Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Um this conference um we do have introduction of one board new board member and so Ray would you like to go ahead and introduce him? Sure. uh the county board uh appointed our new uh member um Miss Barrow. Yes. And uh and uh yeah, she actually we provide orientation with with her and while although we did not have a meeting in July uh but I think she's well versed of what's going on and all the agenda materials and everything. So we probably have the commissions welcome you and really looking forward to working with you. Do we want to go around the table just to introduce ourselves and real quick?

Yeah. And I'm Katie Rer. I've been a commissioner since August of 2023. Jim Fuent and I've been a commissioner for maybe three years, give or take. I'm Harrison at this point. Mark, why did I back on several years ago? Just kept coming back on I think in January. I four four five years something like that. Gone girl. I think I've been on for about eight years now. Past chair such and Amy we're introducing ourselves to Ann who's serving commissioner.

Hi nice to see you Ann. I'm Amy Roger and I'm the unit five representative. Uh and I think this is going on my second year. It's so pretty. I don't know. Ann, you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. I'm happy to. My name is Ann Barrow. I uh work at Illinois State University in the department of agriculture teaching landscape architecture design uh and horiculture. Uh my background is in green infrastructure, sustainability, storm water management. I have a keen interest in all of those things and I'm really happy to join the board and I hope I can contribute positively to what we're all we're doing. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Um, next on our agenda is public comment and we do have some individuals who would like to make comments uh to the commission uh before we begin our business. Uh, I'd like to remind the commissioners the policy that we have established that is in concert with uh the the county's uh policy on public comment. And just to refresh your memories that a public comment period not to exceed 15 minutes will be held at the beginning of each regularly scheduled meeting of the county regional planning commission and individual committees of the commission. Anyone desiring to address the commission must complete and submit a public comment uh card available at the commission's website or at the offices of the commission located at 115 East Washington Street M103 Bloomington up to 15 minutes prior to the start of the meeting. Uh the person shall include his or her name, contact information, and comment subject matter. Uh there shall be a maximum of five speakers in any public comment period. In the event more than five uh public comment cards are submitted. The chair uh shall randomly select the the uh five speakers. Comments are limited to three minutes for each speaker. A speaker cannot give his or her uh allocated time to another speaker to increase that person's allocated time. Speaker will be acknowledged. Speakers will be acknowledged by the chair and shall address the commission members. Speakers will begin their statements by first stating their name and address for the record. Statements must be related to the commission business or that of individual committees uh being addressed. Statements are to be directed to the commission and not individual members. Public comment is not intended to require a commission to provide any response uh to the comments. Um uh and discussion between the speaker and the members of the audience will be

not allowed. All speakers are required to speak in a civil tone and refrain from using vulgar ob um obscene or otherwise inappropriate language when addressing the commission. Failure to do so may result in disqualification from addressing the commission and expulsion of of the speaker from the meeting. Al uh after the speaker has made their comments um they shall be seated with no further debate, dialogue or comment uh from the commission. Okay.

Any questions before we move on. All right. Our first speaker that we have Oh, yeah. And also real quickly, Jen is going to be our official timekeeper for three minutes. um for the three minutes and also for the speakers um Jen will also let you know when you have 30 seconds left in your three minute time frame. So first on the uh uh agenda is Annette Noid. It's now I guess she hasn't made it yet so we'll have to skip Annette. Pardon? She doesn't look like she's made it yet.

Okay. Okay. Then the next one is Ruth Burke. Okay, Ruth. Ruth, if you could state your name and your address and then Jen will start the clock. My name is Ruth Burke. I live on Cheney Grove Road in Oldtown Township. I'm a professor at ISU and artist who does sustainable systems. I'm deeply troubled not only by what's in the strategic land use plan, but also by how it's been developed. I've shared the plan with my neighbors and they are just as concerned as I am. both about its impact on rural areas and the lack of transparency in the process. The maps and the language in this draft raise serious questions about how farmland will be protected and whether the rural character of our county will be preserved. None of these questions can be answered when rural communities constituents haven't been part of the discussion from the start. From day one, this process has been top down. We were invited to help shape the plan. We were handed a draft already near complete and told to comment after the fact. That's not transparency and it's not meaningful engagement. I'm also concerned about the influence either overt or covert of the economic development council on these plans. When the chair of this commission is employed by that organization, it raises questions about whether economic development priorities often aligned with urban interests are outweighing the needs and perspectives of rural communities. At this point, since the commission staff are already on the record stating they targeted July 2026 for the completion of the comprehensive plan for the county, there must be a purposeful effort to build the larger group of people who will shape that plan. The plan from 2009 was very thoughtful through the entire thing and engaged many people. Where's the current effort to build on that? Or as we keep hearing, is all of this only in response to the development pressures on the city and that city and town? If that's the case, leave the rest out. Leave the rest of us out of it and call it a plan for

Bloomington normal. It's certainly not a plan. Thank you. Okay, next up is Trisha Beard. Trisha, please state your name and your address for the record. My name is Trisha Brad and I'm with Hab. Sorry. That's good.

Thank you. I'm here to speak about representation for the entire county, not just its urban centers, and about the need for honesty, transparency, and adherence to the commission's own bylaws. Article 2, section two of this commission's bylaws states that the commission will quote consult with all jurisdictions in Mlan County in the course of preparing plans and programs end quote. That has not happened. Repeatedly, staff have stated that they are engaging with county, town of Normal, and City of Bloomington staff, but no other jurisdictions have been meaningfully solicited for their involvement in the strategic land use plan. This is a direct failure to follow your own rules. The commission's own June press release and the report presented at the June board meeting both said the plan was to be completed in July. Neither mentioned outreach to other jurisdictions. Yet now, in a July 16th, 2025 email from the commission chair sent after public objections from rural communities had already been raised. The plan is described as quote meant to be a starting point for discussions around the county unquote with the insurance that quote feedback is being sought from all municipalities in the county and at all levels. As the planning process proceeds, more input will be sought end quote. This is a reactive shift in narrative from what was publicly stated in June and it undermines trust in the process. The draft strategic land use plan is not the only major planning document in play. The comprehensive plan, as discussed at this body's June meeting, is scheduled for completion July 2026, a process that should require broad early engagement with every jurisdiction in MLAN County. Yet, at last week's meeting of the MLAN County Mayor's Association, attended by staff from this commission, the county, the city, and the town, not one word was mentioned about the timeline for the comprehensive plan. That was a perfect opportunity to start the conversation with local officials, and it was simply ignored. I'm also concerned about the composition of the board of commissioners itself. The chair is employed by the economic development council, an organization whose interest and priorities may not always align with a balanced countywide planning. This dual role presents at least the appearance of a conflict of interest, and it raises legitimate concerns about whether the commission's decisions are being made in the best interest of all

MLAN County residents. If the commission is serious about representing all of MLAN County, then it must one publicly acknowledge the discrepancy between the June record and the current narrative. Two, comply fully with article 2 section 2 by engaging every jurisdiction in the county. Three, begin immediate transparent outreach on both the strategic land use plan and the comprehensive plan, including rural communities. Four, address potential conflicts of interest and leadership and diversify the composition of commissioners to better reflect the county's full range of communities and perspectives. I've yet to discover to whom this commission is responsible. However, it is easy to see whom this commission is responsive to. It's responsive to the city, the town, and developers, and that is simply unacceptable.

Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda is the consent agenda. Um, and there are three items. minutes of the June 4th meeting, the financial reports and the staff reports. Are there any questions or items that any of commissioners would like to see removed from the comm uh from the consent agenda? If not, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Bart. Second. Second. Second, John. All those in favor signify by saying I.

All those opposed, same sign. Okay, now on to our regular agenda. U and actually our items for information or discussion starting with the uh item A which is a presentation um by uh Nora Harrison from uh who is the senior community development manager for the EDC. All right.

So, I'm going to start um just by connecting the dots as to why the EDC is working on childcare. Um for a lot of people that's not a natural connection to explain. Um, one of the things that the economic development council looks at is community development and then under community development is workforce development. We look at workforce development from a different lens than other people do. In the workforce development ecosystem, there are players who um contribute to the talent pipeline by education and skills. We look at what that talent pipeline needs to get to work on a daily basis to meet those employee needs. So the infrastructure for that talent pipeline is where the APC comes in. We look at things like housing, transportation, um broadband and rural communities and child care even as infrastructure to support force development. While we're working on attracting businesses, those businesses let us know that, hey, if you don't have housing for new employees and if you don't have child care for new employees, we're not going to be able to locate in your area. And so, as we go out to conferences and talk to site collectors, we hear things that are important to them. We've also had um different businesses in the community share with us that they are having challenges either as a provider they're having challenges or they're having challenges because their employees are needing to stay home or modify their schedules or um they want to work from home because of childare and so that's how this came to be why we started working on this issue. So we have three surveys that we are sharing with the community right now. They have three different purposes. One of them is for childcare providers and it is to assess what struggles they are having and we started this process back

in April and at our workforce development summit we presented the results of that survey. It is still open. It is still ongoing. Um so at this point additional childcare providers can still contribute to the survey and share their challenges. We're going to wrap up all three surveys September 30th. We also have the community needs survey which is for members of the community who are um parents, guardians of children. These um it is actually birth to age 12 and it's anyone who is a parent currently or planning to become a parent in the next 35 years. so that we can figure out what the child care demand is going to be, what it currently is, and what it's going to be as we're making plans. And then the last one is business impact survey. So we want business owners to share with us any challenges that they are having in connection to childcare. is the staffing that's operational. Even if it's something as small as, you know, one person stayed home, um, one person didn't return to work after maternity leave because the cost for child care greater than the reward.

So far, we've had 18 providers, five businesses, and 141 community members. We do anticipate having a larger response time when people return to school, return to work. Um that's typically a time of year where people are more actively looking for childare which is also why we're keeping it open till September. Um so once we go through the surveys we also plan to pair that with what options other communities are um exploring and how they're addressing those problems because childcare is an issue across the country. It's not just locally. And so these are just a few examples of incentives that we found and things that we're considering. It's not uh these aren't decisions that we're making. This is just information that we're presenting as we communicate with our state and local municipalities on options that are available in New Mexico. Um using revenue from oil and gas, they also built a New Mexico early child education care fund. And so using revenue from those two programs, they were able to make childcare free for families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty line. Michigan has a tri share model and they are able to split the cost of child care between the employee, the employer, and the state. Um Florida, Alabama, and Illinois all have tax credit programs, but they work a little differently. Um Illinois does have an option, but from my understanding, it's not used frequently. Most of these are to incentivize this creation of a childare program. So if their business started a childare program for their employees, their tax credits they'd be able to take advantage of in Alabama. Um their program they could take advantage of the tax credits just for paying for the child care costs. They didn't have to start their own program. Alabama also has the nonprofit option so that if the business was a nonprofit business and they didn't have to worry about taxes, they could

apply for a grant to receive benefits in that way. Florida also has a nonprofit that pays out $5,000 stipens to educators for higher education achievements and that's part of um encouraging continued education and improving quality here over time. And then there's a couple of county level incentives in Soma County, California and Travis County, Texas where they've assigned a portion of tax revenue to go directly to childcare funding. So, those are just a few options that we've looked at and um looking at how they work, where the funds are coming from, and what it's adding to child care and stuff like that. So, as we pair the results of the survey, we can pair it with suggestions and then hopefully have outcomes. Um the end goal of course is to have um enough answers to fund a a substantial um study. So not just a local community survey but we wanted to do an actual study but before we do an actual study we need to show that there's a need. And so this our surveys are to identify the need the needs and then um change starts with the legitimate study from a third party external person so that there's no um perception of influence and then we would take that and pair it with incentives and move on to hopefully decision makers and people who can then make change. So how you can help um as businesses you can take the business impact survey, you can definitely take the community survey, you can share that community survey and you can always forward the childcare provider survey to any child providers that you know and then if there's any questions

questions for them or have you tracked where the responses come from? Do they come from certain locations or anything? Intentionally no. Um, we wanted to be anonymous and that people feel free to share what they want to share. Um, so when it came to the providers, we know that we have forprofit, nonprofit, we know we have centers as well as homemates represented. Um, outside of that, we did promise and so that people can speak freely.

Any other questions? Thank you so much, Dory. Appreciate it. We're now on to uh item B, which is the housing coordinator position update from the uh RISE grant, right?

Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Um we've been staffing in communications with DCEO, the state's uh agency, Department of Commerce Economic Opportunity. Uh regarding the grants in terms of the uh the budget allocation, there's some questions. We're trying to waiting for some answers from them, some clarifications and it seems uh we gave uh an update to the commission uh in talking with with uh uh the county and HR we've all decided the best approach to uh solicit uh this housing co coordinator is through an RFP process as opposed to the regular hiring of like a full-time employee uh uh while this position position is like a two-year position uh or or as a temporary um uh employee uh or term employee and so we are working in um on on the RFP so we hoping to get that issues soon and then just come will be like a kind of vendor type you you all know RFP we have done that in the past for different reasons and so I kind of look at from vendor consultant quote unquote perspective So, we'll keep you updated.

Questions for Ray? Will that take longer? Uh, actually, we look for actually simple steps, but it's still going to take some steps. Okay. Yeah, we we actually we that's one of the consideration. It's simple, you know, um then we get that person uh Yeah. lessens. Yeah. Yeah. Could have been worse, too. Yes, sir. Okay. On to item C, which is the regional housing initiative and Luke, I believe the update is correct. Yes. Hi, good afternoon everyone.

