Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good evening everyone and welcome. I will call this Bloomington City Council meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, February 23rd. Thank you all for joining us here in the council chambers and thanks to everybody watching online. We will begin our council meeting as we always do. If you are able, please stand, remove any head coverings and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Once again, welcome council. Thanks for being here tonight. Our last meeting in February of this year. Thanks to everybody who is here. Our first order of business is to approve tonight's agenda. And our agenda tonight, council, is uh under introductory items. Actually, we've got a a heavy uh list under introductory items. We've got item 2.1, which is a proclamation for Black History Month. Items 2.2 through 2.7, we're going to be making appointments. 2.2 is appointments to our advisory board of health. 2.3 Creative Placemaking Commission. 2.4 Human Rights Commission. 2.5 Parks, Arts, and Recreation Commission. 2.6 Sustainability Commission, and 2.7 Bloomington Creative Placemaking Commission. Uh, oh, excuse me, the Bloomington Creative Placemaking Commission, which we will have the appointment for in 2.3. 2.7 is going to be a presentation of their 2026 work plan. Uh, item three on our agenda is our consent business. Uh, Council Member Dalisandro has consent this evening. We've got eight items on consent. Under item four, our hearings, resolutions, and ordinances. Uh, we've got a couple of public hearings. Item 4.1 is a public hearing regarding the Wixon site redevelopment and reguiduing resoning. Item 4.2 is a public hearing regarding the missing missing middle housing phase 2 ordinance. And under five, item five are organizational business. Uh item 5.1 will be a discussion on proposed 2026 community development fee increases. We'll wrap up with our council policy and issue updates and adjourn. And uh I will say to folks who are joining us here this evening and watching at home, we're down to five this evening. Council member uh Lman is ill and not able to join us. Council member Dallesandro is participating remotely and so she'll be chiming in. But that also means with the remote possibility or with a remote participation. Every one of our uh votes need to be roll call votes. So it's going to add a little bit to our um to our uh work tonight. That is the agenda as presented. Council and unless there are changes or additions to that, I will move approval of that agenda. Second >> motion and a second by council member Carter to uh to u approve tonight's uh agenda. Any further council discussion on this >> hearing? None. Brianka, please call the role. >> Alessandro >> I >> Rivas >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson I >> Carter >> I >> Mayor Busy >> I. Motion carries 6-0. And we have an agenda for this evening. And our first item on that agenda is a proclamation for Black History Month. And I am going to head down to the deis and make this presentation. But I'm going to take my computer with me because I don't think I have the proclamation. Do you have the pro proclamation is there? Very good. Thank you. Start the cameras. >> Please do. Yes. >> Everybody can get inside in in behind if you'd like to uh join me up here this evening. The camera's with the uh the one with the red light on. Now, neither of them have the red light on. There's the camera. So, make sure you can see the camera. This is a proclamation for Black History Month, February 2026. Whereas, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, founder of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History in 1915, initiated Negro History Week in 1926 as a way of highlighting the involvement and accomplishments of black Americans in the development of our nation's democracy. And whereas as part of the n the nation's bsentennial negro history week was expanded to black history month in 1976. And whereas during black history month we acknowledge honor and celebrate the many achievements and contributions made by black Americans to our nation's economic, cultural, spiritual, and political development. And whereas observing Black History Month provides us with an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of black history as American history in the United States and to acknowledge the centuries of struggles for equality and freedom as well as the achievements and successes. And whereas in 2021 to celebrate Black History Month, the Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging introduced Bloomington Pioneers and Changemakers, a profile series featuring local black leaders who are working to advance civil rights and remove barriers to equity. And whereas in this annual profile series, the city honors pioneers who have done much so much to chart the path to where we are today and change makers who are paving the way for future generations. And whereas each year we will continue to highlight and honor dedicated black leaders in the city of Bloomington. Now therefore, I, Mayor Tim Busy, do hereby proclaim February 2026 as Black History Month in the city of Bloomington, dated this 23rd day of February, 2026. I want to thank you all for joining me here this evening. Thank you for standing up here with me and being recognized for Black History Month. I'd like to intro introduce now Katherine Murray. Uh she is a creative placemaking specialist in community development, a member of the Bloomington Black Employee Network, and she's going to offer some remarks. Please. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, Mayor Busy, council members. Uh my name is Kathern Murray and I serve as the chair of the Bloomington Black Employee Network Plus Allies Employee Resource Group. Thank you for the opportunity to speak and accept this proclamation marking the hundred years of Black History Month commemorations. As I prepared today, I reflected on how we've reached a moment when voices that speak truth are stifled and stories that speak justice and truth are banned and freedoms promised remain out of reach for many. Fundamental principles of human rights, equality, and liberty are still denied to black and brown communities. While racial discrimination persists through actions that echo past injustices, telling black and brown stories honors lived experiences and contributions too often ignored or erased. These stories preserve cultural memory, affirm identity, and pass down lessons of resistance and survival. They deepen our understanding of history and reveal how black and brown communities have shaped societies, movements, art, science, and democracy itself. By amplifying voices, we challenge injustice, foster empathy, and build a narrative that recognizes black and brown history as a cornerstone of our shared human story. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, an event that did not bring independence and freedom to all. Slavery endured for nearly a century after, and its legacy continues to shape lives today. As I reflect on this moment, the stories preserved and the many silenced, it is hard to summon enthusiasm that anniversaries often bring. And yet, I'm honored to join you in celebrating Black History Month, a reminder that truthtelling is an act of resistance, and we acknowledge our full history. We affirm our shared humanity and illuminate a path forward. This moment calls on all of us, especially leaders, to choose courage over comfort, truth over eraser, and justice over indifference. Black History Month is not just about the past. It is a call to shape a future where freedom is real and tangible for everyone. Thank you. Uh I would invite uh all of you folks come forward please and introduce yourselves and uh your your connection to us all here. Please come on. >> Hi, I'm Shante Brown. I am a resident but I am also in the planning division as an office support specialist. Thank you. Hey everyone, I'm Arian Williams, equity and inclusion program manager and also a member of the black and uh Bloomington black employee network. >> Hello all. My name is Terron Buford. I am a resident of the city of Bloomington since 2019 and I'm overjoyed to be here uh accepting this proclamation today. Thank you. >> My name is Chris Peterson. I'm from Normandale Community College. I am the BIPOC ERG representative. >> My name is Antoinette Harris. I'm a a member of Bloomington. I live in Bloomington. I've lived in Bloomington for about 20 years. And I also work at Normanddale Community College. >> And then we have a pioneer and change maker right here. Just want to want to just want to let you know. >> Hello, my name is Tina Dixon. I am a residents about 15 years and work for Normdale Community College. And finally, I'm Lauren Reynolds. I lead the Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Workplace Culture here at the city of Bloomington, also a part of the Black Employee Network um employee resource group. Again, thank you all for being here with us this evening. Thank you for representing. Thank you for the outstanding work that you do in the community. Thank you for being a pioneer and a change maker and uh and and just thanks for for all the do the good that you do and uh the the constant reminder of the importance of recognizes this month. And Katherine, your your words are wonderful and powerful uh especially about the power of storytelling. I couldn't agree more. So, thank you so very much. I have a whole stack of proclamations here and I'm just going to share >> you get a smile. Everybody smile. >> Where we looking? Ready? One, two, three. One, two, three. Next up, council, we have a series of appointments as I said uh to our boards and commissions and these boards and commissions appointments uh were made there their recommendations that we have in front of us based on interview panels from uh both city council members and members of the community and and current board and commission members who took an evening a couple of weeks back spent time interviewing all of our applicants and then bringing forward recommendations to the city council as to who would be the best people to represent Bloomington on these boards and commissions. And I want to say uh the best fit and the best appropriate people for these not the only people who could do the outstanding work that we have in front of us uh with our boards and commissions. We know full well that uh we always uh over the past 5 years have had significantly more applicants than we've had positions available on our boards and commissions. We're greatly appreciative of the people who come forward and put their names into uh consideration and uh we always extend to the folks who are not chosen for one of these positions to continue to be somehow involved in this community because there are countless ways to be involved in the community other than a board or commission. Whether it's through school or a faith community or or uh just a a neighborhood group, any way that they could be involved, we really look to these folks who are who are certainly leaders in our community. We look to them to continue to be leaders in a variety of different ways. And so we have uh these appointments to make based on the recommendations from uh the folks that have done the interviews. And what I would like to do, I know that there were there was board or there's council representation on these different interview boards. And what I'll do is we go through uh each of our different appointments. I'm going to ask the council member who was part of that interview just to give a quick overview of uh the the candidate pool, the discussion that has uh taken place and the different uh the the the qualities of the people that you're recommending for appointment uh to to bring those forward and bring those to light for us. So, our first appointment is to the advisory board of health. Council member Carter, you were our council uh participant in those interviews. maybe you can give us a quick overview about the the interview that interviews that took place. >> Yeah, so we had five applicants for three um open positions, two provider positions and one consumer position. Um all were really fantastic. It was a very hard decision. And um some of the the items that the commission right now is really working on and focused on um are around mental health and social isolation, cannabis use, housing and other social determinants of health and then infectious diseases and really looking for members um who are interested in making sure that that commission is very actionoriented. Um and so we are recommending uh the appointment of uh three people and all three of these people are already very highly engaged in our community in a variety of ways and bring a lot of passion and experience with um health and specifically community health. And so the first is um Mariah Gran. So she's very involved in community and in organizing. She's also a Bloomington leadership program alumni. She has extensive public health and policy experience, a very strong understanding of current public health challenges, um, and again brought a lot of passion to her interview. Uh, the second is Sophia Pearson. So, she is a young adult in college right now and in her education, she's focusing on public health, substance use, and mental health. Um, and she has also been incredibly engaged in the community in a variety of ways. uh and has served on a a board and commission as a a young adult member, so she knows what she's getting herself into. And then the third is Cheryl Sadderstrom. Um she's also been very involved in our community with different nonprofits. She was part of the the strategic planning process and she's also a Bloomington leadership program alumni and um she brings kind of a different perspective in public health kind of in terms of um I think she teaches classes around like movement and dance and things like that. And so she actually talked a lot about her um excitement for the new community center and just bringing different ideas um for different audiences there. Um so yeah, those are the three candidates. Again, all five were great. Um but those are the ones we ultimately decided to move forward with. >> Thank you, Council Member Carter. Council, any questions of Council Member Carter and the report that you just able to provide for us? So council, each of these appointments are for a seat from March 1st, 2026 to February 28th, 2029. One of them is for a consumer position. The other two are provider positions. Council, I would look for a motion based on the recommendation of the interview panel to appoint Sophia Pearson to the consumer member seat and uh Mariah Gran and Cheryl Sadderstrom to the provider member seats. all of those seats as I said going from March 1st, 2026 to February 28th, 2029. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by Council Member Carter, second by Council Member Robertson to make those appointments as stated to the Advisory Board of Health. Council have any further comments or questions on this. Hearing none, Prianka, >> Dallasro, >> I. Rivas, >> Nelson, >> I >> Robertson, >> I Carter, >> I may >> I motion carries 6. Congratulations to Sophia, Mariah, and Cheryl on their appointment to the advisory board of health. We'll move on to item 2.3, which is the appointments to the Creative Placemaking Commission. Council member Dalisandro, you were our representative to the Creative Placemaking Commission. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was uh we had um eight applications um and um a very good discussion. Um it was one of the one one of the individuals uh that was um applying is a reappoint opportunity. Um but the others were new and um I think meant many of them were the first time that they were you know dipping their toe in the water here. Uh we also had an alumni from the Bloomington leadership development um uh program joining us as well. Uh you know the the candidates that you see um our recommendations for um they they this was you know it's wonderful to get five great recommendations. Um I think any of them could fill this position these positions and um we're really grateful for how important people seem to continue to believe that creative placemaking is as it sits next to uh all the other great work we do in the city. Um, Julie Gusupson is on the commission now uh and uh will continue to uh bring the energy and and expertise that she has um to that role should she be appointed tonight. Um, Dario uh Belladelloo is um uh was um uh great uh great interview and and a really interesting candidate who brought to us an artistic uh viewpoint and an ed and an educator lens which you know when you think about what we're trying to do um uh in in the city in terms of not just you know uh art but also wayfinding and things That was really interesting uh opportunity for us to to take advantage of that. And Michael Gonzalez um has uh his his background is in product design. And so talking about um the the use of digital and the way that we are incorporating other media and things like that into creative placemaking was uh was intriguing and and so um while I while all of them would be good candidates, we are recommending those three. >> Thank you, Council Member Disandro. Council, any questions of council member Alesandro under report? Again, for these seats on the creative placem place making commission, they will run from March 1st, 2026 to February 28th, 2029 for all three seats. Council, I'd look for a motion to reappoint Julie Gustoson and to appoint Michael Gonzalez and Dario Dario Belelladaro. I hope I got that name right. Dario Biladaro. I think I got it right that time to the creative placemaking commission. I would look for a motion to make those appointments. >> So moved. >> So moved. >> Council member Dalisandro with the motion. Council member Robertson with the second to make the appointments to the creative placemaking commission as stated. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify. Oh, I'm sorry. Almost caught me. >> Priyanka, please. >> Dlesandro. >> I rebas. >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Robertson. >> Hi. >> Carter. >> Hi. Mayor Bessie >> I motion carries 6. Congratulations to Julie, Michael, and Dario. Item 2.4 is uh the appointment to the human rights commission and our human rights commission. Uh we didn't have a council member to uh sit in on the human rights commission interview. I know that our human rights commission has uh done a lot of important work. Uh they we we see them fairly frequently and we've got a couple representatives from our human rights commission here this evening. Uh many of the of the um resolutions and and proclamations that we see brought forward are are pro are come come from the Human Rights Commission recognizing and supporting groups in our community in a variety of different ways. They do important work and we really appreciate the work that they do do. Based on the work of the interview panel, the recommendations were to make appointments of Anna Decker, Jay Holmes, and Baron Lewis to reappoint Baron Lewis to the Human Rights Commission. Council, are there any questions or comments regarding that? If not, uh again, all of these appointments go from March 1st, 2026 to February 28th, 2029. And I would look for a motion to reappoint Baron Lewis and to make the appointments of Anna Decker and Jay Holmes to the Human Rights Commission. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by Council Member Robertson, second by Council Member Carter to make the appointments to the Human Rights Commission as stated. No further council discussion on this. Priyanka. >> Allesandre. >> Hi. >> Reeves. >> Hi. >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Robertson. >> Hi. >> Carter. >> Hi. >> Mayor Busy. >> I. >> Motion carries 6. Congratulations to Anna Jay and Baron at their appointments to the Human Rights Commission. Move on to the appointments of the Parks, Arts, and Recreation Commission. This one we actually had, well, two council members, council member Nelson and Rias sat in on the interview panel. Uh, Council Member Nelson, could you give us a quick rundown and then we'll turn it over to Council Member Rivas? >> Yeah, sure. >> Okay. Uh, Council Member Nelson. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council Member Rivas. If I get something wrong, please feel free to correct me, but we had >> we Yeah, good. We We had uh a great um evening that night. We had uh 14 people that had applied, ultimately 10 people that came in for interviews, a very qualified group of people. Um there were a couple people that that we talked about that actually got appointed to or recommended and I think have been appointed to other commissions tonight. And then uh ultimately, you know, as a group, we unanimously made the recommendation for Natalie Rooney based on the the merits of her application and her um interview. uh she has a broad understanding of what parks does um including in particular the art part of it and um the parks and it was she's already engaged with um staff and with the department on various activities. So she has a a pretty strong level of understanding of what's actually going on across the entire uh portion of that. So yeah, we we um you like I said, we we had a really strong group. Um and it was difficult since we only had one position with 10 people interviewing and ultimately, you know, just based on her merits, she she rose to the top in our conversations. Thank you, Council Member Nelson. All right. Any any questions or anything to add to Council Member Nelson's comments? If >> I just echo what he said, she is very qualified for the position. Yeah, it was kind of hard to to make a decision at least, but it it is the right decision. >> Very good. Thank you, Council Member Rivas. No further questions or comments. Council, I would look for a motion to appoint Natalie Rooney to the Parks, Arts, and Recreation Commission to a term from March 1st, 2026 to February 28th, 2029. So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by council member Nelson, second by council member Rivas to appoint Natalie Rooney to the Harts Arts and Recreation Commission. >> No further council discussion on this. Priyanka >> I >> Rivas >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> I >> Mayor Busy >> I motion carries 6. Congratulations to Natalie. Move on to item 2.6 our sustainability commission appointments. Council member Robertson was the council representative there. Council member Robertson, >> excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, thank you so much. Uh, so this was my first time getting to sit in on one of these interview panels, and it was fantastic. Um, we also had a large number of really well-qualified applicants, excuse me. Um, I've been told to slow down, so I'm going to do my very best to do that right now. Um, so, uh, by a resident, not by any of these people here. Um, they have to deal with me all the time, but anyway. So, uh, we had six applicants. We only have two spots. Um, of the six applicants, uh, two of those people were seeking reappointment. Um, and just a little bit about the sustainability commission. Um, they do a ton of work around, like you would imagine, sustainability here in Bloomington. Um, but it's more than just, uh, what someone might think of composting or or planting green stuff. Um, it's all about, uh, water quality. What do we do with solid waste? What do we do going forward? How do we, um, get the best use out of our energy? all kinds of very very cool technical stuff that I frankly do not understand. Um, but our applicants had a ton of technical expertise and that was really cool to see. Um, so of the six, like I said, we had two spots. Um, and frankly, I would have loved to see all six people um, get a spot because they all had uh, really wonderful things to offer and both myself and the other um, commissioner on the panel would strongly recommend those folks come back again later. Please stay involved in Bloomington and all the wonderful things you do because we're very lucky to have you. Um, so of the six uh people we the two that we are recommending um for appointment and actually for reappoint um would be Shawn McFarling and Benet I'm going to say this wrong Aaria I apologize Benet um because I totally got that wrong but um both of these like I said have served on this commission already so they are seeking a reappoint um Sean uh possesses a lot of institutional knowledge um with the sustain sustainability commission which we felt was very important very technically skilled um and has a really clear understanding of the socioeconomic factors that go into sustainability which we felt was a really important um piece to make sure is represented represented um and then uh Benet as well a reappointment um possesses a ton of institutional knowledge um really high level technical expertise which is certainly important um and was very um comfortable and experienced in outreach for sustainability education as we said he's comfortable feet on the ground and doing door knockocking and that kind of thing. Um, which we thought was really important to have that. So, um, but again, all of the applicants um, possessed a ton of skill. We were very impressed with everyone and thankful for everyone for coming in. Um, so with that, we would recommend that we appoint or reappoint um, Sean McFarling and Benetar. I am so sorry Benet um to the sustainability commission. >> Thank you, council member. Council, any questions regarding the appointments? Again, these terms run from March 1st, 20 26 to February 28th, 2029. And I would look for a motion to make the reappoints of Benet Aaria and Shawn McFarland to the sustainability commission. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion by council member Robertson, second by council member Revas to make the appointments to the sustainability commission as stated. No further council discussion on this. Bianca >> Dlesandro. >> Hi >> Reeas. >> I >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Robertson. >> Hi. >> Carter. >> Hi. >> Maybasi. >> I. Motion carries 6. Congratulations to Shan and to Benet. And a big thank you to our council members and our board and commission members who took the time to do these interviews. This is not a a short evening. I've done them in the past. Uh only because I was in Washington, I wasn't able to do them this time. But it is a it's a big time commitment and I appreciate the time that you put into it and the the work that uh that you did and and the careful consideration and the thoughtful judgment that you put toward who should be appointed to best further and carry on the the work of the city of Bloomington through our boards and commissions. And I will say again to everybody who applied and was not appointed, please do not be disheartened. There are plenty of leadership opportunities in the city of Bloomington and we encourage you to continue to look and um and and find your right place because uh it is there and there is so much work to be done and we we absolutely love to see the leadership of people who step forward and uh who are willing to to take on roles like this. So, thank you all so very much for applying. Congratulations to the folks who were appointed. And again, thank you to our our council members and board and commission members who did the um uh interviews and uh to the folks who pulled this all together. I think Jackie is not here this evening, but uh she puts in an incredible amount of work to make sure that this goes uh smooth as silk. So, nice work by Jackie. Our last item under item two is our item 2.7. This is the 2026 work plan presentation by our creative placemaking commission and Ali Palanka. I never seen your name correctly. I'm sorry. All these years you think I probably should eventually. >> It's a tricky one. >> It is. Ali, good evening and welcome. >> Good evening. >> Hello mayor. Hello council members. My name is Alejandra Pelinka and I'm the director of creative placemaking for the city of Bloomington. >> Good evening. I'm Jamie Schumacher. I am the chair of the Creative Placemaking Commission and resident of Bloomington. >> And tonight we will be presenting some an overview of our work in 2025 and highlights from our 2026 creative workplace uh creative placemaking work plan. I did have slides if I could get those brought up. I'll go through those. They're not in PowerPress. I can hold them up. Yeah. Is it not the right folder? >> Not in the common folder. >> Oh, shoot. I might have put them in the wrong place. >> I'll try a different way. >> Is there a PDF that we could bring up? That PDF that's an attachment in the agenda packet. I apologize. Well, I can go ahead and start while she's bringing that up if that's all right. Um, so appointed by the city council, our creative placemaking commission advises on how arts, culture, and design can support city priorities, strengthen community connections and enhance quality of place. So, commissioners advise on program priorities, public art strategy, and long range planning while serving as ambassadors to support partnerships and community engagement. I'd like to recognize some of our other commissioners here tonight, including Commissioner Coat, Commissioner Lungquist, and Commissioner McCoy. I'd also like to thank our two outgoing commissioners, Mark Fable and Jackie Rosenbush, and thank them for their time and their dedication to the commission over the last several years. >> And if I could just tell the council, we're on page 27 of the packet so you can follow along during the presentation. >> Thank you, mayor. The Office of Creative Placemaking staff lead day-to-day program coordination and implementation and development of policies and systems that support public art and creative placemaking citywide. And I'd also like to recognize our creative placemaking specialist who is Katherine Murray who you heard from earlier tonight. So our work plan activities are really guided by citywide creative placemaking plan in consultation with the commission. Commissioner Schumacher will provide an overview of the plan's mission and goals. Um, and do you need the slides or you have them printed out too? Okay, good. >> Thank you. >> Um, uh, thank you. So, um, as I mentioned, I'm the, uh, chair of the creative placemaking commission. I'm also a resident of Bloomington. I've got two kids in our public schools. Uh, and I serve in my day job as a senior program officer of creative placemaking and communications with Twin Cities Lisk. So, we work closely with the city of Bloomington. Um, so I will share our mission uh for the creative placemaking commission. Bloomington creative placemaking cultivates a sense of belonging in Bloomington by celebrating and reflecting diverse perspectives, supporting local arts and culture, promoting exceptional places, and creating a vibrant and inclusive community to live in, work in, and visit. Our citywide creative placemaking plan goals include supporting artists and culture bearers, practicing equity, fostering relationships, and building connections, enhancing belonging and engagement, and building placemaking capacity throughout the city. Um, also a resident of Bloomington. I'm also an artist and an author. Um, and I was a part of our city's core strategic planning team. Uh, and it's been really great to serve on the commission and be able to see those goals that we had in that session and how we wanted to make Bloomington an inviting place to be and live and work. Um, it's been great to see that carried out through the work that we do with the commission. Um, and let's be honest, like nobody wants to live in a boring place that looks like everywhere else with nothing to do. So, it's been great to see that happening throughout the city. Um, something else I wanted to note is that we talked a lot on the core planning team and afterwards about the epidemic of loneliness. And what's been great about the commission is not only are we creating these placemaking elements and arts and wayfinding throughout the city, um, we're doing events and activities that are helping nurture a sense of belonging and bringing people together throughout the city. Um, one thing I wanted to call attention to as well is like even though this is arts and livability, it also stitches in with our economic development goals. Um, through my work at Lisk, we actually just completed a 5-year study of businesses in the metro. Um, the power of place and I can send this to the commission. Um it's there's nothing really like it, but we surveyed um over 2,000 businesses throughout the metro area and took a look at the data from 2020 to 2025 on what helps businesses be successful. And we know that locally rooted businesses that served local needs in their community and especially arts and culture or culturally connected businesses, those businesses are more successful. Um they are more important to communities and those businesses are more likely to thrive. So as we stitch in our creative placemaking, our economic development, it is one of the things that helps bring the city aspect together. Thanks. Thank you. Great. So I'll keep moving on in in the next slide here. I'll talk about some highlights of projects from 2025. So, some highlights of our citywide work include two new murals at the Bloomington Ice Garden, um, which were just unveiled, the installation of seven hometown poetry stamps at Civic Plaza and within neighborhoods throughout Bloomington. We also had a major milestone which was the approval of the citywide creative placemaking plan. And so, we also capped that off with a celebration with different arts performances and gathering of community to recognize that achievement. Oh, wonderful. I'll pause here so we can get caught up here. Thank you. There we go. So, I think we're probably like on page three or four maybe at this point. One more. One more. Yep. Right there. Thank you so much for doing that. Appreciate that. Apologize. Uh we also supported community events like Junth Bloomington Street Arts Festival and live murals at Dread Scott at DreadScott. We also researched various grant opportunities and encouraged partners and artists to apply and discuss various ways to encourage private investment in public art. Go to the next slide, please. We've got some highlights of South Loop District projects and events from 2025. and th those include a new mural called evening primrose which is at the Fenley building by international artist Mariela Aas um at in the south loop. We also had the unveiling of the honte or cedar healing bridge mural and garden at old cedar avenue bridge trail head which was installed by Tara Peron and Sandy Spieler as well as an unveiling event to celebrate that accomplishment. We had various art box projects installed where artists actually painted directly on utility boxes that were owned by Excel Energy and we were a pilot city in the state of Minnesota to do that work with them. And we supported several events in the South Loop including a Sunday funday event, nature festa on the one music festival and celebr Laspatrias which was a Hispanic heritage month event led by a community member. If you go to the next slide, we'll talk about some recent awards and recognition from 2025. So, um it has been really exciting. So, I've known Ali for years now. Um and have been getting to know staff as well. Um the stuff we're doing here in Bloomington is really remarkable and um I'm hoping that we can take a moment to celebrate the amazing accomplishments of staff and the volunteers that are helping put these events together. Um through my work and through just liking to show people around. Um I take people through South Loop. I get to show them the public art and I get to tell them all the stories behind the murals. Um we've been doing awardwinning stuff and it's something that I think we should all be really really proud of. Um, I've even taken around some friends that grew up in Bloomington but don't spend as much time here and they're like, "Whoa, this is totally different than when I grew up." Um, so I just wanted to congratulate Ala and staff um for these amazing recognitions and think that there's something that we should be really proud of as a city. Um, so wanted to share those with you as we go over the work plan as well. Thank you so much. We can move on to the next one here which is uh citywide projects and development for 2026. So, I'll just do a brief overview of both Citywide and South Loop projects coming up. And here we have Citywide. Starting off, um first up is a new sculpture by Craig David at Bryant Park. There is an open house coming up at the Bryant Park um park shelter on March 16th from 5:00 to 7:00. This will provide the community with an opportunity to meet the artist and provide input on the final design. Um so, if people are interested in learning more about that, I encourage them to stop by anytime from 5:00 to 7:00. We'll also be selecting an artist for a sculpture at the Pond Dakota Mission Park and inst and installing the garden kaleidoscope at Civic Plaza and Garden Club volunteers will help manage uh those seasonal plantings. There's an image of it in one of those in the kind of the middle shape there. We'll also be pursuing some studies to better inform our work, including an updated arts impact study and partnering with public health to implement a Bloomington youth art expression initiative project with the school district and partnering with parks and recreation on a youth graffiti workshop at Valley View Skate Park. This year, we'll also be developing toolkits for communitydriven or privately commissioned creative placemaking and public art and continuing to leverage outside investment by supporting private investment, promoting those facade grant opportunities, sculpture and mural opportunities and continued exploration of funding sources. We'll move on to the next slide and that will highlight some 2026 South Loop projects coming up. Um, one of which is additional artbox projects. We have a few more that we are on agreement to paint with Excel. So, we'll be implementing those. We'll be adding lighting to the South Loop sign and Goldfinch sculpture by Donald Lipsky so that it's more visible at night. And we'll also be doing a Sunday funday music series event at Bloomington Central Station Park on July 12th and that's produced by Parks and Recreation. The On the One Music Festival produced by Parks and Recreation and the Avant Guard at Bloomington Central Station Park on August 16th. and continued support of Junth which will take place within South Loop District this year. Just move on to the next slide. And you know, just to recap, creative placemaking really can contribute to multiple city goals by activating public spaces, city-owned facilities, supporting artists and small businesses, and strengthening community connection. Local and na national data do demonstrate impacts across econom e economic vitality, public health and belonging and include um increased foot traffic during events which we have seen um as well as expanded rec regional recognition and growing participation in creative programming. Creative placemaking also advances cross department initiatives related to public health, youth engagement, and equitable access to cultural experiences, which reinforce Bloomington's identity as a welcoming and connected community. So with that, the Office of Creative Placemaking and Creative Placemaking Commission would like to thank you all for helping to make Bloomington a vibrant place where people want to be. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Well, thank you uh Chair Schumacher uh Miss Pinka, thank you so very much for the the update and the information and you you've heard me say before great cities have great art and you follow up on that and do an outstanding work outstanding work on that and I don't think you know it's not lost on me that creative placemaking is is under the opices of the Port Authority where we're talking about economic development the development of the city of Bloomington and to have a a thriving and vibrant arts uh venture organization within in that creative within that uh economic development arm I think really speaks volume to the the way that art can be perceived and used in terms of how we develop this community. So, thank you so very much for that and thank you for your work and thanks for the uh the plan as we head forward. Council, any questions or comments here? >> Council member Nelson. >> Yeah, thank you. Um two quick things. Uh, one, I appreciate that you're looking at um encouraging private investment within art. Um, I would ask if you're looking into how to encourage private investment into our art projects, more along like the sponsorship type model as opposed to just standalone um, investments that they make on their own property. >> Thank you, Council Member Nelson. um we are a little bit limited in terms of what we can ask for as a city um for sponsorships. So what we have been looking into is how we can encourage private investors to invest in their own art because it does include maintenance as well. Um so we want to make sure that people are taking ownership and really leading their own communitydriven art projects as much as possible. Um one of the things that we did recently work with on planning, there's a few things to city code. Um, one of them is the mural ordinance, which now allows painting a mural on buildings, which was not allowed um, prior to 2023. So, we'd really like to see businesses taking ownership and working with their own communities to hire artists. We provide best practices. We can provide some insight to have them do that. Um, but in terms of being more sustainable with our limited capacity, um, we're really looking to grow that capacity within our community to do their own projects. Um, we also just did city code adjustments on being able to have sculptures um, located and where they're located on your property. We worked with planning department on that and having some leeway in terms of, you know, how much investment they put into landscaping versus sculptures. Um, so small kind of initiatives and things like that that can really spur that is something that we're focusing on at the moment. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. if there's anything we can do to reduce those barriers to people sponsoring some of the art in our parks and things like that, let us know how we can help with that. Uh my other question is, can you give me a little bit more information about the art space that you're considering um and what that might look like and and I guess my big question is what sort of tales that might have financially. >> Absolutely. Thank you, Council Member Brit Nelson. Yes. So, one of the things we've been talking a lot about and especially within creative placemaking is how can we grow and support the artists and creative sector here in Bloomington. Part of that that we heard especially through our engagement of the citywide creative placemaking plan is that artists are looking for spaces to live affordable housing and they're looking for places to connect with one another. So, one of the things that we're exploring right now is what is the feasibility of building some artists live work space here in Bloomington. Where would that happen? How would that be possible? what partners would we need to look at? So, at this point, it's really just research and exploring what that could look like. We're just at the very beginning of that, but that's something I think that could grow our efforts in a bigger way in terms of, you know, seeing artists as entrepreneurs in a small businesses here in our community. >> Great. Thank you. And I know we spoke about that actually starting several years ago about live work type spaces. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Other questions, council comments? Hearing none, uh, council, I would, uh, look for action on item 2.7 this evening. >> Council member Carter, >> say my mic's on apparently. So, um, just finding the motion here. So, I would move to approve the Bloomington Creative Placemaking Commission 2026 work plan. >> Second. Motion by council member Carter, second by council member Dalisandro to accept the and approve the Bloomington Creative Placemaking Commission 2026 work plan. >> Any further council discussion on this? >> Hearing none. Priyanka >> I >> Rivas >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson I >> Carter >> I may >> I motion carries 6. Thank you very much. And uh Madam Chair, if you could share with the rest of the commission our thanks and our appreciation for the work that they do and our encouragement to keep doing the great work that they are doing. And thank you Ali for the staff work. You guys do great work. Thank you, Katherine. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Good night. >> We'll move on our agenda item three, our consent business. Council member Dalisandro has tonight's consent agenda. Council member Dalisandro. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have not heard from anyone that there are any holds. I'll just check into that one more time. >> I do not see any hands going up. >> Seeing none, my job is easy tonight. Mr. Mayor, I will move to adopt tonight's consent business, items 3.1 through 3.8. >> Motion by council member Dalisandro, second by council member Rivas to accept tonight's consent business as stated, items 3.1 through 3.8. No further council discussion on this. Briian >> Tallesandro >> I >> Rias >> I >> Nelson >> Hi >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> I >> Mayor Busy >> I motion carries 6. Thank you council member Dalisandro for taking care of our consent business this evening. >> We'll move on to the first of our two public hearings this evening. Item 4.1 is a public hearing regarding the Wixon site redevelopment regarding resoning a PDP and an FDP type 3 preliminary and final plant for a number of different addresses along Lindale Avenue. Emily Hesback from our planning department is here to lead us through this. Good evening. >> Good evening, mayor and council members. Yes, there are a lot of application types in this application. Let me get my slideshow up. Okay. Um, so I'll be here to present on this item tonight and Kirk Roberts, traffic engineer, will be presenting a few slides as well later on. So, Real Estate Equities, Inc. is proposing the redevelopment of six parcels along Lindale Avenue into a fourstory 180 unit affordable multifamily development. The unit mix includes 36 one-bedroom, 1042-bedroom, and 40-bedroom units with affordability levels ranging from 30 to 70% of area median income. The project includes below grade parking and on-site amenities such as a fitness room, children's activity space, a community room, and a centrallylo internal courtyard. The site is currently comprised of six parcels with varying land use guidance and zoning designations, including two parcels associated with the existing um Wixen site and four vacant properties. The application is proposing to amend the comprehensive plan guidance for 9955 Lindale A from general business to highdensity residential and reszoning all six parcels to RM50 plan development to allow for a unified highdensity residential project. The proposed development results in a residential density of approximately 47 units per acre and requires approval of preliminary and final de development plans as well as a type 3 preliminary and final plat. The subject properties um the five southern ones, it's a lot to list out all the numbers. um have been guided for high density residential land use through multiple comprehensive plan iterations since at least 2000 and are currently vacant or part of the existing Wixen Jeweler site. The remaining parcel at 9955 Lindale Avenue South is guided as general business. The proposed amendment to reguide 9955 Lindale to high density would align the site with surrounding land use patterns and the proposed multifamily development. Staff evaluated the request against comprehensive plan policies and relevant area plans and the proposal is consistent with plan policies that encourage redevelopment and higher intensity land uses along arterial roadways, support the development of affordable housing and promote highdensity residential development near transit. The site is located along Lindale Avenue and Arterial Roadway and within one quarter mile of the Orange Line BRT 98th Street station. The proposed reidance supports the the vision of creating a walkable transit supportive development pattern in this corridor. All six properties require reszoning to accommodate the proposed multif family development. The 9955 Lindale A South property is proposed to be reszoned from B2 general commercial to RM50 planned development. While the remaining five parcels would be reszoned from R1 single family to RM50 planned development. The RM50 zoning district is the most appropriate district for the proposed development as it allows residential densities between 20 and 50 units per acre. The proposed project density of approximately 46 47 units falls within this range. Um assuming the approval of the comprehensive plan amendment which I mentioned before um the RM50 zoning district also is also consistent with the future land use designation. The comprehensive plan identifies high density residential as accommodating multi-story apartment development at densities well above the proposed project. While the site is not located within an area specifically recommended for resoning in the 98th Street Station area plan, the plan identifies properties closest to the transit station as having the highest redevelopment potential and supports increased density and improved pedestrian access in these locations. Reszoning to RM50 supports these transit oriented development objectives. Finally, the applicant is requesting limited flexibility from the front setback zoning requirement. This request necessitates the plan development overlay which allows flexibility when it provides a public benefit and remains consistent with the intent of the zoning district. This request is addressed in greater detail later. Um here's a little bit of the landscaping plan. So staff identified a few landscaping and screening items that will need to be addressed and the applicant has acknowledged these items. The current plan proposes 59 trees which does not meet the minimum requirement of 68 trees. Additionally, there's a required 3-ft high screening for parking areas adjacent to public streets um which would need to be shown along Lindale. And then separately on this plan, I just wanted to point out that uh this plan shows there's a subground storm water chamber underneath the surface parking lot. The building meets required side and rear setbacks. However, the applicant is requesting development flexibility for the front yard setback. The applicant is requesting development flexibility um for the front setback as shown on the screen. While the zoning code requires a 40ft front setback, the proposal includes a reduced setback with a minimum of approximately 19 ft 7 in varying along the building frontage. Staff is supportive of this deviation as it provides the public benefit of strengthening the building's relationship to Lindale, improving pedestrian access, and reinforcing the corridor's urban character. Additionally, placing the building closer to the street increases separation from existing lowdensity residential uses to the east. With 180 units, 16 affordable housing units at 60% area median income or below are required to comply with the opportunity housing ordinance OHO. The applicant is proposing four units at 30% AMI, 13 units at 50% AMI, 138 units at 60% AMI, and 25 units at 70% AMI. The OO incentives on the screen will be applied to the application and will be discussed next. Uh, as far as open space goes, the development is required to provide 300 square feet of usable open space per dwelling unit totaling 54,000 square ft. With the OO incentives, this requirement can be reduced by up to 25% resulting in a required 40,500 ft². The proposal provides approximately 41,600 ft of usable open space meeting the standard. This includes 12 private balconies on units along the west side of the building which contribute to the overall open space calculation. Uh for parking under base zoning, there are 346 total parking spaces required including 180 enclosed. With the OO incentives, a 15% reduction in total spaces and allowance to convert up to 50% of enclosed spaces to unenclosed means the adjusted requirement is 295 total spaces with 90 enclosed. The proposal as seen on the screen is meeting those OO adjusted parking standards. And then for the OO incentive for exterior materials, the proposed building materials include brick, aluminum panels, fiber, cement, masonry veneer, and composite windows. Brick glass and metal panels are considered primary exterior materials. Um the metal panels will be subject to additional review. Fiber, cement, and masonry veneer are classified as secondary materials. With the use of OO incentives, up to 75% of non- streetf facing facades may consist of secondary materials. The proposal meets these standards and the west elevation facing Lindale does not have any incentives and also meets the standards so does not need any. Plotting is a routine component for this type of application. The application is combining six parcels into one and dedicating land for Lindale Avenue rightway. The preliminary and final plat meet relevant zoning standards. Park dedication fees for the development are estimated to be around $310,000. Conditions pertaining to platting, park dedication, and easements are included in the proposed conditions of plat approval. Um staff did receive some correspondence related to this case. You should have two pieces of correspondence in front of you. Um, there were several topics that were touched upon with some being traffic and pedestrian facilities and the city engineer or sorry the traffic engineer Kirk Roberts will touch on those next. >> Good evening, Mr. Roberts. >> Mr. Mayor, council members, just um a bit of an overview on traffic. So, the development is proposed to um generate 866 new trips total. That's about 70 trips in the morning and a little over 80 trips in the evening rush hour when the road is at its at its peak. Um, for context, that's not a huge number of trips. It's not insignificant, but when we start thinking about a large number of trips, this this falls in that sort of low to moderate range. Um, for context, uh, something like a large grocery store can generate up to a couple thousand trips. Big box retail can generate 5,000, 8,000 trips. large office towers up to 10,000 trips. So, this this is it's there, but it's not a huge number. And the other factor we often look at is traffic is what are those trips going on to? Lindale Avenue right here in this vicinity has got about 7,000 trips per day or vehicles per day on it. That's a fairly low volume uh collector roadway. Um, and so if we had higher volumes, if we had higher trips that were being put out onto a larger volume roadway, then we'd start studying this further, thinking about things like traffic signals or other ways that they can mitigate the impacts of the traffic. What we have here is low to moderate trips on a fairly low volume roadway. And so we don't see a need to study this further to see if additional mitigation is needed um just on the traffic volumes themselves. So there's no known safety or capacity issues in this area of Lindale Avenue. We looked carefully at the crashes. There are no vehicle crashes within the last 5 years on this stretch of Lindale. Um there's a couple in a parking lot nearby, but um nothing related to these properties here. We searched further um in just looking through the dispatch records and yeah, we couldn't find anything there either. Sometimes traffic accidents get called into our dispatch, but they don't make those formal criteria needed for a formal traffic or crash report. We didn't find any of those happening here, so nothing snuck under the radar. And then Lindale is scheduled for a pavement overlay in 2029. That date is going to become important, and I'll tell you why. The next thing we look at outside of the impacts immediately are how does this affect our future plans for the area right now? Lindale, south of 102nd Street is a three-lane road. North of 102nd Street, it goes back to its four-lane configuration. That was just a result of the pavement work that was being done. In the future, we would like to extend that three-lane configuration up to the north all the way up to 99th Street. Three lanes are fundamentally safer. Um, and at these volumes, there are no capacity issues with a threelane. It can handle up to 15, 17, 20,000 cars a day without any serious capacity issues. So, what we'll do is in 2028, in advance of the pavement work in 2029, we'll engage with the community and we'll study issues related to converting that road to a three-lane. there are the trips being generated by this development and going on to Lindale Avenue don't interfere with those plans for the future. So, we're comfortable we could move forward with that without any mitigation from this development. The next thing is 98th and Lindale. You'll recall in 2024 we did the uh 98th Street interchange study which looked at the across the 35W all the way to this intersection. Lindell Avenue currently is very large and it is not the most pedestrian friendly environment. There's the high fairly high-speed right turn lanes. We would like to downsize that intersection. We'd like to make it more pedestrian and manable. Uh and we have a plan to do so. The trips from this development don't preclude that work taking place in the future as we find funding for it. This area is also a very high pedestrian activity area. It's one of three areas in the city where we have very high rates of pedestrian activity and we love that. Um and so the crosswalks come into play. There's two existing crosswalks right now that are of issue. One is there's a midblock signalized crossing that's been there um for a very very long time before I unders before I know the date that that was put in. In its fourlane configuration that's fine, but we don't generally use those pedestrian signals like that anymore. we have better technology that makes things safer. So, we will look at that when we go to overlay the road in 2029 and we'll see what's suitable. If we can convert this road to a threelane, we'll put a nice refuge island in there. Um, and probably something like the rectangular rapid flashing beacons that are so effective. Um, and we'll try to make sure the location is right. Pedestrian behavior. Um, you've got to get those crossings right where they need to go. people won't divert more than about 50 feet out of their way to to get to that crosswalk. So, we try to make sure they're in exactly the right location. So, um again, that's what will happen in the future. Nothing about this development takes that off the table. The next thing is 99th and Lindale. Right now, there's a crosswalk on the north side. It is a fairly broad roadway in there. That crosswalk has worked okay, but it is not loved, and there's a hope to improve it in the future. We secured HSIP funding. This is a grant fund to do some proactive work there. And we'll do that in conjunction with the pavement work in 2029 to add those large pedestrian refuge islands, get rid of some lanes, put in some flashing lights, and add a crosswalk on the south side of the road as well. And um again, that's all consistent with what's being done here. So um in short, there are no impacts that need further exploration or anything like that. The development as proposed will be handled by the existing infrastructure. We don't expect this to exacerbate any issues. None of that is to say you won't experience some delay and congestion. Rush hour will be with us for the foreseeable future, but that there's no special mitigation needed as part of this development. With that, um, planning commission did recommend approval of this application 70. Staff recommends approval and I'm available for questions as is the applicant. >> Thank you very much. Thanks for the presentation. Council, we'll get to uh opinions and discussion later, but questions first. A question about the presentation and about the proposal before us. All right. Is there anything the applicant wants to say specifically or make a presentation at all? No. Okay. Very good. Don't go far. Very good. This is a public hearing. We will open the public hearing now. And I just want folks to know uh here's how we generally work public hearings here in the city of Bloomington. Uh all speakers, as you come up, we'd ask that you identify yourself and then ultimately sign in. You don't have to do it as you're starting, but you can maybe as you wrap up, you can sign in just for efficiency sake. Uh you'll have 5 minutes to speak and you'll tell how much time you have left by our shot clock on the wall. When we reach zero on the five minute shot clock, I will cut you off. Not because I'm mean, but because uh trying to make sure that everybody has the same amount of time to talk. And so that's our our our fiveminute limit is what we have for our public hearings within the city of Bloomington. We also will uh if you ask questions or needs clarification on anything, generally we'll hold all of the questions to the end of the public hearing just so we're not trying to answer things off the cuff. We have an opportunity to hear your question. Staff has an opportunity to uh if necessary research and answer and uh we'll be able to answer all the questions at the end of the um at the end of the public hearing. Everybody who would like to speak is able to speak and we'll occasionally take a look and see if we have anybody online wishing to speak. And with that all being said, I will open the public hearing for item 4.1 on our agenda this evening. Anybody wishing to speak, please come forward. Good afternoon or good evening. Sorry. >> Good evening, mayor and members of the council. My name is uh Christopher Dedson. I'm a resident of the city of Bloomington and I'm a trustee of the uh Nativity of Mary Parish and School. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak regarding uh the Wixon proposal. Uh my address uh is 9900 Lindale Avenue South. Um Nativity Mary Parish and school does have several concerns. Uh I wish to discuss our history, the current situation and uh the impact of the proposal on our property and our recommendations to minimize those negative impacts. Uh Nativity of Mary has a long history with this community. We started with the first mass in November of 1949. We had a school or at the Bloomington Town Hall on Penn Avenue. uh ground was bu broken in November of 1950. We had the built the school and uh gymnasium at that time 140 stu students current situation and now we have 1,200 families um serving uh the church and the 60 different ministries. School has been recognized as a school of excellence and continues to attract top educators. One of our highlights I wish to mention is the St. Vincent the Paul started its Nativity of Mary conference and its uh first free food giveaway in October of 20 uh provides food to our neighbors in need on the second and fourth Saturdays. Recently VEP and the city of Bloomington have helped us sponsor those events and we're very thankful to the city for that. The city also or the conference also provides rental assistance. Uh the point I want to emphasize is where we're located on 90th uh 9900 99th Street running um from Lindale to the frontage road is a very busy street. We have um the metro transit opened its hub and uh its rapid transit station in December uh in 2024 and 2021 has 1995 parking spaces. To the east is a high-rise apartment building. I'm sure you're familiar with the area. So, we have parents dropping their kids off at the north end of our uh our property uh in the morning and in the evening uh afternoon I should say. And as a result of those uses, the transit station, the apartment, and nativity, uh we have traffic to cars, buses, these double buses, school traffic, parents dropping off children, and uh the apartment traffic. Um the infrastructure um we have been concerned about. And uh after we had the meeting with the planning commission, I mentioned in my uh uh note to you, we had a very good meeting with city staff about how these items could be addressed. And there was a discussion about whether or not this was part of the project or not part of the project. To us, it doesn't matter. To us, the issue is public safety and what is the city's responsibility and what the developer's responsibility. uh as my grandmother used to say as Mocknicks uh we have to have uh safety for our children and the infrastructure um I we think is in need of improvement and um I did have a I've had several very good meetings with uh uh Kirk Robert regarding the sidewalk and I don't know if you've walked on that sidewalk but it's Uh, it's 5T. It'd be nicer if it was 8 ft. It doesn't go all the way to the transit station. So, what happens is when you're walking from the transit station and you want to get to Lindale, you got to go into the street. Uh, there's u uh and you have to watch out for buses. Uh, that's something that we asked uh at the time that we had the meeting. We said, "Can't we have a traffic study or some type of study?" Um, sorry, I'm going too slow. Um, we're uh I'm going to just get to the point here. We want or we're requesting the improving of the infrastructure uh at 99th at on the frontage road. The sidewalk, the lighting, uh the cameras, and the fence is something that would be to stop people from crossing our street. >> Mr. Deon, I'm going to have to ask you to stop. We're at five minutes. So, >> right. I would only say I know the city is interested in affordable housing, but my opinion is our opinion is the desire to have affordable housing can't trump public safety. I would urge you to help us out with the public safety. