow street If someone even parks across from her driveway, we can't back out of it People walk up and down the street now it's like
- If you can imagine because I know that one of you did go out and stand on Brooks Drive before you make any kind of decision you should go stand out at 12 15 South Brooks Drive and look at what's there already that has been isn't legal if
- You can't make a decision without seeing what's going on and thinking about a 20 foot high greenhouse being put there. There are already many structures there. There's already all kinds of stuff. There's chicken coops. There's beehives. There's tons of stuff being grown. If Perks Drive started getting parked on by all those employees and by students and people coming to buy stuff there,
- It would just ruin the character for one thing of the area and it would also cause so many problems just with people walking down the street. So I really think that you need to look at both what has been done there already that it's one family that's trying to say how this what's where this neighborhood is going.
- instead of looking at it as an old, residential, beautiful neighborhood that that's what you want in Bloomington. You don't want commercial businesses and commercial farms taking over somebody's house. You want urban gardening. You want everybody to be able to have a big garden and do it that way for sustainability and grow their own food.
- You don't want to commercial a commercial farm ruining this old neighborhood. So I'm speaking for Diamond Mather. So please go to 12 15 South Bridge Drive and see see what you'd be voting for and how much worse it can get. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right. Do we want to move to another zoom person.
- So Glenn gas you should be able to unmute. Did I just do that. You did. Okay good. Thank you. I'll be brief. That was wonderful. What we just heard you know we seem to be talking in platitudes at first about just you know gardening and food and whatever. We're really talking about neighborhoods here. This is a zoning issue.
- You know, zoning is, like the second-person speaker said, protects rights. If you buy a house, move into a neighborhood that's zoned a certain way, you have every expectation to think you're going to keep living in a neighborhood, not next to some farm with machinery running at dawn and cows or corn fields or students plowing through or whatever. I'm sorry. It's kind of crazy.
- If everyone did, imagine, do you want this next door, really? Then it becomes a whole other issue. There are other issues that aren't even brought up about legalities and lawsuits, but I'm not going to touch them. But there's just too much going on here to just pass this through. And I really hope you'll put yourself in the shoes of the people that live in the immediate, because this really is about one
- property in one issue. Let's be honest. Right. And then put yourself in the shoes of the people that live near it. And then if you want to open the door to many other of these neighborhood quarrels coming your way in the future. Fine. But seems a mistake to me. But thanks for giving me the chance to talk. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right. Do we want to go to a room here. Yeah. Go ahead.
- Thank you name and sign in. Thank you. I'm Connie Kirk Glenn and my husband Jim is signing that for me. And first of all I want you to thank you so much for being here for all that you do for the city. My brother was on the city council in Lincoln Nebraska for 16 years. It was amazing. What a difference he made. I was really proud of him. I'm his older sister.
- But thank you for all that you do. And many people have already said what I had to say. And I will also, like Sarah, send in a few of the comments. But I've got a couple of questions. Have you seen the agreement? I know I'm not supposed to ask a question. There is an agreement between the Institute for Justice, Ellie Spears, and the city. And I have copies of it if you would like to see it. Jim, you can pass it out. Have you seen it? Do you want it?
- You're free to pass out. Yeah, you're you're free to leave whatever material you want. Yeah give that to you And then I'll just read a couple of things I'm very concerned that the facilitator for this agreement is outside the state and does not have Bloomington, Indiana interests or knowledge
- The city and and that's very much a concern for me. We heard that there was an alleged threat for a lawsuit Again, it really a concern and I think Bloomington has so much to offer and we should make our own laws And I hope that that will be the result We oppose it mostly because it was brought by an outdoor resource and we see a lot of disconnect between the UDO proposal and
- what we have seen in that agreement because there are many educational activities that are mentioned. And the UDO proposal only says such use may include the production and sale of food products from food grown on the premises and include outdoor educational activities conducted on the property related to urban agriculture. That's all I found. I might have missed it.
- But there are quite a few things listed in that agreement. So that just seemed like a disconnect that we should cover Many people have already mentioned traffic and parking and so I'm not going to go there But there are other safety standards that I'm quite concerned about And part of those are covered by the UDO but in a very odd way So there is something that covers water drainage and fertilizer drainage and I'm telling you you all live in Bloomington. Can you
- create any pathway where there is no water drainage downhill. I'm downhill. I'm downhill from that property. So I suspect, and we also have a water runoff there that goes into Jackson Creek. I think we're looking at possible, I'm going to say pollution, because I don't think we can assume that all commercial farmers, all commercial urban agriculture will be organic.
- It might be that this one that is under perusal right now would be. But I don't think we can assume that about putting forth a UDO amendment or change and assume that everyone is on the same page about using poisons in the water supply. So I'm very concerned about that one. The other thing I was concerned about was
- I've already mentioned it, just the chemicals that might be there. The only other thing that I have to say is that we believe in boundaries and functional boundaries, and we think that Bloomington is a more, I've lived here 40 some years, I hate to tell you how old I am, we think that
- functional boundaries are really great for the city where we have things that respect zoning and respect the needs of the people that live there or work there or go to school or go to religious establishments. This change, as someone already said, just really well provides a precedent for opening residential neighborhoods to currently prohibited commercial uses throughout the city. And we've already seen, unfortunately, tension and ill will which we really
- Don't like we'd love to all get along on that street So if if there is a big survey done and every neighborhood in town wants to see this We'll go with it and we'll suggest some other changes. Thank you very much for your time And thank you for all you do Thank you very much All right. Do we have another one in the room?