Um, I have the regional housing initiative updates um for the month of August. Um so MCRPC facilitated the June affordable and supportive housing for the ASH committee meeting last June and then we also facilitated the uh housing staff committee meeting two two weeks ago. Then we've also published a new white paper called affordable housing needs index. It's available on our website now. So this research identifies which census tracks within the county face the greatest need for affordable housing uh based on multiple demographic factors and the findings of the research show that census tracks within the Bloomington Normal urban area particularly a number of census tracks along the main street corridor in Bloomington have the highest need for affordable housing. Um MCRPC also submitted the CDBG first quarter report to the town and we will be meeting with the city city regarding the CDBG um program year 25 subreient orientation next week. Um for other updates we've attended um two housing coalition meetings hosted by the center for human services. One in June and then one last month. We also attended the groundbreaking of the bridge last month and we held a meeting with the Salvation Army about the ash committee and learning more about their services. Do we have any questions updates?

Luke Wag or Ray I'm not sure which one to address. What what more role can or what more role can county government or or city and town government have in actually on the ground helping push this affordable housing thing. I mean, we're we're seeing a lot of houses being built, but I wouldn't call them what you call affordable houses. So, how how how do we we as you know, participants in in government, local government, how do we put that on the ground and how do we actually help do that? I guess I know that's a big question. I Yeah, it's a big question. It's not uh but that's a question that's been posed even you know byselves and and many others uh as you all know housing is such a complicated issue I mean it's a committeewide it's multi-prong multiacet uh from the private sector uh to in from like developers standpoint right I mean the and we have EDC where people in the realtor kind of uh RAM there's so many factors afford affecting the housing market where is affordable today's uh something two years ago was somewhat affordable no longer uh so it just I don't have an easy answer but I think we all tried there's like housing coalition uh in in the area that's been in existence since co time uh gent Recently there has been a a creation of what is called the uh unhoused task force. you're looking at because homelessness you say another issue aspect of the housing um we know that in terms of the private sector on the private sector

side uh interest rate right uh supply chain um materials construction materials labor supplies all this affect you know the the the private sector uh um and let alone there's so many other markets I mean you just know you all know that you travel you read the news there's so many other markets they dying for the same developers we competing for so why do they have to come here so but we I think on the positive side we have a lumber of organizations we love people goodarted people to try to work together uh so it's it's not just the governments there are lots of nonprofits and and even some people on the on the public sector side so in terms of the local governments uh the housing going to the position is just one part of it. I mean eventually we'll have a what we call implementation committee. Um but it's it's not an easy answer because everybody really like monthly meetings I mean let alone some other know we know other groups they really trying to solve the same issue. Um we just hope that uh uh maybe move a little bit you know because we know you know the city and town you know they have approved many residential developments you know in the last year or two many units so sometimes not the approval uh but it's okay when it's approved then the developer has to get the loans and what's the interest rate you know you know can they build a house to the the price level that's still making money for them, but they also I think have to be affordable to to the public. So, it's not easy, but I think a lot of people try it.

It's a big it's a big question. I understand.

What role can the comprehensive plan and the strategic land use plan have in that thing? the the housing uh the recovery re the regional housing recovery plan that was adopted last year. Uh that will be envisioned to be incorporated as part of the comprehensive plan because that uh 2024 plan was just launched too long ago and there was a lot of efforts. It was a joint effort you know different sectors uh different individuals and organization rather from the community uh in in working with the consultants to to uh to come up with that plan that you all adopted. I think it's the immediate uh steps I think to help to implement some of the action items that definitely will be helpful. But the continuous working together um with all different uh groups in the community they're ongoing. I mean you heard about the bridge project. I mean that's not it didn't happen overnight as you you all might know reading the news and what not at least that's a solution but there's only so many units I mean uh that that will go into into that project and that's only trying to solve a a part of the homelessness the unhoused population let alone the affordability type issue let alone uh for the private sector the employers try to entice I I as you saying you know they try to entice you know uh uh faculty members you know from outside this area they try to retain PhD students who graduate and stay that's another issue let alone just students who want to live off campus uh but they cannot afford the the rent the rent and so yeah it's complicated but I think the good news is I've seen I've worked with so

many people like lot of you so many uh working together EDC I mean that's one of the parties the strategic parties housing uh for the strategic plan so yeah so it's it's moving uh it will be faster but but uh I think a lot of people yeah uh you all heard the presentation not long ago uh on on the center for uh human services on the continuum of care. Uh and just given that is a a compet complicated operation. Uh uh so yeah it's I think good I think the positive news at least for me the positive news is we've seen so many good people good-hearted people in the community really try hard you're trying to tackle it from all different angles. Yeah, I mean all of the municipal both municipalities have approved uh housing projects but the developers after they get the housing projects get approved they have to go out and get capital they have to get investment and that's one of the stumbling blocks uh and such um because it's still a tight money market at this point and such. And we're actually in a perfect storm because a lot of communities always have issues with affordable housing, but we've got both housing uh affordable housing and we've got market rate housing. Um because the average home price in Klay County right now is close to 400,000

and that's just beyond what most people can afford at this part. So, um, I do know that the governor is stepping up to help try to coordinate something on a statewide level to see what kind of incentives would be brought or could potentially be brought in um to help uh energize this a little bit. And there have been some, not necessarily in Mlan County, but in like Morton and East Poria, some building that's been going on, per se. Um, but it's it's happening at at a glacier pace. We could we could use uh you know a thousand or more units tomorrow and they probably would get filled,

you know, pretty easy enough. So, thank you. Any other questions? All right. Um, Jen, the human services transportation plan. Yes.

