Bloomington using stalled Hopewell project to revamp building policies
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Planned site of Hopewell neighborhood in Bloomington in July 2023. The city rejected two recent bids for the project but hopes to revamp its building policies with the help of an outside consultant. (Inside INdiana Business / Cate Charron)
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(Photo courtesy of the city of Bloomington)
A major project Bloomington leaders previously billed as a “once in a century” chance to bring in significant affordable housing is at a standstill. But the city wants to use the setback as a chance to revamp its entire philosophy around development.
Last week, the city’s redevelopment commission rejected two bids for the Hopewell neighborhood project over concerns there weren’t enough affordable units included and that developers would need additional grants or subsidies to make the affordable units feasible.
Instead Bloomington is changing course and will pay a consultant to facilitate a process where, ideally, multiple builders will take part in the Hopewell project instead of a single developer. City staff say the new approach is a way of “democratizing neighborhood development” which will spread the risk out over more companies.
In order to get more local developers involved, the city’s chosen consultant, Flintlock LAB, will scheme up a series of pre-approved designs to save time and money in the approval process.
Bloomington’s Mayor Kerry Thompson said the new approach isn’t a one-time thing. Along with creating pre-approved designs, Thompson told commissioners that Flintlock will conduct an audit of the city’s development approval codes to identify ways to streamline the process.
“We’re proposing to use Hopewell as a guinea pig for how can we get things moving quickly and how can the city learn from its own red tape, what can we possibly remove to accelerate our timeline,” Thompson said.
The new goal, Thompson told commissioners, is for construction work to start in six months.
New approach
Bloomington’s vision for the Hopewell neighborhood began around 2018 when the city bought the 24-acre site of a former hospital a few blocks southwest of downtown. The goal was to put up around 1,000 residential units—20% of which would be classified as affordable or workforce—and other mixed-use space in an attempt to alleviate the city’s lack of housing.
But two rounds of requests for proposals didn’t yield any plans the city’s redevelopment commission was on board with. Last week, the commission formally rejected bids from local developers PSKG LLC and Rubicon, though redevelopment commission executive director Anna Killion-Hanson said both companies have expressed interest in being part of the city’s new way forward.
Rubicon did not return a call from Inside INdiana Business for this article.
The new path involves paying Arkansas-based Flintlock up to $300,000 to fully plan out the Hopewell neighborhood lot by lot and to create a series of designs the city can pre-approve. With developers expending fewer resources to plan projects, they will hopefully be able to keep end costs down and take on more affordable units.
“Development has been very slow in Bloomington. It takes a long time to get a permit. That costs money. Not just to the developer, but the end cost ultimately gets passed on to the person who lives in the unit so that very timeline is driving out housing costs up,” Thompson said.
Some Monroe County developers, like Tom Wininger, see the city’s willingness to review its policies as a positive sign. Wininger is a third generation builder in Bloomington and owns Wininger Construction. He told IIB that building homes in the city 30 years ago was markedly simpler than it is now.
“So in the 90s, you could apply for a building permit and it would essentially make one stop…and it would take about a week,” said Wininger. “Now you apply for a building permit and you have to go to the county to get a driveway permit, stormwater, erosion control. Then the city of Bloomington building department, planning department. And I believe everybody has to check off before you get a permit.”
And Wininger admits he charges the end buyer for the added time he spends dealing with approvals since he often has to pay back loans he took out to buy the land or his contracted architects and lawyers for their additional time.
“Our city, and our county I think, as far as growth, have taken the policy of how can we say no instead of how can we say yes,” he summarized.
Jennifer Pearl, president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corp., and Christopher Emge with the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce both spoke in favor of the code audit at the public meeting.
The decision by Thompson’s administration to reexamine Bloomington’s building policies comes as the recently enacted Senate Bill 1 places a huge emphasis on income taxes for municipalities to keep their budgets stable. An increased housing stock is crucial in attracting more residents.
“In the midst of a housing crisis, it is imperative that we provide housing for the population who live and work here. This needs to be the housing that our community deserves. We have to get this right,” Killion-Hanson said during the meeting.