Affordable Housing – The Dissident Democrat

Wake Up. It’s On. Again.

Advocates for urban density have launched another push to turn Bloomington into Ann Arbor, in the vapid hope that shoe-horning more, smaller apartments into already-dense areas will improve housing affordability through the fairy dust of supply and demand.

Bloomington Dissident Democrats 2024 Endorsements: Thomas, Githens, Deckard, Munson

For County Council and Commissioner seats, Bloomington Dissident Democrats urges primary voters to resist the challengers’ entreaties to replace the incumbents with new commissioners who will promote dense housing development.

The Easiest, Fairest Resolution for City Council District 5

For the District 5 City Council seat, we endorse Jenny Stevens.

We Endorse: Jenny Stevens (City Council District 5)

For the District 5 City Council seat, we endorse Jenny Stevens.

We Endorse: Ron Smith (City Council District 3)

For the District 3 City Council seat, we endorse Ron Smith for re-election.

2023 has arrived. This is your moment.

The 2023 election should be about reality. But more often in Bloomington, elections are about idealistic aspirations.

Identity Politics and the 2022 County Election

By Peter Dorfman In early April, as early voting was getting underway in the 2022 Monroe County primary election, the Monroe County Black Democratic Caucus and the 9th District Indiana Latino Democratic Caucus sponsored Democratic candidate forums at City Hall. I went, expecting a preview of the tactics we’re likely to see in 2023 employedContinue reading “Identity Politics and the 2022 County Election”

Wasn’t Housing Affordability Supposed to Be the Whole Point? Oh Well. On to 2023.

The city’s upzoning process has come to its predictable ugly end. It got intense toward the end. And personal. Planners, pro-density Council members and upzoning fans in the public (as always, a minority among the people who turned out for the meetings) flexed their muscles. They made it clear that conditional use, annual caps andContinue reading “Wasn’t Housing Affordability Supposed to Be the Whole Point? Oh Well. On to 2023.”

Where Are We Now?

By Peter Dorfman There’s no point in trying to sugar-coat what’s been going on in the City Council. Opponents of the city’s upzoning plan turned out in large numbers to support Amendment 1, to remove the plexes from the amendment to the UDO. By Council Member Dave Rollo’s count, upzoning opponents who spoke during theContinue reading “Where Are We Now?”

Does a Housing Shortage Justify Upzoning? Surprise: We Don’t Have One

By Peter Dorfman Bloomington’s administration has tried just about every conceivable rationalization for upzoning the city’s dense core. “Walkability to downtown” didn’t overcome constituents’ objections to the plan in 2019. Nor did Bloomingtonians buy into the pretext that an influx of market rate apartment development would generate new affordable housing. The city’s own planners regularly admitContinue reading “Does a Housing Shortage Justify Upzoning? Surprise: We Don’t Have One”