Good afternoon, everyone. Um, as you know, we've had a lot of activity with regard to our role as the coordinating agency for region six, which is five counties in central. And so this has to do with rural public transportation, but also other types transportation availability in rural parts of our communities and across again this 5count area. Um our last quarterly meeting and we are now holding quarterly meetings of our regional committees uh was on June 16th and happily it included several county board members from several of the counties who are participating in this region and that is a very good sign because it's our policy committee of region six can operate and make decisions. And so basically at this point um we have pretty much every county covered by at least one person one county board member in some cases too. We still only get one vote and designate on behalf of a couple of others. So that is a much better situation than we had before coming into this year. Um discussions at the uh June 16th meeting involved procedural issues, the bylaws and a few other issues that um continue to be discussed. Um next meeting is on September 15th of the region six joint policy and technical committees and in anticipation of that meeting we are trying to put together a sort of informal information exchange meeting of the members of the committees um sometime this month hopefully and that will be for discussion of you know organizational issues that we may still have um items for the agenda that I haven't heard about yet but other people may have and we will hope to be able to do that. Um and of course the state is currently planning a meeting in the third week of August uh of the new

service providers in the region. So we've gone from one service provider for all the counties to now for three and of course uh connect transit has taken over uh rural service in Clayton County. So that's a big shift as well. Um, one of the issues for getting everything together and having them meet and having the organizational stuff covered in September is that we are expecting another round of the state's consolidated vehicle procurement program in which I do essentially takes applications for and grants transit vehicles to organizations that are running world transit. that includes the public providers, but it also includes agencies throughout the region that run transportation programs in sometime in some cases for the general public and others for clients of their own services and so on. So that is the big opportunity to get vehicle without having to spend $100,000 of an agency's money. Uh so we hope that we will uh be able to get some applications generated this fall. It originally planned to do this this summer, but it became impossible to do and so we are moving forward. We hope sometime this fall and that really is with one more thing. Um policy membership, policy committee membership for MLAN County will be handled by David Brown of Connect Transit. Connect Transit is now the grant recipient for rural public transportation in Mlan County. Used to be Mlan County itself, but that's no longer the case. So it sort of makes sense for David who is running this operation to be the person uh representing MLAN county on the uh the policy committee for the region. So that's round one. I'm having a double header today.

Questions for general? So you mentioned the change with respect to policy. Um do you have anything else to say about the transition to the service provider and do you have any data on like the writership?

It's only been a little over a month. So they they all started July one and show us continues to provide service in Livingston of course can counties they have a separate agreement with K county um so that is an ongoing effort you know that has been the case for some time so I didn't expect much with transition there um there are other counties that show us also service so that's a separate issue um as far as the new providers I haven't met anybody yet I'm sort of hoping to be able to go to state meeting with them so I can get with everyone and find out they're both established um providers in other counties so they're coming into our region for the first time. Uh Ford County is going with Chris I believe and um there may be a transition inquake county later this year that's not entirely clear yet. So it is an evolving situation. Um we are getting positive reports from connect transit about their you know nent experience county. uh it there's a ways to go yet. There are people out there that you know would ordinarily have been jumping on to this and it's going to take a little time for everyone to adapt and I imagine that's true in the counties that have the other counties with new providers. So we'll sort that out and I think having um a more robust policy committee for much of the last five years in basically it's sort of a pandemic effect the policy committees were staffed by um the design in in the case of reclaim was Luke Hulan from the county highway department um so that was not ideal because we didn't have that direct line back to the county boards and they were perplexed as to what was going on with this. I think that's been cleared up a good deal and we'll continue to do outreach to directly to the members of that policy committee who are serving on county boards and also to the county board

chairs so that we're certain that they're getting you know a report not only from their own people but a sense of how things are going regionally and how we're working out that the sort of new relationships between those providers. So for those in the county that need those services is the interaction like the same? Do they they basically reach out to the same number or how how do Not quite. No. Um so connect has set up a new service that they're calling connect go. Gotcha. It

has a separate phone number. It's on the website. They did do some outreach right ahead of the transition to try and and contact people and actually showed us promoted that as well. Start informing their previous writers that this was going on. And it's it's a slightly different system. And so I think people are kind of adapting to that. There is a time limit ahead of which you can't reserve. It's a demand response setup. So you have to call in and essentially make your demand and have them respond. And so it's we're looking to see how that's working. And then we'll also see if um there are changes that you know the writership and our public officials and so on want to impose and and bring to bear and that's just time. We kind of have to wait and see how it's how it's emerging. Um the the early numbers from uh July are not overwhelming. Uh by the end of the month they were getting 40 writers per week. Um those of you who are familiar with Faith and Action and the transportation program that they run in Mlan County um their usual census monthtomonth is several hundred

and that's constrained by the fact that they use volunteer drivers. So how many rides they can provide and and how far is dependent on the volunteers they have. So you know we have a lot of resources available for people but um I think as they come to understand connect transit's approach to this and are willing to sign up then and you know go with the reservation in system and so on that they will find that uh they can get to where they need to go. Do we know what shows average monthly wrership was? Unfortunately, we don't because the state some years ago said, "Don't break it out. Just give us your numbers in the aggregate." So, up until recently, SHB bus had a service area of nine counties.

Yeah. And so, it was it's it was unfortunate that we're we got that as a mass rather than going out county by county. And of course, some people were going between counties. Yeah. And there's some discussion now on how we maintain that capacity. Matt is talking about that. I think some of the others are too. Well, we certainly heard about it when the show bus thing happened. You and I talked about this. But I've not heard much from uh you know folks since this is this changeover's happened. So it's either silence because they just don't even know what to complain about or or it's going okay.

From what I understand that actually the numbers has increased. you're from uh before July one, right? Uh actually the writership in the in the in the area has has increased and then the uh so is is like saying is still early you know in in the change. So it's hard to say but uh so far there's some some uh traits need to be made you know to system but I think so far pretty positive from what uh I've heard or read and and so is improving in terms of the ridership of what it was before.

Good. Thank you. One note from the transition is that a lot of the vehicles that show us had had been using over the years um and some that had been acquired relatively recently were distributed around the various counties now that you know the grouping is different um not everybody wanted them because some of them although they were still usable through show bus and they were still on the road they were like okay this thing is 10 years old and so with a new round of consolidated vehicle procurement process coming out the home and I think this goes for connect transit as well because they're essentially using similar vehicles to what they use in their flex service. Uh and of course all of these must be accessible.

So they have assisted devices and so on for that u I think it's just a question of waiting to see how much funding is available through the CDP. We don't know what they have lying and waiting for us. So we're waiting for the announcement keeping our fingers crossed. Thank you. Sure. Any other question for John? Thank you. Ray, the go safe Mlan County action plan update. Actually, I'm sorry. I I did follow her last time when she was

so double header for me today. Um, so this is our go state plan update under the SS4A federal grant program. Um, we are doing this at lightning speed. So this this is a very compacted project that is coming towards its final dates. Um toward that end towards getting as much information as possible. Um we are hosting two public open houses. First one is tomorrow evening at the Bloomington Public Library. I'm going to try if I can get it out. Well, you may have seen these flyers running around. There are some at the end of the table. Um, so the first one, as I said, Bloomsson Public Library tomorrow evening from 5 to 7 and there will be a presentation by the consultants to explain what they've been doing. Um, and then they'll have displays essentially. I've seen them. They're really dense with information. Get ready to read if you join us for this because there's a lot there. They've done an amazing amount of work since basically March. And so people will be invited after the little presentation is over to go take a look at these asked questions. People from the consulting team and I and Ray will be there. I think Ray will be there. I'm not sure what your schedule.

