The Bloomington Planning Commission approved zoning and preliminary plans for The Links Subdivision on Ireland Grove Rd. Green Fairways Development is proposing multifamily housing on what previously was the site of a driving range. The apartment complex will provide 292 housing units.
City staff recommended approving the project. They noted the proposed project would help fulfill the need for quality non-student multi-family housing identified in the EDC’s (Economic Development Council’s) Bloomington-Normal Housing Analysis.
Most commissioners agreed with the proposal, however, Jacqueline Beyer disagreed.
Beyer told Cities 92.9, “One of the things in the agenda packet that we received, things to consider, there are standards for review, and one of the things is to ensure that public facilities are available and will have a sufficient capacity to serve the proposed subdivision code in areas reasonably anticipated to be served by such facilities.”
“CARDEN SPRINGS” UNVEILED BY FAIRLAWN CAPITAL FOR NORMAL’S NORTH END
Beyer continued, “One of those is the fact that it is served by unit 5 schools.” “Unit 5 can not adequately serve that subdivision because they need so much funding in taxes and to have that many units in such a concentrated area, I am very concerned about the additional tax burden that would go across the entire Unit 5 community.”
Beyer questions the “trade off” and/or “cost/benefit” to the public. Essentially she is questioning the benefit of more property tax dollars going into public coffers versus the cost to the public in additional school costs to handle more students.
Cities asked commission vice-chair Justin Boyd how we as a community attempt to balance both addressing housing needs and the impact on Unit 5 schools as well as if the commission was in contact with Unit 5 and if there was communication between the two organizations regarding these issues.
Boyd stated, “As a planning commission, we are volunteers obviously, so we take a lot of trust from staff to prepare everything for us.”
Coincidentally the Bloomington Planning Commission approved the Green Fairways development on the same day that Fairlawn Capital announced plans for their Camden Springs development. Camden Springs’ plans include adding townhomes and apartments that will provide 477 housing units in north Normal.
Fairlawn Capital will host a public meeting regarding Camden Springs on Wednesday December 14th at 6:00 p.m. at Prairieland Elementary School. The Camden Springs development is scheduled to be on the Normal Planning Commission agenda on January 5th.
At the Camden Springs unveiling Cities learned that currently Rivian is up to 6800 employees and 3000 of them are commuting into and out of town every day. That 3000 number is an indication of the housing gap in our market. A large portion of those Rivian employees might choose to live in town if the housing stock was available.
Cities also learned that late in January the EDC will take a deep dive into the housing situation in a special two hour Bloomington By The Numbers event. It is expected that numbers discussed will relate to such things as the number of housing units constructed this year, the number of lots available for construction and the number of units permitted that are under construction.
