By: Diane Benjamin
I might do Part 3.
Did you know Bloomington has Missing Middle Housing? Nobody but staff did until last night. This item was thrown in front of the Council with no previous discussion. Normally a Committee of the Whole meeting would have explored this before a vote was brought to Council. Instead, staff claimed approval wouldn’t bind anyone to the recommendations on the agenda. This is the description:
.
Note the community groups interested. Two meetings were held with “stakeholders”, neither included your elected aldermen.
The Financial Impact statement sounds like turning Bloomington into Chicago or any other large city is the goal. Bloomington is barely growing, the report claims population will increase by 13,000 people by 2035.
Read the Resolution: Draft_Resolution_for_Opticos_MMH_Scan_Adoption.pdf
Staff requested the Council just accept the findings by Opticos Design. I started reading it but quit after seeing retired citizens with no savings need housing. Personal responsibility is in the past evidently.
The GOOD NEWS is Sheila Montney made a motion to suspend this item indefinitely, it passed 5 to 4. The far left voted NO: Kerns, Hendricks, Ward, and Scott. Socialists don’t need facts to legislate.
The discussion was lengthy. Suddenly a lady from Opticos popped in on zoom with a long presentation. Don’t consider this a dead issue. The staff spent a lot of time on this and those things rarely die. Last July Council asked to staff to investigate why housing construction was sluggish. This presentation was the result. Many on the Council thought staff didn’t conduct the study they wanted.
I don’t remember a Council item approving the hiring of Optico. So far in 2025 I’ve only found 1 payment for $2000. I doubt that was the only payment.
See the 84 page report from Optico: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3361902/BMM_MMHScan_RevisedFinalDraft.pdf
Just hit play:
I believe this sounds like the 15 minute cities agenda that the left is pushing for. They don’t care how unrealistic their ideas are, they pass them anyway and expect the rest of us peasants to fall in line.
This report confirms that the members of Bloomington City Council are nothing more than ass licking bobble heads that serve no useful taxpayer benefit and that stupidity cannot be fixed. As a prime example, Council asking Staff why housing was “sluggish”??!! These elitists are to blind to see that their tax and spend, progressive socialist spendthrift policies place Bloomington’s GDP in a death spiral.
According to Wirepoints Bloomington % growth in GDP is -17% since 2019, placing it LAST among the nation’s largest metro areas. And the constant abatement of taxes and fees for Council “friends” will accelerate this death spiral.
The Optico MMH financial impact says “retired citizens with no savings need housing”. Screw ’em!! I’m a retired person living in Ward 1 in a tiny house with a 14.23% property tax increase yoy. I don’t see anyone coming to provide financial aid, just the parasitic taxing bodies continuing to increase taxes and fees.
If Big Don follows through and cuts funding for the IL Legislative grifters, there will be a lot more gnashing of teeth and attempts to raise taxes and fees before the pension house of cards brings down the IL Democrats. I can hardly wait!!!
For clarification, Staff doesn’t set the meeting agenda, the Mayor and City Manager do. I consider the lack of experience of the Mayor for placing the plan on the agenda for a vote without adequate discussion. The scheduled Committee of the Whole was cancelled last week.
Can’t say enough good about Sheila Montney. She always asks rational, common sense questions which probe for the consequences of decisions. She wisely turns the direction of the council simply by calmly asking enlightening questions.
Unfortunately social activists don’t appreciate questions, rationality, common sense or unconsidered consequences. Like you say Diane they are ruled by emotions.
What’s missing in the “Middle”?
Our first home was purchased in 1980. I earned $15,700/ year ($61,000 today’s equivalent). We paid 13% interest on the mortgage of a $30,000 2 bedroom slab house. We had two children and my wife stayed home to take care of the kids., sometimes baby sitting another child for a few extra pennies.
The “middle” has been gutted to pay for the worries of the world, inflation and taxes. This is the root cause.
Packing more people into smaller spaces like zoo animals is not the solution.
The city council can waste all the money they want on pipe dream studies , plans and consultants , but nothing is going to be built unless a developer can make a profit on the project.
