- I'm going to call to order this work session the Monroe County Board of Commissioners. It is
- Thursday, April 10th. We have
- Two items on our work session agenda
- Mr. Myers and mr. Smith
- The first being I see mr. Myers online the first being ordinance 2025 - 11
- Thank you, can you hear me? All right, we sure can thank you. Good morning. Okay, great
- Just a quick correction. This is our easy - 25 - one
- And this is the Sunset Hill rezoned
- 100 parcels to be rezoned from high development residential to residential one
- so I will go through the
- Report here that's included in the packet and then at the formal session whenever the commissioners
- select to have that heard
- I will have a presentation with the PowerPoint to be presented at that time
- so
- Let's begin
- So this went through the Planning Commission process
- it went through the administrative meetings as well as the formal session of the Planning
- Commission and
- As a summary of what this petition is about is the Monroe County Board Commissioners
- Requested to rezone approximately 100 parcels from high development residential to residential one
- rationale provided by the commissioners relates to the selected area exhibiting the established
- neighborhoods with the majority of homes utilizing septic systems the presence of
- karst and sinkhole features in the area and the recently approved historic preservation overlay
- that was granted to
- 25 parcels of this subject area as I stated it's approximately 100 parcels totaling about
- 64.44 acres in this section under REZ - 25 - 1
- It's in section 6 of Perry Township and there's a address list and included in the packet that has
- table one as the title
- Those are all the part properties that will be addressed under this rezone
- The petition sites are all currently zoned high development residential per the county development
- ordinance
- Which was approved by the county commissioners on December 18th, 2024. That was ordinance number 20
- 24 - 61
- As a part of that approval the commissioners requested planning staff to begin a rezone of the area
- shown
- In this report
- Within county jurisdiction from that new high development residential zone to residential one or
- RES
- So as a bit of history this these properties that are included in this portion of the packet
- Under REZ - 25 - 1 we're all part of the former fringe areas of the city
- Of Bloomington's planning and planning and zoning jurisdiction. Excuse me until that interlocal
- agreement ended in the in
- 2011 and there was a mix of different zones throughout this portion of the of the
- County under Sunset Hill neighborhoods
- that had different
- Classifications under that 1997 cities zoning districts or the former fringe areas as we called
- them
- so as part of the CDO these areas were all
- blanket rezoned to high development residential and as I said before the
- Board of Commissioners after that initial approval of that CDO
- stated that they would like to see a rezone happen for this area as well as
- Rez - 25 - 2 & 3 which fellow planner Sean will address during his
- Presentation and you will note that a lot of the information from both of our reports are very
- similar because they are both
- Going from high development residential to residential one. So information that's regarding HD to
- RES
- Will be the same the main differences between the two
- Petitions here today is that the Sunset Hill area contains properties that are also
- Designated as historic preservation with the overlay and then in Sean's there are
- Several properties that have multifamily uses currently operating on them
- Whereas this particular petition the Sunset Hill petition only has one property that's exhibiting
- in the pre-existing
- Multifamily use which you can see on the screen. These are the properties listed 717 South Analee
- Lane through
- 725 South Analee Lane
- Those are all on one parcel and they're all
- As you have multiple residences on one parcel, it's considered a multifamily use. So actually
- the one of the conditions of approval that was set by the Plan Commission and planning staff for
- this particular petition is that
- This particular property that's operating as multifamily be excluded from the rezone
- Because we would basically be creating a zone that's more non-compliant with its current use of
- multifamily on this particular parcel
- We'll come back to that at the end with the full recommendation from the planning staff and the
- Planning Commission's
- recommendation as well
- So here is the location map. These are all the highlighted parcels for the Sunset Hill
- Rezone under this particular petition. You'll note that they're all zoned HD high-development
- residential
- and this is a West Bloomfield Road off to the south and
- West third streets up here to the north. It's kind of cut off from the map and then you have the
- course
- South Corrie Lane that cuts through this property
- But these properties, excuse me
- This is that table one that lists all of the property owners and their addresses that are impacted
- by this rezone
- And then on the far right column you'll see acreage and I highlighted all the parcels that are
- going to be above
- the one acre minimum lot size that is required for the
- RES zone
- now
- RES zone is a particular zoning district. It does have a minimum lot size requirement of one acre.