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Oh, I'm going to >> Yep. Please make sure you sign in. It's right there. >> All right. >> You don't have to do that right there. Why don't you take that and do that in your seat and we'll go to the next speaker who I saw someone coming forward. Perfect. Thank you. Good evening. Welcome. >> Good evening. My name is Daniel McGra, council members, mayor. I own the property immediately to the north of the development, Gil Brothers Funeral Chapels. We are a fifth generation family-owned and operated business that was established in 1889 by my grandfather, great-grandfather. We've been in business in Bloomington since 1961. I want to be clear. We are not opposed to residential development nor affordable housing. Our concern is the scale of the proposal and the degree of the deviation being requested from the Bloomington uh Bloomington established standards. At the planning commission, several neighbors, property owners raised concerns regarding setbacks, building height, compatibility with adjacent uses. I'm asking the council tonight to take a careful and independent look at those same issues. Bloomington's zoning code includes height limit, setbacks, and transitional requirements for a reason. Those standards exist to ensure that larger developments integrate appropriately into surrounding properties. Larger developments integrate appropriately into surrounding properties. When those standards are substantially reduced, the burden is on the applicant to clearly demonstrate that the project still meets the intent of the code. Proximity to transit alone does not automatically justify increased height or reduced setbacks. Good planning requires proportionality, compatibility, and respect for the existing property owners. I respectfully ask the council to identify what specific conditions justify departing from the adopted height and setback standards at this location. If those standards were established to protect compatibility and appropriate transition between properties, what makes compliance inappropriate here? Approving this scale of development at this location sets a precedent. If these departures are granted here, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny similar requests elsewhere. If the standards are to retain their integrity, they must be applied consistently, especially when the impacts fall directly on the adjacent property owners. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you, Mr. McGrath. others. >> Mr. Furlong, good evening. >> Good evening, council members, Mr. Mayor. Welcome, new city manager. Uh my name is Steve Furlong. I'm a resident of Bloomington and I'm a nativity family and I agree with uh setting a precedent here. My next development proposal may include a 19 and a half foot setback from the street. We're not going to like it. This will fundamentally change this neighborhood. And you've heard about where the the um new rapid transit station is in respect to the Nativity School and where this proposal site is. And I'm certain that the residents of this new development will be traversing through the Nativity parking lot by foot to get to that Best Rapid Transit Station. And so with a proposal that includes uh reguiduiding and reszoning, you have the highest discretion level here. I ask you to think of if you had children at Nativity School, are you comfortable with this type of development? Keep that in mind as you make your decision. And I don't think this is a great place. Although we love the idea of 30% and 60% AMA housing, this may not be the right way to do it in my opinion. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Furlock. Others, Briana, do we have anyone online or on the phone who wishes to speak? >> Mayor, we do not have anyone online. >> Last call for anybody here in the chambers. Good evening. Welcome. >> Yeah, my name is Doug Paulson. I live at U 1046 and 1048 Harriet. Uh the project would be I would live on the east side of the project. So my curiosity question would be like how far away from the residential on the east side is will the property be or the development? Um, my main issue would be crime. Um, and I I'm just curious how that would look on the east side the project. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, you're specifically um the question about the setback on the east side of the project. >> Yes. >> All right. Very good. affect your >> Oh, and how would that affect the housing value? Because my property taxes kind of went up like 19% so much rent control. How would that affect all that, you know? Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? If not, council, no one on the phone wishing to speak. No one coming forward in the council chambers. I would look for a motion to close the public hearing at item 4.1. >> Second >> motion by council member Reebas, second by council member Carter to close the public hearing on item 4.1. No further council discussion on this. Priyanka >> Dallesandro >> I >> Reebas >> I >> Nelson >> hi >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> I may busy >> I motion carries 6 closing the public hearing item 4.1 uh just a couple of questions that I heard in the discussion that maybe we could work with very quickly um Mr. Mr. Deedson, questions about sidewalk widths and connections and if you have any uh insights on that and then uh Mr. Pollson's questions about the setback on the east side of the the property. >> Um thank you, mayor. Uh so as far as the first question goes, um there is a missing piece of sidewalk link um along 99th Street. Um, and we talked with Julie Long, the city engineer, and um, it is possible to fill that in. She just said it will be an expensive project. Um, because there's an a retaining wall there um, that will need to be moved. So, that's kind of potentially maybe why that piece isn't there. Um, but we have discussed it and she knows about it. Um, and it's in the works. Um, as far as the setback on the east side of the building goes, um, the required setback is 30 ft for the from the rear property line and the proposed setback is also 30 ft. And then I'm not quite sure, it depends on the individual house, like how how far back that rear setback is, too. So, at least 30 feet and then supposedly 30 feet for single family houses too. All right. >> Thank you, council. Did I miss any questions from folks who are asking? Ah, yes. The uh the question regarding property value. >> Um, mayor, that is a good question. Um, I don't feel super versed to answer that question. I don't know if planning manager Johnson wants to try. >> Mr. Johnson, good evening. >> Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Uh we do get this question a lot when it as it relates to all forms of different development, commercial, industrial uh etc. Um it's not it's not drawing a straight line uh from project A to value B. Um uh it's a science. Our assessing team uh is involved with uh establishing values. Ultimately, what a house is worth is what someone's willing to pay for it. um whether or not a particular development project uh decreases values across large swaths is typically something that assessing does not see in the the data that they uh view. I don't want to dismiss that concern outright. Um uh but generally speaking, and I've looked at lots of different studies, there's uh very little statistically significant science in terms of uh lowering property values next to new development um in general. But that's not to say that it can't occur um in in one particular instance or another. Um getting back, sorry to go backwards. I did want to share I think Emily had an extra slide on the sidewalk uh context. I think it's worth just sharing a visual of that. So that um yeah, so the the transit uh station is the red X in the top left uh corner of your slide. That's the orange line uh station. So there is continuous sidewalk currently uh from the subject property to the transit station. It's on the south side of 99th Street. The gap that um the uh speaker and engineering has identified is on the north side of 99th Street. Um and it's a small uh small by the context of this slide, but it's it's a lengthier gap on the north side um uh west of Aldrich. Do I have that right, Julie? I think. Yep, she's nodding. So, um, we're not zoomed in enough to see it well, but effectively there's a there's a small sidewalk gap on the north side of 99th Street, but there is continuous sidewalk to the property, uh, from the transit station. So, I just want to be clear about that. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Council, additional questions regarding any of the safety issues brought up or the the setback issues. Council member Rivas, >> based on what >> I hear. Oh, sorry. Thank you. You're so kind. Uh based on the information I heard, um uh how do the traffic static model pick our impact impact the building and are there any mitigations that the builder or the developer would have to to exercise in the event that is not accurate based on everything that I have heard so far today? >> Mr. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Reebus, so you're asking about the specific uh the trips in the peak hour. Um these are fairly low trips um distributed over a 2-hour period in the morning and the evening. And the area of concern is when you're trying to add trips to a very a very busy roadway, you get delays. Obviously, you've all sat at a driveway, you're looking right, you're looking left, you're trying to get a breakin traffic. Um, and the question is is do you need to put a traffic signal in or something like that? At these low numbers, um, that's not really an issue. You the the average typical delay when you approach Lindale now isn't going to change very much at all. In fact, if you go out there and try to make a left or a right onto the road in this area um before and after this development, you will not notice any difference. just observationally, we calculate those differences, but it um it's not going to be an issue where it's going to trigger any sort of needed mitigation. >> Right. Thank you, >> Council Member Nelson. And Council Member Carter, did you have your hand up as well? >> I do. >> Okay. Council member Carter next. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh Mayor, I appreciate it. Uh so um I know that just north of this area I've spoken with people that there are uh water storm water management issues there that have been ongoing for some years and I know there's been efforts to address those. Uh in particular I think there's flooding in the parking garage of uh one of the buildings just to the north of Nativity. Um, and will this impact that at all or have those issues been addressed and cleaned up or um, and I know that you know read through the thing that there's storm water management plan that has to be approved as a condition as well as they're looking at underground on-site storage before it's re uh, probably released. So, just wondering if this will impact that and what kind of the future plans are to address that. I think that was also in the letter from uh Nativity that they had concerns about storm water. >> Mayor, council member Nelson, thank you for the question. Yeah, so like you said, as you can see on the screen, um they the apartment building is proposing their own storm water basin underneath the surface parking lot. Um so that is for their own site. I can't speak about the properties to the north. Um but as far as the nativity of Mary site, um they also have their own storm water pond um which we have been in conversations about with them. Um but that is also for their separate site. Um so as far as this application goes, the storm water they're proposing will be reviewed. Um but we're kind of only looking at this property. >> Good. So, does it stay on the site? It never leaves the site or does it somehow connect into a storm water system? And what is the capacity of that system to handle that additional amount because of the increase in impervious surface? >> Mayor, Council Member Nelson, thank you. I'm going to ask engineer Julie Long. Thank you. >> Um, Mr. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Nelson, we require all developments to have rate control and volume control so that any development doesn't adversely affect the environment from where it currently stands today. So, that should not be an issue. >> Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Two just quick questions. Just from my understanding, the they are not requesting financial assistance for this project other than the development fee. There's no tiff request or anything of that nature. Mayor, Council Member Nelson, um I do believe there is a TIFF request in the works. Um planning manager Johnson can speak to that. >> Yeah, Mayor Council Nelson, I believe they are seeking tax increment financing as part of this project as well as seeking uh Minnesota housing financing from the state as well. But the applicant is here. They can certainly speak about what uh um financing package they're looking to put together for this project and its associated levels of affordability. >> Thank you. The reason I asked is it was not checked on their OO application. >> So that's why I was suspecting that they were not. >> Yeah, I I'd invite them to clarify that. >> Okay. Um and then the other question I have is one of the things we've struggled with is 30% AMI because of the general necessity for additional services for folks that are at 30% AMI. um do they have experience with that level of affordability and do they have a plan to assist those people if they need assistance? And maybe that's a question that they can answer as well. >> Mayor, um Council Member Nelson, I'll invite the applicants up to speak on that. >> Good evening. Welcome. >> Good evening. Hello, Mayor Busy, members of the council. Um, so >> if you could identify yourself just so we have it on the record, please. >> Yes. I'm Alex Bazan. I'm a partner with Real Estate Equities. >> Thank you. >> Um, so your questions were related to 30% AMI units. Um, so the the project right now, I believe we have 17 units that are at 50% AMI or below. I think four of those are 30% AMI units. Um in terms of the the financing in these projects that we build that are financed with taxes and bonds and the 4% loan income oing tax credit program um we are I think in every project frankly we've had 2% of the units at 30% AMI uh so we have extensive experience managing that income level um you know in terms of like supportive services in addition to our management capacity frankly in managing those projects we don't have like additional services um necessarily ly, you know, that our management company offers in addition to just staffing and and working with residents and helping them with certain things. Um, so I think that hopefully answers that question. In terms of financing, so we are going to be applying for some financing. That's not obviously part of this meeting. Uh, in terms of some financial subsidy for the project, uh, we've applied to the county for two different sources of funding. So, we currently have applications in for that. Um, and we're planning to work with city staff here soon on potentially tiff or, you know, LAA funds or something of that nature. We haven't quite finalized exactly what the financial request is going to be. Um, but we will be working on that. So, >> sure, Council Member Carter. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I wanted to bring up one of the concerns uh from the letters we got and the testifiers um or the commenters. Uh some of one of them was cutting through on the nativity property potentially. Is there anything that we could do to help prevent that? Um mayor, council member Carter. So, one part of this is that's where um shoring up that hole of the sidewalk on 99th Street could potentially help. Um we have uh kind of given ideas to Nativity of Mary about um like a fence or things of that nature, but um in this instance, the city isn't going to pay for that fence or put it up for them. Um but they do have options and we're willing to work with them, you know, on the fence code and stuff like that. Um, but there's nothing that we've discussed that the city besides the side sidewalk can really directly do to keep people from cutting across the parking lot. Okay. So, they could put up signs or they could do things on their Okay. Um, and then, and I apologize if you said this already, but that gap in the sidewalk and you said it was on the north side of the road. So, would that be Metro Transit's responsibility to complete that sidewalk? Uh, Mayor, Council Member Carter. Um, it's the cities of the city. >> Um, I'm just kind of surprised when they built that out that they didn't complete sidewalks around their own metro station since we require that in many developments. But, um, I do think it would be important to complete that infrastructure there. Um, I do agree with a lot of the people who raised concerns about pedestrian safety in the area and even staff have um brought it up, but it is good that it's in the plans in the future to continue to improve um that road and the intersections in that area. Uh, and then the last thing that got brought up, I think, in the concerns and requests was around lighting. And I I don't know what the lighting looks like in that area. Um, as it relates to safety, are there options for some of those who have concerns if there are needs for additional lighting? not necessarily on their property, but potentially street lighting or whatever it might look like. >> Uh, mayor, council member Carter. Yeah. So, I know at least for this project, I mean, they have to turn in a phototric plan. Um, and I preliminary re preliminarily reviewed that and it looks good. So, there may be some parking lot lighting that will kind of add to the street. Um, but as far as lighting like for sidewalks and for pedestrians, um, I guess I would probably ask Kirk to answer that. >> Yeah, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Carter, we're always interested in fixing lighting. Bloomington maintains fairly low lighting levels on our streets. People like they like our our quiet uh, dark streets. where we do like to have a lot of light is that those conflict points, intersections, crosswalks especially. And so, um, when we do any crosswalk evaluation, now lighting is the one thing that we're always looking at is is it is it bright enough that people can can use that safely. And so, if there are known areas, um, we feel like we do a pretty good job, but if there are known areas, we are always interested in hearing from people on that and working with them. We, uh, do have the ability to add lights as needed. So, >> thank you. additional questions. >> Uh so, um Mr. McGraw, I actually Mr. Mayor. >> Oh, yes. I'm sorry, Council Member Delisandro. I apologize. >> That's okay. No problem. No problem at all. Thank you for the opportunity. Um I'm looking at a map of that area. My I guess my follow-up traffic consideration questions would be, you know, h have we have we tried ourselves to walk from the transit center to the location and back again? And do we have a sense for how people will do that? Not not like how we think they will do it or how we can make it a nice, you know, straight line for them or whatever, but like how people actually walk in that area. Because, you know, one of the biggest challenges we always have, I think, is figuring out infrastructure um that works for us versus infrastructure that works for the people who are actually going to use it. And so my my question would be, you know, if as I'm looking at this, if I'm if I live on in the property in question and I get off the bus, my shortest distance between those two points is not necessarily congruous with the the sidewalk that is painted on this particular route. Um, I might be I might be coming from the very north side where my bus got dropped me off, in which case I'm taking, you know, the the road to the right of the parking lot and then down and maybe I'm taking that little, you know, angle area and now I'm on the north side and everything. And I'm not so suggesting that we should or shouldn't fill in the sidewalk, but I I just wonder if as we think about being more pedestrian friendly, we actually start to do pedestrian studies, meaning we actually understand how people are going to walk in these places. Um, you know, by asking, I don't know, people who live there or transit there, like many maybe many of the people that have commented tonight who live in this area who would walk to that bus, how would they do