Open Letter to the Bloomington Community from Councilmember Stosberg

The Following was shared with The Bloomingtonian:

“To: Bloomington Community
From: Hopi Stosberg, City Council District 3 Representative
Date: March 30, 2026
Over the last few days I have been contacted by community members regarding my support for
delaying a vote on the Hopewell Planned Unit Development Ordinance for another week. The
conversations I have had about this demonstrate that there is some confusion within the
community about the delay and the project itself. In a desire to be as clear and transparent with
the community as possible, I have authored this press release. I hope it brings some clarity to
the process, project details, and concerns that deserve time to assess and evaluate.
Summary: This document includes: (1) summary of the Planned Unit Development (PUD)
process, (2) information and critical concerns specifically related to the Hopewell PUD, (3) an
evaluation of PUD affordability requirements and the Hopewell PUD; (4) Appendix A, the
Hopewell Development Ordinance as it was presented to the Plan Commission in February with
highlighted changes from the January presentation; and (5) Appendix B, an excerpt from the
Hopewell Staff Report presented at the January Plan Commission meeting with planning staff
recommendations compared to the February development ordinance (Appendix A) and
assessed for compliance.
(1) The Planned Unit Development Process
To start with, I would like to clarify what a Planned Unit Development (PUD) is and the normal
process of approval. A PUD is a negotiation between the Petitioner and the City of Bloomington.
The Petitioner wants to build something that does not adhere to the usual development rules
(in Bloomington this is the Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO). A PUD allows for a new
set of rules to be developed only for that project area. There are minimum requirements that
must be met in order for a project to qualify to be a PUD (imagine the chaos if any property
could apply to be a PUD!).
In addition to those requirements, the petitioner must agree to certain terms. Essentially, they
get something so they can build according to rules they write and the City gets something to
make sure that what is being built is good for the community. In a normal PUD process, the
petitioner works with the Bloomington Planning Department and when the petition is deemed
to have met the basic requirements, it is sent to the Plan Commission.

At least two Plan Commission hearings are required. Usually at the first hearing planning staff
present the petition, highlight areas of current non-compliance and recommend changes to the
petitioner. Commissioners also ask questions, clarify intent and language, raise concerns, and
may request changes. At the second hearing concerns have usually been addressed through
changes to the district ordinance. Planning staff highlight where changes were made to bring
the project into compliance or respond to concerns brought up by commissioners. Reasonable
conditions may be added by planning staff and/or commissioners to address remaining unmet
requirements or best practices. At this point, depending on the concerns and changes, the
ordinance may get sent to a third Plan Commission hearing, or may be sent on to the City
Council for final approval. PUDs must be approved by the City Council as a final step in the
process.
At the City Council level, councilmembers may raise additional concerns, add reasonable
conditions, or otherwise request the petitioner make changes to ensure the project aligns with
city goals. Again, this is a negotiation-the petitioner is asking for an exception to normal rules
and the City Council is the last body to double check and make sure that this negotiation ends
up being a good deal for the community.
(2) The Hopewell PUD
The Hopewell PUD petition is unique because the petitioner is the Bloomington Redevelopment
Commission (RDC). The RDC is a city commission whose purpose is to oversee the Housing and
Neighborhood Development (HAND) Department. The commission manages a very large
budget, most of which are tax dollars from Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts. The executive
director of the RDC is also the department head for HAND, a position appointed by the mayor.
Mayor Thomson has been highly involved in the Hopewell PUD presentations to council. Due to
the role the mayor is playing in the presentation and her advocacy of this PUD, it ends up feeling
like one branch of government is asking for a land use exception from the other branch. In my
opinion it becomes more important than ever for the City Council, as the legislative branch, to
ensure that the plan being supported and pushed by the executive branch is what is best for the
community. We are checking and balancing each other, as is designed by the government
structure. This brings me to an area of concern.
Starting with the second hearing at the Plan Commission, there has been pressure to get this
through as fast as possible, including the petition being put on the Council agenda for first
reading on February 18, even though submission material deadlines for that meeting (that are
in city code) had been violated (the motion to introduce at this meeting failed). The mayor
herself encouraged a vote to adopt the ordinance at the first reading on March 4, even though
normal and due process for ordinances are two readings at Council. If the plan were as solid and

