Plexes are more restricted after changes to the UDO amendment, city crews are working on getting secondary roads cleared, annexation is still on pause, and a structure design bill could hamper community standards.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during a Facebook Live Zoom event Tuesday. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: Let’s start with an update on roads and snow crews. How many are out plowing due to the winter storm?
Hamilton: I'm told about 8 to 10 inches came in the Bloomington area depending exactly on where you lived. All of our crews have been everybody on board. We're actually now in the kind of marathon cycle where you run your plow and then we send you home for eight hours to get sleep and then you come back for a double shift and, we expect potentially some more snow Wednesday night overnight as well.
I think the report I got today was the main roads most in the city are down to pavement. Some of the back streets are not down to pavement, but most of them have been plowed at least once through. I appreciate everybody's patience.
Hren: The city has an ordinance too, shovel your sidewalk or face a fine.
Hamilton: Yes, we have a city ordinance that requires you to clear your sidewalks within 24 hours after the precipitation event stops. So that's coming up soon. If you're a property owner, or if you're a renter it's your responsibility. I will say in terms of enforcement, first downtown in the urban area center trying to make sure handicap ramps are accessible. But people need to get around with strollers and wheelchairs too.
Hren: I want to hit the UDO, there’s been a lot of comment on the city zoning map. The city was aiming to add higher density zoning in core neighborhoods to allow for multi-plexes… so two story, three story, housing complexes to increase density and affordable housing – but there was public outcry saying here comes more IU student housing, loss of parking, and not in my back yard – so the city responded just this past week. How is that amendment changing?
Hamilton: You didn't see a lot of what used to be built before World War Two, a lot with four flats or eight flats or small apartment buildings or triplexes, or those kinds of things. And so the zoning, UDO Unified Development Ordinance developed a new approach to encourage that missing middle, if you will. Some neighborhoods think that's a good thing. And some people in some neighborhoods don't think it's a good thing.
READ MORE: Bloomington Discusses Multiplex Housing In Ongoing UDO Forums
So in October, we presented a proposal. As you mentioned last week, we tweaked that proposal in response to public comment and basically did two things. One we reduced the amount of that new R4 so that new, denser zoning is limited more now to corridors, certain intersections and others. And the second thing was we decided to take a little more incremental approach on those plexes, the duplexes, triplexes, etc., and make them all conditional, which means they all have to go in front of a board of zoning appeals to get approved.
And also added a couple things like density - in some areas, you can't have a new duplex within 150 feet of another new duplex in a two year period. So it kind of stages things that'll go in front of plan commission, and then City Council in the next two or three months. And there'll be discussion continuing.
Hren: How do you respond to the notion that people were saying that they would fill with student housing and lower property values and developers would swoop in and buy up all that land?
Hamilton: Half of our population are students and more of our population are related to faculty and staff of IU. And so they live all throughout the city. I didn't mention an actual designated student zone, where we're encouraging real dense apartments focused on student development near campus in ways that really make a lot of sense that we haven't had before. Everybody wants our neighborhoods to be great places to live, we want to make sure people can keep coming into our neighborhoods, whether you're a student or not. We want to protect homeownership, we want to protect the mix of vitality in these places. And I really do think the UDO will help us move in that direction. And if there are directions that are tilting the wrong way, we can we can tweak them as we keep going.
Hren: Talking about new neighborhoods... Jen writes an email that the city will be the original land owners of the downtown hospital redevelopment site, can they make covenants that the site be owner occupied?
Hamilton: It's a it's a big deal that we are going to be the owner, we're going to own 24 acres, which lets us steer that development. I personally think the city may want to retain rights to those lands over long periods of time, even if we lease out to different uses. And we absolutely can steer it towards certain kinds of uses; affordable housing on homeownership, probably a mix of ownership and rental is appropriate in that spot. There'll be a lot of engagement about how we do that going forward.
READ MORE: Final Draft For Hospital Redevelopment Site Presented To City Council
Hren: There’s a bill working through the Indiana Statehouse that says a city can’t regulate design elements of residential buildings. I believe there are design elements in Bloomington’s comprehensive plan or the UDO that the plan commission and city council go by. What do you know about this bill and the effect it could have?
Hamilton: Well, I think it's a terrible bill being proposed. Joe, it's an example of the legislature on the one hand talking about keeping government close to the people in local control. And then on the other hand, frankly getting lobbied by some developer interests and others who want have carte blanche to build what they want to build. And most communities and certainly Bloomington communities have standards of how to protect the quality of life, the visible infrastructure that we all enjoy that do make a real difference in what your city feels like and looks like.
Hren: I have an email from Melissa, she wants to know what actions is the city's plan commission taking to manage the empty buildings around Bloomington? What plans are in the works to attract businesses to college mall? She says she has revenue and community positive ideas documented to share.
Hamilton: Great, we welcome sharing that. The Planning Commission does look at those kinds of things, you can just reach out directly there. COVID has obviously had a dramatic impact over the last 12 months and there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties about that. Also the whole question of retail brick and mortar stores, for example, referencing College Mall or other brick and mortar stores, there's a lot of evolution in the commercial office markets where how many people will continue to work from home? And what will the office markets look like?
Bloomington doesn't really have empty office or empty buildings like many communities do, we have very high occupancy rates. But there are some components where that's an issue. We're looking now at whether we should relax some of the first floor commercial requirements to allow affordable housing to replace that for a few years at least. And we welcome ideas about how to make sure the space is being used productively and consistent with our approach.
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