Okay. Um Ray has an insane schedule this week. And so we'll be there to answer questions as well about where this goes when the plan is done and submitted and and we'll bring it back to you to uh to approve it, adopt it, and then um the real work begins as we start implementation. But before we get there, um we're going to have the second meeting, by the way, is next Wednesday, August 13th, and that will be at the county highway department office out on Barnes Road. We're hoping that we'll that'll be a little easier to reach for people in rural parts of the county, at least on the eastern side of the county, um to come and join us because this plan applies to all of MLAN County. And we didn't get very far with that uh the first time around back in the co days, but we there's an a deliberate portion of the plan that's outreach about the needs for CFD improve grants and rural areas and a set of of projects to sort of start and hone our skills with. Um while we've been you know going through this process the consultants have produced a lot of information for us to work with a management plan for the assessing the performance of the go process a public engagement plan which is partly for this current study in this adaption adaptation rather um but also for an ongoing process for communicating with the public across the county about where they see issues about traffic safety um project prioritization criteria. Again, there's a starting list of 10 projects in the much more congested, you know, core urban area, but also a list of 10 projects in rural Mlan County that seem to have priority at this point. Um, there's a policy assessment. So, we're establishing policies for how this process works and an update of an earlier assessment of underserved

communities and how we can better reach out to them, um, assess their their situation, determine what needs they have, and then find ways to get them addressed. Um, we have a draft version of the plan as composed by our consultants, which we just got yesterday, I think, and we're hoping to release it to the project steering committee, but also to the public soon, like tomorrow or Friday. Um, and we're sort of going back and forth on that. I'm about halfway through reading it. I don't know where you are, right? Because you're in meetings constantly. Uh, so we will be asking the project steering committee to look through it. It includes a lot of people who understand the technicalities of this plan. So, we're looking forward to hearing from them as well. Um, any revisions that are made either because of comments we make or comments coming from uh the PSSE or the public will be wrapped into the final version of the plan and it's due to us uh the final what we're calling the final draft plan uh is due to us on September 10th. So, we really are closing in um the end of this process and the start of putting this plan to work. Once again, any questions?

It's just a comment I read this morning about some plan with a similar intent that the town of Normal is doing on the whole just hoping that there would be something each

and and there will be the town has been very much involved in this process as well. uh Tessa Ferrar who's on with us this afternoon has been at our at our meetings and communicating the town's interests and we've had you know other people sort of weigh in uh you know there are a lot of hopefully too many hotspots certainly in moving to Normal but also in the county that are just way beyond acceptable levels of crashes not accidents crashes and um both serious injuries and fatalities And this plan is directed towards those two issues. Serious injuries and reducing fatalities too. Zero.

If I may just refer to your question earlier. So ISU and ID do ISU and the town of Normal uh they got a grant you know from ID do department of transportation. We need to address you know the the safety and traffic the on campus uh safety plan or areas right outside the campus because some of the fatalities in the last few years um and uh normal presentation uh you know that they made you know they're making good progress you know survey and whatnot. the public works and uh engineering director uh from the town of Normal also serves on the go save plan project steering committee you know our project but yeah so he's aware of well in fact you know whatever he think can apply and whatnot and there's some interchanges I mean interactions with the two studies you know so that you know they do know hey that's going on so yeah that we do and they know and we know them that they working on that yeah so definitely I think they try and expect a little bit more immort when students come back, you know, to school late August or something.

Hope surely move in next week. Just so you know, I live on Main Street, so I'll be watching for that. Go to Walmart this weekend. In Target, too. I was trapped in Target, but dorm, you know, furniture. Okay, any other questions? If not, I will um just on the timing of the release of the draft plan, is there a reason it's like being released before the open houses? Is it because those two things are independent of each other or

actually the opposite. We want people to have a chance to evaluate the information from the open houses. Um again, tell your friends, hand out flyers, or point to our website. Um but also because it just gives people a better perspective for questions they can ask probably more next week. Obviously, nobody's going to have a chance to read it by tomorrow night, but um I'm going to start to finish it by tomorrow night, but it the idea is the sooner the better because we have so little time left. And we want you see it, understand it. Uh it's it's sort of a mix between a description of how this process works, what the the intent behind this approach to transportation safety is, and how it functions from the federal government all the way down to us. But also it's you know as I said there are fairly explicit recommendations about places to look at first problems to solve first as you know we've talked about it um we are also currently involved in a study of Parkway quarter study there which is much broader in terms of the um the subjects it addresses and it's much more sort of technical in terms of dealing with the road and how it's configured but that actually grew out of Ray's observations when he first moved to Bloomington. But the number of people jaywalking across Veterans Parkway, sometimes with groceries, sometimes with children, uh kind of hair raising stuff and of course veterans is one of the hot spots for crashes and fatalities. So those two things will come together at some point as we look at improvements for veterans and ways in which to adapt it. Part of that is to address the safety issues. So this is kind of a soup to nuts across the board effort to improve frankly more than reduce the incidence of traffic crashes of whatever nature. A lot of the injuries come from you know a car versus pedestrian or bicyclist types of crashes because the you know sort of

physical imbalance between those two sides of the equation. And so this we don't do this randomly and the fact that these two things are going to interact and that as we take the go safe plan which we actually started what four years ago we went to the county fair we did all that stuff and this is kind of the reboot with more detail and a better implementation strategy than we could do in 2021. and it's countywide. So, we're looking at the edges of the urban area and where the the interfaces are there. We're looking at locations in the county that we know have safety problems. And of course, we're addressing the ISU campus with assistance from the town of Norville. So, it's all part of a package.

Any other questions? Speaking of the Veterans Parkway quarter plan, right?

Thank you. segway to it. Thank you. Uh yeah since uh the planning commission met uh in June uh there have been two meetings uh uh with the project steering committee on this project and one is really in the form of a workshop uh in June and the uh consultants will presenting some concept alternatives or cross-sections and also the network improvements uh trying to get input you know from the project steering committee and and that was uh uh that happened in June and then uh in July there In that meeting there was some design alternatives you're being revealed by with your presented by the consultant and also uh with input and feedback provided by the uh project committee. Uh so there are some in this okay intersection different ways design there's so many different alternatives and just get input and some preferences you by the committee. So that's still ongoing. Uh the next meeting is this coming Friday uh morning. Uh so we'll keep you applied. So it's it's ongoing. is still moving forward. You know, it's a lot of work. Uh but it is still progressing very good.

Is there any talk of in that it uh plan of just additional road development um or different pathways to get around that would alleviate some of the pressure on the on veterans?

