Bloomington city leaders continue to explore potential methods for addressing the “missing middle” portion of the city’s housing shortage, as the administration seeks guidance on possible zoning and subdivision code changes.
“We see this as a potential piece in the housing puzzle. This is not going to solve all of our housing problems,” City Manager Jeff Jurgens said at the outset of a 50-minute discussion during Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting with city council members.
“We are really pre-process here. We're actually not even to the starting gate on some of this discussion. We wanted to start early, though, as opposed to going directly to the planning commission with a text amendment, because this is historical, this is transformational stuff that we're talking about.”
During the two-hour meeting, the council also engaged in lengthy discussion on the availability of video gaming and the possibility of expanding the number of allowable licenses. As typical with the Committee of the Whole, no formal actions were taken, and no definite timelines were set to bring either matter back to the council.
Development Services Department Director Kelly Pfeifer outlined details of an 84-page report on the missing middle housing issue prepared by the Chicago branch of California-based Opticos Design Inc., which includes close to three-dozen recommendations to allow for higher-density housing.
“We have been looking internally at things we already know are a problem, with some kind of buildability of housing,” said Pfeifer. “We are aware and good about studying your standard multi-family, your single-family, but this missing middle is a very specialized study area.”
Among the suggestions in the report are five possible areas where a “walkable center” could be considered: East Empire Street and South Towanda Avenue; Veterans Parkway and South Mercer Avenue; West Market Street and Wylie Drive; the South Main Street corridor; and G.E. Road (Illinois 9) and Towanda Barnes Road.
One of the larger points of concern focused on potential zoning changes in R-1C single-family residential districts and R-2 mixed residence districts. Planning Manager Allissa Pemberton said the staff asked Opticos to include both in its analysis just as a way to see what areas might be worthy of consideration.
“We questioned in the first place whether R-1C was going to make sense, but we wanted to make sure we got everything we could out of out of the scope,” she said. “After what came back from them, we do feel that it's not where we need to be pursuing this at this time.”
But council member Sheila Montney urged against considering R-2 zones as possible areas for missing middle housing as well.
“There are streets in this community, in our neighborhoods – and many of the people live in one of the neighborhoods where this is true – where one side of the street is R-2, and one side of the street is R-1C,” she said. “We have entire neighborhoods that exist exclusively of single-family homes that are R-2. If there's any further evaluations done on this, R-2 should also be removed.”
Ten of the 13 citizens who spoke during the public comments period voiced concerns over any possible zoning changes that might bring missing middle housing to single-family neighborhoods.
“I can completely understand if folks are thinking that that we're going to be up here rubber-stamping every single thing that's in front of us, being frustrated at lack of transparency,” said council member Abby Scott.
“So I want to emphasize too, that we want feedback; the city wants feedback, absolutely. There’s no interest in going ahead and steamrolling and just saying ‘yes’ to everything that comes in front of us.”
Video gaming licenses
The city currently has an allowance for 60 video game licenses, after raising the total by eight in 2019. Two years ago, Bloomington added a “contractual license” provision, enabling new businesses to include a gaming license that would not count against that cap as part of an economic development agreement with the city.
Jurgens said there are no of those contractual licenses operating at this time, and currently 12 existing businesses remain on the waiting list for a video gaming license.
“I have issues with the fact that economic development agreements can come in and circumvent our local business owners, if we want to say that we support local business,” said council member Cody Hendricks, who also sees issues with licenses being transferred when a business is sold before a wait-list applicant has a chance at approval.
“I think the current system that we have very much creates winners and losers in our community. It puts, you know, businesses pitted against each other, where you're literally hoping that the other one fails, so that they close, so that you can open up a business and get a license.”
Bloomington collects 5% of the tax revenue from the gaming terminals. Jurgens said that amounted to $1.3 million in the last fiscal year and more than $10 million since video gaming began in 2012.
Mayor Brady noted that increasing the number of available licenses might not provide the benefit some of the businesses hope.
“When you increase the numbers for licenses, you also make more available the ability to play,” said Brady, “which means that the percentage of the pie is reduced to those that are looking at gaming for their businesses, from the standpoint of the people have more places to play.”
Possible meeting schedule change
A third topic of discussion centered on the possibility of changing the schedule of council meetings, particularly with the elimination of the monthly Committee of the Whole meetings.
“I think the objective is to try and do the most efficient manner we can with the meetings and the scheduling of those meetings when it comes to content,” said Brady, who said some council members brought the idea to him over the last few months.
Jurgens said if the Committee of the Whole meetings were scrapped, the staff’s preference would be to see any necessary special meetings scheduled on the third Monday of the month out of consistency. He said another option would be to have work sessions scheduled immediately before regular council meetings.
“I don't know who these council members are who are wanting to do away with the Committee of the Whole meetings, or have fewer of them. I wish that they would speak up,” said council member Mollie Ward. “The people of my ward elected me to do the work of the city, and we have work to do. And so if anything, I would suggest that we have more Committee of the Whole meetings.”