- However
- It does have provisions in within the code that allow for properties to be under one acre
- As long as other design standards can be met. So it's not such a strong
- Threshold as it can be in other zoning districts when it comes to the minimum lot size
- But it is worth noting that there are only a few properties that are above that threshold
- technically speaking
- But again as long as other
- You know design standards are met. There is no issue with minimum lot size
- and in fact
- If there were an issue with minimum lot size because maybe you can't meet a setback requirement
- The planning department would only require that variance procedure for the setback not the minimum
- lot size
- So it's just more or less an informative piece of information
- and this column here is to give you an idea of the scope and the
- the
- The range of lot sizes that are within this
- area
- So you can see a couple of them here highlighted that are above that one acre
- threshold
- I'm just going to keep scrolling. There's a few more here
- And we can come back to that table if needed
- Here is the zoning map
- As you can see the hatched parcels are the ones that receive the historic preservation overlay
- That was also adopted in december of last year, specifically december 18th
- And the historic preservation overlay does not impact the underlying zoning district
- It just allows for a flexibility of uses through the activation of the historic adaptive reuse
- classification that can allow for certain properties that are under that overlay to
- Have a bit more flexibility in what they kind of have what uses that are allowed on their property
- They do have to go through the historic preservation board review for the certificate of appropriateness
- if they need to do any sort of exterior changes
- or additions to their homes because that is part of the
- Historic preservation overlay to kind of maintain that character of the properties in some of the
- neighborhood area as well
- So if you have any questions about sort of preservation overlay we can come back to that
- this section of the packet now talks about the
- District characters between the residential one district and the high development residential
- district
- So I won't read all this verbatim because it is in the packet, but it does provide a district
- character and a purpose
- For each of those districts for reference
- And then here on the bottom of this page. I went ahead and noted that the res zone
- Contains 26 permitted uses and 10 conditional uses
- Conditional uses meaning that it goes to the board of zoning appeals
- At a public hearing and then must meet all of its conditions in order to receive approval
- And then the hd zone contains 28 permitted uses and seven conditional uses
- Now on the screen, um is a breakdown of those permitted uses
- As well as the conditional uses that are available in each of these districts. So starting with
- residential one. I highlighted the
- Uses the land use classifications that are different than the other
- Zoning district or the hd district if there's an asterisk. It means that there are standards that
- are included in the
- Zoning or zoning ordinance that those standards must be met or they can potentially apply for a
- variance to a particular standard if they can't meet them
- So, um, you'll see here agricultural traditional roadside stand temporary accessory dwelling units
- and attached and detached
- Residential storage structure are all uses that are permitted in the res zone that are not
- permitted in the hd zone or perhaps they're in the conditional use section instead
- Conditional uses for the res zone two family dwelling child care center collection container
- facility artisan crafts food and or beverage production and cafe slash coffee shop
- Moving on to the hd zone. You'll note that multifamily dwellings are permitted in this district and
- they did not appear in the former
- So we have multifamily dwellings three to four units, multifamily dwellings five plus units, senior
- housing, single family attached dwellings three to five units
- Two family dwelling is now in the permitted section instead of the conditional section and child
- care center
- Then in conditional uses we have firearm sales retail sales small scale so we can come back to any
- of those differences with respect to the use uses permitted in each district if we have questions
- Next is the design standards tables another comparison here between the res zone and the hd zone
- So the minimum lot widths change a little bit minimum lot size as I stated before maximum and
- previous cover does change as well as the setbacks so side and rear yard setbacks this should be
- highlighted excuse me for that oversight
- And then let's see here we've got on the next page the hd zone's differences so minimum lot width
- for the hd zone because it is a more dense classification
- Was 50 feet with the minimum lot size of 0.14 acres then you can see the maximum and previous cover
- calculations are a bit different there as well as well as setbacks so we have five and 10 feet
- which was an hd zone and the res