At this point, I I don't recall they talk about new roadways. I think part of this is how to uh maybe redesign the even the existing roadway they look at like the IIA drive you know kind of the outer row and the clear water and you know that that part uh so yeah I don't think they have talked about uh adding new mo but they do uh look at how to make it better you know connection or because it's the whole 10 mile way I mean it's not long uh and um look at intersections your car how to make the traffic go better but but not in terms of the viewing

the reason why I mentioned that is supposedly when uh Evans Junior High was built. Uh it was agreed with the got the railroad to agree to extend Hershey Road down to the stoplight at at Evans Junior High. Okay. Um and somehow that didn't get documented appropriately and now the railroad declines that that was an agreement that was made. Um but that would be one um one avenue to explore to alleviate make transportation a little bit easier and alleviate some of the pressure on that south end. Just a thought.

Any other questions for Okay. Um now the strategic land use plan of Ray and Anthony I understand if you can update us a little bit.

Yeah well while Anthony is getting up to the podium and get to give a brief presentation update. Um as you may or may not be aware of activities happened in the last couple months since we last met as a planning commission and you've been updated. You got flyers from us and helping us to to get a word out and whatnot. So Anthony has and we've been to a number of meetings and then we have more meetings to to go which is good you know just to get more public input and whatnot and Anthony is going to give a brief presentation what has been uh uh happening and some of you have seen part of it uh so I apologize some repeat slides but Anthony please.

All right good afternoon everyone I have another press for you but it should be relatively quick. Um so as you may know we begin we began uh our extended outreach process for the strategic land use plan. Uh we had our first public openhouse meeting uh last night at Harp Community College. Uh we received some good feedback in that meeting. Roughly 15 to 20 people were there and we hope to receive similar if not more turnout at the future openhouse events. Just wanted to start off uh by going over the actual extended timelines. We have some printed uh copies that were distributed I believe before and and through email. Um but as you can see we're currently in outreach phase one of the timeline. Uh this first phase phase includes five public openhouse meetings uh as well as additional stakeholder meetings with groups including the McLean County Farm Bureau, ML County Mayor's Association, the NEC uh township supervisors and township board commissioners. We are also they were also out uh every day of the clean county fair promoting the strategic land use plan as well as the SS4A project. Uh all the comments received during this first round of outreach will be used as a guide to assist the creation of a revised draft strategic land use plan. Once the revised plan is completed, there will be a second round of public review and comment. Uh we expect this revised draft to be ready for public review by midepptember and the final version of the plan document complete by the end of October. Uh however, as you may have seen, sometimes those timelines get a little push back. We don't have a crystal ball. We can't always predict exactly what's going to happen during these planning phases. Um so at that point at the end of October, local governments that wish to adopt the plan will determine their own review and adoption process. McLean County Regional Planning Commission does not have any zoning authority or annexation authority. Um, everything that is in this plan is meant to be advisory for those local government

entities um that will actually have that power down the line. Um, okay. Uh, so this next slide here we have some pictures from some of our outreach events. So this was at the Clint County Fair. We had some um bike safety stuff, but also all of the strategic plan information. Uh and then this was from Harland Community College last night where we had our first public open house. I think it went pretty well. Okay. Uh so now I'd like to get some back some general background on what land use plans are and how they're used. A land use plan is a guiding vision for how a community wants to use land in the years ahead. shows what types of activities or developments like homes, businesses, parks, or schools the community hopes to see in different generalized areas in the future. Land's plans are intended to serve as a guide to assist development. Uh, sorry, is a guide to assist planners, members of the public, and elected officials in making educated decisions regarding future development. Content within the land use plan is intended to be advisory and used in conjunction with existing and future applicable plans and information available to local governments. Land use plans help guide growth to ensure communities develop in an organized and thoughtful way. V use plans do not change or regulate zoning. The two topics are similar. However, they are very different planning tools. Zoning establishes the legal authority of a jurisdiction to regulate the types of developments or activities permitted on specific properties. In contrast, land use plans are long-term visions outlining how a community could potentially develop in the future. Uh just as an example uh of how land use plans are used, my experience as a municipal planner for Peoria County, I used their future land use map uh quite often as one of the many tools to help aid in writing staff reports for the zoning board of appeals. the main content of those staff reports revolved

around existing conditions of the parcel and surrounding areas uh as well as the compatibility of that request in that area. Additionally, future land use designations are considered in the appropriateness of a proposed zoning change or development, but they are not the only factor that makes those decisions. Um, members of the ZBA in that example are provided with all of the pertinent information regarding a property, including existing conditions surrounding property use, as well as future land use. Uh, land use plans are one of those many different variables that are considered when making those decisions. All right. Now that we have a general idea of what land use plan, what a land use plan is and how they work. I'd like to get some context as to why this plan uh for McLean County was warranted. While starting the development of the larger county regional comprehensive plan was determined by staff from local governments that an updated land plan was needed to address the changing landscape of the county. Um and in in this regard starting the development of the comprehensive plan means very early stage preliminary planning uh data collection. Once we get to the stage where we're ready to start involving the public then we will reach out to the public. Um but at this stage we are not there yet. Okay. Okay. So during that development process it was determined that we needed an updated plan updated information. most recent uh maps available for land use all predate major changes in our community such as the growth of Vivian and Ferrero, the housing shortage and the impact of CO 19. As you can see there, these are all the most recent comprehensive plans that are currently in effect for the municipalities. So, McQueen County since 2009, Bloomington is 15 2015 and town normal 2017. All of those plans contain land use maps, plans, topics in those plans. Um, as you can see, they're they're a little bit

dated. So this plan is meant to assist these plans in in providing with those plans with updated information. Okay. Land plans are commonly included in the laring planning larger planning efforts of comprehensive plans and include specific goals and action items to help guide the implementation of the plan. However, as this plan's main objective is to provide updated land use information for multiple local governments that all have existing comprehensive plans, the actionable items and region specific details from those existing plans will be used in conjunction with this one. As it stands, this plan will provide updated information while also allowing local municipalities to follow goals and objectives set in their existing plans. The strategic land use plan will be included as a planning element of the regional comprehensive plan with further refinement, public input, and specific goals. In the meantime, the strategic land use plan can be used by the county in conjunction with existing plans in order to utilize updated spatial information. Uh, and at this point, I'd also like to point out that MCRPC has been the lead agency on this project. Uh however uh staff in the city of Bington town of Noral and McLean County government have been involved in every aspect of the plan from future land use decisions to the public outreach process.

