> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://bsquarebulletin.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # After failed vote, recess, plan commission backs Hilltop Court switch from condos to rentals - URL: https://bsquarebulletin.com/after-failed-vote-recess-plan-commission-backs-hilltop-court-switch-from-condos-to-rentals/ - Published: 2026-11-10T13:45:30.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-10T13:45:30.000Z - Description: Bloomington’s plan commission voted 7–0 to back replacing 10 planned Hilltop Court condos with 24 rental apartments, after a 4–3 vote to require a second hearing failed. A recess allowed staff to rewrite findings. The proposal retains affordability commitments and now heads to city council. - Author: Dave Askins - Tags: Local Government, #no-inline-feature ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/20/6f/206f9007-c0a7-47d4-b87b-686c21961f22/content/images/2026/11/2026-11-09-plan-commission-IMG_5525-processed.jpeg) ****Left:** Members of the Bloomington plan commission, Steve Bishop, Patrick Holmes, Brad Wisler, Jillian Kinzie, and Hopi Stosberg. Obscured are Chris Smith and Andrew Cibor. ****Right:** Developer Mark Lauchli. (Dave Askins, Nov. 9, 2026) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/20/6f/206f9007-c0a7-47d4-b87b-686c21961f22/content/images/2026/11/2026-11-09-overview-plan-commission-Screenshot-2026-11-09-at-1.53.05---PM.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/20/6f/206f9007-c0a7-47d4-b87b-686c21961f22/content/images/2026/11/2026-11-09--plan-commission-Screenshot-2026-11-09-at-1.52.39---PM.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/20/6f/206f9007-c0a7-47d4-b87b-686c21961f22/content/images/2026/11/Proposed-preliminary-plan-overall.jpg) ****Left and Middle:** Maps by The B Square with information from the city of Bloomington. ****Right:** Schematic for the layout of the project proposed by Dwellings, Inc. For the [Hilltop Court project](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cGhpREKMYaGcFGb3iu9rJ9BypJfayrHUGuK69eC40Lo/edit?tab=t.0) on West Allen Street, the developer’s request to replace 10 planned condominiums with 24 one-bedroom rental apartments won a unanimous recommendation from Bloomington’s plan commission on Monday (Nov. 9). It’s a change to the PUD zoning that was approved seven years ago, in 2019. But Monday’s outcome came after a failed vote to require a second hearing in front of the commission, and a recess of the meeting to rewrite the findings supporting the decision. The commission initially voted 4–3 to require a second hearing, which was the advice of city planning staff. But that motion failed because five votes are required for any commission action, no matter how many of the nine commissioners are present at the meeting. After a roughly 15-minute recess to prepare new written findings, commissioners voted 7–0 to waive the second hearing and send the proposal to city council with a positive recommendation. The proposed change affects the last unfinished piece of a project that the city approved in 2019\. That approval cleared the way for a former mobile home park at 1237 W. Allen St. to be redeveloped into 114 residences with 166 bedrooms on 5.32 acres. Several of the apartment buildings have had tenants since 2022\. Two three-story townhome buildings are the only residential buildings still without permits. Under the new proposal from Dwellings LLC, those two buildings, with 10 three-bedroom condominiums and garages behind them, would give way to a single three-story building with 24 one-bedroom rental apartments. The garages would be dropped. Overall, the project would grow from 114 units to 128, while the bedroom count would fall from 166 to 160. The change would eliminate the development’s one homeownership component. Under the 2019 approval, all 10 townhomes were to be established as condominiums, which *could* be sold separately. But discussion Monday clarified that only one of the 10 units was specifically required to be offered for sale, limiting the buyers to earnings of between 100% and 120% of area median income (AMI). Instead of selling that unit under the AMI restriction, Dwellings proposed to designate three of the new one-bedroom rental apartments, which would be built instead of the condos, for people earning in that same income range. Plan commissioner Chris Smith noted that the change was much narrower than the loss of 10 potential condominiums might suggest. He urged his colleagues to act without a second hearing. He put it like this: “They’re making one change. They’re taking one for-sale unit out of the PUD. That’s all they’re doing.” The development’s broader affordability commitment would remain. Under the 2019 approval, 15% of the bedrooms were reserved for workforce housing, with 10% available to people earning up to 100% of area median income and another 5% for those earning up to 120%. Rents for the designated affordable units are capped at 25% of the income of an individual earning 80% of area median income. Even with the proposed change, it would still mean 24 of the development’s 160 bedrooms would be covered by the affordability commitment. The change to the PUD will still need to be approved by the city council. ### Developer says economics have changed Mark Lauchli, the developer behind Dwellings, told commissioners that the economics of construction have changed dramatically since the project was approved in 2019, around six months before the pandemic. The originally proposed three-bedroom condominiums would be about 2,400 square feet each, with two-car garages. Lauchli said he would now have to charge nearly $4,000 a month in rent just to break even on such units. “That’s not my market,” he said. Lauchli described his company as a local developer that has generally focused on housing for people who live and work in Bloomington, rather than primarily on undergraduate students. He said the company already operates 48 one-bedroom apartments at Hilltop Court, with current market rents of $985 and $995, depending on the floor plan. Those units are not all formally designated as affordable housing, but he said their rents are within the affordability limits applied to some income categories. The proposed new building would use the same basic design as buildings already operating at the development. Lauchli said those apartments typically rent within 48 hours of becoming available. He estimated that, at current prices, the proposed new apartments would also rent for less than $1,000 a month, although construction has not yet begun. The smaller apartments would be around 500 to 535 square feet each, compared with 2,400 square feet for the planned three-bedroom condominiums. Lauchli acknowledged that the smaller units are not necessarily cheaper to build per square foot. The savings come from constructing less total floor area, with more apartments sharing a single building, roof and foundation. He said construction costs, excluding land, have climbed from about $160 per square foot when work began in 2021 to more than $210 now. Lauchli also stressed features of the original project that would remain unchanged, including its community garden, a green roof on a maintenance building, rainwater collection and a net-zero-energy community building. Bynum Fanyo’s