- zone is 10 and 20 feet. Front yard setbacks are determined by the roads classification so those
- rarely change between the districts
- Okay site conditions and infrastructure it does have access these areas have access through South
- Corrie Lane, West Piper Lane, South Annalee Lane, West Wiley Street, West Corrie Drive or West
- Bloomfield Road
- None of the petition sites are located in the environmental constraints overlay also known as the
- Lake Monroe watershed and there is no floodplain designated on the petition sites however there is
- evidence of karst and sinkhole features across this area within the Sunset Hill region
- So here's just some aerial imagery to give you an idea of how the area looks with respect to the
- bird's eye view
- Here we have the comprehensive plan so in the Monroe County urbanizing area it was designated as
- mixed residential
- And then this section of the report covers that
- Discussion of the comprehensive plan between the two phases there was a phase one comprehensive
- plan and a phase two so just kind of provide some information on
- Where the county was looking to establish some development in the in the county basically providing
- some guidelines of how that development should look and what type of infrastructure should be there
- etc
- That's this map just also it reiterates that it's a mixed residential district as part of the
- comprehensive plan
- And it's also listed as urban infill neighborhood or N1
- And then again this map just indicating that the N1 district they're located with the yellow star
- I also included the property notice letter that was sent out by planning staff on behalf of the
- commissioners that provided information to property owners regarding the planning commission
- hearing
- As well as contact information for the planning department and if they had any questions to contact
- us and such
- It also included a map as well that indicates what properties were a part of this rezone and as
- well as a little bit of a background as well
- It also included a list of all the names and addresses that were
- A part of this rezone just so that they were all aware of who and where the rezone was occurring
- And then we also sent out a lot of neighbor notice letters. So there's a state statute that
- requires a certain
- Distance away from affected parcels that we have to notice as well. So this letter very similar to
- the one prior went out to all of those neighbors
- That included information about their neighbors properties being impacted. It also did provide that
- same information about the background, as well as the map and also provided a
- A the same list to, you know, reiterate that if your name is not on this list, you are not impacted.
- But if you have questions, please contact the planning department or attend the meeting of the
- Planning Commission.
- So I'm going to scroll through here. This section is the findings of fact. So this is just for your
- review. This is just standard procedure for the planning department to provide this information.
- I'm going to continue to scroll through here at the end of last few pages here. We do have some
- letters of support and or opposition. So we did receive some communication from the Greater Bloomington
- Chamber of Commerce. This is a letter of opposition.
- Basically providing a stance that they are pro-density growth. So this information was provided to
- the Plan Commission as in this packet for your review, and then we also have a few emails that were
- received by the Planning Department regarding, I think this one here is for support, liking to see
- single residents only, and that they were surprised to learn that the neighborhood had been
- designated as high density.
- This one here, another property owner or neighbor or neighbor that was concerned about the
- properties being designated as high density, and reiterating that many of the neighborhood
- constituents remonstrated against annexation because they did not want to have high density.
- See this one here.
- They support all of the rezones, providing some background here for their support.
- And we can come back to any of those necessary, but they are in the packet for your review.
- And now that brings me back to the Plan Commission's recommendation as well as staff's. So staff
- and the Plan Commission recommended approval.
- Plan Commission voted six to two to forward this petition to the Monroe County Board of Commissioners
- with a positive recommendation.
- Including a condition of approval, which is one, omit the property at 717 South Anna Lee Lane
- through 725 South Anna Lee Lane from the rezoning request due to its status as a pre-existing
- multifamily development.
- So I will now take any questions.
- Thank you so much. Commissioner Major, do you have questions?
- I had a couple of questions I think that were relevant to both rezones, but I attended the Planning
- Commission meeting
- that evening up until really the Planning Commission discussion began. So I have a pretty good
- background.
- And just for the public's knowledge, what happened to leave these out of the CDO process?
