At the last of the six special City Council meetings held to debate amendments to Bloomington's Growth Policies Plan, Councilman Anthony Pizzo had to remind the gathered crowd in the council chambers of one important fact.\n"Remember, it's not an ordinance," Pizzo said.\nNone of the amendments adopted to the plan are legally binding on citizens, businesses and other groups working with the city.\nWhy then, did the GPP meetings warrant close scrutiny from private developers, environmental groups, business organizations and historical preservation commissions?\nThe answer might be simple: As a document that essentially details a philosophy about the city's growth, changes to the GPP generate controversy as various constituents attempt to shade the plan with their values and ideas. In a county that experienced a population increase of 11 percent since 1990, growth issues are often intensely debated.\n"We are all in agreement that communities, like most organizations, require a consensus, at least among their leadership, about their aspirations and vision for the future," states the first sentence of the document.\nWithout such a consensus, the GPP states communities are unlikely to have success in developing in a rational manner that meets the quality of life expectations of their citizens. \nThe stakes thus set, the council struggled with a number of issues during the current round of meetings. How should the city slow urban sprawl on the fringe of the city? Can new development be balanced with preservation of the city's unique and historic qualities? What about demolition of historic buildings downtown?\nMost of the amendments passed by a wide margin. In all, the council voted on 19 of them before approving a final version of the document 8-1 last Wednesday night.
Keeping downtown vibrant\nThe most contentious amendments were about the merits and costs of development projects and preservation of historic structures in the downtown area. Two amendments in particular laid bare the difference in opinion about these issues.\nThe second amendment, offered by Councilwoman Patricia Cole on behalf of the Bloomington Historical Preservation Commission, proposed removing incentives for high density building projects in specific areas downtown.\nThis amendment was closely connected with a primary goal of the GPP, to encourage the city to grow efficiently. \n"Compact urban form is a key point in the GPP because it allows the city to preserve green space on the edge of the city and limit the spatial extent of community growth," Tom Micuda, interim director of the City Planning Department, said Sept. 22 at the first meeting. \nIncreasing residential densities to fill in the city, specifically downtown, was identified as a goal of the document, Micuda said.\nTo achieve this end, the council created a special development area called the Downtown Development Opportunity Overlay. The DDOO allows for developments with up to 100 units per acre within the downtown area, a substantial increase from the usual 15 per acre.\nBut Cole and the Historical Preservation Commission said they did not want to offer incentives for building in certain areas downtown.\nCole outlined her reasons for submitting the amendment.\n"This doesn't get rid of the DDOO, it's revising it," Cole said. "It's nuancing the overlay. Let's not have the 100 unit incentive throughout the DDOO."\nChris Sternbaum, chairman of the Historical Preservation Commission, also spoke for the amendment. He cited Restaurant Row, along Fourth Street between Indiana Avenue and Grant Street, as an example of where there should not be incentives to build. \nDevelopers argued for maintaining the incentives, arguing that Bloomington's vibrant downtown could be lost if the right incentives were not there.\n"Remodeling or restoring is an expensive process," said Mark Lockley, president of Abodes, a local development company. "It's on the verge of stopping. We have to have other incentives."\nCole's amendment passed 6-3.
Development vs. history\nIn many ways, this debate foreshadowed the arguments made when the Council took up another amendment about development and preservation also offered by Cole. This one would have created a demolition delay process.\nMost of the citizens present at the Oct. 7 meeting spoke out for the amendment, arguing for a public process when historic homes are going to be replaced. Developers at the meeting spoke strongly against the amendment, rejecting the notion that the community has a stake in historic properties.\nThe amendment would have added a line in the GPP that called on the city to "protect historic areas against erosion and loss via demolition and alteration" and "establish mandatory demolition delay for any surveyed property."\nA new survey lists 2,500 Bloomington properties as historic but has not yet been made public.\n"Once a building is gone, it's gone forever," David Wojan, a Bloomington resident, said at the meeting. "I worry that there won't be anything historic left to demolish."\nThe timing of the debate added to the tension. The Council took up the delay amendment a few days after local property owner John Burnham demolished two houses on Third Street that the Historical Preservation Commission was going to designate as historic. \n"I know I've been the focal point of controversy lately," Burnham said. "Do the property owners know what's happening? No. A delay removes the rights of individuals and gives it to the Historical Preservation Commission."\nThe amendment did not pass, though, as the council deadlocked on a 4-4 vote. \nAt the last GPP meeting, however, Councilmen Tim Mayer and Mike Diekhoff offered a revised version of a demolition delay amendment which passed 8-1.\nThe city is now committed to a one year process of discussion among "all interested parties" of the pros and cons of a delay amendment.\nThe decision to continue to talk about a delay is perhaps indicative of the document itself, which commits anyone with a stake in growth issues to be at the table and contribute their ideas.