Unlike many of the comments, I actually read the entire MMH report. Their suggestions are in areas surrounding (5-10 min walk) clusters of numerous businesses, restaurants, and shops, consider being more flexible on zoning for non-single family housing units, such as duplex, quadplex, townhouses, and cottage style shared yard housing, as well as allow more Accessory Dwelling Units (apartment above a garage, in-law suites, etc). What MMH is not: massive, sprawling, and urban style 4+ story apartment complexes with dozens or hundreds of units.
This type of housing (MMH) is already amply used around downtown Bloomington and downtown Normal. They suggested to encourage MMH on vacant lots to infill unused spaces in these already MMH areas.
They also suggested designating other areas as MMH by tweaking some of the zoning in existing areas(allow duplex or ADU in single family R1c zones), etc. Some areas they suggested could be more flexible small/low density multi unit friendly are Clinton st between locust and Clinton, market St and Wylie Dr, airport and empire, around SF corporate South on both sides of veterans, south main street, etc. Aka areas with mixed zoning and commercial already.
They heavily recommend having front porches, stoops, and exterior entrances for all units, and no parking in front of the building, preferring parking in the rear, or on alley ways if available. This is so the MMH looks more like a single family residential home, but it has 2-4, 1000 sqft units on a single lot in a single building, instead of a single 5,000 sqft mcmansion.
They advise municipalities to consider the characteristics of the existing neighborhood when tweaking zoning, such as no 5+ units in a single family neighborhood, and to only allow 2 stories in those neighborhood, vs only building 3 stories for more commercial areas like downtown (already exists) or near Corp south(this already exists east of corp south).
I’m not near the Essex building project on shelbourne, but I imagine the neighbors would be much happier with 2 story max, duplex//quadplex/townhouse/cottage style housing (like one normal plaza) than the hundreds units in three story buildings like is going in now.
Honestly, I’m fairly comfortable with their recommendations, as long as the council would focus on the smaller unit design(2-4 units), strictly limiting 3 stories to only commerical adjacent areas, and generally allowing individual property owners to exercise their fundamental property rights to easily build ADUs convert to duplexes. I’d also suggest they adopt a 5 min walk radius, not a 10 minute radius, as the 10 minutes more often overlaps with existing majority single family home areas.
This isn’t some evil Soros one world urban master plan. It’s fairly common sense and is increasingly supported via bipartisanship and conservative policy centers.
And Diane, the report’s comment near the start that 50% of retirees have no retirement savings and rely exclusively on social security is a fact, so not sure why ignoring reality and the growing housing unaffordability issue is the way to make life better for the bottom 50% of Americans, who have been left behind by government caused inflation, government caused housing shortages, and other general government interventions in the free market. Big government exists at the local level too, often times via unreasonably restrictive zoning laws and micromanaging everything. Free up some laws, cut some regulations and red tape, and let the invisible hand of self interested people engage in mutually beneficial wealth creation opportunities.
https://www.aei.org/housing-supply-case-studies/
Government was not created to redistribute wealth to those incapable of planning for retirement. Thanks for playing
I agree with that no government redistribution idea generally, but I fail to see how it applies to the topic at hand: easing zoning restrictions to allow more diverse and affordable housing options. The report doesn’t discuss government redistributing money via tax credits, financial incentives, etc. Those are a separate items from zoning updates, to be considered separately.
I think the report included that point of american’s general lack of retirement savings as an example of WHY we need more affordable housing, as part of their “problem statement. (a too much government caused problem). Please note that their recommendations are specifically NOT for more government subsidized housing projects, and they numerous times express their preference for “naturally occuring” housing projects that are financially feasible based on local market conditions, not taxpayer subsidized or section 8 housing. Aka profitable housing projects, aka the free market.
An example of WHY mentioning American seniors lack of retirement savings matters: a lack of affordable housing for retirees living only on social security and rising property taxes means many may not be able to live out their retirement on their own in a house too large and costly for them to maintain/afford. If they don’t prefer to move into or can’t afford a retirement community complex, another great alternative would be for them and their adult children to build an ADU or inlaw suite on their adult children’s home, and live in as a multi-generational household, which is currently restricted in most of our residential zones in town. This is a cost effective way for parents to live with their adult children and grandchildren (an objective good thing that conservatives and religious folks should love), while allowing the adult children to get a little extra income as grandma’s rent checks are paid to her own kids instead of going into a giant housing conglomerate (this is a pseudo inheritance passed to the adult children), and grandma can be cared for by loving family members instead of paid servants, and grandma can help raise the grandkids. Reduce government regulations, reduce the need for government subsidized/redistributive housing, and empower families to better care for their loved ones. Win, Win, Win.