- So these parcels were included in the CDO process. They were all rezoned from their former fringe
- districts to the high development residential zone. But it was at that time the commissioners
- at that time requested that planning staff revisit this area and the areas that Sean will cover
- and request that those be rezoned again from the HD zone to the residential one zone.
- And if and if I might fill in a little bit more info, we addressed other properties like this,
- but failed to address these two when we were doing our work sessions. And so I, you know,
- I take responsibility for that. But recognizing it that we had left this out of that re-examination
- process, we didn't bring it for an amendment at the last 11th hour. Instead, we opted to
- ask for this process. It's very unusual for us to ask for any planning permit process petition,
- et cetera. It's not typical, but this is, I consider this like a correction to the CDO,
- but we wanted to go through the public vetting process. Yes. And so that's sort of the process
- we're working through now. Yes. And I think this was explained at the Planning Commission.
- Basically, these areas were just overlooked at the time, and they sort of have, you know,
- this helter skelter zoning designation because they had been the former fringe, in the former
- fridge area of the city. So, and it's basically just remedy that. Yeah. And I would say as well,
- I am still not, although I voted in support, good being better than, good being better than
- not passing it at all. I voted in support of it, but, you know, for me, on this petition and the
- next one, for example, on this one with Anna Lee Lane, that would still not meet HD standards.
- It's still outside of those standards. So I'm not sure why it matters, right, that we pull it out.
- So I'm still conflicted on that, and it's also part of the historic district. So that particular
- set of addresses. Yes, and I believe at the planning meeting, Susan Brackney was one that
- very eloquently went into the historic reasons for the historic designation and explained that
- they've asked for and received an assessment from the National Register of Historic Places
- that these areas would be appropriate for inclusion and they're going forward with that process.
- Okay, yes. And my question, I had one other question, which was what, if we complete this
- down zone, what other percentage of properties in the Sunset Hill area, and then I'll ask the
- second question when we come to the Maple Grove Baby Farms area as well, will become nonconforming?
- Yes, that's a great question. So in order to analyze what is nonconforming, we would have
- to provide a rather robust study of all the properties, which can be very challenging
- because it would require us to evaluate the setbacks of every structure throughout all of
- these parcels. And the data that we use on Beacon GIS, those parcel lines are not always 100%
- accurate,
- so we wouldn't even be fully confident in the analysis based on the data that we have.
- I will say that working with the GIS coordinator, Dr. John Beighton, he's been assisting planning
- to provide at least a framework that you can look at that shows basically a calculation of existing
- cover on each of these parcels, just using information from the Accessor's Office about
- structures on each of those parcels and such. So it can give us an idea of what that nonconformity
- can look like with respect to maybe maximum impervious cover. But again, there's some
- limitations in acquiring that data, so it won't be as accurate as we would hope, but it is
- somewhere
- that we can look and get an idea. That information is still being compiled, so we hope to have all
- of
- that information ready by the next formal session. Excellent. Thank you so much, and thank you for
- your excellent and thorough presentation. Thank you. Yeah, and I appreciate that. And it is a good
- reminder that it's not the lot size, it's the setbacks that matter. And ironically, we had
- the surveyor sitting on the Planning Commission telling us he didn't know what the setbacks were,
- but that should be his job. So I don't know, I know the GIS isn't accurate. I don't know why
- that's true. Well, I do know why that's true, but it's frustrating that these kinds of
- questions can be thrown out there and the answer is not known. And even with this data,
- that's just going to give you ground cover. That's not going to give you anything else.
- Yes, it's just a bite at the apple. Yeah, I, you know, and as I said at that meeting,
- I've lived on a non-conforming lot for 30 years. So, and I've been okay. Built a garage,
- you know, added onto the house. It's all good. It's all good. It happens a lot, but I think the
- biggest issue, if you look at the HD designation for high density zoning, is it says access to
- public services. Sewer. We don't have that. The sewer is there for some, but not all the properties.
