Downzone of 200+ parcels surrounded by Bloomington goes to county commissioners with nod from advisory planning group

A request that more than 200 parcels in the unincorporated area of Monroe County get downzoned got a favorable recommendation from the county's plan commission on Tuesday night (March 18).

The zoning for the parcels is recommended to go from HD (High Development) to RES (Residential 1). The land area that is subject to the original request totaled about 175 acres.

The vote by the plan commissioners was 6–2, with dissent from David Henry and Trohn Enright-Randolph. Edward Oehlman was absent.

Final approval rests with the three-member county board of commissioners, who are expected to take up the question at one of their regular Thursday morning meetings in the next few weeks.

There are technically three petitions, one for properties in the Maple Grove Baby Farms subdivision, and two for land in the Sunset Hill subdivision. The two subdivisions are part of "islands" surrounded by the city of Bloomington, which make up Area 3 and Area 4 in the attempted annexation of land by Bloomington—which started in 2017 and is still languishing under litigation.

The petitioners were the county commissioners themselves, who initiated the rezone on Dec. 18, 2024, the same day they voted to adopt the CDO (County Development Ordinance). Under state planning code, a public hearing had to be held within 60 days of the time that the rezone was initiated. That deadline lapsed, but at their Wednesday work session last week (March 13), the commissioners voted to reinstate the initiation of the rezone.

It was not the same trio of commissioners from last December who re-initiated the rezone last week. Returning to office this year were Julie Thomas and Lee Jones. But Jody Madeira is now serving in the seat that Penny Githens previously represented.

That means a unanimous decision by commissioners in favor of the rezone is not a foregone conclusion. Madeira campaigned on higher density and increased housing for Monroe County.

The allowable housing types are a big part of the difference between HD and RES. In the HD zone, multi-family apartments with three or four units, as well as those with more than 5 units, are permitted uses. In contrast, the RES zone does not include multi-family dwellings. Also allowed in the HD zone are single-family attached dwellings with three to five units. Two-family dwellings are permitted in the HD zone, but they are listed only as a conditional use in the RES zone. However, single-family paired dwellings (two units) are allowed in RES.

For both of the subdivisions, the rezone rationale by commissioners took into account the fact that areas include older established neighborhoods, and most of the homes use septic systems without access to sewer service (at least not now). Also factoring into the rationale was the presence of karst/sinkholes in the area, and the interest in preserving the overall character of the area. For the Sunset Hill subdivision, an additional part of the rationale was the historic preservation overlay that was granted to 25 parcels late last year, on the same day the CDO (County Development Ordinance) was approved by commissioners.

In voting against recommending the rezone, David Henry, who serves on the plan commission as the county council's appointee, pointed to the impact that downzoning could have on opportunities for the use of land. "There's an opportunity—especially with tiny home movements and other types of home structures—to infill on small parcels in ways that not only retain the character, but maybe restore the character." He added, "The fact that we downzone forecloses on those and so it creates fewer opportunities."

Trohn Enright-Randolph, who serves on the plan commission as the elected county surveyor, expressed misgivings about the impact that the rezone would have on the need for property owners to seek variances from the county board of zoning appeals. "This is going to put a lot of burden on other people's property, just to do very simple things," Enright-Randolph said.

County commissioner Julie Thomas, who serves as the representative from the board of commissioners on the plan commission, connected Tuesday's requested rezone to the process of developing the CDO. The CDO process took a systematic approach to areas that were a part of a previous AIFA (Area Intended for Annexation), which applied city zoning to unincorporated areas, under an interlocal agreement between Bloomington and Monroe County government—an agreement that expired a decade and a half ago.

As Thomas described it, the default process for the CDO was to automatically translate the city zone in the AIFA to "its nearest cousin" in the new county zoning scheme. In the Maple Grove Baby Farms and Sunset Hill subdivisions, it was HD zoning that was translated as the "nearest cousin" of the previous city zone in the AIFA. Thomas indicated that this translation was not done indiscriminately, and was modified in other parts of the county, if the denser city zone was not appropriate.

Thomas indicated that the HD zoning for Maple Grove and Sunset Hill should have been modified, as it had been in other areas in development of the CDO, to "correct this particular error." Rather than suggest an amendment to the CDO map at the end of the process, Thomas said the advice of the county legal department was to use a separate rezone process, after adoption of the CDO.

The inherited zoning scheme from the AIFA (Area Intended for Annexation) was just one way Tuesday's rezone was connected to the idea of annexation. The theme of annexation was a thread that ran through a lot of the discussion.

Plan commissioner Geoff Morris found it persuasive that a majority of property owners in the areas to be rezoned had remonstrated against annexation. "That tells me that the majority of the neighborhood does not want denser housing, and they want to remain more open and more rural," Morris said.

Morris also cited a concern that the HD zoning would allow for demolition of some of the affordable houses, so that apartment buildings could be developed.

Plan commission president Margaret Clements echoed Morris's point about the number of annexation remonstrators in the territory to be downzoned (Area 3 and Area 4), and alluded to her involvement with CRAA (County Residents Against Annexation). "I've been kind of intimately involved over a number of years with what I refer to as annexation Areas 3 and 4. I think it would be a mistake to say that the people who live in these areas haven't considered what high development would do to them." Clements described all of that effort against annexation as a way for property owners to say, 'Stop harassing us!'"

Henry countered the idea of perfect alignment about attitudes towards the rezone and annexation. Henry was himself a remonstrator against annexation, he noted. "I don't necessarily equate annexation policy with all of what we've heard tonight," Henry said. He added, "Signing a remonstrance petition means that you may not want to pay the taxes in the jurisdiction. It may be a variety of reasons why one would sign a petition."

Speaking on Tuesday from the public mic in favor of the rezone was one of the remonstration effort's recognizable figures, Susan Brackney—but the idea of annexation was not included in her argument. Brackney focused on the historic character of some of the parcels. She had worked to get the historic overlay for 25 of the Sunset Hill properties approved last year. On Tuesday, she introduced herself as a property owner in Sunset Hill: "I support this rezone. It's more in keeping with the character of the neighborhood." She added, "And for those of you who aren't familiar with the area, it's environmentally sensitive and historically significant. You can think of it as a depression-era working class village."

There were a couple of emails sent to the plan commission by property owners in support of the rezone, which expressed surprise that their properties had been designated as part of an HD (High Development) zoning district.

A letter in opposition to the rezone was sent by the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce which expresses the view that "Monroe County must increase housing density in the urban fringe to address affordability challenges." The letter also states, "Downzoning contradicts urban growth goals, contributing to urban sprawl and limiting sustainable development."

Another letter in opposition was sent by Ferguson Law on behalf of their client, Regency, which owns the five two-story apartment buildings at 101 S. Fairfield Drive. The Monroe County planning staff recommendation was to exclude that parcel, along with a handful of others with existing multi-family buildings. The plan commission's recommendation, which was forwarded to the county commissioners on Tuesday with a favorable recommendation, followed the staff's advice on excluding a handful of the parcels.

[Editor's note: Susan Brackney, who is mentioned in this report as speaking in support of the rezone, has written on a freelance basis for The B Square about topics related to arts and entertainment.]