Or we can keep the status quo zoning restrictions and grandma can go live in section 8 housing by herself or a section 202 government subsidized retirement home that is akin to a walking dead hospice slum where it constantly reeks of urine. I know which option I would prefer, both as a future senior and as a current adult with kids, whose in-laws basically only have social security as retirement income.
Also, don’t shoot the messenger, but social security and medicare are unfunded ponzi schemes where the average retirees are redistributed much greater amounts of wealth than they ever paid into it. When these two old age welfare programs were passed, during the new deal and great society eras(among the most socialist laws ever passed in the USA), there were over 15 workers to every 1 retiree, now there are 2.5 workers to every 1 retiree(aka the fiscal math doesn’t make any sense now). The social security ‘trust fund’ is the taxpayers owing themselves their own money(snake eating its own tail), and by 2032 annual payroll taxes paid into the system by current workers will not be able to meet the beneficiary payments going out, and statutory mandatory cuts to 70% of benefits WILL kick in automatically. So yes, I agree that “Government was not created to redistribute wealth to those incapable of planning for retirement.”
https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/social-security-worth-its-cost
Of course they are ponzi schemes. Aborting 65 million future taxpayers was a good plan. But then not demanding personal responsibility for life choices is just as bad.
totally agree, but I’ll repeat that this report isn’t a redistribution socialist scheme to concoct new ways for Krysten Able to spend other people’s money. It is about housing zoning policy, not a government policy on abortion, welfare, or austerity. Don’t let that one line, explaining a current reality in america, soil your entire view of the report. Consider the full arguments, praise the good, condemn the bad. Like you said, this was tabled for a future date, and it is likely to come back up again, so be prepared to petition the council to adopt the good and reject the bad.
Another episode: https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/05/29/building_the_future_fixing_the_global_housing_crisis_1112442.html?mc_cid=d5bd317725&mc_eid=a903ff179f
Why walkable neighborhoods?
The study says –
“As a starting point, these units should provide no more than one off-street parking space per unit.
Draw your own conclusions.
Because most single family zoning in bloomington mandates two parking spaces per unit, which is one reason why small multi-family units are not financially or physically feasible with current regulations: you can’t take 1 lot, add a single 2-4 unit building on it, and magically create enough space for 4-8 cars on the same lot or same street.
So the idea is by focusing on changing zoning JUST in ‘walkable neighborhoods’, it naturally reduces the need for owning multiple cars because the residents can walk more often, (therefore just the one off street parking spot), and that by having multiple smaller units in a single building, perhaps only one person will live in each unit, and thus one car to one unit ratio makes perfect sense.
It’s all in the report. Reading is a useful skill.
You are assuming people want to carry purchases home. You are assuming people want to grocery shop every day or two because they can’t throw a week’s load in a vehicle. You are assuming people are capable of “walkable”. Remember the seniors?
I’ll repeat, read the report. It addresses your presumptions about my assumptions about some people’s preferences. They provide well known national surveys and studies about the living and walking preferences of some (not all) americans, young and old alike. There is demand for these types of units, in these types of areas: that is why they are still in use around downtown bloomington today, and why the rent keeps going up (36% of people in town rent, so increasing MMH supply lowers pressure on rents, ala free markets). There is probably at least one example of a “MMH” building on each block in every neighborhood surrounding downtown bloomington, normal, and the college campuses. I used to live in one of these areas of near downtown (because that is what I could afford at a certain point in my life), and my family would walk WAY more often, because we could, because the exercise was nice, and because things were close. Now I live on the east side and I drive everywhere. Tradeoffs. But some people (young and old) want or can only afford to live in the walkable areas, so let’s give them more options.
