A lot just west of the city of Bloomington, which has been zoned for light industrial use for a couple of decades, but has seen no development, has been given a long list of extra allowable uses.
Monroe County commissioners took action on the rezone request at last Wednesday’s regular morning meeting.
The additional allowable uses are all commercial, including a hotel use.
The lot in question had some recent interest from a hotel developer, but that fell through—because the current zoning does not allow for such a commercial use. That’s according to Jim Bohrer, with Clendening Johnson & Bohrer, the law firm representing the owner, which is Liberty Drive Medical Office Facility LLC.
Bohrer told commissioners on Wednesday morning: “What we found is that nobody really wants to purchase or is interested in the site, until they know that the zoning is in place.”
So Bohrer was asking the commissioners to put the kind of zoning in place that would allow for a hotel and a long list of other commercial uses.
The county plan commission had given the request a unanimous recommendation for approval. The three county commissioners approved the request on a 3–0 vote.
A non-exhaustive list of added uses for the lot includes: office showroom, medical clinic, daycare facility, barber service, coin operated cleaning-laundry, copy service, electrical repair, hotel, insurance agency, interior decorating, legal service, locksmith, pet services, photographic service, real estate agency, shoe repair, travel agency, apparel shop, bakery (retail), camera and photographic supply, caterer, confectionary, convenience store, drapery sales, drug store, florist (retail), garden center, gift shop, grocery store, hardware, jewelry, liquor store, music store, restaurant (sit-down), sporting goods, automotive rentals, amusement and recreation services, and indoor theater,
No one spoke from the public mic, either for or against the proposed change to the zoning.
The street address for the property that got rezoned is 1444 South Liberty Drive.
The zoning of the property is planned unit development (PUD), which is a kind of custom zoning that is based on other zoning districts. The PUD that was altered on Wednesday is called the Bloomington Technology Park.
Internal to the Bloomington Technology Park, there are several other lots that had commercial uses as allowable uses. The request from the owner was to add the same commercial uses to one of the other lots (Lot 14A) inside the PUD, which previously allowed only light industrial uses.
Bohrer drew a laugh from commissioners when he said, “We’re here asking for permission, not for forgiveness.”
That was an allusion to the kind of situation that has sometimes arisen in the past for other petitioners in front of commissioners, where their request was to ask for a zoning change, to make something legal that they had already done.