By: Diane Benjamin

I was notified last night that Surena Fish died. Surena was on the PSCRB Board and West Side neighbors. She was a voice for downtown business owners and a frequent Public Commentor. This story has a video of one of her comments: https://blnnews.com/2024/07/16/two-public-comments-last-night-you-need-to-see/

Bloomington lost one of it’s champions and I lost a dear friend.

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I didn’t finish writing about the meeting yesterday because I wanted more time to digest it.

One final comment on Community Land Trusts: Every property this non-profit acquires makes the land tax exempt. Everyone else has to pay more to compensate for that loss to all the taxing bodies including schools. If the Bloomington Council goes far left after the April 1st election and hands this group money they aren’t helping anyone, just redistributing your wealth.

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If the possible incentive packages presented Monday are on-line I can’t find them. The video can be difficult to read but that is all I have. The Council is supposed to give administration feedback so new ordinances can be presented soon.

This website has a map of all the “ready to build” housing locations: https://www.bloomingtonil.gov/business/economic-development/you-belong-in-bloomington/building-bloomington

Prohibitive costs from inflation and interest rates mean construction isn’t happening. Enter Bloomington with “incentives” to jump start projects.

This slide is a 1:41:08. The left side shows the current fees, the right side shows how much a developer will save if 50 homes are built with Bloomington waiving 100% of permit fees and BNWRD waiving 50%:

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Take those savings on the right and divide them by 50. The savings per home is small compared to the total cost.

Lincoln Lofts was used as an example of how much they could have saved. Sheila Montey (1:52:40) pointed out the project was built anyway without them. BTW, they have 4 – two bedroom affordable apartment available on their website: https://www.lincolnloftsapartments.com/floorplans/2-bedroom

See this slide at 1:44:35:

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I don’t know where TIF money would come from.

The Downtown Southwest TIF has a negative balance: https://files.illinoiscomptroller.gov/LocGovTIF/FY2024/06402530/24TIF06402530Downtown_outhwest_1.pdf

So does the Downtown East Washington TIF: https://files.illinoiscomptroller.gov/LocGovTIF/FY2024/06402530/24TIF06402530Downtown_n_Street_1.pdf

The Empire Street Corridor TIF has money but developers are owed money and TIF money can’t be spent outside the TIF: https://files.illinoiscomptroller.gov/LocGovTIF/FY2024/06402530/24TIF06402530Empire_StCorridor_1.pdf

Maybe Bloomington wants TIF #4, they didn’t say if they do.

See the incentives on the right side. Bloomington has restaurants barely holding on because of increases in the minimum wage. They can’t continue to raise prices because eating out is already way too expensive. Rebating food and beverage taxes is a direct assault on existing businesses. New restaurants always get a lot of traffic which means the others will lose business. I don’t know why Bloomington presented incentivizing low wage jobs that will just close the businesses struggling now.

“Density Bonus” is pack’em and stack’em mentality. People stuffed into high density buildings are easier to control and less likely to have a great Quality of Life. Remember when everything Bloomington did was labeled Quality of Life?

If 600-700 homes were currently on the market instead of 100, is there really a housing shortage? A normal market won’t return anytime soon because people with very low interest rates aren’t going to give those up. No incentives are going to change that and might create future problems.

High density might be a short term fix but history shows crime increases and people can’t leave because of subsidies they can’t afford to lose. This is forced poverty.

Question for Patrick Hoban – EDC:

If people working in Bloomington that don’t live here is a huge problem, what about the people collecting an Illinois government pension that don’t live in Illinois? We have to fund their lavish retirement for life while they are off enjoying better weather and better government.

How much of our money is walking out that door?

Does that matter Patrick?