And to your ‘capable of walking/remember the seniors comments’: Just go walk around the indoor mall or on the constitution trail, and the majority of people you see walking will have white hair. Walking is the major form of exercise for most seniors. And if more seniors walked more often and earlier in their lives, they would be less likely to need mobility assistance later on. Talk about personal responsibility: maybe exercise more so you are stronger and healthier for longer, so you don’t become fat and weak and sickly, draining public resources, when an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Whoops, now I am starting to sound like RFK jr and MAHA, lol!
This is a free market solution to avoid more government redistribution of wealth. Join team less government.
If you believe the opinions of “experts” you probably got multiple jabs. I have a link that claims “infill” policies actually increase prices because they limit the possible.
No way Jose! I didn’t take that Trump Operation Warp Speed/big pharma “medicine”! Proudly naturally inoculated here.
Share your link, I’m an open minded person who likes to research and be well informed.
I did, see previous comment
Sorry, I just triple checked all the comments and you original post and I can’t find a link for infill policies that you shared. I see a link to the report and the resolution in the main post.
This is an empty comment, did you mean to paste the link here?
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/05/27/locked_out_of_the_dream_regulation_making_homes_unaffordable_around_the_world_1111741.html?mc_cid=3848a0300a&mc_eid=a903ff179f
Thanks for sharing. I do find the article convincing, particularly the below quotes, which support re-examining restrictive zoning laws like we have in Bloomington, aka the MMH report.
“the principal cause for housing shortages and rising prices stems from the failure to build enough new housing units”
“The rapid inflation of housing costs stems primarily from ever more constricting land-use regulations. Inflated prices are particularly rife in countries and states with strict regulations like California,”
“At the crux of the problem is a series of housing policies referred to as “urban containment.” First implemented in Britain at the end of the Second World War, urban containment policies typically seek to manage growth by imposing boundaries or greenbelts around urban areas, outside of which new development is either prohibited or severely limited. ”
“To this flawed approach, many jurisdictions have imposed other costs such as high-impact fees, lengthy environmental reviews, minimum parking mandates, and historical preservation designations. But generally, nothing quite compares with urban containment, as it drives up land costs by restricting development on the periphery, where land prices are the lowest. ” (this is literally bloomington).
“The connection between policy and prices is clearly evident.” (zoning/regulation policy)
“Highly restrictive planning policies also impact renters. A recent RAND study of California found that policy-driven delays, strict architectural standards, green mandates, and the requirement to pay union-level wages have increased the cost of construction of subsidized apartments twice as much as in Texas, while taking almost two years longer to get approved.”
The article also makes some great points on issues with HIGH DENSITY multifamily areas, large scale multi-unit complexes not driving down rent prices and often being associated with ideas of bad schools and crime. This is a chicken or the egg argument: did the housing prices go up because alot of people live there in high density housing, or does high density housing exist there because alot of people want to live there but it is otherwise unaffordable to buy a SFH so they must rent in MFH instead? Correlation and causation. Supply/Demand. SFH zoning restrictions in the suburbs, so MFH can only be built in the high density cities, so of course it exists in expensive high density areas. It would be even more expensive if they only built SFH in high density cities, so they are arguing with a counterfactual fallacy.
If you read the MMH report, it has a diagram showing Single Family on the left side, Missing Middle Housing in the middle, and high density large scale apartment complex on the right. So they aren’t advocating for high density, but rather “low and medium” density, as defined here in the report:
” Low Densities – Under 8 dwelling unit/ acre
• Medium Densities – 8 to 20 dwelling unit/ acre
• High Densities – Greater than 20 dwelling unit/ acre”
As I said numerous times and the report clearly outlines, they are suggesting low/medium density, such as duplex/triplex/quadplex (that all look like regular homes on a single lot), cottage plans (multiple smaller units around a shared greenspace), townhouses, and in areas where it makes sense, smaller multifamily buildings (5-20 units). Nothing they suggest is higher than 3 stories, and they explicitly say to limit to 2 stories where it makes sense to match the surrounding houses and SFH lifestyle.
Another great point from the article: very obviously, not everyone likes duplexes or ADUs. A majority like SFH. Great, so build all of the above, because not everyone likes or can afford a SFH. And don’t be stupid and try to outlaw SFH zoning or outlaw duplexes and ADUs. A homeowner has the right to add an ADU or convert to a duplex if it makes sense. Property rights exist here in America, lets stop shackling americans with bad regulations.
