The Bloomington City Council continued its debate over placing more restrictions on duplexes within the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) Wednesday night.
Last week, Amendment 3 successfully passed to create a cap on duplexes within zoning districts R1, R2 and R3, commonly known as the core neighborhoods, at 15 per year. It also codified a 150-foot, two-year buffer between duplexes on adjacent lots.
Amendment 4 was Wednesday night's main task. This legislation was again co-sponsored by councilmembers Susan Sandberg and Dave Rollo to add the following components to duplexes in R1-R3:
No duplex shall contain more than two units with two bedrooms each.
Both duplex units shall be income-restricted to families earning below 120% of the HUD AMI for Monroe County; or one of the units must be below 80%.
Projects that meet the city's Housing and Neighborhood Development (HAND) Tier 3 'Affordable Housing Incentives' may increase the total number of bedrooms in a duplex to three per unit.
"In the spirit of being creative, we think it’s time to try to use this tool for getting more leverage for affordable housing in the core neighborhoods," said Sandberg.
While the co-sponsors said the amendment would not create affordable options for residents with the lowest income, it was an attempt to create housing options below market rate.
"The city places a great deal of emphasis on workforce housing and this is the design of the amendment," said Rollo.
But both city staff and other councilmembers were not convinced Amendment 4 would provide much benefit to people seeking affordable living.
"All this amendment does, whether intentional or not, is further the likelihood that duplexes won’t be built," said the city's planning services manager, Jackie Scanlan.
The majority of the council saw the amendment as another barrier to adding duplexes in the city's core neighborhoods.
"This just adds more bureaucracy, more conditions, more red tape to creating duplexes, so that nobody is going to want to invest the time and money to build them," said councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith.
The amendment failed 5 to 4, which means the UDO will remain at its original three bedrooms per unit in a duplex.
There is one last amendment on the agenda before council will consider adopting the new UDO zoning map as a whole.
Amendment 5, also co-sponsored by Sandberg and Rollo, adds more criteria to the public hearing process when the city's Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) has to approve a new duplex. It takes into consideration traffic and congestionin a neighborhood, as well as a duplex's impact on the "character of the area."
Council will take up this matter Thursday at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom.
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