- I'm Jim Glenn Connie's husband and yes, many things have already been brought up and so what I'm essentially going to do is voiced by Because of the previous comments pretty much everything's been covered We do have issues with the number of employees as you did but we're in favor of not enacting this ordinance, but
- Hopefully you will you've read enough in the packets and you've heard enough tonight that you will at least go to a second hearing so that if Amendments can be done if this is going to go through that we can actually have discussions that go on to to make this a better a Better ordinance that it is written as as we see it now and
- I guess the only other thing since I did the math with acreages 7200 square feet which is the minimum unit lot size is about a sixth of an acre. So if you have a sixth of an acre which is not a very large lot that's the number of employees. But if you have acre acre and a half two acres you can have you know up to 30 36 people on the property at one time which is a
- skeptical about that. So I encourage you not to vote for this but at least go to a second hearing so that things can be discussed. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks for your comments. All right. How many more person online. Joe W. You should be able to unmute. Thank you.
- Thank you, yes. This is Joseph Winnia. I am a resident of the city of Bloomington and I would actually like to speak in support of the proposed urban agricultural commercial land use. In short, we're living in a climate crisis that is seldom treated as such. So I think it's heartening to see the proposal for this measure that would allow for a greater ability to grow and distribute food right where it's needed and also provide educational opportunities centered around it. I also want to quick note how
- closely this proposal follows the city's climate action plan section six on local food and agriculture, which specifically states an action item that says revise zoning ordinances to remove barriers to urban agriculture. And it says to examine and pursue other policy levers to increase food production within the city. So I personally think the terms are fair and that strikes a good balance between giving a reasonable capacity to growers and placing reasonable limits to respect its urban setting.
- I think some of the comments that were mentioned earlier really take out of proportion the real scale of this being urban agriculture and not massive industrial mechanized agriculture where it specifically states what animals can and cannot be raised. And there was already talk about changing the times of noise limits and the fact that there already is a noise ordinance in place and the fact that
- already most of the items provided are permitted under non-commercial agriculture. So they're really relatively small changes compared to what's already allowed. The only thing that I wanted to contribute that was different and specific was that I would hope that in item 6B1 on the retail sale prohibitions that it would actually allow for a little more flexibility
- than exclusively what is grown on the site. I do think it would be ideal if produce could be distributed from and by other local or urban and growers to help increase the outlets and the product diversity. But that's the only small adjustment that I see at this stage. So in light of those things, I strongly support the proposal and I hope the commission sees its value as well. And that's all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll go to the room now. Yes.
- His name is Daniel Conkle. I live at 2109 East Covenant Drive with my wife. We've lived there for over 40 years. I also am a colleague of my co-professor at the law school here, Jeffrey Steak, and I very much identify with his remarks. I'm here though in my personal capacity not attempting to offer any kind of legal opinion. That being said, if I were a member of this plan commission, I would want to ask the plan commission staff further
- the involvement and role of the Institute for Justice There is this agreement you're being provided with copies of that is dated the 4th of April 2025 That agreement asked the city or the city agreed to propose amendments to the UDO Those proposed amendments those described in the agreement that you now will have before you refer only to a potential expansion of an educational component of
- on an urban farm. No mention of commercial. No mention of expanding the size of greenhouses or 50% on the lot or anything of the kind. Something happened to change, something happened between the date of that agreement and the proposal that is now being forth. I would be interested if I were one of you to know more about how much a role was played by the Institute for Justice. Maybe they're making great arguments. Maybe they're threatening litigation.
- Would find it incumbent upon myself to investigate that matter. I think the key question here Already has been asked by Commissioner Holmes and that is why is this commercial? Why is this a proposal for commercial urban farming if you want to deal with education? Bring forward an amendment and maybe neighbors will have objections. Maybe they won't you can talk about specifics, but the idea of commercial farming is
- an established residential area is to me highly problematic in terms of the expectations of Homeowners like myself and my wife the other neighbors in our neighborhood potentially in neighborhoods all over the city So I would I would exercise extreme caution if I were you and I recommend I do applaud Absolutely the time and attention you've given to this reading through that packet many of you indicating you've done so with great care and
- That very much. I urge you to continue to exercise caution and not kick this forward to the Common Council And then kick it forward again to the BZA to deal with further contentious disputes down the road This is the first place that this should be considered in detail and with cautious Consideration and I urge you to do so and I thank you in advance for doing that. Thank you Thank you very much
- Do we have more in the room who would like to win two more online two more online. OK. All right. OK. If you want to go ahead. Yeah. Since you're heading up there and then we'll do the two online Matthew Austin commissioners I stand before you today not as an advocate for a radical change but as a neighbor asking for common sense.
- The ordinance before you tonight is simple. Allow residents the basic right to use their gardens and homes to teach and educate others about growing food. That's it. Not to run a commercial farm. Not to host large scale events. Simply to share knowledge. Let me be clear. This isn't hypothetical. My sister, Ellie Spear, and her family have built Garden Q and Garden Quest as a small urban farm in Bloomington, Indiana.