- Sewer for the apartment building across the street. Yeah, that's it. Gotcha. So everyone
- else is on septic. And this is an area with cars features and a lot of environmental sensitivities
- that you could think, oh my gosh, how are we doing septic on 0.8 acres? Well, we are,
- but we wouldn't do that now, you know. So it is already an environmentally sensitive area,
- in addition to being historic. And if you spend time there, you see the farms and the hobby farms
- and it has a very different feel than other parts of the county for sure. Yes, yes. I've been
- through
- both areas and they definitely do because they're those little islands. Yeah, they are. In the
- middle
- of Bloomington, yes. All right. Thank you. Thanks so much. Is Sean present to do the...
- Yes, he is. And let me just offer one more piece of information from planning staff's
- recommendation that was mentioned with respect to, you know, moving some of these parcels and
- Sean will cover some of these as well from removing them from the designation. And the idea behind
- that is we understand that those properties still will be pre-existing, non-conforming with respect
- to maybe some certain design standards, but it's about being pre-existing, non-conforming with
- respect to use. Right. So if their land use is not permitted, then they have to go through another
- process called a use variance, which occasionally that bar is set pretty high. There needs to be
- hardship shown. So it can be a little bit more challenging for property owners that need a use
- variance compared to simple design standards variances that might just be setbacks. So I just
- want to make that clarification. Yeah, I appreciate that. I slid over that and I shouldn't have. So
- thank you for that, Drew. Appreciate it. Of course. Yep. And then I will turn it over to Sean.
- Good morning, commissioners. Can you hear me? Sure can. Good morning. All right. Let me just share
- my
- screen real quick. Okay. Are you able to see that? Yes. Okay. Perfect. All right. So Drew did a
- fantastic job giving you guys the rundown of all the different planning operations that go into
- these rezones. So I will try not to repeat myself and just kind of focus on maple grove baby farms
- and what's unique about this petition. I do want to just provide some sense of clarity. So
- there are in total 138 parcels in this rezone request. However, some of those include duplicate
- parcels. So that's why it's actually 132 parcels. So I just wanted to make that
- decision clear for the record. Let me go ahead and jump around here. I might be doing some jumping
- around to try to avoid some redundancy. So here on the screen, sorry, let me zoom out a little bit.
- We've got all of the highlighted areas includes all the parcels that are included in this rezone.
- So they are all currently HD. You'll want to note that the only major roadway to access all these
- parcels is from West 3rd Street. So this includes the roadways on South Johnson, South Fairfield,
- North Kimball, and then also I believe it's West Evergreen. So all of these streets
- derive access from West 3rd Street. And let's see, let's focus on some of these areas. So
- like Drew's petition, there are even more so with this petition, there are some multifamily
- developments that do already exist in this neighborhood. And I have those outlined in
- yellow on the screen here. I will note that there are two mobile home parks that are included
- within
- this petition. And I did just want to clarify that their use is not permitted outright, even if
- they
- do end up retaining their HD zoning. So I just wanted to make that clarification, as well as the
- multifamily development that's off of South Fairfield Drive. So while that is permitted
- for a multifamily, what was permitted in 2014 would actually exceed the standards in the high
- development residential zone. So as it currently stands, the CDO has a limit of 30 units on a lot,
- and what was approved in 2014 was 43. So however, even if they do retain that HD zoning, they are
- still pre-existing non-conforming, but they are in the correct zoning district for multifamily
- development. I just wanted to bring up those facts a little bit. We do have, to the northwest,
- there is a single-family detached dwelling development, but they are all on the same property.
- And then off of, let's see, is that Beaumont Lane? There is, I believe, three structures that are
- on
- that property where they contain residences. So there's kind of a mixed use of different types
- of development here in this neighborhood. And let me again jump around here.
- So similar to Drew, we did kind of do an analysis of what are the lot sizes of the properties
- in these neighborhoods. And for reference, 108 or about 82 percent of all of the parcels in the
- Maple Grove Baby Farms are less than an acre. And that leaves the remaining 24 to be greater
- than an acre. And I do have those lot sizes listed here. Highlighted in yellow represents all of
- the
- parcels that are greater than one acre. And then the remainder, of course, are less than an acre.