“But surveys reveal that nearly three in five younger people see homeownership as an essential part of the American dream, while two-thirds favor suburbs as their preferred residence. Three out of four Californians, according to a poll by former Obama campaign pollster David Binder, opposed legislation that banned single-family zoning.”
“Among Americans under 35 who do buy homes, four-fifths choose single-family detached houses. According to a recent National Homebuilders Association report, over 66%, including those living in cities, prefer a house in the suburbs. Almost two-thirds of U.S. millennials (25 to 44) favor being owners, which is also the case in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. The future vision of the planners has little attraction among the public. ”
– This isn’t surprising, we don’t build a lot of duplexes anymore mostly because of zoning restrictions, so of course those aren’t available to buy, so people buy what is available, SFH.
Oh, and that article doesn’t mention infill existing lots at all, and doesn’t say anything good or bad about infilling single family lots with small multi-unit buildings like the MMH report suggests, and like we already have in limited parts of bloomington. I do know what is expensive, and it is the stuff they are already building and have been building in bloomington and in other major cities: High density apartment complexes(YA admits Essex won’t be affordable to students or average rivian worker), and $450,000+ mcmansions in the cornfields. What is the definition of insanity again?
Infill was in their first story, I don’t know if that one has a link in it. Otherwise both stories sounded a lot alike to me.
I understand the concept of the space requirements for cars.
So I’ll explain the conclusions that were obvious to me on the walkable neighborhoods (one car) theory, which is the foundation of this study.
The Walkability market is:
1. For unmarried occupants or married with one working spouse. (young professional)
2. For couples with no children.
3. Not for seniors unless they are exceptionally healthy.
4. Best for a warm climate, not subzero with wind and snow.
5. Not for low income households. As a matter of fact it has been seen to perpetuate gentrification.
6. Will require infrastructure changes.
These limiting factors, along with fact that the projections for population growth in the area were overstated means that if you build it they may not come because they probably don’t or won’t exist.
I don’t want to live around people that don’t own multiple cars
I am naming my current residence the
“Green Top Residence “
Do you think that I can get a 30% rebate on my taxes?
Opticos’ aim is to provide diverse, affordable housing options in walkable neighborhoods.
But the study says –
“While MMH (Missing Middle Housing) is not a guarantee of affordability, it is often called “affordable by design.”
Which means?
Affordable by design but not necessarily in practice? There are too many other variables in play to be able to say that this study will achieve its goals. But sounding good is enough for some.
One of the council members said he read the study and had red marks (questions) throughout the document. I can see why.
In the report and on the presentation, they define affordable by design. It essentially means that a large Single Family Home on a single lot is usually not financially feasible to build, so it doesn’t get done very often, and usually only at the $300,000 + level, aka unaffordable for half of people in town. So a SFH on a single lot is often times “unaffordable by design”, and this is often the result of inflexible and outdated zoning policies prohibiting single building multi-unit properties. Or the property just remains vacant (not good for anyone: less property tax revenue, less housing supply, and higher home/rent prices).
However, using the same lot to build a duplex or triplex with an ADU over the garage means you can have 3-4 units where there was only 1 unit before, and the combined rental incomes from all the units will make the building more likely to be affordable to build and affordable to own/rent, especially when you compare it to the price of building 3-4 separate SFH to get the same number of units. It also enables “house hacking” where the owner lives in one unit, and then rents out the other units in the building to other people, which allows the owner to afford to own the property, while allowing others to rent when they couldn’t afford to own themselves. Thus the design of the building, multiple units on a single lot, means it is more likely to be affordable vs other options. Not a guarantee, but just think about it: it would be hard to say it isn’t more affordable than a SFH on the same lot (all other things being equal).