Okay. I'd like to move on to the development process for some of the content within the plan. In the early stages of the planning process, staff have decided to use the existing and assessor land use data uh as the foundation for this existing land use map. There's a couple different maps. I'm try to keep them straight. This is for the existing land use, what's on the ground right now. Um, we began collecting the assessor data and reviewed the existing existing land use codes as determined by the assessor to determine how land use should be shown on the existing map. This data includes existing codes for every person in ML County. Using those assessor codes, staff created land use categories as shown in the map legend here. From there, each parcel was assigned to one of the existing land use categories using the original assessor codes. After refining the data we received, we were able to create the first iteration of the existing land use map. And from there, we sent the map out to the city, town, and county staff to make any necessary corrections. Excuse me. This resulted in the map you see here and the map in that plan document. After creating the existing land use map, the Clink regional planning commission sent the map to the city, town and county and asked them to provide their proposed future land use changes. Uh so after receiving the land use changes from the city, town and county MCRPC combined all of those uh space all that spatial information into one final map. Um, as a side note, further collaboration with rural municipalities um to ensure accurate land use within and around the municipal limits will be included in the revised plan. Uh just this afternoon we sent out an email to all the rural mayors after visiting the rural mayor association meeting um asking them for their their feedback, their input, asking them forward to any of their municipal staff members there that they believe should

be involved in the plan uh and offered inerson virtual meetings in order to make sure that the plan is as accurate as possible. So this is the first draft of the future land use map. Uh this map is based off of the existing land use map with the changes from the city, town and county included. All of the uh rural municipalities in this first draft have the same land uses from the existing to the future. So nothing changes for those municipalities in this draft. Like I said in the revised draft, there could be a change. Um so I would also like to reiterate that this plan does not change zoning or interfere with the rights of property owners. establishes a long-term vision for how the area could potentially develop in the future and will be used as supplemental information by these local governments while making decisions. Any zoning changes or special use requests will still be required to go through the correct zoning processes. This includes public hearing notice review by the zoning board of appeals and final approval by elected officials. Zoning and land use are similar, however, they are not the same thing. This plan alone will not change zoning districts or approved development. Any zoning change or major development must follow the regulations established by author uh authorities with jurisdiction. Okay. Uh this leads me to the next steps for this plan. So our initial public comment period began June 23rd with the posting of the draft plan document and the online public comment form. In that time we received a lot of public feedback regarding the plan content and process. The main comment that we heard was the desire was the desire for additional public engagement. So from there MCRPC staff as well as local uh staff and local governments decided to extend that initial public outreach outreach phase and overall the entire development timeline for the plan. So with that we'll be doing five public openhouse meetings as well as a handful

of stakeholder meetings uh to collect feedback and provide information and clarification on the plan. Uh after this first outreach phase, it will then be bringing the plan back in and doing a revised draft. And then it will be an additional second outreach, sorry, second public review and comment phase uh for roughly a month for members of the public to review the revised draft. Take all their comments in from this first phase, revise, put it out, make sure that it meets what they they are looking for. Okay. Uh we also have our flyers here. So, this flyer on the right outlines all of our public meeting dates, times, locations in August. And then this flyer here has the QR code and some information uh regarding the plan. If you scan this QR code, it'll take you to the website that has the plan document, the interactive web map, and the online public comment forum. We also have um all of the same information at all of the libraries in MLink County. So, we drove out there uh last couple weeks ago and dropped it off everywhere. So, there's comment forms, handwritten comment forms with our address and email address on there. So, if people want to go to their local library, we review the plan, mail in comments, they can do that as well. Um, other than that, uh, that is all I have. Uh, if you have any additional questions, be happy to answer them. If you have any questions after this meeting, please feel free to reach out. questions for

Yeah. I mean, I think I'd like to talk a little bit about Oh, we can take the online first if that's easier. Go ahead.

Okay. I thought I heard somebody on the speaker. So, I think I just have some questions based on uh the public comments presented today and the fact that I uh watched the broadcast. I was not in person at the land use and transportation committee on July 8th for the county board. So, I think I just want to have some understanding around like how was it determined or what process was followed um that determined that this draft was ready either for public comment or to be presented to the county board. And I don't know if that committee put it on their agenda just because it had been released to the public or if that was something we initiated um to get that on the agenda.

Yeah, if you could clear that up. Um so the initial public outreach phase of this plan was just that uh we we weren't presenting it in front of any board for approval. We weren't going to the county board of language and transportation committee to to get their vote on it. Um we were just doing outreach and so we weren't necessarily sure what type of engagement we were going to receive. And so in that first few weeks of that initial outreach phase, we got a lot more comments than we were expecting which is a good thing. Um and so then from there we decided to extend that development timeline because we have now all of this interaction um that I guess realistically we weren't anticipating. So at the land and transportation committee meeting is solelyformational. So nothing in this the original monthlong outreach process was meant to go to any official vote. half of the original timeline. After that outreach process, we'd have a little bit of time to do revisions and take those comments and produce a second draft. And then from that point, we would send that draft off to city, town, county, and whoever else would want to adopt it. And then they they determine their own adoption process for that.

Does that answer your question? I guess just from your perspective when it was presented or released to the public like at what stage in the in the planning and I'm not familiar with you know planning guidelines as you are but I mean from your perspective how final was this? Because I do want to quote one of the county board members um who said the presentation of the plan that was given to us was so far behind it was confusing to people versus today we heard that it might have been near final. So, I'm trying to like reconcile those comments because I I'm hearing different things and so just kind of wanting to get the expertise of like where was this and so I'm sorry if you've already answered that.

No, that's okay. Um, you're referencing a county board member from the language and transportation committee. Yes. So, this was something they posted on their social media. This was not said during the hearing. Okay. I give a little context to that. Are they talking about They were talking about the strategic the very first time that we we went and gave a presentation. So they posted this like the day after that that committee meeting.

Okay. Uh I'm not entirely sure. Um I don't know. This plan that or this presentation that I've been giving has been pretty clearcut across the board. It presented similar ones to county Farm Bureau. Um, when the initial outreach went out in June of June 23rd, 2025, we were anticipating a month of public comment to to see what people thought and then taking that public comment and incorporating it back into the plan to then send it out for a final draft. So, I think at the stage of public comment, we anticipated that the plan was not necessarily near completion, but good enough to show the public and get their input on um to then bring back in and finalize.

Well, thank you. I think that clears it up for me. And I just want to comment like I thought you did a really nice job answering the questions that were presented to you and I think it was disappointing to me that others who have had an active role and I'm not referring to Ray that were in the room did not speak up in terms of helping educate the others in attendance of like what the the purpose of the plan is where it was in the process. So that was disappointing to me. So again, I don't know how we can leverage our municipal partners better in the public outreach phase. And I did want to also comment and then I'll be quiet that I saw like the Downs uh Facebook page today had like posted asking for feedback. So I think that's that is a like a positive, you know, this is under some certainty. We're feeling that, but it is a positive outcome of this is like now there's additional eyes on this. We're we're getting help with some of the engagement.

