Bloomington Revivalists — a nonprofit affiliated with Strong Towns — held a "Thinking Outside the Box Housing Forum" on Sunday at Bloomington Public Library to generate a conversation around grassroots approaches to solving the area housing shortage.
Three groups, including the Revivalists, shared what they think are the most innovative ways to getting more units into the community, including infill, a community land trust and cohousing.
Bloomington Revivalists
As an organization, Bloomington Revivalists are largely focused on infill, which President Noah Tang described as “building, rebuilding or renovating in the urban core, where most or all infrastructure is already present.”
Tang acknowledged that there have been several attempts to get new dwellings in the area that have failed in the past several years, but pointed to six areas that define a project’s success: city culture, zoning and development regulations, building codes, street standards, financing and infrastructure.
“Some bottom-up solutions that we saw happen all across the country are removing and, or relaxing these standards (which) leads to more redevelopment,” he said.
South Bend, Indiana, and Muskegon, Michigan, are comparable cities to Bloomington-Normal that are doing this, Tang added — and seeing results.
He called zoning the “prerequisite” to change but added that there are policies Bloomington can adopt to align more with building requirements in Europe and other places, which can also affect ability to develop.
McLean County Cohousing
A newer concept one organization wants to introduce is cohousing.
The Cohousing Association of the United States — which McLean County Cohousing is part of — defines cohousing as an “intentional, collaborative neighborhood that combines private homes with shared indoor and outdoor spaces designed to support an active and interdependent community life.”
Lauren Pruter, a founding member of McLean County Cohousing, said the neighborhoods will often have shared kitchens, laundry and dining spaces, but private dwellings.
“It's a way to balance both living in community and having your own personal privacy,” she said. “Every cohousing community is going to look a little different because they're going to be built by the people who live there, rather than a developer coming in and deciding how the homes are going to be built.”
Some cohousing neighborhoods may have a garden or gym, while others have office rooms or recreational spaces.
Pruter and several other Bloomington residents formed McLean County Cohousing in 2023. Since then, the group has been meeting and brainstorming ways to bring the model to the city, which Pruter said are the first steps to bringing one of these neighborhoods to fruition. Next steps, include finding land, getting a project financed and then building it.
“Cohousing is a grand endeavor, but it has been done in cities very similar to ours, and we believe that it can be done here,” she said, pointing to successful cohousing in Madison, Wisconsin, as an example.
Another key component of cohousing is shared chores. By having shared spaces, cohousing also involved divvying up everyday tasks, such as cooking and cleaning with neighbors. Renee Dagner, another founding member of McLean County Cohousing, said the housing model can bring people together and reduce social isolation.
"There's a lot of evidence that suggests that we evolve to survive in groups and not alone," she said, which includes sharing basic everyday burdens and sharing resources as trivial as a slow cooker.
Dagner and Pruter presented a mock-up of a cohousing neighborhood that could go in at the parking lot on Front and Prairie streets in downtown, which would take up just under one acre of land.
Community Land Trust
Bloomington-Normal Community Land Trust [BNCLT] also presented Sunday, and its suggestion is in the organization’s title: to introduce the CLT model.
“Land Trust is typically a nonprofit — does not have to be a nonprofit, it can be a government agency, but it’s typically a nonprofit — that owns land on behalf of a community,” said Interim Board President Mark Adams. “Its goal is to acquire that parcel of land and not let go of it.”
Once the CLT acquires the land, it builds some type of housing that will be sold to an individual or family, without selling the parcel itself.
“The purchase price subsequently comes down by anywhere between 20% to even 40%,” Adams said. “The homeowner still decides what happens to them. They still get to paint what they want to paint. They landscape how they want. It just simply means that they can't flip that home.”
That way, the price continues to stay low. Adams called it “an affordable housing solution without baggage,” and added that there are successful land trusts nationwide, including in New York and Iowa.
“I firmly believe that if Iowa can have some,” he said, “we can have some.”
Adams said the BNCLT is waiting on its nonprofit application — which it submitted in March — to be approved before it can start looking to buy its first parcel.
Moving forward with ideas
Pruter and Dagner said McLean County Cohousing is looking to become an LLC and start having more conversations with the city and public to get people accustomed to the idea of a cohousing model. Necessary zoning regulation changes and other shifts would then potentially follow, they added, making the idea possible.
Bloomington Revivalists and Bloomington-Normal Community Land Trust have already been in conversations with the city, and McLean County Cohousing mentioned it may want to collaborate with the CLT in the future to blend strategies.
Whether these ideas become part of the solution will require time, funding and a potential shift in the community’s current approach.