The council can adopt or reject parts of the report, any/all suggestions in the report would have to go to the zoning/planning committee for discussion and approval, and then any proposed zoning changes would go to the council to approve, which gives plenty of time and opportunity for you the public to praise the good ideas and condom the bad ones. It seems unwise to just reject everything (don’t make perfect the enemy of good) and keep the status quo of bad zoning, leading to not enough housing stock, creating higher prices, resulting in more cries for government subsidized housing. The Status quo is only getting big expensive houses built on the edges of town, and then giant 3/4 story multifamily housing complexes like the Essex project on shelborne. Which outcomes seems better for our town? More Essexes or more duplexes? Do you want a future with more giant apartment complexes where the rental profits all go to Young America or another big corporation, or the possibility of a future with more smaller multi-unit buildings styled after a house, which can be owned by a person living there, allowing them to build wealth, save for retirement, start a family?
You’ve made a lot of good points and I particularly appreciate your focus of cutting red tape re: restrictive zoning. I also appreciate your point regarding seniors and walking. Not all seniors are shut-ins, nor should all seniors be driving; anecdotally, I have elderly family that thrived in a sprawling, walkable community in another state.
I will note, the Council’s “number one agenda item” from last year for the city’s housing needs, which Montney and others brought up again in this meeting, is the rehabilitation of existing home stock and creating incentives for that to occur. This is quite literally a government redistribution plan.
Instead of freeing up zoning regulations where it makes sense for that neighborhood, cutting red tape, and giving property owners the right to develop their own property with an ADU or duplex, the council thinks the most important way to tackle housing supply and unaffordability is to subsidize housing repairs, handout tax dollars to developers and contractors to fix dilapidated homes, and engage in general housing socialism that Cody Hendricks and Krysten Able would love.
HARD PASS. Less government, not more. Lower taxes, don’t spend more tax money with new handouts.
The council also says that ADU development is difficult and something they want to improve: that is because they haven’t adopted first right zoning approval for ADUs, which the MMH plan explicitly recommends.
They were right to table the MMH and have it go through committee first, but it has a lot of good ideas to at least consider.
Agree.
No this is much worse. Forcing the engineering of communities to fit the environmentalist’s agenda is worse than encouraging the free market to help reduce neighborhood blight.
Freeing up zoning regulations? No. This is just a NEW kind of zoning that reengineers neighborhoods to pack more people into smaller spaces (densification) with no guarantee that housing costs will be reduced. It reduces occupants to one car and public transportation IF they fit the new model and the smaller patch of space has everything they need to live.
We have to be honest about the reasoning for this. This approach is an invention of climate alarmists. The problem with that is that every day we are finding out that man made climate change and CO2 reduction isn’t as important as they’ve been led to believe. So the foundation is cracked. We shouldn’t build on it.
Bloomington/Normal could not support this kind of engineered densification. We have land available within minutes of any facility anyone would need. We already have very close small towns and suburban neighborhoods. This should be our emphasis, not packing more people into dehumanizing micro neighborhoods to satisfy a false assumption about the environment.
“You will own nothing and be happy” was easier to accomplish than it should have been.
Well it is devious. Pump trillions of dollars into the market on the Cares Act, the “Inflation Reduction Plan” (The Green Scam), drive inflation up to record levels, make the American dream of owning your own land and home unattainable and then tell everyone they can fix it if they agree to live at elbows length and walk, riding a bike or a bus to get around in your little patch existence.
So you will live like they do in the inner city of Chicago and be happy, or else.
Where is there forced engineering of communities in this report? Where is there climate alarmism in the report? The answer is there isn’t any, it’s a figment of your imagination. These building styles already exist around both downtown areas, the legacy of older zoning that was re-written mid century to strict SFH. Was it forced engineering and climate alarmism then in the 40s and 50s, or is it now? Can’t be both.
The forced engineering already exists now: strict SFH zoning regulations in most areas with almost no exceptions. This is causing a large portion of people to not be able to afford to be property owners and be stuck as renters. You will own nothing and be happy is the current status quo, and it will get worse in town, as very few and only expenses SFHs are built that only the top can afford, and meanwhile giant corporations build massive multi unit apartments complexes where everyone rents and no one owns anything. that sounds like true forced engineering, using strict zoning to withhold the choice from property owners to build creatively on land they already own.
