This is Part 2 of a series of stories about the mayoral election in Normal. Election Day is April 1. Coming Wednesday: Why Chris Koos is facing a challenge from two fellow members of the town council.
The Town of Normal isn’t always this patient.
Instead of waiting for the market to organically redevelop its downtown district, Normal leaders poured in millions of dollars of public money to create Uptown Normal. Instead of waiting for a company to buy and demolish the former Mitsubishi plant, the town dangled incentives in front of Rivian to get them to come here and revitalize it.
Yet with the housing shortage, the Normal Town Council has done little to address it, essentially waiting for a daunting list of macroeconomic forces to ease. Rents and home prices have spiked.
All three candidates for Normal mayor say more action is needed over the next four years, though they differ on the specifics.
Incumbent Chris Koos, who counts Uptown and Rivian among the biggest accomplishments of his 22 years in office, said he supports a look at town zoning code to remove any “blockades” to housing. And he said “maybe we do look at some incentives on housing if it’s the right project.”
“Incentives aren’t the major roadblock,” Koos said, referring to high interest rates, construction costs, the tariffs-to-come, and so on. “Those are the structural issues that we’re dealing with, and incentives alone aren’t going to cure that.”
Koos said he prefers incentives for housing to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
That puts him at odds with one of his challengers, council member Kathleen Lorenz, who supports the creation of a standardized package of incentives for developers to consider. That’s an approach favored, so far, among Bloomington leaders and the head of the local Economic Development Council.
Lorenz said Normal and Bloomington need to work together on housing.
“The process should be very similar, and I think that ease of doing business with us is paramount,” she said. “This is one of those moments where we need to really, really be in coordination with one another.”
Koos’ other challenger is council member Chemberly Harris. She said Normal needs to take a more proactive approach to housing.
She favors what she calls a “toolkit” documenting what the town can offer, as a starting point for conversation with developers, rather than a more rigid set of standardized incentives. She also wants to see Normal explore formal public-private partnerships [PPPs] to construct housing.
“It’s a known thing that we haven’t been what we should’ve been from the beginning – a partner in that,” Harris said.
Harris also wants to prioritize creating more transitional housing options for those experiencing homelessness. She also wants to emphasize the need for more rental units.
“It’s critical to understand the Town of Normal is overly built in single-family homes. I know it’s hard for many people to digest, because nobody bought a single-family with the expectation that a block or two over would be a multifamily (building). I’m not saying we’re going to put up high-rises, but we also need to be mindful of the market and where the future is going to go.”
Harris said she wants equitably diverse housing in Normal, meeting many different household income levels. She said Koos “has done what most municipalities have done.”
“Times are changing, and we have to be thoughtful in ways we haven’t been before,” Harris said. “And that’s OK, but sometimes I think it gets uncomfortable.”
The housing problem is tied, in part, to an economic development success story that Koos and Lorenz helped create. Their votes for incentives helped bring the electric automaker Rivian to Normal. (Harris joined the council after Rivian moved in.) Rivian dropped 8,000 housing-seeking employees on Bloomington-Normal almost overnight, though the housing shortage has pushed many of those workers to live out-of-town.
Lorenz touts her own professional experience working on housing issues, including her job as an administrator at the nonprofit Home Sweet Home Ministries, which serves the unhoused. She’s also won the endorsement of the Illinois Realtors, which is funding mailers on her behalf.
At a WGLT debate, Lorenz pointed to the community’s homeless population. That includes a very visible tent encampment along Main Street in Normal near Sugar Creek.
“The growing number of homelessness is a direct result of our inaction on addressing the housing needs. Because who fell out of the system first? The people that are most vulnerable,” Lorenz said.
