This site was created by a coalition of VERY concerned Bloomingtonians opposed to the Hamilton Administration’s upzoning of the city’s single family neighborhoods to allow multiplex development.
The upzoning is undemocratic, hostile to single family home ownership and likely to adversely affect the social and economic fabric of the city by reducing the stock of affordable houses available for owner occupation and promoting the financialization of Bloomington’s housing.
Originally titled Stop Bloomington Upzoning, this website was rebranded The Dissident Democrat when the Bloomington City Council passed the upzoning amendments to the city’s Unified Development Ordinance. The new name reflects the next priorities of the site’s founders: To oppose to the current administration’s growth-at-any-cost agenda, and to reverse/prevent the worst of the damage from the upzoning of Bloomington (and similar development surges in Monroe County).
Editor
Contributors
- Peter Dorfman
- Jon Lawrence
- James Rosenbarger
- Jean Simonian
- Jan Sorby
- Chris Sturbaum
What People Say
Until staff and the city attorney figure out how to get past the covenants that limit multi-unit development in a lot of Bloomington subdivisions, the Mayor’s assertion that the proposal will add “‘plexes’ as a housing option in all districts that allow residential uses” is simply a lie.
Peter Dorfman
Diversification of housing stock “should not be done at the cost of losing naturally occurring affordable home ownership and existing affordable rentals in single family neighborhoods.”
2018 Bloomington Comprehensive Plan
In America, the average homeowner boasts a net worth that is a hundred times greater than that of a renter: $200,000 for homeowners compared with $2,000 for renters, according to the US Census Bureau. This is not because homeowners make a hundred times more money than renters…Rather, it is because owning a home represents the only way for most middle-class families to save money.
Aaron Glantz
The Dissident Democrat 