- It has inspired over 500 community members from Girl Scouts to IU students that wrote letters of support that were presented at the BZA meeting in November 2024. Why did they do that? Because they see the potential. In a world facing rising childhood diabetes, skyrocketing food costs, and deepening food deserts, teaching people to grow their own food is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity. And yet,
- under the current UDO, they are prohibited from teaching a child to plant a tomato without the fear of thousands of dollars in fines. I've heard the critics. They say they support what we're doing, but suggest it belongs somewhere else. That's called NIMBYism, not in my backyard. They ask you to postpone your decision to protect the order of their neighborhoods. That's a request to preserve the status quo, and where has the status quo gotten us? And as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said,
- human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability, it comes through the tireless efforts of those willing to work for change. He also reminded us that unjust laws degrade human personality. Tell me, what's more degrading than telling someone they can't teach a Girl Scout troop to plant a flower in their own backyard? Our state constitution promises
- us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet here we are debating whether a family can welcome neighbors onto their property to learn how to grow food. Approving these ordinance isn't the final step, it's the first. Any future urban ag designation still faces rigorous review with full public input. Tonight we're simply deciding whether education itself deserves a place in our neighborhoods.
- Commissioners, please vote yes. Let us move one step closer to Bloomington, to a Bloomington that values resilience, community, and the right to share knowledge. Let's replace fear of change with hope for a healthier, more connected future. At the core of this issue, though, lies a simple legal question.
- Does the city of Bloomington wish to uphold a municipal code that directly undermines residents' constitutional rights? The Indiana Constitution explicitly protects our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld the private property use, so long as it does not harm others, is foundational to those rights. Teaching a child how to grow food in your own backyard does not constitute harm. It embodies community,
- benefit. Under the current UDO, residents face potential fines simply for allowing a Boy Scout troop to learn to plant tomatoes, for permitting neighbors to pick berries. These activities neither generate commercial disruption nor threaten public safety. Legally, such overreach may constitute infringement on personal liberties and could be interpreted as violating Indiana's Bill of Rights.
- The ordinance before you tonight does not grant unrestricted use. It simply creates a pathway, as Erica stated, for property owners to apply for permission
- to use their gardens and homes for educational purposes, subject to existing oversight and approval processes. Neighbors retain full rights to voice their concerns at every stage. Rejecting this ordinance or delaying it under the guise of further study amounts to protecting the status quo at the expense of constitutionally protected freedoms and community progress. The law should protect community betterment, not penalize it. I urge his body to approve the ordinance and take the first step toward aligning Bloomington's code with both constitutional principles and common sense.
- That being said I want to thank mr. Conkle for his his comments. We agree as the proponents of this We don't think we're not gonna put up greenhouses. We're not gonna have Industrial ag going on all we wanted was what the memorandum of understanding that IJ put forth was we want to be able to teach and have people on our property and the city of Bloomington never defined what employee is employee includes a
- Volunteer includes intern includes a parent. It is not defined and we tried to get the city did actually define it and they never Did and so based on the property we would be able to based on the property size The Spears would be able to have 20 Students and then ten parents managing those students. That's the whole point of the one to two You can't have 20 students on property without their parents. We've had over 50 students on the property There were no issues the buses dropped them off and they were gone
- It was fine. All parking, we figured out we can get over 20 cars on the driveway. We have no desire to park on Brooks. We have not had anybody park on Brooks in a couple of years. And all the issues with the parking on Brooks was construction that was going on for two years. It wasn't volunteers. It wasn't employees. It wasn't any of that. It was construction. And construction is over. Thank you for your time and for all that you do. Thank you very much. All right. Yes, please go ahead.
- Hi, my name is Dave Bam. I'm Diamond Mathers' son-in-law. And I don't have any fancy Martin Luther King quotes. I don't have any Girl Scouts to parade in front of you. But I do have a question, and it goes back to Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes asked the question, why? Why do you need this zoning? Why are you having an extra piece of zoning for this
- bit. There's no need to do this. They already have. They're already growing stuff, OK? The question is, what everybody else in the neighborhood has said, do we want all these cars in the neighborhood? No. And I really question, can they get 20 cars in the driveway? Because I live across the street. But the neighbors have spoken. I'm not going to go into that.
- But the question is, why would you want to put more zoning in place when it's for one property? It's very clear. The gentleman that just spoke before, he was talking about his sister's property, one property. This is about one property. And you're putting a zoning in place. And that, as the lawyers have said, is going to open a bad door for you guys. And that's all I'm going to say. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. All right. I know Eric we have two people on zoom still and yes Kathleen bogus you should be able to unmute you. OK thank you. Yes I'm Kathleen bogus. I live in the city. I happen to be a member of on the board of directors of Garden Quest which is all about teaching children how to get in touch with how their food comes to them.
- I read through the packet. I saw several emails on there. They were very brief, very short, but they all were in support of having children educated on the property. And when you ask why is zoning necessary, zoning is necessary because the Spears have gone through all of the steps to get this approved. And they were told at a meeting that I attended that the correct way to do it was to work with the city and ask for zoning.
- So the reason it has come up is because the city members of other commissions have said, this is the correct way to do it. I appreciate what Joe said in support of it. I know Matt. I appreciate what he said. I don't think I need to take more time other than to just say, we're not talking about every day of the week. We're talking about occasional groups coming to this property.
- A couple times a week, it could be once a month. We don't know, because we haven't been allowed to operate in this fashion yet. We totally stopped the Garden Quest operation, basically, when we were told that we couldn't do this. And so now we're trying to work through the proper channels to make this happen. We're sorry about the traditional residential neighborhood that we're used to.
