There have been zero applications to build duplexes in single family neighborhoods since Bloomington City council legalized them in the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) update last July.
Some residents were concerned out of town developers could ruin Bloomington’s oldest neighborhoods, and other think plexes promote housing diversity and sustainability. But is six months a valid measurement for the new rules?
The duplex debate dominated local government meetings for the better part of three years. It spanned two city councils and often led to late night meetings that sometimes even stretched into the wee hours of the morning.
Council originally blocked multifamily, or plex, housing from single-family residential neighborhoods in 2019, but legalized them with conditional use approval in May 2021.
“The planning and transportation department has spoken with 13 people about possible duplexes in the R1, R2, and R3 zoning districts,” Bloomington devlopment services manager Jackie Scanlan said during city council's Feb. 2 meeting. “Four of those conversations started before the legislation was even passed and nine have happened since then.”
Scanlan said no developer’s city staff spoke to ultimately applied. Two inquiries were stopped because the developers had notices on file with the department.
Bloomington zoning maps as of May 2021. Single-family home neighborhoods are included in areas zoned R1 (Residential Large Lot), R2 (Residential Medium Lot) and R3 (Residential Small Lot). An interactive version of the map is available on the city's website. (Courtesy: City of Bloomington)
But the drought in duplex applications is not because the city is seeing less interest in development, overall.
“We aren’t seeing a slowdown in overall building requests,” she said. “We just aren’t seeing an onslaught of requests that some people were kind of worried about for this particular use."
The city received about 250 zoning building requests in the second half of 2021. That’s about a 17 percent increase over the last five years.
Scanlan said there are a few reasons people are still developing property, just not duplexes in single family neighborhoods.
“It’s probably that its new,” she said. “People don’t necessarily understand the process yet.”
She also flagged a potential issue with separate utilities in each duplex unit. This requirement was originally included to ensure units could be owned separately. However, she said staff is now aware that other communities share utilities in duplexes.
Scanlan said the city isn’t considering any changes to the plex amendment at this time, but the utility issue might be an unintentional deterrent that has to be addressed later.
“I think in a way, that’s not surprising to me because I think we made it quite difficult and unpredictable to have someone know if they can create a duplex,” Councilmember Kate Rosenbarger said.
Rosenbarger supported the plex amendment in 2021.
Councilmember Dave Rollo, who opposed the plex amendments in 2019 and 2021, said the current update is not an accurate assessment of the impact.
“My thinking is that it’s a bit premature to conclude anything after only six months,” he said.
However, Councilmember Steve Volan, who supported the plex amendments both years, disagreed.
“The argument last year was this paranoid expectation that full blocks would be dismantled by bulldozers,” he said. “I don’t see anything even remotely close to that.”
Scanlan said it’s possible nobody applied because the UDO update came later in the 2021 building season and there was not enough time for developers to plan. She expects applications to ramp up by the next update in July.
And while no developers have applied for conditional use approval in R1-R3 zoning districts, people have continued to build duplexes in town.
“We have had three plexes approved in the Residential Multifamily (RM) or Mixed-Use zoning districts since those became a part of the ordinance with the 2020 update,” Scanlan said.
The three projects are in the 500 block of North Lincoln Street, 1200 Block of North Madison Street and 1500 block of South Grant Street.
In both mixed-use and RM districts, duplexes are allowed by-right, as opposed to requiring conditional use approval from the board of zoning appeals. This process also includes a neighborhood association meeting.
This difference could be the reason no developers applied to build duplexes in single-family neighborhoods.
But what if staff or council is not satisfied with the number of applications over time?
While the board of zoning appeals is limited to approving 15 duplex units in the R1-R3 districts per year, Scanlan said it’s possible council could amend the UDO again. This change would not be over allowing duplexes in single-family neighborhoods but eliminating the hurdles developers must jump through to get approval.