- So there is some disparities when it comes to lot size in the area.
- I think it's worth noting. Sorry, let me jump around again.
- Discussing the site conditions and infrastructure. Also similar to the Sunset Hills, there are
- certain properties that have access to sewer. And those were the previous properties that I
- discussed that were highlighted on the screen in yellow. So those properties have previous
- agreements with City of Bloomington Utilities to have access to sewer. But that sewer line that
- you see in green on your screen has not been extended to the surrounding properties. So
- the, you know, the density that is there that requires the sewer is already in place.
- The sewer extension, as far as we know, is not being extended to the other properties at this time.
- We did for this petition, I did receive a mixture of letters of opposition, but also letters of
- support. Most of the letters of support came after the Plan Commission meeting on March 18th. So I
- can include all correspondence for the final hearing for the formal session in this packet. But
- essentially the primary opposition were from the owners of the current multifamily developments.
- So for instance, 101 South Fairfield Drive, that was that 43-unit multifamily
- development that was approved in 2014. You know, they of course voiced their concerns about being
- rezoned from HD to RES. There were some other correspondences from other property owners,
- although they did not give specific addresses or parcel numbers just stating that they
- own property but they would like to, you know, still be able to utilize that multifamily
- designation.
- And essentially this kind of, you know, this brings me to staff's recommendation. So the
- Plan Commission did vote six to two to four this petition to the Board of Commissioners with a
- positive recommendation. Also to incorporate planning staff's condition which was to omit
- the properties at 101 South Fairfield Drive, 2542 West Evergreen Drive, 415 North Kimball Drive,
- 215 North Johnson Avenue, 325 North Johnson Avenue, and 2312 West Beaumont
- Lane and 120 South Kimball Drive from the rezone request due to their status as pre-existing
- multifamily development. So I can take any questions that any of the commissioners may have.
- Thank you so much. Comments or questions, Commissioner Medeira?
- Like I said, I did attend all of the Planning Commission meeting and so I heard the
- questions and answers that were given at that session, plus I think that the only remaining
- question I have was aptly answered in response to the Sunset Hills portion, which is that it's not
- possible really to know with any definity what percentage of properties would be non-conforming.
- And to some extent, that is most irrelevant because those properties would be sort of
- grandfathered in its pre-existing non-conforming anyways. No, thank you so much for your excellent
- presentation. All right, so would you like to hear this next week, April 17th, at our meeting? Okay.
- Is that work for everyone at Planning?
- I think so. I just want to double check with Dr. Baten that that information will be available.
- I'm fairly certain it will be by that time, but I will let you know if there needs to be any sort
- of change. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think the issue, we're not going to be meeting on the 24th,
- so we could then, it would then move to May 1st. I think the thing for me is, while it is always
- good to have more information rather than less, my concern is that it's not portrayed as
- information
- you can hang a hat on. It is guidance, general, possibly accurate, most likely true information,
- and so I, for me, I don't know how to use that kind of, you know, but it is always good to have
- more information rather than less though. So let's shoot for next week and then keep us posted.
- Sounds good. Great, thank you both so much. We appreciate you and I just want to thank you again
- for your work on this on behalf of the Board of Commissioners as your client. We appreciate
- your hard work. You both did a great job through this whole process. I appreciate that work.
- Thank you. Thank you. And just to point out, some of these are the properties that have mobile
- homes
- on them and they would not work under HD. You actually have to have a PUD for a mobile home park
- because we would ensure that you have a storm shelter but they're pre-existing. So do you leave
- them in HD? I don't know. I mean I that we did that's the vote but again good over perfect.
- Yes they're problematic under either either yes yeah so all right okay and then that other
- apartment building is way too big. Yes right so 43 units instead of 30. Yeah so it's just a lot
- it's a lot. It's it's not conforming no matter what. No matter what we zone it it's not conforming.
- All right okay anything else Ms. Purdy, Mr. Cockrell? Brilliant thank you all
- so much. We are going to be adjourned. Thanks Katz. Thanks TSD.
- (orchestral music)