We don’t have ample land available to use: all the perphery land outside of city limits is farm land subsidized by federal government socialism via the farm bill. Occasionally a farmer retires and sells the land, but it’s often far out of town and would require large infrastructure expenditures to make suitable for SFHs, which are only being built at per unit costs well over $300,000, aka unaffordable for the 38% of people already stuck renting in town. More often than not, this former farm land is bought by large companies to make apartments (Essex, Beech and towanda, Ireland grove), not even SFH. The MMH report says the two extremes, homeownership for the rich and massive renter complexes for the poor, is an unacceptable market solution. We need more middle ground housing, such as Duplex, townhome, and ADUs. The only way to allow people to choose that option in most areas is to strategically remove the shackles of oppressive government zoning laws created 60 years ago when the population was half of what it is today.
The NIMBYs always come out to play with grandiose rhetoric about the end of the world and the evils of anything not SFH. They are the alarmists, religiously believing that a duplex down the block will instantly create the hoods of south Chicago in their neighborhood. Of course, they all already own land, a house, two cars, and seem perfectly content with the status quo by wielding restrictive zoning laws to engineer the forced live long renters into staying exactly as they are.
That is the true “you will own nothing and be happy.” The NIMBYs cause it and don’t care. Don’t tread on them, but everyone else, bulldoze them down to build another massive Young Americans renter colony. They drive up housing costs, loving their rising home appreciation along the way, then tell everyone to suck it up when others complain home/land ownership is unobtainable, but the NIMBYs are the primary root cause of the artificially created restricted housing supply through government barriers to entry via oppressive zoning and regulations. The NIMBYs solution to unaffordability is do nothing different, I’ve got mine, just bootstrap yourself into a house that doesn’t exist that you can’t afford anyways.
This makes the forced renters resentful and believe that the system is stacked against them (it is, thanks to NIMBYs and their regulation fetish), so no wonder there is such a strong draw of socialism amongst the young and poor. The established NIMBYs have stacked the deck in their favor with zoning and regulations. the allure of socialism promises more handouts and more interventions from the government to ‘help’ those oppressed by the NIMBYs, instead of realizing the true housing unaffordability issue is caused by preexisting government intervention in the market through unreasonably restrictive and costly zoning that drives down the supply of housing and drives up the cost of building. The solution to a bad government policy isn’t a new bad government law to address the symptoms of the first bad policy(the socialist solution of subsidized or public housing): the solution is to go back and remove the first root cause bad government policy, which in this case is the strict zoning and costly regulations.
Your options are free market or socialism. Repent of your zoning sins and avarice, or others will use government to fund their own avarice at your expense. And then you’ll just complain about the socialists raising your taxes and be confounded why people vote for socialism(hint, because you keep the boot of zoning and regulations on their neck).
Where is there forced engineering of communities in this report?
Walkable neighborhoods require engineering. One car limit, all required facilities withing a 10 minute walk, expanding public transportation to facilitate this. One option even talks about providing and requiring developers to use specific housing designs. That is engineering. Stipulating these things would require a kind of enforcement. Thus we have the forced engineering of densification.
Where is there climate alarmism in the report?
“Open space is essential to encourage active and healthy lifestyles, allow people to connect with nature, increase tree canopy in communities, and help mitigate the effects of climate change.”
This is a complete re-engineering of living space to densify the population.
“Open space is essential to encourage active and healthy lifestyles, allow people to connect with nature, increase tree canopy in communities, and help mitigate the effects of climate change.”
Bloomington taxpayers see how the city handles the “tree canopy”. Plant and forget. After all, it’s only taxpayer money to replace the trees that are left to grow on their own without any dead wooding, lifting, trimming and of course water.
Please, you honestly believe one single sentence on open spaces and trees being a desirable thing in our community means the entire report is “a complete re-engineering of living space to densify the population”? Are you against local parks, homes with yards, the constitution trail, forests, fields, plains, grass, flowers, farms?
I could use some firewood, can I come chop down the trees on your property? Wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of being a ‘climate alarmist’ by having trees in your yard!
“Oh, Mr. FromHere has TREEEEES in his yard?!?! OMG, literally AL GORE!”
Calm down DOGE ILLINOIS – I repudiated your claim. Accept my apology.
Climate alarmism is the theme of many Federal, State and Local budgets, plans and studies including this one.
FromHere, Is Greta Thunberg in the room with you right now?