that? Or how do people who come to church actually get off the bus and come to church? Like, I I think, you know, we it would behoove us to think about that as we do these kinds of things. Um, and so I' I'd like to to, you know, ask, you know, are are we are we capable of doing those kinds of things? Um, you know, and if not, what would it take for us to be more capable of doing that kind of actual study so that we can answer these questions more uh less speculatively and more, you know, um, oriented in like real world patterns that we have identified. Mayor, Council Member Dalisandro. Um, yeah, thank you for that question. I have on the screen. That straight line map that you were saying is probably not what most people do, maybe. Um, I think our traffic division is very open to ideas and changes. And, um, like Mr. Roberts presented on in the few slides that he did. Um he showed like a potential update for crosswalks um for lighting for crosswalks um adding that sidewalk connection. Um I think there are things that staff have put forward and that they're willing to do. Um but I'm not sure that we're able to predict exactly like where people will be walking. Um, and it might be across the parking lot because it's the shortest point from point A to point B. Um, not sure that I fully answered your question, but you can let me know. >> I understand. I just think I think it's personally I think as we are talking about urbanization and and development here I think it's just a maybe I'll make a a broader comment that I think it's a gap in our in our understanding and in our in our capacity is it we are we're kind of deciding after the fact what the pedestrian flow looks like and I think we can be more purposeful about that is all I'm getting at and and say like I mean we we feel we feel super confident in our ability to predict traffic apparently and and I understand that. So I you you know I think there's probably models out there that help with pedestrian flow as well. And I'm I'm just I guess suggesting we we start thinking about using those tools um because we keep doing this, right? And it's it's not a critique. It's just it's just we keep doing this. We we put the building in there and then we watch what happens. And I'm suggesting that we can be more planful about that. Uh I guess my second question would be um you know I'm I I you know another another um you know another comment on the the I'm looking you know if I look at the neighborhood characteristic and I and I'm looking at all of the the buildings that have been built etc here um you know uh to date um none of them none of them come close to that that setback, right? And and and I don't know, it it it would alter the characteriz characterization of the of the bu of the area a lot to to have it sitting at 19 feet uh again again on a road that we are not necessarily preparing at the same time to be pedestrian friendly. And so, uh, I'm curious as to what what we think is the justification outside of like our aspirational intent, what the justification for the setback modification is. And then the third question I guess I have is um what what are um well, I'll I'll you can answer that question. I I'll pause and get that answer before I ask my third question. Mayor, Council Member Dolesandro, thank you for that question. Um, yeah, so a lot of the, you know, findings and stuff that I wrote about is about the wanting to increase walkability in the 98th Street area plan. Um, the Lindale Avenue suburban retrofit, which I think is kind of what you're talking about, a lot of aspirational goals. Um, as far as um, like examples to look to, I have on the screen Oxboro Heights and Lindale Flats, which I think were approved within the past 5 years. Um, and those were also approved with decreased setback um, with that flexibility. And so really what we were looking at with this with these buildings and with the proposal is creating a more urban Lindale. Um this property that we're talking about isn't exactly within the Lindale Avenue suburban retrofit plan, but it is just south of there. Um and kind of aligned with these buildings. um that setback kind of matches what we've already approved in this general area along Lindale. >> Um I understand your comment there. Um I you know I it's interesting. I I think of this this area of Lindale is as a lot more of a transition down to the river bottoms and and and that kind of thing. and it I don't know that it necessarily fits that particular idea, but I I get where you're coming from there and I appreciate the the thoughtfulness that you have there. Um I guess my my my third question is kind of um related to Council Member Nelson's questions on on financing and um the ordinance adjustments we're willing to make. Is there um is there general consensus? I mean, I know the planning commission approved this. Is there general consensus that um that we should so to move this like even some of this area from from well let me be more comprehensive. Why aren't we considering a more mixed use uh zoning function where you could get you know uh ground level retail in this area or something like that? Why are we going from something that is business and something that is R1 residential into only multif family residential? Uh do I am I am not thinking about that correctly and is there not an opportunity for for us to zone this into a mixed use more of a mixed use function? >> Um mayor council member Dellesandro. Yeah, thank you. So, um, the five of these properties had already been guided for highdensity residential, um, and had have been for several iterations of the comp plan. And then with the like single family housing behind it and the guidance for those um you know we felt that housing and highdensity residential housing is kind of what fit best um because of the comprehensive plan guidance. >> Okay. So >> if you can hold on uh council member >> Yeah, sure. Of course. >> Nick Johnson, I think is going to jump in with an answer here. >> Oh, thanks. Thanks. Sorry. >> Yeah. Thank you, mayor and Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you, mayor and council member Dellesandra. So, I appreciate that question. Um, certainly there's a lot of retail in the area and I think if the developer were given the opportunity to speak to it as well. Um, there are some challenges with creating uh mixeduse development particularly uh mixeduse development with affordability components um uh on top of them. So, um as far as this site, Emily mentioned its long-standing guidance of highdensity residential. Certainly, there is a transition where this corridor, this area south of 98 goes from retail uh to more residential. Um, and so given the guidance of the the parcels to the south, it just made more sense to um uh to to package the Wixen site with those other parcels that were already guided, high density residential. Um, so hopefully that makes some sense. As far as the set, >> can I make one quick comment about the setback too? Um, I know we've been getting questions about the setbacks and some of the flexibilities that have been approved more recently. I do want to point out to council that on the planning commission work plan, there is a project to study our setback requirements. Currently in our highdensity residential districts, the setback requirement is 40 ft. Um, and you know, what may may have been appropriate uh 20 years ago when those districts were created, I think we're finding that there are some weaknesses of those setback requirements, including from our very own fire department who actually don't like having the building so far away from the street where they can deploy a ladder truck uh from the road. And so in addition to improved pedestrian access, less impervious surface to get to the building, some of those things, um I just want to point out that this is an issue that's under ongoing study uh later on this year. So if I can just make those points. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Anything else? Council member Delisandro. >> I'm all set. Thanks. >> Uh the other question that that I had and that I heard I think from Mr. McGra was was the note uh the idea of uh both uh the size the the scale but I think he he was also referring to I think the the step up of the building itself. Could you explain a little bit why there were some um deviations allowed in terms of the the the scale and the setbacks? >> Um Mayor, yeah. Uh are you referring when you say the step up like the height >> the step ups? I know we do have we we've got something in our code about stepups. uh depending on what it's next to. >> Oh yeah. So um I believe two or three weeks ago you all approved a change um to the zoning code related to height. So previously when this application went to planning commission we they were requesting flexibility um for a step back um from protected residential uses which um would have applied in this case. Uh the ordinance changed that um to I believe only um low density guided um and so therefore that is no longer required in this situation. Um the ordinance also changed the maximum height um which I don't remember now if it's 60 or 80 feet. Um either way, the flexibility and OO incentives for height um are no longer applicable for this application after the ordinance was passed a few weeks ago. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Nothing to add. Thank you. Yeah. Nothing to add. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh excuse me. When Doug was up at the >> I'm sorry. If if you want if you want to speak, you're certainly welcome to speak. I mean, we we closed the public hearing, but if you've got uh >> he was concerned about the crime with the amount of people. >> So So the crime Okay. Well, well, let let's address that. Let's uh let's talk about the the two uh apartments complexes we have on the screen. Uh Oxboro Heights and Lindale Flags. And I know I you don't want to talk necessarily for the police uh department, but uh do you have any indication what the uh what the impact of these two fairly large right on Lindale Avenue um properties have had on on crime in the area? Mayor, that is a great question. Um, I'll let Nick try that one. >> I don't know, Mayor. Um, I certainly could defer to Deputy Chief Bitney, but I'm sure he's a little bit unprepared to speak to um, the exact impacts of Lindale Flats and, uh, Oxboro Heights. The one thing I'll say, and another, it's another reason in planning uh, communities why they advocate to have buildings closer to the street is that it's more eyes on the street. So, there's a concept of crime prevention through environmental design, SEPTED. Some of you may have heard of that. One of the key factors in reducing crime is getting more people around to bear witness or to uh show a presence uh around areas. So crime often happens in dark unlit areas with um less people. Um and so bringing buildings closer to the street actually brings more bears more witness, bears more uh people to prevent crime. So um I can't speak to these specific areas and the impacts that these projects have had, but as as the planning manager, I haven't heard anything anecdotally that's been uh negative in that regard. >> Thank you. Thank you for that. Yep. Council, any additional questions or are we ready to get into discussion here? Very well. Thank you very much for for the information and uh answering the questions. Council, I I understand some of the questions and concerns brought forward by the residents and uh and share with them especially some of the concerns especially about pedestrian safety. Um, we do have other highdensity large units on Lindale Avenue and uh, they don't necessarily have those pedestrian issues that I have heard of. Perhaps there are some, but not that I have heard of. So, I do think we could continue to take a closer look from a city standpoint about how we could work to improve those, whether it's expanding the uh, sidewalks as discussed or some of the the the changes that uh, Mr. Roberts discussed. I I think also uh from from design there are things that they can be done at nativity to to prevent cutthroughs if they're concerned about that to discourage cut through. Uh to council member Dallasandro's point, I mean the the the rule of thumb on campus was don't put a sidewalk in until you see where the grass is dead and that's where you put the the sidewalks in. And I think that makes good sense. And uh we could take a bit of lesson from that I think to not only look at where the pedestrians are but then to to try and modify behavior or path depending on whether it's a positive or a negative thing. And so I think we could definitely do that. That all of that being said this for a couple of decades now has been uh has been pushed in the direction of highdensity housing. And I do think that it is a is an appropriate use with um considering where it is on Lindale. It it does transition. It pushes into the transition, but with a church and school across the street with uh with significant retail just to the north, uh with other high density with with other multi multif family units just across Lindale Avenue, I don't think it's out of line to to think that this could be a successful integration into this neighborhood and and well done in this area. And uh again to council member Dalisandro's question about mixed use, I I think that would be a great idea except for all of the um all of the retail just to the north and the the more than a handful of open businesses that open in storefronts in that area that uh I I don't know that it would be a a worthwhile or a a profitable venture to get into, especially here. So, all all in all, I think we can continue to work with this and I would encourage our our city staff and our traffic and our our our folks to continue to work with this. But I do think this uh this uh proposal meets the meets the uh the goals of what we're trying to to accomplish and I think it meets them in such a way that it will fit in well with the neighborhood and and could be a successful development project. 92 cents. Others, >> Council Member Robertson. >> Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, just a a quick comment to kind of piggyback off that. And I think I actually saw this somewhere in the packet, so I'm stealing someone else's language, just to be clear. Um, but I just to be clear, I'm in support of this, um, as it stands currently, I should say, uh, because we want people who work here in Bloomington to be able to live here in Bloomington, right? And so I think, um, it's a great idea. It's good that we encourage uh folks, teachers, cops, you know, nurses, everybody um to be able to to work here and live here. And I think that's great. Um I did want to touch on um Council Member Nelson's question about support services. Um and I do know that there's uh housing providers here in the Midwest who do that already. Common Bond Communities is a really great example of that. Um and it is something to be aware of. If we're um we're getting folks into housing, we want to make sure they stay housed, right? And there can certainly be barriers um for folks who are experiencing um that level of socioeconomic instability. And so I just would encourage um the developers to be really aware of that. And as already noted um with the pedestrian study, I think yeah, let's look at where the grass has been worn away and then take it from there. So thank you, >> Council Member Nelson. >> Yep. Thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, I I appreciate the concerns with where the tra the pedestrian traffic is going to go. I unfortunately don't think we'll be able to see a wear path in the grass because I think it's going to go through the parking lot. Um, you know, just basic math. If you traverse at an angle that's shorter, you know, Pythagorean theorem or something like that. So, so something like that. And so, you know, I do think that that is a legitimate concern and I do hope that the city will take a look at what we might be able to do in terms of even like planting of shrubs and trees along there to just make it harder to get through there. I think the winter makes it more difficult because there's probably a big snow bank when we plow those sidewalks. So, you're probably going to stay more on the sidewalk in the winter. Um, so I I do hear that concern. I don't think that concern is impacted in any way by the setback though. If we move the building back 10 feet, people are still going to do what they're going to do. So, I don't know. And I think to my knowledge of the looking at this, and um anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, that is the deviation that's being requested is the setback. All of the other ones that said they don't meet it, they're going to have to meet it. the number of trees and things like that, the the fencing and all of that, they're going to have to bring the plan up to compliance if they want a permit is my understanding. So, the deviation is a setback. I looked at this area and drove through it. And I think if you just don't go that far north, I think even Summerhouse is fairly close to the sidewalk on Lindale. Duth Trading I believe is very close, as is the strip mall there. Um the ones kind of in between there are set back a little bit more other than potentially the uh uh covered entry uh uh at Gil Brothers there. So I I don't know the distance that set back, but you know, so this is not an unusual setback for that immediate area as well. Um so given that that's the only deviation from that's being requested, I don't see a reason to not approve this. I will tell you I'm very skeptical of the TIFF and and I'm not super thrilled that we had an OO application that said they weren't going to do that and then now I hear that they are. I I don't quite understand, you know, how that got signed and uh um submitted when that's not the reality. Um and I'd prefer to have the actual reality submitted on the front end so that we know that situation. So, um, uh, because as I've expressed before, I am get growing skeptical of utilizing TIFF all the time for housing, and I'm a huge fan of housing, but maybe if that's what we have to do to support that mix, maybe we change the mix a little bit. So, but at this point, I don't see any reason to not move forward with this approval. Um, uh, based on the information I've seen. >> Thank you, Council Member. Also, if there's no more comment on this, I would look for action on item 4.1. And we have five different motions that would need to be made. Council member Robertson. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Um, so do I just read it out loud? >> Yes. >> Perfect. All right. >> One by one. >> One by one. >> All right. So, first, um, I move to adopt resolution number 2026, a resolution approving a comprehensive land use guide plan amendment to reguide 9955 Lindale Avenue South from general business to highdensity residential >> and then just keep going. Perfect. >> No, no, no. We need we we need a vote on this one. >> Thank you. >> We'll need a second. >> Second. Motion by council member Robertson, second by council member Nelson to adopt the resolution approving a comprehensive land land use guide plan amendment to reu 9995 Lindale Avenue South from general business to high dens high density residential. No further council discussion on this pria. Dlesandro. >> Hi, >> Rivas. >> Hi, >> Nelson. >> Hi, >> Robertson. >> Hi, >> Carter. >> Hi, >> Mayor Bassy. >> I motion carries 6. Council member Robertson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I move a resolution authorizing summary publication of the adopted ordinance reszoning 9955 Lindale Avenue South from B2 General Commercial to RM50PD multiple residential family plan development and one 01 09 one 01 I'm I think I said that wrong. Excuse me. 1 0 0 1 09 one 017 one 027 and one 029 Linda Avenue South. Do you want to stop me? >> Dang it, I was so close. Thank you. >> I was going to let it >> I talked too fast. Yeah, I'll just swap it out. Anyways, okay. Pardon me, friends. Um, an ordinance reszoning 9955 Lindale Avenue South from B2 general commercial to RM50PD multi multiple family residential plan development and 1 011 triple 09100017027 and 1029 Lindell Avenue South from R1 single family residential to RM50PD multiple family residential planned development. Second >> motion by council member Robertson and second by council member Nelson to adopt the ordinance as stated. >> No further council discussion on this. >> Priyanka >> I >> Rivas >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson >> I >> Carter I >> Mayor Basi >> I motion carries 6. >> Council member Robertson. >> All right thank you mayor. My apologies I'll now read the correct one. Uh, I move to um adopt a resolution authorizing summary publication of the adopted ordinance reszoning. Is this correct this time? Perfect. uh reszoning 9955 Lindale Avenue South from B2 general commercial to RM50PD multiple family residential plan development and 1 01 1 0170027 and 100029 Lindell Avenue South from R1 single family residential to RM50PD multiple family residential planned development. Second >> motion by council member Roberts and second by council member Nelson for summary publication on item 4.1. >> No further council discussion on this. >> Priyanka >> Dellesandro >> I. >> Reeas >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> Hi. >> Mayor Bassie >> I motion carries 6. >> Thank you mayor. >> Council member Robertson. >> All right two more. I move to approve preliminary and final development plans for a fourstory 180 unit multif family residential building at 9955 1 01 1 09 10001700027 and 1029 Lindale Avenue South subject to conditions and code requirements attached to staff report the staff report second >> motion by council member Robertson second by council member Nelson to approve preliminary and final development plans as stated No further council discussion on this. Priyanka >> Charlesandro >> I >> Rias >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> I >> motion carries 6 and council member Robertson one more >> thank you mayor I move to approve a type 3 preliminary plat and adopt resolution 202 well skipping that part a resolution approving the final plat to combine 9955 1 01 1 03 100017027 and 1029 Lindell Avenue south into one lot subject to the conditions listed in the resolution. >> Is that wrong? >> 9. >> Yes, I I was going to say that. I think you said 1 03, but in fact it's 19. >> My apologies. I'll correct myself to combine triple 09. