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) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music) (orchestral music)