The aerial image is from the Monroe County online property lookup system.
Elevations included in the June 10, 2024 Bloomington plan commission meeting information packet.
From the slidedeck presented at the June 10, 2024 Bloomington plan commission meeting.g.
A three-story 110,000-square-foot self-storage facility can now be built on the vacant lot at 4600 East Morningside Drive, on the eastern eastern edge of Bloomington, north of Bruster’s Real Ice Cream.
Site plan approval for the building, which is proposed by owner Tyler Curry, was given by Bloomington’s plan commission on Monday night. The vote was 5–0 with one abstention.
Because the plan commission needs a majority (5) of its nine members in order to take action, an abstention has the same impact as a no vote.
The absention came from Hopi Stosberg, who connected her decision not to vote yes or no, to a recently installed neighborhood greenway. She called the self-storage facility “autocentric.” saying that she could not in good conscience vote for putting such a facility on a greenway.
Stosberg is the city council’s representative to the plan commission, and the site of the proposed storage facility is District 3, which she represents. Stosberg said she’d heard from many residents who oppose the self-storage facility.
Stosberg also said she could not vote no: “I will be abstaining tonight, because I can’t really vote no, because…they have followed the rules.” The rules in question are in the city’s unified development ordinance (UDO).
The planning staff recommendation was for approval of the site plan, based on its conformance with the requirements of the MM (mixed-use medium scale) zoning district where it’s located.
Given that no variances or waivers were being requested, commissioner Trohn Enright-Randolph, who is Monroe County’s non-voting member of the city plan commission, asked staff if it was a “right-to-build type situation.”
City zoning planner Katie Gandhi confirmed for Enright-Randolph that she was not aware of any planned requests for variances or waivers.
Sitting out the vote based on a conflict was Christopher Smith who stated that he was a friend of the petitioner. Absent were Flavia Burrell and Tim Ballard.
The site plan was in front of the plan commission, because developments that contain more than 20,000 square feet of new nonresidential space require a plan commission review. The footprint of the building is 36,750 square feet, and the three stories push it to over 110,000 total square feet.
Approval of the site plan came over the opposition of the nearby residents, who submitted statements in writing before the meeting and from the public mic during Monday’s meeting.
Nine written objections are included in the plan commission’s meeting information packet—from residents of the Park Ridge East neighborhood.
They uniformly opposed the facility, saying that it’s a bad fit for the family-friendly neighborhood and adjacent park. They worry about increased traffic, light pollution, and safety, saying that the facility would not be consistent with the area’s planned pedestrian-friendly greenway. The critique of the facility includes the contention that the self-storage industry is “predatory” and is a poor fit with community needs and city planning goals.
Even the staff report notes the disconnect between the self-storage facility and the goals of the Urban Corridor areas in the city’s comprehensive plan:
The proposed self-storage facility will serve the larger community; however, it does not support the Urban Corridor goal to transform the existing automobile-centric context into a mixed-use district and it does not follow the land development policy guidelines or include the site design features that are outline in the Comprehensive Plan. The proposed self-storage use is a more intense and auto centric use than what is envisioned by the Comprehensive Plan and it is not mixed-use in this design.
But the staff report landed on the site of recommending approval:
While this use at this scale is not an ideal complement to the nearby neighborhoods, this project will provide secure self-storage services on the east side of Bloomington, which is an area of town that currently has the least number of self-service storage options available.
Jackie Scanlan, who is development services manager for the city, indicated that there could be an upcoming initiative from some city councilmembers who want to revise the UDO requirements for self-storage units.
But she indicated that it would not be possible for the plan commission to delay consideration of the Morningside proposal, until those new regulations are in place.
That’s not just due to the sheer amount of time it would take for those zoning changes to be enacted. Scanlan noted that the petition for the Morningside self-storage units is “vested” which means that it has to be evaluated based on the regulations in place at the time.
The commission’s approval came with several conditions at the recommendation of planning staff. For example, the owner will have to get a grading permit before work starts, along with an approved lighting and photometric plan. Signage approval requires separate permits. A bus stop might have to be installed if the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation determines that one is necessary. Covered bicycle parking has to be added.
Other conditions involve stormwater management. Water flow calculations have to show stormwater discharge into a nearby karst feature remains stable before permits are issued.
Approval from city of Bloomington utilities (CBU) for a stormwater system connection requires permission from the northern property owner, proof of original development plans for private storm systems, condition checks of existing pipes, drainage calculations, and necessary easem*nts for maintenance access. If those requirements aren’t met, connection to public stormwater pipes is mandatory.