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Then I'll second. >> Motion by council member Robertson, second by council member Nelson to approve the final plant to combine the properties listed into one lot subject to the conditions listed in the resolution. No further council discussion on this. Priyanka. >> Hi. >> Reebas. >> Hi. >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Robertson. >> Hi. >> Carter. >> Hi. >> Mayor Busy. >> I. Motion carries. 6. >> Thank you very much. Uh, thanks to the neighbors who came forward and expressed concerns. Thanks to our city staff for your work on this. I'm looking forward to to seeing this move forward and and to fit into the neighborhood and to be a good part of that neighborhood. So, thank you so much. We'll move on to uh our second public hearing of the evening. This is item 4.2, public hearing regarding the missing middle housing phase 2 ordinance. Dakota Castende from our planning department is here. Good evening. >> All right. Uh good evening, mayor and councel. >> All right. So, I'll jump right in. So, when we're talking about missing middle housing, we're referring um sometimes it's referred to as gentle density housing. So, we're referring to housing that uh fits between a single family home and a larger apartment building. Um it's often referred to as missing because there's just an under supply of this type of housing um for a number of reasons. Some of that being zoning code in many cities um just outright prohibit these kinds of um housing types. Um and so I'll kind of go into detail on the specific missing middle housing types we're exploring with this ordinance. um why we've been focusing so much on missing middle housing. Um it's really we see it as a key priority to ensure Bloomington continues to lead um in housing for the region. Um the Minneapolis Fed estimates that about 18,000 new housing units need to be built per year in the metro to keep up with demand. And so many cities are looking at um allowing more housing types um in these missing middle housing types as one strategy to increase the supply of housing. As I mentioned, these housing types are often um of a form and scale that's compatible with single family homes um and can support infill housing opportunities in a community like Bloomington that's pretty fully developed. Um and if we achieve our goal to increase the variety of housing types for all people at different stages of life, hopefully we can positively impact housing availability and affordability. Um from our most recent community um survey uh the American community survey done by the Census Bureau about 33% of households in Bloomington live alone and an additional 34% are families without children. And so many of those single or twoerson households um may not want or need a single family home or a studio apartment, but oftentimes those are the choices that they have to live. And so this um by allowing more different um missing middle types, we're providing more flexibility and choice for residents. We're providing additional home ownership opportunities as well as opportunities for residents to age in place in their neighborhoods. Um there's been a number of state um legislation proposed over the last couple of years looking at increasing the housing supply as some legislators feel cities aren't doing enough to increase the housing supply. And so um I'm not reading through all of these more just as a reference that um as these have been produc um introduced at the legislature. Our project has kind of paused and and started up again. Um we're not really sure where some of um this will go this legislative cycle. So we as staff had decided to kind of continue this project moving forward, kind of make our version of this um hopefully as an example. Um but then of course if things change at the state level we may need to um kind of tweak what we're proposing here to meet um state requirements. And so with a proposed ordinance um it does a couple things. It establishes a definitions use allowances for and zoning per performance standards for a variety of new missing middle housing types that I'll show on the next slide. Um some more kind of wonky zoning things. It renames our R3 zoning district to the townhouse resident um from townhouse residential district to middle housing residential district and then updates our RM12 um to the RM15 zoning district. So the five new housing types that we're looking at in this ordinance are a three family dwelling, a forplex, uh cottage court, a multiplex, as well as detached town homes. Um most of the performance standards that are in the proposed ordinance um are things like setbacks. We're looking at density, threshold, floor area, parking, lighting, th those kinds of things. So these are um kind of for each housing type. Um the many areas that that we looked at in the ordinance. Um, one of the things that we talked about in the study sessions with the HA board, the planning commission, and with the city council was thinking about where and what residential zoning districts we would like these housing types to be permitted. Um, and through kind of through those study sessions, um, it seemed pretty clear that, um, folks were comfortable with the detached town houses in the R1 zoning district. Um and then some of the other types we have um focused on our R3, R4 and RM15 zoning districts. So those existing districts are shown here on the screen. Uh most of those sites are already developed. And so one of the the things just for consideration or the trade-off with this approach is that if um someone is looking to propose a missing middle housing project will likely require some kind of reszoning to one of these three districts. Uh but we were kind of taking the approach to ease into these housing types um in kind of these more medium moderate density um residential districts. Um just to kind of walk through um some of the key highlights. So a three family dwelling is a single structure with three units. A forplex is a single structure with four units. Uh given their kind of bulk and scale, we pretty much treated these the same. And so they're kind of in their um section together and have pretty similar standards. Um much of the things like setbacks, floor area, site area, those are all dictated by the underlying zoning district. Um and then there is a separate section that was created now to have additional um use standards for these housing types. Um I would say as staff in um kind of feedback from the study session um are approaching three family dwellings and forplexes similar to a single family home or a duplex in that their approval is a more administrative um approach if they meet all of our zoning standards. Um the exception is that a three family dwelling in the R1 zoning district is a conditional use. So, it would require a conditional use permit from the planning commission as well as site plan approval from the planning commission. Um, otherwise, the these types, if they're in the R3 or R4 um zoning district and meet all of these code requirements, um they would be approved by an administrative final site and building plan by staff and then go right to a building permit as kind of one of the ways to provide a little bit more flexibility um and kind of streamline some of the approval process for these housing types. um a detached townhouse. Uh the proposed ordinance um would define that as let me just make sure I get my words right. The arrangement of multiple detach single family dwellings in a single development. Um each of those dwellings could be located on its own individual lot or on a common lot. Um, the performance standards in the ordinance were intended to allow flexibility in the location of structures on the site and provide flexibility in the size of the individual lots to promote efficient use of land and a more innovative site design. Um, so these are really single family homes, but they're going to be on a typically on a lot that's smaller or narrower than what's currently allowed for a single family home. Um the other key defining thing here is that we would um would be required to have a minimum of five units because it is meant to be part of a of a development. Um otherwise the approach would be we should just update our um single family standards. Um so this is to try to create that different that different type um and and make it more of a development. Um on the approval side, um it would be a final site and building plan um approved by the planning commission if it met all of code requirements. If there was any requested flexibility, um that would go to the planning commission for recommendation and then come to the city council for final approval. Um and then if there was a reasonzoning associated with this, that too would go to the planning commission as a recommendation and then to all of you on the city council for approval there. Um, for the parking standard was probably the other highlight here. Um, it would uh change the parking standard for attached town homes and detached town homes to make them the same. Um, and so we'd be going away from um a parking standard that's associated with a number of bedrooms to a flat um kind of rate, I guess, if you want to think about it that way um of two spaces per dwelling unit and at least one of those must be enclosed. And that was really kind of um seeing the types of townhouse and detached townhouse developments that are being proposed for Bloomington. Typically, it's a two-car garage that's being built on those on those properties. So, it's really just to kind of um more align with what the market is already building for this kind of housing. Um and then, um some of the feedback from the study session was on some of these larger developments, some concern around um not enough parking for guests. And so, there is a a guest parking um requirement there as well. So, kind of basically one space for every four units. And I would say in a townhouse development, too, it's pretty typical that the driveway um there's driveways for each of the units that can also accommodate vehicles and kind of be used for that that parking either for people living in the unit or for guests as well. Um the next housing type um is the cottage court. And so that um the proposed ordinance would define it as the arrangement of multiple detached single family dwellings in a single development oriented around an on-site common open space or courtyard. So that's really kind of the key defining feature here is that the units are oriented kind of inward into that interior courtyard versus being um oriented towards the street. Um the other key defining feature here is that the cottage court developments um they're cottages so they're kind of meant to be intentionally smaller. Um and so we do have a maximum floor area um of 1500 square feet proposed for each of the of the cottages. Um based on some of the the feedback and study sessions uh because of that orientation kind of more inward versus the street um there was maybe a little bit more kind of mixed review of allowing these in the R1 district. Um, and so here they would just be permitted in our R3, R4, and the RM uh, RM15 um, zoning districts just because of the um, kind of orientation inward versus the street like a and they won't necessarily have your kind of traditional front and rear yards that single family homes often do. Um and then finally the multipplex um is a single structure that would have uh between five and 16 units. And the performance standards here were intended to offer more flexibility in building design for a smaller multifamily or apartment building. Again, trying to encourage more efficient use of the land in an infill um development opportunity. And so with this then our our multifamily definition that was currently like three units or more is now seven would be proposed to be 17 units or more as a multif family. Um and so it's again just to offer um a lot of the standards that we have for a multif family are really kind of for those larger developments and don't always kind of align or apply to something like a sixplex or an 8plex um that they're looking for. So the intent here is to create some new standards for this housing type to hopefully um provide opportunity for for more of this kind of housing to be built um in the city. Um here they'd be permitted in the R4 and RM15 zoning district. Um the other key thing here I think from the study session um it's one space per dwelling unit and then here we have 0.5 guest space per dwelling unit just because this is likely going to be more of a parking lot um that you see versus kind of a driveway on a town home development that could accommodate more vehicles. So um we wanted to increase that guest parking requirement just a little bit more um with this type of housing. Um, like I mentioned as well, um, we would propose to rename the R3 zoning district that's currently the called the townhouse residential district to the middle housing residential district just to allow a wider variety of housing types there. Um, this is a relatively newer zoning dis zoning district that was created um, specifically for town houses. Um staff did review um just getting rid of the R3 zoning district to to better consolidate our residential zoning districts. Um but ultimately um felt like just kind of renaming this and allowing a wider variety of housing types um also just allows us while yes it has more zoning districts that we have to think about. I guess the trade-off there is it also provides us just more flexibility for different contexts. So we have more options to choose from um on any kind of infill development that would be proposed. U this is like a little wonky but um we are also just trying to get these zoning districts to better align um with the requirements in our comprehensive plan. And so our current 20 240 plan uh guides lowdensity residential areas between um 1 and 12 units an acre. And then our medium density residential are guided uh between 5 and 15 units an acre. And the zoning districts just didn't quite align with those. And so this ordinance would bring those into alignment to have our R3 zoning district at 12 units and then our R4 and RM15 um to 15 units an acre. And then there's a couple other miscellaneous u things in here related to um not allowing accessory dwelling units on these types. Um kind of getting more in the weeds on sheds and and some of those little things that kind of come up with with housing. Um and then finally just uh kind of covering some of the these three primary districts that we were looking at. Um again, we're proposing to reduce the minimum site area, um site width, and um like I just mentioned, kind of realigning those density thresholds. Um the reason we would go from 20 why we're proposing 20 um 11,50 for R3 um from 20,000 is uh having uh three a triplex or three family dwelling on that 11,000 foot lot gets you at 12 units an acre. So that's really like the bare minimum um lot that you could even do to meet the um the density threshold. So that was kind of our base and then just to help further distinguish these zoning districts um kind of created a tiered approach um kind of up from there. So going to 20,000 and then 30,000 and then pretty similar to the site width too. Um reducing R3 to 60 and then kind of just from there creating more of a tiered um system on on these zoning districts. Um for the setback um we'd be proposing a 20ft setback along the street to 20ft rear yard setback and then 10 foot sideyard setback. And that really um some of that came from looking at some other cities. Um also um kind of aligns with other recent town home developments that we've done where they've requested flexibility. Was that a 20ft setback along the street? And then that also still aligns with our um required landscape yard and buffer and the typical easements and things that are along a street um would likely mean the building is going to be at least 20 ft from the street anyway. Um, and so that's kind of where we landed um, for the these missing middle housing types. Um, so there's a lot there. It's a long ordinance, so I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Um, otherwise, there's motions there on the screen. >> Thank you, Mr. Cassidic. Council, any questions? Council member Nelson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um the 20 foot setback that you just mentioned, does that allow would that allow for a vehicle to be parked in that driveway? >> Um Mayor, Council Member Nelson, um I think for our town home standards, we say the driveway has to either be um less than 10 ft or like 20 feet or greater to allow a vehicle. Um, but I guess it kind of depends on the um the site plan for this because if the vehicle's like in an easement or like budding right up to the road, um, we wouldn't necessarily allow that. Um, but uh, so I guess it just kind of depends on the context of the site a little bit too where some existing um, easements might be. Um, but we do kind of say for um, on townhouse developments if the driveway is at least 20 feet that that's sufficient to park a vehicle. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Just want to check. Yeah. Um, and then just a I think these are questions. The cottage court you defined as single family houses around along around a center court, but then you recommend that we don't put them in single family R1 zoning areas. And so I guess I'm a little confused by that. I understand how they're different, but they are single family homes. >> Yeah. U Mayor, Council Member Nelson. Um yeah, we did consider that and they are essentially a grouping of single family homes on a single lot. Um and I think just um based on kind of feedback from the planning commission and city council study session. I think it was just a little bit more mixed on wanting to allow this in R1 as maybe this is kind of a first step um just because we haven't, you know, we don't currently allow this kind of housing. So hopefully through this we can, you know, get an example or see a project in place, get a better understanding of it kind of like out in the wild and maybe a future iteration to allow this in R1. But it was really kind of just based on um some of the feedback we heard in in study sessions why we um didn't recommend it in R1 right now. >> Okay, I think I can live with that. Plus, if somebody came forward with something, we do have the authority to reszone. So, um, and then my last question, there was in the detached town homes, um, there was a photo of a threestory town home. Um, and that is actually my biggest concern that that would be permitted in R1 because a three-story house is in my mind inconsistent with single family residential, you know, that would be, you know, somewhere else. I mean, similar to what we looked at tonight. So >> yeah, u Mayor, Council Member Nelson, I would just say um yeah, for all of these housing types, it relies on the height map is really what's going to dictate the maximum height. So in most cases on our R1 um zoning district um and kind of based on just the recent height map um amendments that came through just a couple weeks ago, um likely now just has a flat kind of 40 ft maximum height. So, we've now also gotten rid of the kind of stories and have just gone to numbers. And so, um, in most cases, a detached townhouse in R1 is going to have a maximum height of 40 feet. So, whether that is only two stories or if they do three stories, as long as it's under 40, you know, 40 feet or less, that's what the code is going to allow. