2–2 deadlock on duplex for Bloomington’s board of zoning appeals
A greenlight for construction of a duplex on an empty lot northwest of Bryan Park in a central Bloomington neighborhood will have to wait at least until the next meeting of Bloomington’s board of zoning appeals (BZA).
At its meeting last Thursday (May 23, 2024), the BZA voted 2–2 on a conditional use approval for a duplex at 506 East Wylie Street. The tally did not add up to five on the five-member board, because BZA president Barre Klapper had to depart the meeting before the petition was heard.
The duplex is proposed by Bloomington Builders, LLC & Latitude 39 North Properties, LLC, which bought the vacant land in February of this year for $145,000, according to Monroe County’s online property lookup system. Caylan Evans appeared in front of the BZA to present the petition.
The issue was in front of the BZA because a duplex is possible only as a “conditional use” in the R3 (residential small lot) zoning district. It’s the BZA that hears petitions for conditional use permits.
Making duplexes a conditional use in some zoning districts, like R3, was part of a political compromise reached in 2021, when the city council was divided on the topic of allowing other housing types in areas of the city that had historically allowed only single-family dwellings.
Bloomington’s unified development ordinance (UDO) includes an allowed use table for all zoning districts. In the row of the allowed use table for duplex use, the column for R3 has a “C” (for conditional use) with an asterisk. The asterisk means that there are use-specific standards that have to be met.
It’s those use specific standards that factored into some of the arguments made on Thursday by opponents of the petition (emphasis added in bold).
i. The following design elements of the duplex dwelling shall be similar in general shape, size, and design with the majority of existing single-family or duplex structures on the same block face on which it is located:
1. Roof pitch;
2. Front porch width and depth;
3. Front building setback; and
4. Vehicle parking access (i.e., front-, side-, or rear-access garage or parking area)
When viewed from Wylie Street, the proposed duplex has a front and a back unit. Both units have an entrance facing Wylie—that’s a use-specific requirement of the UDO. The duplex units are both two-level, with one bedroom and one bathroom on the ground floor and two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second level.
The broadest side of the proposed duplex does not face the street. That was a point of contention for Jan Sorby, who addressed the BZA from the public mic on Thursday as well as in a letter sent to the BZA, Sorby said that the proposed duplex does not meet the UDO use-specific standard because the narrow side of the house faces the street instead of the broader side.
For some others who spoke against granting a conditional use permit, it was a point of criticism that each unit has three bedrooms with three bathrooms, for a total of six bedrooms and six bathrooms. Those kinds of layouts target students as tenants, they said.
Deborah Myerson spoke in favor of granting a conditional use permit. Myerson runs her own urban planning consulting firm and introduced herself as an Elm Heights resident. She also serves on Bloomington’s redevelopment commission.
Myerson said Elm Heights and Bryan Park are close to transit, schools, and jobs. “It’s terrific to have housing for two households instead of just one.” Myerson said that based on her reading of the UDO, the proposed duplex meets the requirements. Myserson added that she thinks it meets the goals of Bloomington’s comprehensive plan, and the goals of the R3 zoning district. Myerson said it should be easier, not harder, to build housing in neighborhoods like this one.
It was senior planner Eric Greulich, who reviewed the petition for the board. The basic question that BZA member Flavia Burrell had for Greulich was whether the petition meets the requirements for a conditional use permit. Greulich told Burrell that the objective standards are all met.
Where opinions could diverge, Greulich said, is in the phrasing “shall be similar to,” in the use-specific standards for duplexes.
So, up for some debate is whether roof pitch and overall design of the proposed duplex are “similar to” the houses on the same block face. For BZA member Nikki Farrell, the basic issue with design was the sheer size of the building, which is 2,400 square feet. Other houses on the same block are between 1,000 and 1,400 square feet, Farrell said.
“Find me a home on Wylie Street, that’s 2,400 square feet,” Farrell said. She added, “I just think that’s not similar to the other homes in the neighborhood.”
Farrell was also skeptical that the four parking spaces proposed on the site would wind up being used the way they were laid out. Based on the way they are configured, she thinks that residents would wind up shuffling their cars out onto the street, instead of asking their housemate to move their car.
To address concerns about parking, one approach that Evans said could be taken would be to initiate a process to request a parking permit zone for the neighborhood. BZA member Tim Ballard indicated some interest in seeing that pursued.
Farrell acknowledged the need for more affordable housing in Bloomington, but said that the $3,000 per unit that Evans had talked about as a rental rate is not affordable. “Is that what we really consider affordable in Bloomington?” Farrell asked.
Evans offered a counterpoint to the idea that $3,000 a month is not affordable, and to the idea that the duplex he wants to build would be targeted to students. Evans said, “We do not market specifically to students.”
Evans also said that during the required neighborhood meetings for the petition, he’d given some addresses of other properties that his group had redeveloped or renovated in and around the Bryan Park area.
As one example, he gave a three-bedroom, three-bath unit in the Childs Elementary School district area. That unit rents for $2,700 a month, Evans said. The tenant is a family of visiting faculty at Indiana University, with three kids, a husband and a wife. “That’s what a family is paying for a rental unit in these core neighborhoods in Bloomington,” Evans said.
Jo Throckmorton, who chaired the meeting after Klapper left, got clarification about what happens in the event of a 2–2 tie vote. The advice from city staff was that it would not count as a defeat of the conditional use permit, which meant it could be brought back at the next BZA meeting.
Throckmorton and Farell voted against the conditional use permit. Ballard and Burrell voted for it.
To make sure it was clear what would happen next, the BZA voted unanimously to continue the petition to the BZA’s next meeting, which is set for June 20.
The status of the Wylie Street conditional use petition could become a part of the next report the planning and transportation department gives to the city council about the number of such petitions that have been granted since 2021.
Ordinance 21-23 was approved in 2021—it allowed duplexes in some zoning districts that had historically not allowed them. As part of the ordinance, the city council included a reporting requirement. The requirement says that every six months, the planning and transportation department has to report to the council on the number of conditional use permits for duplexes that have been granted.
On Nov. 1, 2023, when the most recent report was given, there had been 4 conditional use permits approved, since the ordinance was enacted. There’s a limit of 30 per year.
Last year, the required report has been delivered to the city council in May.
