By end of June, Bloomington City Manager Jeff Jurgens said the city hopes to have a “concrete plan” that “the (city) council can act on" to improve the housing shortage in McLean County.
He shared this at Monday night's committee meeting of the whole, in which there was a 45-minute panel and discussion on housing problems and solutions.
What that plan will look like, Jurgens added, is still unclear.
However, the four panelists presenting Monday recommended having conversations with developers and banks was a good place to start.
Jurgens said there will be a meeting with developers and local commercial bankers next month, as well as a report to be presented to the council.
The problems
Patrick Hoban, head of the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council and one of the panelists, told council members a major issue facing developers is “the overall cost of money has definitely skyrocketed.”
Developers need financial assistance to get their projects off the ground, he added, and banks aren’t always willing to offer loans here.
“We're known, I think in Illinois, but Bloomington-Normal is not really known across the nation,” he said. “They’re willing to lend in Austin, Texas, because everyone knows Austin, Texas, or Chicagoland. They don't know us.”
Hoban said Bloomington and Normal’s differing zoning requirements may also make building less desirable.
“In Indiana, there’s one building code for the entire state, so many developers out there can build anywhere they want,” he said. “They know exactly how to do it. Here, we have people that’ll build in Bloomington and Bloomington only, then Normal and Normal only.”
Hoban said an overall increase in housing supply — whether it's homes or rentals — will continue to make Bloomington-Normal an attractive place to companies and individuals. Right now, he said there’s not enough housing for any businesses to take interest.
He said major employers will ask about others in the area and to him, “that’s the kiss of death.”
“Because as soon as they want to talk to other major employers, they're gonna ask StateFarm, Rivian, Caterpillar, ADM, ‘How’s hiring going?’” Hoban said. “And they're gonna say, ‘We're all cannibalizing each other right now in about the same 45-mile labor shed.’” (Labor shed is the the area or region from which an employment center draws its commuting workers.)
Ray Lai, another panelist and the executive director of the McLean County Regional Planning Commission, said another issue facing the community is a lack of diversity in housing.
“There's not enough attached single family, or townhomes, or multifamily-type housing that will serve the different needs of the population,” he said.
Meenu Bhaskar, a panelist and president of the Mid-Illinois Realtors Association, said to make housing affordable, there need to be more townhomes and duplexes and six-plexes, but when she’s brought that up with clients in Bloomington, she’s faced opposition.
People tell her “I do not like that kind of neighborhood behind my neighborhood,” Bhaskar said.
“You have to have a mindset shift between the council people, the city people, the developers, and the buyers and the subdivision people also,” she said. “So it's not one person who can change anything.”
Council member perspectives
Council member Donna Boelen, who represents Ward 2, said there needs to be a distinction between the “capital A affordable” and the “lower case a affordable.” She described capital A affordable as government-subsidized housing and lower case a affordable as fitting within someone’s required budget based on their income and means.
Boelen added that renters need to be included in the conversation, because “not everybody wants to mow a lawn and pay for their roof replacement.”
“We have to focus on the majority of the members of this community, not the well-to-do only, not those that want to buy a home, but on those that need shelter, and there's a difference,” she said.
She shared her outlook on affordability.
“We need to focus on the infill development for affordable housing, that is connected with public transportation, that is walkable,” she said.
Council member Nick Becker, who represents Ward 5, said he thinks someone needs to quantify the need by unit type and price, so the city has somewhere to start.
“I would love to see something where somebody would say, ‘Of your 9,000 units, Patrick, I need 500 that are six bedrooms or more, I need 400 that are four bedrooms, I need 300 apartments that fit in this price range,” he said.
Solutions
Hoban said that it’s easy to calculate where units should be priced for the area.
“The majority of all these jobs that we're talking about pay about $55,000 a year, so you take 30% of that, and that's the thing that we need to be looking at,” he explained, adding that around $1,200 is the ideal price point for units.
Other indicators to look at include location. Hoban said to look at building within range of the already existing fire and police stations.
“Expand too far in one direction, you're gonna have to move your firehouses,” he said. “I don't think all properties are created equal. There's certain areas that you guys should target incentivize more.”
He recommended that the city look at the McLean County GIS Consortium to see where it makes sense to build. McGIS could also address questions like that of Ward 7 council member Mollie Ward about if property owners are residing in the area or outside of it, he said.
Ward expressed that she’d like to see people bring some of the dilapidated homes and buildings around town “back to life.”
Lai, with the Regional Planning Commission, said this is an important part of the conversation.
“When we look at the supply, not just looking at the new units, but also looking at existing, if that could be resurrected, that can be brought up to code,” Lai said.
Another panelist and staff member of the RPC, Mark Adams, echoed Lai, saying “every unit counts.” In his personal capacity Adams is also part of the Community Land Trust initiative, which he said is a valid solution to make houses more affordable. The CLT would buy property and homes, with the goal of leasing and transferring ownership to renters.
“That can really bring down that purchase price by 20%, even 40%,” he said.
All the panelists mentioned that building and development incentives are key. Hoban said that could mean anything from a lowered property tax for the first five years to waived sewage fees.
Adams pointed out that further lowering parking minimums and lot minimums — which dictate the required number of spaces a unit or building must have — could also help. On the renting side, he said there needs to be relaxation on upfront costs and move-in fees.
“We've heard stories of two months of security deposits on top of an application fee, on top of additional fees, and it's just not very feasible for those who are trying to rent,” he said.
To get any of these efforts done, Lai said there needs to be collaboration among municipalities and community organizations.
The future of housing
City Manager Jeff Jurgens said he agrees.
“That's something I'm certainly going to propose to this council,” he said, adding that he’ll also look at what the city can do in the meantime to further housing efforts.
Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe said the city needs to make sure that “housing does not become an impediment” to future growth in the county.
“We certainly need to look at how we address an issue like this in the long term,” he said. “We don't want to find ourselves in a similar situation, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years from now.”
In addition to coming up with a course of action for this issue by the end of June, Jurgens said he is continuing to work with the growing housing coalition developed earlier this month to address the unsheltered population in McLean County. A meeting for the members was scheduled for Tuesday morning.
That group is looking to get people sheltered as temperatures continue to rise.