- But I have a garden in my home. I want to be able to produce things. I want to bring children to my home and teach them how to garden for native planting, to garden for vegetables. I think this ordinance needs to be approved so that we can deal with the real world in current times and do it in a respectable way. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, so maybe we can take one more on Zoom.
- Paul Russo, you should be able to unmute. Thank you. I live miles away from Coventer, Covenanter, excuse me, and I love to garden. Plants that are raised organically and picked within hours are some of the best food you will ever eat. But the issue here I think is scale. And I don't understand why it has to be commercial.
- When food is produced commercially, that necessarily involves profit. And for something to be profitable, agricultural operation must generally be large enough to mitigate fixed costs. In sharp contrast to organic gardening, a commercial operation will often involve fossil fuel inputs, potential fertilizer runoff, potential airborne pesticide drift. So at this time, I would support this resolution only if it does not allow commercial agriculture.
- Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. We have one more online one more. OK. All right. One more online. Ellie Spear you should be able to unmute. Hello my name is Ellie Spear. I'm here to say that I am so impressed with the city for taking the steps
- become a leader in the country. We need this kind of vision. Someone has to take the first step and people are asking for it. We may be the only ones that have gone to the city to ask for it, but there are others. IU wants to start a urban bike tour. They have graduate students.
- that have gotten funding to do this because they see this is the wave of the future. People want to learn from other people who are living and doing what they want to do. They need to be inspired. And this kind of zoning ordinance is inspirational. And that's all I have to say. It is inspirational. Thank you for giving it the opportunity. Thank you very much.
- All right. OK. One more. All right. OK. I'm cognizant of the time here, not only for how much time we spent, but also how much our biological needs might be. Yes. Go ahead, please. I'm a master gardener.
- I became a master gardener after I retired 34 years of teaching in the Monroe County schools. I taught kindergarten, first grade, health education, science education. I gardened all my life. I usually made it up, but I have been to the urban farm
- And I have learned more than the Purdue Master Garden can provide. I have learned how to take food waste because they educated me before the cease and desist inside and outside of the property. We went off the property. We went to my property.
- And I learned how to take food waste and turn it into black gold. It's a different kind of composting system. It's not composting. It's fermentation. I took my food waste this fall, did what I was supposed to do, and then I had someone dig a trench
- I put it in the trench, I covered up the fermented anaerobic food waste, and I put it down, and this spring I got my beets, my Swiss chard, my food, and I put it in that spot where the trench was, and oh my gosh, my clay hard,
- yucky soil was black gold. There were worms there. And I took my soil sample to the Monroe County soil and water, they had tests. And I took it and my soil surpassed. It was highest on all the levels.
- and just medium high on calcium, so I might have needed to have added calcium. But that was all from the food that I put into the ground, different than composting. Animals won't dig this food up. It even takes citrus fruits and things that you really can't compost. And animals won't dig it up because of the fermentation. It's like a pickled,
- gunk. It's not the most pleasant thing but you know we learned how to do it and the system is great. So I want to read a few letters from the twenty twenty four. You didn't get the packet that went to the Bloomington Board of Zoning. So
- We have been and these are all under public record, so I'm not going to say anybody's name. We have been following the development of Ellie's project for Garden Quest for several years. We now use her composting methods. Our understanding is that the difficulty is that the outdoor educational programs are not allowed in residential neighborhoods. If this were disruptive, I could see
- But small numbers of children are certainly less of a problem than large parties anyway. My little vegetable garden and fruit garden on First Street is important to me for many reasons, including health, general well-being, and a sense of control in a changing environment. I would very much value having Garden Quest education available to me a few blocks from where I live.
- Seeing through in-person demonstrations and how to handle various problems and getting new ideas for what is possible is incredibly helpful as I struggle to make my garden grow. Thus, I totally support Ellie and Brett Spears' request to receive a zoning compliance.
- They don't want the big things that the neighbors are fearful of. The Spears just want to educate inside their house in the winter and outside their house to demonstrate how to do it. It's more real when you get a chance to get out of the classroom and to just
- do it zero. That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. OK. I'm not seeing anyone else pop up. So I'm going to ask commissioners here how they want to proceed here. We're also getting very close to our nine o'clock hour for introducing the other petitions.
- So commissioner yes I have a lot that I could say but I would just like to make a motion to continue petition 0 18 25 to our next meeting on August 11th. We have five more petitions that we need to try to get through tonight in the next 20 minutes. That's my motion. OK so we have a motion. Do we have a second for that. All right. OK yeah.
- I'd like to say just because I sit on the BZA and so I'm very familiar with this. I'm glad to do a continuance. I would I would encourage planning commission members to go into the comprehensive plan. I can give you page numbers that shows where I think this amendment falls very much in line with the vision and policy of what we're trying to move Bloomington into.