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So, what I would love to do, just my quick comment, is flip-flop the cottage court and the detached town homes and in terms of the R1 zoning. So, because I am concerned about that height being inconsistent in those areas even with the height map. So, >> thank you, council member. Council member Rivas um based on public feedback uh um emphasize u emphasizing parking concerns yet the ordinance sets minimum as low as one space per unit to several types. What type of enforcement mechanisms will address potential spillover into streets? How were guests parking ratios calibrated to avoid neighborhood destructions? Yeah, Mayor, Council Member Rivas. Um, yeah, so on our side kind of on parking and and code or on in planning and code enforcement, um, you know, we would enforce what the minimum is. So, as long as the site's providing that minimum standard, um, you know, it's there's not necessarily a zoning code violation there. I guess it also depends on the context of if the street allows um on street parking or not. And if not, then I believe that's typically handled with uh police. Um and they would kind of navigate that. Um whether you know someone's in violation of parking on the street when they're not supposed to. Um I guess I would also say um a lot oftentimes like developers like they're also wanting to make sure these units are marketable to people. And so even though we have a minimum requirement, they might deem it worthy to have the parking that goes above this minimum requirement to ensure that there's um people are going to rent or or purchase the the unit as well. Um so it's just kind of it's a lot of like context specific things that might happen, but we do have things that we can do if it's not meeting a code standard or if they're violating a um you know parking on the street or not. there's mechanisms we can do to try to address address those things. >> Right. Thank you. >> Let you c the rest. >> Additional questions, council. No further questions. Before we open the public hearing at item 4.2, council, uh, looking at the clock on the wall, I'm going to make a motion that we extend our meeting no later than 9:45 this evening. We got a couple other things we've got to get done yet. Um, doesn't mean we need to go to 9:45, but to no later than 9:45. I will make that motion. >> Motion in a second by council member Rivas to extend our meeting no later than 9:45. No further council discussion on this. Priyanka >> Alesandro >> I. >> Rivas >> I. >> Nelson >> I. >> Robertson >> I. >> Carter I. >> Mayor Busy >> I. Motion carries 6. Again, doesn't mean we have to go until I'm looking at Nick Johnson. Where did he go? Uh doesn't mean we need to go till 10 9:45, but uh we we are able to now. So, council, if there are no further questions on Mr. Castend day, what I would like to do is open up the public hearing on item 4.2. This is a public hearing regarding the missing middle housing phase 2 ordinance. And uh anybody who would like to speak, please come forward and and understand the the uh the guidelines that we set for the earlier public hearing still remain five minutes. Make sure you identify yourself. We'll answer the questions at the end and so on and so forth. Is there anybody in the council chambers wishing to speak? Item 4.2. >> Good evening, council members. Mr. Mayor, Steve Furlong again. What I'm actually here for tonight is an advocate for home ownership in our community and I applaud all the work the planning staff has done to bring this proposal missing middle housing phase 2 ordinance to you this evening. I have a few quick highle market stats. Uh my thoughts on affordability that uh this ordinance could impact and um thoughts on some of the proposed code element changes and then uh I'll give you Steve's forecasted impact to our community. So high level uh market stats, the average home price in the Twin Cities. This is from uh Infosparks, a friendly helpful realtor got this information for me today. uh 445,000 is the average home price in uh the Twin Cities and in Bloomington is 377,000. Our month supply has been stubbornly at about a twomon supply in the Twin Cities for the last 5 years. Bloomington is a one-mon supply. So if everything listed today uh equals the number of transactions we had last month, we have a one-mon supply of houses. uh Bloomington today there are 82 active listings uh that are either uh pending or on the market and seasonally adjusted that's about 125 for a city of 90,000 people that sounds like a low number to me um so my thoughts on affordability the important thing with triplexes duplexes triplexes and quads is that for agency financing Fanny May FHA even Minnesota housing financing programs is you can use the rental income from the other units to qualify. So, a a home buyer who's maybe looking at single family homes that are $400,000, they could afford a $600,000 duplex because they can use the rent from the other units. That's the important element of multifamily housing. And with Minnesota housing, you can get down payment assistance to buy a duplex. So, it's a it's a great opportunity to enter home ownership with multi-units. Um the the element of having the conditional use permit requirement for uh multi-units in R1 I think is a really good idea. I think it's still important to hear from the neighborhoods before we just start putting triplexes in everywhere. Uh thoughts on the proposed changes. Uh infill is a unique animal in every site and so having some flexibility in the code to be able to do things like have a single family unit as part of a larger development. Sometimes you have that kind of that corner of the lot doesn't fit everything else and if you can get one extra unit in there in these projects one extra unit can make or break that uh economic feasibility of that project. So so having some flexibility I liked that part as I read through it. Uh number number four then Steve's forecasted impact. If we go back to June 2023 when when uh Bloomington made the code changes to uh all the different R1 um setbacks and eliminating the prevailing and median site width and all that stuff. Some people thought we were going to see bulldozers all over town. We really didn't. The economics behind development are more challenging today than they've been. Uh just to build a basic single family home, the sticks and the bricks is 350,000 minimum. You add the land cost to that, the soft costs, the risk, and all it's impossible to to create a new single family housing unit for under half million dollars anymore. But being able to do a triplex or a quadplex, that could change uh all those economic factors. So, I support any initiative that fosters additional opportunities to create more attainable home ownership and encourage additional work on this beyond these proposals tonight. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mr. Furlot. >> Anyone else in the chambers wishing to speak? Priyanka, do we have anyone on the phone? >> Mayor, we do not have anyone online. >> Last call for anybody speaking on item 4.2, missing middle housing phase 2 ordinance. Council, no one in the chambers coming forward. No one on the phone wishing to speak to item 4.2. I would look for a motion to close the public hearing. >> Second >> motion by council member Rivas, second by council member Carter to close the public hearing at item 4.2. No further council discussion on this. Priakup >> Talisandro >> I >> Rebas >> I >> Nelson >> I >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> I >> Mayor Bassie >> I motion carries 6 closing the public hearing so council uh thoughts on this uh I will say this is it's in line with the discussions that we've had we've had a couple of um study sessions on this we've had uh discussions over the course of a few months about where to head with this and and I think the staff has reflected some of the discussions we've had with perhaps some tweaks like council member Nelson brought up about the possibilities of flip-flopping a couple things here and there or depending on height or how the use of the cottage uh style development might come. Uh regarding height, um I don't care if it's a two or threetory building. I I can take you and show you twotory houses here in Bloomington that are that are probably taller than a lot of three-story buildings might be. So, I agree with the staff recommendation that we don't necessarily go with number of floors, but we rather go with the overall height and the height standard that we're we're talking about. I do like the creativity involved in this. I often wonder how many we've missed opported opportunities there have been over the years because we don't have this type of housing available in Bloomington. And the the weird part is it it looks like we had at some at one point there it was the thing to do. We have plenty of town home developments. We have plenty of duplexes and so on. and then they just went away. And I think whatever we can do to bring this back as a as an option, as a possibility, uh to use them as uh infill possibilities, to use them as uh you know, you look at what we just approved earlier, what would that have looked like with a with a a missing middle type of development on it? It it's a possibility that we don't know until we have this on the books and the opportunity to uh use this and put this to use and we'll see where we are from there. But I think this is a good uh a good start for us. I think uh understanding this is probably a living and breathing document. We'll have to take a look to Mr. Furlong's point. Bulldozers aren't coming in tomorrow to clear spots for all of these. It's this is a longer term kind of prospect for the city of Bloomington. But I think it's one more piece that we should continue to support and see where we can end up as a community and where we can move that needle toward our housing goals here in the city. other thoughts. Council member Dallasro. >> Uh, thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, so yeah, I I I agree. Um, I grew up in a home that looks a lot like those town houses. Um, and uh, you know, four feet between me and my neighbor was no issue. So, I don't know why we got rid of doing these before. Um, I think Nickerbachers and other very cool like brownstones in New York and things of that nature are all very very cool kinds of housing and they've not stopped people from making money on selling houses by doing them. So, I'm generally supportive. I'll say two things um that I think are important. one, I think it's really important that we get better at proactive um conversations with our neighbors when when something is fundamentally going to change. So, if you have a R1 dis district today and you're going to move it into one of these, I think it's fair to tell them in advance. I don't think I think what we've done in some circumstances recently even with duplexes has have we've we've done all the work on the inside and the planning and the person goes together and then there's this thing at the end which is like this notification towards the back end of like final everything and you know half of the problem that I've experienced in talking with neighbors is that they wish they knew sooner not because they were going to do anything to prevent it but because they feel blindsided by a major change to their community. And I think it's important for us to think about that. So, as we continue to provide these things, I think it's also important that we set in motion the ability for us to communicate to our neighbors as as these things are coming to us and earlier on. And just relying on some notification in the paper that somebody's going to come to a planning commission meeting that they've never come to before in their entire life is probably not sufficient. if as we're trying to fundamentally change the landscape here quite literally. So that would be comment number one. The com comment number two is um uh and and uh I guess as an aside to the extent that we need to make the change that council member Nelson was recommending, I'd be all for that if we wanted to put that on the table. Uh swapping that out. Um uh the the other thing I wanted to make note of is that the the um the the idea uh that we're um that we're doing this um can be accelerated even further um through um a a couple of initiatives I've seen in the world that I'd like to the council or the the the the team to consider. Right. if we if we like the way that certain things look and we know the area that they're going to go in. Um there's all kinds of ways you can fasttrack things by having plans kind of readily developed. So um I know a couple years ago I sent something about uh something that was going on in Southbend Indiana where if you go into the into the planning department and you're like, "Yeah, I'll take that one right there. I'll make four of those and two of those and three of those over there." because they know them, because they understand what they're how they're being built, the size, the dimensions, the code compliance, the materials, everything like that, they get done in like half the time. And so I'd like us to consider going a step beyond changing zoning and try to make maybe put out some things and you can make them neighborhood approved then, right? So that people actually buy into the idea that these are the kinds of houses that will come to their neighborhood when we're ready for them. Um, so I throw that out there as another way to do this because I know I just think we're not going fast enough. I think everybody agrees that's why we're doing all the work that we're doing. Um, but I think um the execution of permits and and construction is going to be the hardest part of this even as Mr. Furlong said. So the more we can make that easy, the better off we'd be as well. Thanks. >> Thank you, Council Member. Council member Rivas. >> Just a quick comment. I I echo uh um council member de Alexandro's comment on that um having um pre pre uh determined um uh ordinances for construction. I I was reading an article from the National League of Cities today and uh they were suggesting that you know that's a good idea for uh cities that are um increasing increasingly having issues with housing. So um that would be a great thing to implement if we could. Thank you. Thank you, council. Any other discussion on the motion or on the uh the recommendations in front of us here? If not, council, I would look for action on item 4.2. Council member Nelson, just as a quick question if there's support for any of the changes that I made. If not, then I think we just move forward as is or otherwise we modify it. But I don't know if if there's people wanting to do that. Sounded like council member Dolesandro was open to it. But I' I'd be fine with it. I I think your comment earlier, we could always make changes. You know, we could always reszone if we wanted to. And I I think also I mean my comment about I I I know of plenty of two-story houses that are taller than any of those threetory uh triplexes or or duplexes that you were talking about or worried about. So, uh, I mean, we could make the change if if you feel strongly enough, I think you could bring it forward. If not, I think we could live with this as well. >> Okay. >> I might have to read all these words. Oh, boy. Uh, I move to adopt ordinance number 2026- something, an ordinance establishing definitions, use allowances, and zoning performance standards for three family dwellings, forplex dwellings, detached town home dwellings, cottage court dwellings, and multipplex dwellings, thereby amending chapter 21 of the city code with two changes allowing cottage court dwellings in R1 and um, not having detached town home dwellings as a permitted use. Um, in R1, >> we have a motion. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Motion by council member Nelson, second by Council Member Rivas to adopt the ordinance establishing definitions, use allowances, and zoning performance standards as noted with the additions as noted. Get in trouble. We have a motion in a second. Uh, Mr. Johnson, question, comment. >> Forgive me, Mayor. I don't and Councelor Nelson, I don't mean to uh budget on your legislative uh process. The one thing that I would say is that um we've been pretty consistent through this process that the standards that are contained within this ordinance for both the detach uh town homes as well as for the cottage courts are very much reflective for the districts that they're uh currently allowed in or permitted in. So, the standards that are developed for cottage courts are specifically aligned towards R3. the standard for detach town homes in this ordinance are specifically intended uh guided towards the R1 zoning district. So I want to be real clear that it may not be as simple as just a a one for one swap. I know you mentioned the height concern. I do I would note um in response to that that single family homes can go to 40 ft uh in Bloomington. Um, I do respect your comment about the three stories uh and that concern in terms of neighborhood compatibility, but I just wanted to make clear that the standards within this ordinance, it it may not just be as simple as facilitating a one for one swap. So, I just want to be on the record about that before a vote is taken. Miss Manderstein. >> Uh, mayor members, I'm also wondering if it's possible to get a little bit more specificity about what parts of the ordinance we're talking about amending just to make sure that everybody appreciates where these amendments are coming in. I don't see um an R1 section uh in text coming off the page here. Does planning staff have any sections? >> Yeah. Um, see, attorney Mandershide, I think it would be the um, >> how I was interpreting um, the amendment was at the use table. >> So, in the use table, you'd make cottage courts a P or permitted in R1 and not remove the P. >> Um, or for detached town houses, you would remove the P in R1 and then add a P for cottage courts in R1. >> So, mayor members, we're talking about um, section 21.209. 209. Correct. It's on page three of the ordinance. >> Division H uses section 21.209. >> Just want to be clear that everybody understands and that the record is clear as to the edits. What I heard um planner casting day say is we'd remove the P from the column R1 in front of detached townhouse dwelling and add a P in that same R1 column in front of cottage court dwelling. Is that accurate? >> That was my understanding. Um does that kind of match what you were suggesting, Council Member Nelson? Okay. >> Council member Carter question. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um I'm wondering if we could make um the detached town homes a conditional use in R1. >> So not pro totally prohibiting them but making them a conditional use. >> Mor, may I make one more point as well just in terms of detached town homes? I I recognize the name uh town home is kind of has a pretty specific uh visual or feeling or everyone kind of knows what a town home is. These are in effect villa lots. That's what they are. They're plaza or patio homes. There's lots of different names for them, we landed on detached town home because we thought that was the name that most aligned with our zoning code. Um, but in effect, just from a compatibility standpoint with other lowdensity residential uses, I I think uh and this was the planning commission's position. They actually supported detached town homes, not cottage courts, I think they're both compatible with uh in lowdensity areas, depending on the context and how they're designed. Um, but I just want to emphasize that from staff's perspective and the planning commission uh that um they were very much in favor of villa lots or detached town homes in R1. So, >> well, I I feel like we had maybe like a preliminary prop somebody came to a study session months ago with this beautiful proposal and I can't remember if they were >> Yeah. And I can't remember if they were three stories or two stories or whatever, but um and I think that was R1. And in that area where they were talking about, it would totally be appropriate for something like this. Now, in my neighborhood where we're just a bunch of mid-century ramblers, probably would be a little weird if we had a giant town home like that, right? But um and so I wouldn't want to inadvertently prohibit some really cool um plans that could be coming down the pipe, you know, by um completely prohibiting them in areas where it would probably actually make sense to your point, like lots of really big >> tall homes. Um so yeah, that would be my suggestion. Council member Nelson, >> I would be fine amending it to making it C instead of P >> and then we'd have a little bit of additional review and see if it does fit within the context of that neighborhood. >> Miss Mander, does that make sense? >> Uh, mayor members, I'm waiting for a nod from the planners that that would be a possibility because typically with cups we have or conditions, we have conditions in the code. Yeah, I would say if we're looking to make that a conditional use, there might be some other things we would have to amend in the plan. For example, um kind of towards the end of the ordinance under section 2150104, um we had kind of given three family dwellings an exception that um currently it states like a lot of our conditional use permits required to be on like two arterial streets or near. So we were making that exception for triplexes. Again, kind of balancing that flexibility and wanting to create more opportunities. So there would be some other changes I think we would have to make just to make sure we're kind of covering all of our our bases to if you're wanting to go the direction of making detached town homes a conditional use. >> Let me suggest council perhaps we could uh we could table this until next Monday night. Continue this until next Monday night. Give staff an opportunity to clean up a little bit based on the conversation that we've been having here. Just so we're not doing things on the fly here. we actually have specifics in front of us and and we can have this conversation probably quick and easy. We don't have to do another two hours on this one. This is probably a quick and easy once we get this cleaned up, but at least then we can be comfortable with what we have in front of us and know that we're going to do this. Council member Nelson. >> Thanks, Mayor. I I think that's a great idea unless there's uh consensus to just move forward with what's been proposed if people weren't going to vote for the changes. Anyways, I I'm just count I'm I'm channeling my inner Lman. So, I mean, so I I mean, I could just amend the motion to just pass it as is >> and see if that passes. >> Uh, you it was your motion, council member. Uh, so I mean, we can we can do it either way. Uh, you might want to give that a run and see what happens. Um, or we can we can continue this or talk about this again next week. >> Either way, I I'll leave my motion as is. Okay. If people want to vote against it and just pass the original