great as the petitioner is purporting, then there should be no fear of council looking closely at
the details and digging into what is required for a PUD. The attitude of the administration has
made me look even closer at details that I usually leave to planning staff to evaluate.
This leads me to my second area of major concern. The disrespect and pushing aside of our
professional planning staff and their expert opinions with regard to this petition. I have served
on the Plan Commission for over 2 years. It is very normal for the first hearing to include a
lengthy staff report and presentation detailing what the petitioner needs to change for the
second hearing. At the second hearing the presentation focuses on the changes that were
made, based on the staff report, to meet requirements.
That is not the way things played out for the Hopewell petition. In Appendix B you will find my
evaluation of the January Staff Report with commentary indicating whether or not the
petitioner had acted on the advice of staff and if they had not, what the February staff report
said about that item. Some of those staff comments were incorporated into the version
presented to council due to a reasonable condition added at Plan Commission for the petitioner
to work with me to clarify and correct language. If the petitioner had respected the professional
city planning staff and made the adjustments as directed in January, that condition would not
have been necessary. There are many recommendations made by staff in January that were not
reflected in the February development ordinance and were not clarity adjustments. If there
were good reasons to not comply with the January staff report, those reasons should have been
highlighted during the February presentation. They were not.
In addition to this document analysis, usual procedure dictates that city planning staff present
the petition to city council. That did not happen. On March 4, the mayor, who is not actually a
member of the RDC, gave an introduction, then the presentation was turned over to a hired
consultant. Planning staff were present, but only stepped forward when asked specifically if
they had a presentation, which they did not. Planning staff did not speak at all at the second
reading. Professional city staff were cut out of the rehearsed presentation of this petition. This
is disturbing. I depend on our professional city staff to help interpret and understand both the
requirements of the UDO and what exceptions are being asked for in petitions like this. The lack
of their involvement is concerning, as is the way their recommendations were blatantly ignored
by the petitioner (see Appendix B). This leaves me in a position of being unable to utilize the
professional interpretations of our staff. Thus, I have to use other avenues of research to
understand and interpret. This takes time. To be very clear, I do not fault staff in any way. Their
hands are tied.
Please see Appendix B for a detailed evaluation of the January staff report and the many
examples of staff feedback that were not incorporated.

(3) Permanently Affordable Housing
The UDO requires that PUDs create permanently affordable units as part of what the City gets
from this process. This requirement is found in two places. First, under the Qualifying Standards
(Section 20.02.050.b.3) there is a requirement for 15% of units to be permanently affordable
through deed restrictions for people with incomes under 120% of the HUD Area Median Income
(AMI) for Monroe County. This section has a qualifier that this requirement can be adjusted or
forfeited. Second, found under additional approval criteria (20.06.070(4)(E)iii) a PUD must go
above and beyond that minimum requirement, to either offer additional affordable units under
the 120% AMI or to offer units that are priced at 110% of AMI or lower. In my perspective, all
affordability offered must meet the original requirement to be permanent using deed
restrictions, unless there is an adjustment or forfeit of the requirement.
The Hopewell PUD states that 15% of units would be permanently affordable, but the petitioner
proposes methods other than deed restrictions to meet that affordability. An additional 50% of
units are cited to be “affordable” at market rates, but they do not commit any of those units to
permanent affordability. Thus, the proposal for Hopewell fails to meet PUD affordability
requirements, and would require an adjustment as allowed by that section of the UDO.
Any adjustment or waiver to the usual rules requires careful consideration and assessment. It
also requires transparency. The Plan Commission was never told that this PUD would require an
adjustment to the required affordability guidelines or that by forwarding it with a positive
recommendation they were indicating support of the adjustments. Councilmember Flaherty
and I independently explored this issue. His questions and staff answers confirm that the
petitioner is requesting the council approve a proposal that deviates from PUD requirements on
affordability (see pages 122-123 of the March 25 council packet).
Furthermore, on January 14, 2026, Council passed Ordinance 2026-02 to increase affordability
requirements for PUDs by changing the initial qualifying standards to require the development
to provide 15% of their units to be permanently affordable to incomes below 90% of the HUD
AMI. I had been working with staff on that language change since summer of 2024. It is only
because of the administration’s violation of state statutory deadlines that this language was not
changed earlier. If those violations had not occurred, the Hopewell PUD would have been
required to meet an even higher bar for permanent affordability. Thus, it is entirely reasonable
to expect the petitioner, as a part of city government, to meet the standards we now require.
The city itself skimping on permanent affordability requirements related to development of
property owned by the city is deeply disappointing. Permanent affordability is a must, and to

waive or adjust any requirements to the affordability clause need a convincing argument that I
have not yet received.”

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