- Do you have those open right now that you can at least say them because I do page 45 Okay, so this is a comprehensive plan the june 2024 version. Thank you but I could also point to where the climate action plan says that because they the petition the Spears brought this to climate action committee the
- The council climate action and resilience committee last year and that is part of what started this whole process So great and I think also the Bloomington food policy council So when we're asking the why this is very concrete This is very spelled out very clearly as to where this falls under and to be white. It should be moving forward Thank you for those references. All right, any other comp quick comments? I
- Make I know we're trying to move here so we can get on to some other business knowing that the Motion is to continue this to August. There's still more time to talk about it And I again I want to remind everybody about sending materials and if there are additional comments or ideas you have Please send them in so we can consider them more fully, but are we ready for a vote? Ballard yes
- Seaborg yes Holmes. Yes Kinsey. Yes Okay, do we need I think we need a biological break here for five minutes, but we do how and then and then can I confer with So then you'll need to vote to hear petitions after 9 p.m. And to go later than 930 potentially and has to be unanimous
- Otherwise we have to pick a date within the next week to meet again to finish those petitions Okay. All right. Thank you. All right Five minutes if we can do this quick and then we can All right, sorry folks five minutes here were just for recess We're back so our first order of business is I
- I don't think we can do all of them in 12 minutes. So I think our first order is to extend or to is it that we are motioning to amend the rules of when we can introduce new petitions for this meeting to allow new petitions to be heard. Okay. So suspending the rules that's the motion we need and then again we need to all be
- vote unanimously in favor in order to do that. And I'm not pressuring anybody to do that. But I think for those of you who took a look at the rest of these and the fact that we don't really have anyone else in the room here, we might or we have a few people in the room. I don't mean to discount for those of you are still hanging out that we might be able to get through these. So there's some value to to maybe doing it. So we can entertain emotion.
- Move to suspend the rules and allow introduction of new petitions past 9 p.m. This evening is that covered. So what. And yeah so if you can maybe deal with this when 925 rolls around but you'll need to deal with the 930 that no new petitions are heard after that either. OK. OK.
- So we can wait until 925 to do that. I can promise you I will be expeditious. OK. All right. OK. So that's the motion. And we need a second. Somebody did you say it. Sorry Patrick if you said it. OK. Second. All right. So we can vote on this again. We all need to agree or else we will leave after this or only hear one. So a vote. Yes.
- Roll call. Yeah, sorry Ballard yes Seaborg. Yes Holmes. Yes, Kenzie. Yes Stossberg. Yes. Okay. All right that allowance in place Let's take us to the first one Zio 1925
- I will just kind of preface this one. There are three amendments that we are hearing tonight that all kind of touch on similar challenges in regards to land uses and their appropriateness and presence in the community. So those and as I mentioned we'll be presenting each of these individually so you can vote on them.
- give the general preface here you know certain land uses that we have found self storage buildings car washes or vehicle washes and vehicle fueling stations you know have inherent
- Problems that don't present great opportunities for the community. They don't really activate street presences Along those businesses. They're very low employment uses. They're not very environmentally friendly They're very very vehicle oriented and so we have three uses that we've identified that have long been on our list of things to kind of address or Whittle down the areas in the zoning districts where these uses are allowed in so the next petition that you are hearing
- Zio 1925 is one of those and that deals with the land use storage comma self-service.
- So we are proposing to reduce the zoning districts where this use is allowed in to allow for this as an accessory use in the mixed use student housing district with a use specific standard here that you are only allowed to have this use as an accessory use if there are at least 20 dwelling units on the property and then to remove this as a permitted use in all other districts except for the mixed use corridor.
- So that is the MC zoning district. So there would still be all the use specific standards to go along with this as well as a new one that would pertain to this use that the maximum footprint that is allowed for this use on a property shall be fifteen hundred square feet or 20 percent of the property whichever is less.
- So again this is to severely limit the amount of this use on a property as well as the districts that this can occur in just kind of for your general knowledge the mixed use corridor districts are the areas along some of our major arterial roads college and walnut west third east third some sections on Second Street.
- So just the the map on the screen gives you an idea of where those MC zoning districts are You know, I can as you can see there's still a great amount of land that is designated for this zoning district So this is not you know limiting it to three properties in the city or something like that There's still a lot of land where this use can occur on we are just limiting where this where this can occur within the city So we are recommending that this petition be forwarded to the common council with
- with a favorable recommendation tonight. And that is all that I have and happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. All right. Questions about this 0 1925. Eric you said just mixed use quarter. There's a mixed use student housing. Yes. In the MS the mix you student housing is an accessory use only if there are more than 20 dwelling units.
- To make sure I understood it. So the staff recommendation is to Forward the Senate Common Council with a positive recommendation and also to waive a second hearing Yes, I'm sorry. I should have clarified so waived the required second hearing and forward it tonight with a favorable recommended recommendation of approval
- Thank you. All right. Thank you for asking that clarification. OK. No more questions. We can do a motion. Yes. Wow. OK. Shocking. All right. OK. Well we can entertain a motion on this one. Oh yes. Oh sorry. Yes. The room vacated I presume. Any public comment. Anybody from the zoom.
- Yeah if there is anybody online that would like to speak to this petition please use the raise hand function or send a chat via host and we can recognize you. I am not seeing anyone. OK. All right. OK so back to council. Yes. And just in general.
- First of all I want to thank staff for getting the self storage limits here. It feels a little late but that's OK. And in general especially thinking about my earlier vote about self storage and thinking about what we should be doing as a city and should be using our development ordinance for is that I think that we should really be really trying hard to make desirable development and things that Bloomington really needs needs in terms of uses and building easier.
- and then undesirable things and poor uses of our land uses harder. And so that's something that this does is it makes it a little bit harder and a little bit narrower to use land for self storage. So with that said I would make a motion to waive the second hearing and forward petitions 0 19 25 to the Common Council with a favorable recommendation. Thank you. We have a second.
- OK. Ready for a roll call vote on this one. Seymour. Yes. Holmes. Yes. Kinsey. Yes. Stossberg. Yes. Ballard. Yes. OK. That one is forwarded to common counsel with a positive recommendation and waiver of second hearing. OK. Well if you talked really fast maybe we could get through all of these Zio 2025.