Daniel Butler, representing the developer, said the revised layout would also reduce the amount of pavement and other impervious surfaces, replacing some of that area with additional trees and landscaping. Lauchli said he had hoped to finish the development in 2023, but the pandemic, rising costs and permitting delays had pushed the project years behind schedule. He cited delays in securing permits for earlier phases and said he had other developments waiting for Hilltop Court to be completed. That was why he wanted commissioners to act Monday rather than require another hearing in December. “If we have to go to a second, we have to go to a second,” he said. “It’s not an all or nothing for me.” Planning staff member Eric Greulich said part of the earlier permitting delay involved resolving questions about the project’s phasing plan. Much of the site development permitting work was now complete, he said, and he did not anticipate similar delays for the last phase. ### What does the public get? The planning department’s central concern was not the physical design. It was whether the revised development would still provide the public benefits that justified the original planned unit development (PUD) approval. PUD zoning allows a developer to depart from some conventional zoning standards in exchange for a development plan with particular public benefits. Greulich said the housing affordability commitment and the possibility of owner-occupied condominiums were important features of the original approval. Without the condominiums, he said, the development would become entirely rental housing, reducing the diversity of housing types that commissioners had considered in 2019. Commissioner Jillian Kinzie recalled the original discussion from 2019\. “I remember when this project came through, and we were excited about the diversity of housing, and particularly the owner occupancy aspects of the condominium, in addition to the affordability dimensions,” she said. Kinzie acknowledged Lauchli’s explanation of the changed economics, but questioned what public benefit would replace the homeownership opportunity. “The part that I’m wrestling with is what’s the full public benefit here,” she said. “I don’t want to lose those dimensions so easily.” Greulich said the commission could consider alternatives, such as requiring one or more units to remain available for purchase, but its immediate task was to evaluate the amendment the developer had submitted. Lauchli replied that the three bedrooms previously associated with the one condominium required to be offered for sale would effectively be replaced with three designated affordable rental units. He said the affordability commitment was not being abandoned, only the homeownership requirement. The discussion also touched on whether the site could simply be rezoned for multifamily housing instead of retaining its PUD designation. Greulich said much of the proposed development would likely be permissible under conventional multifamily zoning today. Butler said the developer preferred to retain the PUD and its other commitments, including the environmental features and community garden. ### An unrecorded commitment Another issue was the discovery that the 2019 zoning commitment spelling out the affordability requirements had been signed but never recorded. One commissioner raised the possibility that, without recording the commitment, a subsequent purchaser of the property might not be bound by its restrictions. Lauchli said he had signed the document and sent it to the city and his development team, believing it had been recorded. “It was just an oversight,” he said. Greulich said the developer would be responsible for recording the document. Rather than record the original and then a separate amendment, planning staff wanted a single revised commitment covering the development’s obligations. ### Divided commission, a recess, and a vote Although the commission ultimately reached a unanimous decision, members initially disagreed about whether to take action Monday or wait until their regular December meeting. Commissioner Smith praised Lauchli’s development history in Bloomington and said that the requested change was narrow enough to justify immediate action. “They’re taking one for-sale unit out of the PUD. That’s all they’re doing,” Smith said. Commissioner Hopi Stosberg was less comfortable proceeding without updated written findings explaining how the amendment satisfied the city’s PUD review criteria. Stosberg is the city council’s appointee to the plan commission. She said she had contacted city council members who were serving when the project was approved in 2019, hoping to give them an opportunity to comment. She also questioned whether commissioners should vote on findings improvised during the meeting. Greulich said he could prepare updated findings, but they would need to reflect what the commission actually considered and approved. He suggested that the petition could return on the consent agenda in December, potentially allowing relatively quick action then. Plan commission president Brad Wisler expressed similar concerns about adopting findings that members had not seen in writing. Stosberg moved to deny the waiver of a second hearing and to require one in December. The motion drew four votes in favor and three against. But because five affirmative votes were needed, it failed. Plan commission votes always need a majority of the nine commission seats. A motion to take a 15-minute recess, so that Greulich could put the amended findings into writing, was approved on a voice vote, with Stosberg opposed. When the commission reconvened, Greulich presented a complete set of 10 revised findings addressing the criteria for approval of a planned unit development. The findings characterized the replacement of the condominiums with rental apartments as a “minor adjustment” to the original development. They also acknowledged that a similar apartment development could be built under conventional multifamily zoning, but without the affordable housing requirement that comes with the PUD. The findings cited the development’s community garden, pedestrian connections to nearby employers, access to public transit and location away from the Indiana University campus. They also concluded that the amendment would not change the intensity of uses within the development or interfere with neighboring properties. The rewritten findings represented a different emphasis from the staff report presented at the start of the meeting, which had raised concerns about losing the homeownership component. Greulich prepared the revised findings after commissioners indicated they wanted to consider moving the proposal forward that evening. After additional questions about the wording, Smith moved to waive the second hearing and forward the proposal to city council with a positive recommendation. The vote was unanimous, 7–0. The recommendation carries two conditions. First, the final plan approval will be handled by the city’s planning and transportation department. Second, the developer has to prepare and record a revised zoning commitment consistent with the amended proposal and the original 2019 approval. The proposal now goes to the city council, which will make the final decision on whether to approve the PUD amendment.