one, that's fine. >> Okay. >> Or no, wait, that would be a move to continue. >> Is that what I do? >> Uh uh I I will I will make that motion to continue this item until next week. >> Mayor, >> I'll second it. >> And we've got a motion in this motion. >> I'd withdraw my motion. >> Is a seconder. >> Mayor M. >> Uh I'm here. Was it >> Commissioner Revas? It was >> council member reass you okay with that you second >> okay >> we we have a withdrawn motion and then we have a motion to continue this until next week and the second by council member Nelson >> and uh directing staff to clean things up and and bring this back. Yeah, mayor, if I may make one comment in consultation with the city manager and community development director and likely the city attorney is likely going to want to re-review the ordinance. Um, uh, turning it around for next week's packet which publishes on this Wednesday. Uh, might be difficult to do that. Um, and so typically I think when our typical process would be to have a little additional review um, as opposed to turning it around that quickly to make sure we get it right. >> How about we move this to March 23rd? >> You could do that. Um, you certainly could. Let's let's do that. Let's >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Let's continue this till >> um can I can I just get further clarification though on kind of where you all landed in terms of bringing this back? You're wanting now to make detached townhouse conditional in R1. That's the change. Where are we also including cottage courts in R1 or are we leaving that? I guess I just want to be clear like what we're trying to bring back in a month. >> Yeah. Okay. Detach on homes conditional in R1. Leaving cottage courts as is >> a permitted or a conditional use. >> We made a recommendation. >> I thought you were under the in I thought that that was what you wanted. You wanted a permitted use for cottage courts. Correct. >> Yeah. >> It's not currently scheduled to be a permitted use in R1. That's what you wanted. >> Yeah, that's correct. >> That's what I was supporting. Yeah, >> let me put it that way. >> Okay. >> So, mayor, if I could just summarize for the record, >> if you could please. >> Um, I heard a motion to continue this to March 23rd. Again, the public hearing has been open and closed. So, there this is uh per the direction of the city council. um continue this to the 23rd and then there's direction to add a a P um for permitted in front of cottage court dwelling in the R1 column and >> sorry >> a C in front of detached town home dwelling in the R1 column. Again, this is both in 21209 on page three of the ordinance. And then planning staff will also review the ordinance for any other cleanup that needs to happen as well as to flush out the conditions associated with making detached town home dwellings a conditional use. >> So you'll need a second. >> We we did have a second. I'm sorry. Um we do have a motion. We do have a second to continue this until the 23rd and ask staff to work on based on what uh Miss Mander just described. >> Any further discussion on this? >> Me further discussion on this. Priyanka >> Dalandro >> I >> Rivas >> I >> Robertson >> I >> Carter >> Hi. Mayor Busy. >> I motion carries 6. We'll take this up again on March 23rd. >> All right. Thank you. >> Final item on our agenda this evening is item 5.1. This is uh proposed fee increases for the 2026 community development. Folks, >> good evening. >> This is Gillespie. Welcome. >> Good evening, Mayor City Council. Uh Nick Johnson and I will be presenting for some proposed fee increases for our two divisions. So, for building and inspections during the last uh year and a half, we've been looking at fee increases based off of our um annual work plan. And so, the purpose of these fee increases are to um are increase our base fees for flat fee permits and a percentage adjustment to the valuation based fee chart. The state building code authorizes the municipalities to establish permit fee schedules and requires that the fees be fair, reasonable, and proportionate to the cost of the actual service for which the fee is imposed. And the proposed fee increase aligns with the inflation of costs and construction costs and ensures that those who use those building and inspection services bear the cost of those services, reducing the burden on taxpayers. A little bit of background, the current fee schedule was last updated in 2017, so a little less than 10 years ago. Um, as you all know, since that time, inflation has increased operating costs, including employee wages, vehicle, fuel, maintenance, training, and equipment have also significantly raised the cost of providing services. And the proposed changes promote fair and sustainable service delivery by shifting the increased cost from taxpayers to those who receive the services, such as contractors and permit applicants. We did a comparable fee study uh with some of the other cities. As you can see, the bottom line shows our current fee structure. Um and then the highlighted shows our proposed fees. It would be an overall $10 increase to our base uh minimum permit fees for trade permits as well as a minimum 10 or a $10 proposed fee increase to our minimum building permit fee. This shows you how our valuation table works. So, as the increase in valuation goes up, the additional um increment decreases as you go up the valuation chart. So, um in my example of permit fee impact, if you have a new single family home, as of today, if it was built uh $430,000 valuation, that permit fee would be $2,81. With the proposed uh permit fee increase, it would go to $2,881 or a difference of $80.76 cents for that same permit, which is a 2.88% increase. On the commercial building side, a 2025 permit fee for a $15 million new commercial building would be $47,943. that 2026 permit fee would increase to 48,36.94 or a difference of $93.94 which would be uh a 02 uh average increase. And so with that I will conclude my portion of the presentation and um Nick will take over. >> Thank you mayor council members. Having been called out by name I'll try and make this uh brief here. >> Um so the same rules apply to planning fees. The state law doesn't allow us to charge more money than it costs to deliver the service. Um, none of our fees uh charge more than it costs to deliver the service. When we looked at our fees, um, and our fees were last updated, increased in uh, 2010. Uh, the main factors we were looking at is cost recovery. Uh, similar to Bernardet and building, we did a pure city comparison. We're also thinking about strategic considerations. As you all know, the city has the uh, BTT strategic plan. uh prioritizing equitable economic growth is a key feature of that plan. The higher you raise these fees, uh the more difficult you make it for new uh entrance to the arena and the development space, new businesses to um uh to be uh started or sustained. Um so there's a sensitivity in terms of raising the fees too high uh to make it difficult for um uh businesses to kind of navigate that space and favor more resourced um uh businesses or developers. Um in terms of one thing I want to note about development fees is that some cities do you may understand have an escrow uh approach um versus a flat fee. Bloomington has a flat fee. So, we charge the same fee for every conditional use permit, every resoning, or every um comprehensive plan amendment or plan development that we do. Um, and the reason that we charge a flat fee is that a lot of these other cities that utilize an escrow approach have consulting attorneys, consultant engineers. They use other services. They're not on staff, uh, to review this development. And so, uh, one of the ways they account for those costs is to charge those costs back to, uh, developer by posting an escrow. Certainly that does better from a cost recovery uh lens with respect to development applications but it does create a lot of administrative burden in terms of charging back all that time. It is more expensive for developers uh it does create some inefficiencies um uh in terms of executing the actual development review process you become kind of an accountant and managing all the time uh etc etc. So I just want to highlight kind of what the pros and cons are flat fee versus escrow approach. So we did um cost recovery analysis of all of our development application types. We also did uh pure city analysis in the full version of the packet. We had all of our application types that are the more common ones and we compared our fees across different cities uh by doing cost recovery and pure city approach. we landed on six fees that we feel have fallen behind and need uh some level of increase uh both to kind of catch up to where the median uh is in the Twin Cities region, but also just to do better from a cost recovery standpoint. But again, you don't want to or at least in staff's judgment increase those fees to such a significant level that it makes it uh difficult for uh applicants um to to navigate that um and pursue their uh businesses or their developments or uh kind of those those uh projects. So the six that we landed on was the administrative final site and building plans and final development plans. Currently that is a $130 uh fee. um the final site and building plans at planning commission. The quick trip project was a recent example of that, conditional use permits and interim use permits. And then uh the uh single and two family varants. And so we would recommend the fees as shown these fee increases as shown on the the table there for you. Um the admins increasing from 130 to 250. Uh the conditional use permits and interim use permits and the variance for single family increasing those up to $400. and then the final site and building plans by planning commission. So, uh just from a percentage basis, it is a more significant increase, but again recognizing that we haven't increased these fees since uh 2010. Um two of the comments we got from planning commission, we did a quickformational update for them on this was the one reaction was that they felt like the fee was somewhat steep for single and two family variances that we should continue to hold a lower fee uh for our residents seeking a variance. um uh understand that comment for sure. And then there was another comment on uh maybe more routinely updating our fees so that we're not kind of having these more significant jumps um in a longer time window, which follows more with what other departments and divisions do with respect to their fees. So um the last comment I'll make is that um some of the other fees that we have are a little bit higher. They also tend to get bundled together in packages like you saw tonight on uh the item 4.1. that was an application that had multiple fees all kind of bundled together and those tend to be the larger projects. Um and so we feel like we're in a good and adequate spot with those fees. It's really these kind of standalone um fees that maybe just stop at the planning commission or administrative that we've kind of fallen a little bit behind as you've expanded more administrative authority and planning commission authority. Some of these projects are actually pretty significant projects from a scale standpoint. So collecting $130 or a $220 fee with respect to a conditional use permit just really doesn't isn't uh adequate from a cost recovery uh standpoint. But again, it's it's a balance. So these are the fees we would uh recommend. And Bernardet, I forget if yep, you were taking us to the finish. Thank you. >> So um if council is supportive of these, we would schedule a public hearing on the ordinance at a future meeting. uh update our software system to reflect the new fees for the April 2026 effective date that the city clerk would bring back with the fee schedule updates, provide public notice and outreach regarding the updated fee requirements and then implement the ordinance effective April 2026. Um, alternatively, if you'd like to provide us with other direction and we will both uh be available for questions or comments. >> Thank you very much for that. I I think the one thing you said that really resonated with me is get on a regular schedule to update these fees and don't wait 17 20 years between the two times doing it. I think that makes the most sense. Um because it has been that long. I mean the you either rip the band-aid off or you kind of you know the other alternative might be phase these in over a couple of years. But I think if the goal is to actually um cover the cost of do the actual work being done, I think it makes sense to to make the catch up and and get it done. Um understanding then put it on the work plan every every three years to review these and make sure that we get these updated so we don't have to make these enormous jumps again. Those are my thoughts. Council member Rivas, >> I would just suggest that instead of starting it in April or making it effective in April, we push it to at least June 1st just for the sake of communicating it to the public to make him aware. As we mentioned earlier, we kind of lack in how we inform the public of decisions that we make until it's too late and then we get him in here to complain about it. Right? So to avoid that, I would suggest that we push it to June 1st at least if anybody agrees with that. Thank you, >> Council Member Nelson. >> Thank you, Mayor. Good anticipation. Um, one, I just want to disclose, I think all my colleagues know I'm a licensed building contractor. I pull permits. I will pay these fees. So, um, hopefully that's not a problem in terms of participation in the conversation here, but I don't it maybe it once it comes from public hearing. So, >> okay. Um, yeah, in general, as long as these are consistent with, you know, what it actually costs us to deliver the service, I think it's perfectly reasonable. State law grants us the ability to to cover our costs. And, you know, as long as you guys are confident that these are not above our cost, that we're not trying to make a profit on the back of developers or homeowners or something like that, then I I think it makes sense to update these since it's been so long. Um, so appreciate you guys doing the work because it's kind of probably a little tedious to go through all of those costs and stuff and figure out how long it actually takes to do the work and what that actual cost recovery looks like. So, appreciate it. Just as one comment, um, Mayor, Council Member Nelson, we did look at the cost recovery. And when you're thinking about a trade permit, that's, uh, $55. That's including administrative costs, processing the permit, verifying the contractor online. If the application isn't correct, calling them, getting the correct information, sending the inspector out for roughening, usually a failed roughening if it's a homeowner doing the work, and a little bit of consultation services with that, and then coming back out for additional roughening. So, um, we did look at all of those, uh, metrics when we came up with these fee increases. >> Other thoughts? >> Council member Carter. >> Thank you, Mayor. I would say I just agree with everything that's been said. Um, and then of course kind of the flip side of things, and I know you guys do a great job, but always just looking for efficiencies in how we do our work so that the cost that needs to be covered isn't, you know, we're always just kind of looking at um, how to keep those costs down. So, thank you. >> Anything else, council? Very good. Uh we will see you back uh sometime soon for a public hearing and we'll uh and uh and and I do I I do agree with council member Revas. Maybe we want to consider the implementation date to make sure that we have enough time to to get this word out to folks. So >> All right. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> That concludes our agenda. Council, we'll move now into council policy and issue updates. and I will kick it off uh recapping our city council listening session earlier this evening. I think we had six count six folks who spoke this evening. uh Paul Coat, Jamie Wagner, Cody Wright, Will Clark, Trina STO, and Kendra Weinberg actually all spoke on the same topic of about immigration enforcement, the city's response to it, what uh what we can do, what we should do, uh how we should be doing it, and just the uh their concern for for the community in general and for the people in the community. And so I appreciate that we continue this conversation and um look forward to continuing it and and maybe raising the discussion about what we would want what's next steps we want to take as a city council. So um I wanted to to get that out. The only other thing that I wanted to bring up, and I mentioned it actually at the listening session, Monday night of last week, the Port Authority approved $400,000 in emergency funding for small business funding. Uh it's important to note that it's existing money and so it's not new money. It's within it's it's basically budget reallocations within the Port Authority. The idea being that there's no sense in putting $100,000 into the facade improvement program when the building would be empty anyway because the building the the occupant would be out of business. And so there's a variety of different ways. I think it comes from three different sources totaling uh up to $400,000. the decision was made to to partner with uh an outside organization that we have worked with in the past in terms of uh business assistance to try and get this um money out into the community uh just to make sure that we uh address any concerns or any uh worries in the community or or locally of um of mismanagement of the funds in some way. We want to make sure it gets to the folks who actually do need it to cover rent to to to take care of the the expenses that that are there. So, that is the plan and uh the the port authority approved it and we're moving forward with it. And that kind of lading on top of rental assistance that the council approved, uh food assistance that the council council approved, uh we're we're trying our best to try and stay ahead of set on the needs within this community um from a from a a variety of different ways. Any questions on that? >> Mr. Walker, do you have anything to add? >> Uh, mayor, just wanted to highlight one item for the council's attention. Um, obviously there's been a lot of disturbance in our community the past several months. Uh, caused a lot of hardship for members of our community. Uh, one area that uh I'm really proud of that our our organization has responded is our community development department. uh held a a drive to collect uh food and other um basic necessities for members of our community, coordinating with VEP. Uh they collected over 1,700 items which weighed uh over 900 lb. Um believe our building and inspections division won that competition inhouse. Uh but really pleased with community development and um the work they did to see a need and respond. Yeah, our thanks to them to our our employees for taking that on and and doing that on their own. That's wonderful. Council, anything to add, Council Member Carter? >> Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, so there were a couple other things that came up in the listening session, but I'll just follow up with staff on them. Um, I don't I won't bring them up here. Uh, one that did come up, though, and I know you mentioned in the meeting, Mayor, um, was around just uh, detention centers in Bloomington and preventing them from being in Bloomington. And so I would like to just make sure the public knows that those conversations we're we're exploring those things and um I do think that that conversation should come before the council. So >> thank you council member. >> Council member Nelson. >> Yeah. Two quick things just uh continuing where uh council member Carter went. Um it takes a long time to explore changes within our zoning code. Is it possible to pass a moratorum more quickly >> um and just cut it off immediately as an option? Um I don't know. I I don't need that answer right now. But I would just in terms of you know to come back and change an ordinance nine months from now. >> Yeah. >> You know may not be and you know as we heard from Mr. Johnson earlier it you know they can't just turn it around in a week. >> Nope. You're right. >> So um so I would just ask that question. The other thing is um uh if staff would be able to pull together some information um with regards to I believe I read there are 11 bills in the legislature regarding immigration and things like that to take a look at how they may dovetail with our legislative policies and our needs within the community. Um ju and just candidly just to give us a really basic understanding of what's happening there and and what they're working on as well because a lot of the things that are being requested of us I I understand where they're coming from. They're they're more difficult at the the city level to actually make them practicable versus having having them done at the state level. So >> y Thank you. Other additions to our council policy and issue update hearing none. We have reached the end of our agenda. Council, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Motion by council member Carter. Second by council member Rivas to adjurnn this evening. No further council discussion. Priyanka >> I. >> Reeas. >> Hi. >> Nelson. >> Hi. >> Robertson. >> Hi. >> Carter. >> Hi. >> Maybi. >> I. Motion carries 6. We are adjourned. Thank you much council for your discussion this evening. Thanks to staff for all your work pulling this together and thanks to members of the public who participated. Everybody have a good rest of the last week of February.