17 new single-family houses on 5 acres OK’d with alley waiver from Bloomington plan commission
Owner Darlene Meyer will be able to subdivide a 5-acre piece of land on the southeastern edge of Bloomington into lots to create 17 single-family houses and two common areas.
That’s because Bloomington’s plan commission has waived the requirement that at least 67 percent of the lots be served by alleys. The proposed site plan does not include any lots that are served by alleys.
The approval of the alley requirement waiver came on Monday night from Bloomington’s plan commission, on a unanimous vote of the seven plan commissioners who were present.
At the subdivision’s first hiring, which was held on May 13, plan commissioner Hopi Stosberg asked about a previous iteration of the proposal, which called for paired homes, instead of single-family houses. At Monday’s meeting, Stosberg said she is disappointed that the subdivided lots will be single-family houses, instead of more affordable paired homes.
Stosberg said, “I’m looking forward to a time where it would be easier to put paired homes on a lot like this.” Stosberg is the city council’s representative to the Bloomington plan commission.
From the public mic at the first hearing Greg Alexander was critical of the relatively small number (17) of houses on 5 acres of land, saying: “That’s like county commissioners level of planning.”
At Monday’s meeting, much of the time spent by the plan commission deliberating on the subdivision focussed on the alignment of the extension of Bridgestone Drive across the property from the east.
According to Drew Schrand, an engineer with Bynum Fanyo & Associates, the owner’s consultant on the subdivision, the extension of Bridgestone westward across the property was canted 6 degrees clockwise from the existing portion of Bridgestone to the east.
That meant the stub for Bridgestone hit the western edge of the property farther north than it would have, without the 6-degree cant. That was an attempt to come as close as possible to the existing right-of-way across the property to the west, in case Bridgestone is eventually extended farther west, which the city’s transportation plan envisions, according to senior zoning planner Eric Greulich.
The discussion of the property to the west drew Don Owens, the owner of the land, to the public mic. Owens wanted some additional clarity about what might happen in the event that his property were developed—even though he has no plans to do so.
Greulich indicated that nothing has to happen on the property owned by Owens—the plan commission’s approval of the subdivision to the east would not trigger any requirements.
Compared to the proposal as it was made at the first hearing on May 13, the street cross sections for the subdivision were not as wide, because they were revised to meet the city’s transportation plan requirements.
The revision to the street cross section widths came after concerns were raised by plan commissioner Neil Kopper at the first hearing. Kopper is a senior project engineer with the city, who was filling in on the plan commission for city engineer Andrew Cibor.