- The next round of amendments here is the 020-25 is a series of actually four amendments or three kind of more specifically. Some of these are just housekeeping. There were some use specific standards that were
- revised and amended in previous years however they referenced an asterisk on the use table that we could not adjust or deal with because it involved a change to the use table that requires notification to everyone in the city so it's just kind of some of these have just kind of sat waiting for a time that we can address those so the first one deals with fraternity or sorority house there were you specific standards for this that were removed two years ago however as I just mentioned we couldn't remove
- of the asterisk in the use table because that had other implications. So we are cleaning that up.
- We have two small changes to the mixed use student housing district to allow the artist studio or workshop use as well as the office use in that zoning district. This is just to try to activate some space within the mixed use student housing districts where you have developments that had ground floor commercial space or other space within the building that they're having a hard time renting or using. So this just gives an additional allowance or capability for them to utilize that space.
- And then in the last round of UDO amendments we added to use specific language for the use vehicle fleet operations. But again we could not add the asterisk to the use table because that was a different set of amendments. So we are adding the asterisk and the new citation that deals with that language that was added. So this is just formally amending the use table to reflect that citation and add the asterisk.
- And then with that we are recommending the waiver of the required second hearing and forwarding this to the Common Council with a favorable recommendation. OK. All right. Thank you for that. And do we have some questions or comments. Yep. You promised I know I promised and I had forgotten about this.
- There's no text change with this with regard to the fraternity or sorority house, but I was wondering in 2003 030 use specific standards under residential uses under a fraternity or sorority house. It just says 10 fraternity or sorority house with no actual like content. So as part of this change, should that have been changed and we should just delete that that 10 fraternity or sorority house and then renumber everything else? Yes, that will be enough. Well,
- So that right that section will be renamed that'll you'll see that on the redline version It will we see it on the redline version because it's not in this packet That there aren't you specific standards for this use so in the specific standard section in 2030 there should not be a heading fraternity and sorority house and
- So is that something that would maybe need to be a specific amendment at the council level or is that something that we can like you all can do that here like a condition here or an amendment. How do we do that. I think we'll just be an amendment. Right. Yeah.
- Okay, I mean you would you could add it as a condition we recommend a positive recommendation to the council with the addition that the Heading of fraternity and sorority house in these specific standards listings be removed and that all following numbers be renumbered Okay, so within the motion to forward I can include that stuff. Yeah, great. Thanks All right. Okay. Thank you. You know, I actually had a question or maybe us this could be just something to consider the
- On the allowable use table, there's the legend at the top with all of the categories. And I wonder if there's a value in being consistent in maintaining the same categories across all the allowable use tables by adding the CA
- One that we introduced. Yeah. So that change that change was in the urban agriculture non-commercially urban agriculture commercial excerpt from the table. But that would be reflected in the table as a whole across every. Yes. It would be in every. Yeah. I just want to just the whole issue of inclusive footnotes. I mean essentially they're notes. Yeah. So inclusive notes across all tables. OK. All right. That's good.
- All right. Anybody else comment on this one. OK. And I suppose we need to do public comment again saying nobody jump or anyone. Yes. So again if there's anybody online that would like to speak to this petition please use the raise hand function and I'm not seeing anyone. OK.
- All right, so back to us then for a motion You recite it Commissioner Stasberg, I'll do my best. I think I'll get it right. So I would like to move to Wave the second hearing for petition CEO 2025 and forward it to Common Council with a positive recommendation with the condition that
- The fraternity or sorority house heading in the UDO at 20 0 3 0 3 0 be 10 be removed and Subsequent headings be renumbered as appropriate Thank you. All right, do we have a second? Second thank you. All right, okay With a motion and a second we're ready for a roll call vote
- Holmes yes Kinsey yes Stossberg yes Ballard yes Seaborg yes forwarded to common council. All right. So now Zio 21 25.
- Yes so this request is just kind of following up on some of the language I just kind of reference in relation to you know removing some land uses from the UDO that you know don't have a lot of demonstrated benefits and are kind of taking up space that could be utilized for other land uses certainly benefit the community a lot better. And so this is in relation to vehicle fuel stations.
- And so we are proposing to reduce the number of zoning districts where this use is allowed as well to exclusively just the MC zoning district Just as we just kind of reference with the self storage
- And so that would be the only change that is happening with this exception. There are some use specific standards that reference other zoning districts where this use would no longer be allowed. So we would be modifying those zoning districts. Excuse me to remove those citations. OK.
- I'm so sorry. So we are recommending a waiver of the required second hearing with this one and forwarding this to the Common Council with a positive recommendation All right back to us for comments questions There are lots of existing Stations that would become non-conforming uses after this and they could they're grandfathered in I assume Correct. They continue on
- Once they become that is there since they're going to be nonconforming what kind of limitations on improvements or changes are imposed on them as nonconforming uses. Yeah. So great question. So they would just be limited on expansion.
- Possibilities but to be honest, that's something that we very rarely see with gas stations, you know, there are vehicle fuel stations You know, they've got a very small building, you know, the use is entirely out of the gas pump So they can certainly replace those gas pumps, you know, that would be ordinary Equipment or or improve safety or do things like that? I
- They can still make changes. Yeah, so that would be under the maintenance and repair so they would be allowed to do that They just couldn't add more pumps or add on to their building. Could they put in newer modern pumps? Yes Yeah, as long as they're not adding so if they've got eight pumps now they can replace those with new ones But they can't add like nine or ten. Okay, what if I may follow up on this one? What about? different kinds of fuel electric
- What if what if they wanted to alter go from to a different kind of energy? Yes, that's a that's a great question You know, I I would say honestly they would not be allowed because that would be adding that Yeah, so that would be my initial off-the-cuff responses they could not add new pumps of any sort if that is is this going to limit electric fuel
- Locations So so I'll just kind of preface that a little bit also with you know businesses that have added these we have not added we have not looked at that as a Separate use of itself. That's an ancillary use of the main use that is there You know if they were to tear down the entire building and just have electric stations or something like that, then that would be a different story and
- So existing buildings or businesses that want to have electric fueling, you know, that's not a separate use You know, we've allowed that as an ancillary use. How is vehicle fuel station defined? Does it even cover electric? So that would be the exclude. Yes, so there is a definition of vehicle fuel station I don't I don't have that in my presentation because I wasn't proposing to modify that But it I can I can pull it up and read it to you. I
- So the electric vehicle charging facility is a separate use listed in the use table table three dash.
- Three dash one or three dash. Oh one and it's an accessory use so it doesn't really matter what the primary use is So like if a gas station wanted to add You know some charging stations that would we would look at that as two separate things So limiting the locations of gas stations won't affect the possible locations of the electric Vehicle charging except if they completely converted then it would be no longer. Well, we don't allow that It's only allowed as accessory currently. Yep. Okay Okay
- be able to add electric as an accessory use after they're nonconforming. Sounds like it. No no they couldn't. I mean not not as we've applied it and use it so far. Is that an intended consequence or is that just like it looks like it reads that way. It was not intended. You know we can we can certainly.
- Modify that with a use specific standard at some point in the future if we wanted to add that Allowance that exemption that electric fuel stations don't count against that use Yeah, it could be a possible solution that we could look at and bring forward next year I mean can they add other once they're non-conforming. Can they add other accessory uses? Or is it just the primary? vehicle fuel station use
- That can't be expanded because if they can add other so they can add uses within the building, you know, like so gas stations You typically see a restaurant or something that might be associated, but they can't add on space to the building They could add on space but not for the gas station So let's say you had a gas station and they wanted to add on for a restaurant, you know Turn it into a multi tenant or something something something like that You can add a conforming use to a non-conforming use, but you can't expand the non-conforming so an electric fuel station would be a
- Conforming use presumably right. I'm just trying to I mean this probably is academic but I'm just trying to are we are we unintentionally restricting the creation of charging stations Super confident right now in answering the question about whether or not we would limit that but I will say that in the you know in the people that we've talked to So Tesla and different vendors over the last, you know five or seven years
- They do not try to locate at gas stations. That's not we haven't seen that co-location at all. I don't think here They're usually looking at like places with large parking areas where they can kind of like have an outlaw without an actual outlaw That's basically the majority. That's what we've seen thus far. So I don't know
- Even though I'm not sure I can answer that question. I don't know that it will have a lot of practical Results and we could come back, of course if it did but we based on what we've seen I don't think that we would likely see that understood. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah It's a similar thing maybe at one of the lunch sessions about electric vehicle charging facilities because one of Swiss was somebody in council talked about some is limiting gas stations and part of that is like an environmental like pollution kind of thing because gas stations
- Create brownfields essentially so it limits that kind of new creation of potential pollution but electrical vehicle charging facilities don't do that and so I do kind of think that it needs to be dealt with separately and it's not really currently dealt with separately in terms of like that kind of like fueling use because the the definition that you were talking about for gas station does just include like
- it it's like diesel and and gasoline and and those categories of fuel so I think that that's something that we should think about in the future, but I don't think that it Prevents this current change from happening Just sit here and reflect I would just say that probably 90% of the gas stations are in the MC zoning district anyway and
- You know so it's probably a very low percentage of gas stations that are in a district other than the emcee that might be impacted. So I have another question if a gas station that is not in the emcee were to close would another person be able to open a gas station on that same property. So that's a great question. So if it's more than a year no.
- If the other gas station removed their stuff then that would be a no as well. I thought so. I just so the gas station have to leave their stuff and it'd be less than a year for that to transition to another one. Thanks. All right. All right. Let the details here. OK.
- Where are we here. Okay. So again the staff's recommendation was a waiver of the request to approve the waiver from the required second hearing and for this to the common council with a positive but we still need to do public comment if there is anything. Yes. Yeah but not seeing anyone in this space and if anyone's smart enough who's still with us on zoom it's figured out an additional question. So again if there is anybody online that would like to speak to this petition please use the raise hand function.
- I'm not seeing anyone. All right. OK. So ready for a motion on this one. Again it's the same recommendation to waive the second hearing and forward to common counsel with a positive recommendation to waive the second hearing and forward z o dash twenty one dash twenty five to common counsel with a positive recommendation. Second. Thank you. Excellent. OK. Ready for a roll call vote.
- Kinsey. Yes. Stossberg. Yes. Ballard. Yes. Seaborg. Yes. Holmes. Yes. OK. All right. So zero twenty two dash twenty five another text amendment.
- Yo dash 22 dash 25 again kind of just following up on vehicle oriented uses. This would be a modification to the use table for the use vehicle wash. And again so just as the last use we'd be proposing to reduce the districts where this use is allowed to exclusively the M.C. zoning district. So this would be removing it from a permitted use in the M.M. district and the E.M. district. So this would only be allowed in the M.C.
- So that is the only change that we are proposing here is just to reduce the districts where this is allowed. And so again we are requests are recommending that the planning commission waive the required second hearing and forward this to the common council with a positive recommendation. Great. All right. Questions from. I feel like we should ask this like how many will it affect how many would be covered. Do we know.
- Yeah, so that's a great question again just anecdotally most of these are you know, just like car or gas stations, you know, these are in MC zoning districts But you know there there might be you know, I did not do an analysis of every single one You know and again this would just affect new ones But most of those are probably in the MC district already so it's just kind of removing the districts and the
- Conversations about doing new ones and areas that are you know, there's only something other than MC Like that's like I think what should be a common question that we should ask and staff I would ask bring us some data right when you come to these things have it already Anticipate that I'm gonna ask that question of like this is probably gonna offend me We have 30 of these in Bloomington 25 of them are already an MC It's only gonna affect five of them new business formation is you know one every three years
- That would be a very useful data that I agree. Thank you. Thanks. All right. I like this one too. Anybody want a motion. Oh public comment. Sorry public comment. So again if there's anybody online that would like to speak to this petition please use the raise hand function and we can recognize you. I'm not seeing anyone. OK.
- All right. Now back to us. Motion on this one. I'll move to wait the second hearing and forward Zio dash to to dash to five the common council with a positive recommendation. Second. Thank you. All right. Ready for a roll call vote on this one. Sausberg. Yes. Ballard. Yes.
- Seymour. Yes. Holmes. Yes. Kinsey. Yes. Thank you. OK. Another one path forwarded. OK. Last one and we may be able to get this in. Well we definitely can introduce it. OK. See you 2325.
- This is case 0 dash 23 dash 25. And again this is a small change and this is not actually removing a use from the from the UDO. This is just reclassifying how the use tattoo or piercing parlor is regulated. So we are proposing to group this use with the use that is very similar to that in regards to personal service. Personal service is a use that deals with
- Providing small care to the care of persons, you know in various fashions whether it's cutting your hair tanning salon beauty salon
- things like that, personal service stuff. So this used tattoo and piercing parlor had historically just been regulated by itself, but as it's certainly becoming a lot more commonplace, you know, you get your ears pierced just about anywhere, you know, and things that businesses provide this service, you know, are a lot more prolific and not as highly needed to be regulated as historical purposes had been. So as I mentioned, we are proposing to reclassify this as personal service.
- So this would involve removing the references to tattoo or piercing parlor where that does surface in some of the use specific standards for the downtown removing it from the maximum parking table as a separate use amending the definition of personal service to include tattoo and piercing parlor and then removing the definition of tattoo or piercing parlor since that is no longer a standalone use.
- So again we are recommending a waiver that the Planning Commission grant the waiver from the required second hearing and forward this to the Common Council with a positive recommendation. All right. Thank you. All right. I do have a lame question on this one that the term parlor it seems very ancient. Why is that still associated with these services.
- I cannot give you a great answer other than that has that is how the land use has been in the code for 30 years. OK. All right. Yeah it just seems like a strange description of a service. You know it's I guess beauty parlor would have been the old parlance but OK. All right. I'm not going to object. Anybody else question comment.
- And just say I appreciate that planning staff went ahead and did this this was actually When I was talking to another council member We realized that tattoo and piercing parlor was being regulated in the same way as liquor sales and pawn shops And that just seemed a little bit discriminatory against people who might want a tattoo And that it's not really
- the way that we felt like that should be regulated and that it seemed to go more impersonal service small with beauty shops and other personal care type services. So I appreciate that this is coming forth to expand that as an option for businesses and specifically that allows it more. And some of our like first floor retail around town and some of that is vacant space. So that might help things.
- Thanks. I appreciate it too. Are there any other provisions in Bloomington's code that apply to personal care that will newly apply to tattoo parlors. And I mean just again I am not aware of any other implications. There might be health code implications for those businesses but I don't see that we it's not a business license that you need from us.
- As we added a restaurant row a couple of years ago, right? first one that would be removed though because Tattoo parlors would not be regulated in there anymore Yeah, so currently tattoo parlors are not allowed on what what we call restaurant row in the udl like on 4th Street a Couple of years ago or last year. We added personal services for spaces that are quite small there that can't Support a restaurant and so this these would now be able to move into that location. Oh, right
- Okay so are we ready to hear public comment any public comment on this one I thought somebody might weigh in on this one. I am not seeing anybody. We've exhausted them all. Okay. Comment motion actually approached me and said that they were really pleased with this because they knew somebody who had a tattoo or piercing I can't remember which one is probably both shop that they were actually looking to expand.
- And at first they saw this one. Oh my gosh, you're taking it away. And then there was clarity like oh you're actually expanding the options of where I can expand my business. So that's the anecdotal public comment for me. Yep. This is the one I've actually heard from people on to believe they're not all positive. OK. All right. Move to waive the second hearing on CEO dash 23 dash 25 and forward it to Common Council with a positive recommendation.
- Thank you. All right, and we're ready for a roll Ballard yes seaboard. Yes Holmes. Yes Kinsey. Yes Stossberg. Yes All right. Okay, so that concludes our petitions for this evening. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody for hanging out Thank you We're adjourned