Absolutely. And so I just want to comment I think you know you handled it yourself very well and and um and

thank you. Yeah, we we uh when we do a planning project as you saw today, you know, there are tons of project we we do. We when we do a project, we don't want to hide it and then and it's done put on the shelf. We don't I mean I mean really we want input from from from all over at the end of the the day when the project is done when the report is is completed we want to see implementation is going to benefit the community. I mean that's all really the the motive if anything we why why hiding right I mean we so we don't and like I mean uh Anthony did a bad job for me to to explain I mean we did press release you know there a month you know of time uh that uh initially we we put in you know for public comments it's not uncommon you know to for the initial phase for public comment it's not uncommon actually sometimes three weeks or whatever so we get four like four weeks and we now further extend it you to September 1st and just to show hey we responsive you to public comments and input um yeah because we want 170,000 people in the whole county to know about this project because we don't want all the the input all the the work that go in with just a little you know small group of people to know we we don't we want it out we want people to know about it so yeah definitely and uh yeah we did have I mean because you know with all population everything we cannot reach out to everybody even though we issue the press release we need to the media outlets though we do our best but if people don't read it I we cannot do more um but we rely on partners and help to get the word out and and I know you all got fires from us um and you know I know you all are trying to get the word out and we do I mean all different projects I mean today and you have so many puppet

puppet you know it's a puppy engagement of the involvement. So, it's it's bent on on planning process. All right.

Um I I want to echo the comments made. I was in the plane county farm bureau meeting that Ray and Anthony attended and they did a very nice job of uh answering questions and and gauging. Uh they didn't hide from anything. They did a nice job of answering. The one question that I getting from a lot of people and I don't know how to answer it is how did this begin? I mean, what I mean, was it just you guys were in a meeting and said, "Hey, everything we're working off of is antiquated. We need to do this." Did the county reach out to you? Did the city of Bloomington? Did the town of Normal? I guess how did this start? And I guess that's the the one one answer I don't I don't have. I just don't do that. I don't recall or or I don't I never do. I'll kind of in the middle.

Sure. That's fine. Uh I mean, we we talk about the comp plan process. We've been briefing, you know, the the planning commission. So, as a part of the regional content update process. We work together with the uh because the county we want to look at the county as a system as a whole is donor hole. Uh and so we you know work with our partners with the city and town uh uh and not just on comp plan you know transportation projects you know we we look at you know we we don't you know for planners we should not be looking like urban versus rural we really should not uh because there's different characteristics there's assets you difference and they interact we looking as one system and then people who live in in the you know quotequote urban area they could go to the to the rural area and vice versa. So from planning perspective we look at as a whole uh despite know people might look at differently but from from the planning standpoint we want to look at as one whole unit and then in terms of how you generate it it's um so we were looking at the comp plan process right as part of that that process more internal staff you know there many projects some on the staff level right and so it and then from looking at over the last couple years in the news. You all probably know you all the development proposals in the housing crisis and developers trying to build whether is the downtown uh uh redevelopment across the street to new subdivisions whether single family homes or duplexes. uh not that many multif family but there's still some there's some mix makes mixed use development going through the city process the county uh maybe the uh the zoning board process and also the town normal process so we recognize that

hey the land uses you know while we have as Anthony pointed out in the presentation the 2000 2009 plan the two 2015 plan and 2017 compassive plans uh it's not keeping up cuz yes uh right after you know 2008 for maybe 10 years it's quite quiet I mean somebody can attest to it because you the real we the estate market is quite quiet and we got even state farm you move some of the offices away so they have vacancies housing units uh economic uh recession not much going on we did not have uh reins you know uh So it's lot lot development uh as as you might recall. So now in the last few years all these major employers keep expanding is a good thing. uh uh but then also leads to okay we don't have the housing to keep up right uh we didn't anticipate on this growth and as we talked about earlier it is there's no magic formula to all a sudden to to add those homes in what so the development pressures the number of proposals trigger hey we should look at the language element the language use element within the compensive plan is just one of the planning elements We look at like housing, okay, education, you know, economic development and different renewable energy, infrastructure and cohost of things. So came to our attention that hey we really because the the need uh is pointed out a briefly uh in the presentation in response to the divine pressure on this proposals. We need to have the updated selenious elements uh uh in the compensation plan and while we working

on the comp plan the more broader and so just to see if how this more in line with what we have right now and what we do see in the immediate future and when it's when we talk about land use plan is it's different from sewing right we don't have the sewing power we all know that right MCP we don't we don't process as uh development proposals from the developers but the city and the town they do because they have the zoning authority they have the zoning power um you know given by the state agent and what not and the county for the uninorporate areas uh that's same same thing uh the county board has jurisdiction uh for the unincorporate areas and that's why Anthony said we're not touching we don't want proposing changes within the those uh smaller villages and towns because they have their own solar column they they control they regulate um and through the subdivision code the zooming code and what not. So and that's that's really the primary reason why hey we need uh because every planning process takes time uh for compensation plan it's not unusual and you can check around the whole country city towns uh sometimes even uh may not be as large area takes 18 24 months not unusual. So we we know hey the since the the the the development pressures applications when when uh staff you from city town county when they have to make reference uh is it in compliance with the comprehensive plans so they want to make sure it is but if we have a plan that's not uh in keeping what has happening in the last six seven years for example so that's why the need to hey let's you know try to address the layers Let's look at this uh uh land use element because this is more more more closer to home if you

will uh because that affect development that's affecting maybe your neighborhood or or somebody's else neighborhood or schools or whatever. And so and that's more urgency. Uh that's why the land use uh plan uh because it used to be called like a language element in the compass plan. Uh but then we call it out more strategic because we trying to uh uh tackle it from more strategic standpoint is it even though we you see all these like drawings and colors on on the future management plan it doesn't mean that it's going to happen in two years five years 10 years but we have to do planning and that's why you know you've been helping us uh in in planning uh and things can plans can be updated you see if we did not have uh median for example when they started I don't know six seven years ago or something we might not feel hey the pressure on housing we you know uh maybe the growth maybe more in incremental uh but then now we we know you know it is you know it's a you know employment of people you know not just this area or people commuting every day uh to from work here and it's not just too, right? So, so that's really the main impetus for for us as a group is not just MCPCA but working with our partners and say hey we we need to look at it so that when the zoning applications proposal demand proposals come through then that's a more little bit more realistic u data driven or considerations to be uh to be taken with the with the um with those proposals when they really because they they value comprehensive plan because they want to refer to something

or just oh on a case by case basis if that makes any sense. Yeah. At least at least. So when you say we, you're talking about we as in city, the town, the county kind of collectively were looking at this comprehensive plan and saying part of what we need to do this comprehensive plan is to do the strategic land use plan. Okay, that that's the part I guess I was struggling to come up with an answer for was because I mean with the comments today and I've heard the comments from others uh questioning the chairman's

um plan or or influence undue influence on this. I've known Mr. chairman for as many years as I've been on this commission and I um I don't I don't think that's a valid concern or even I have no rule whatsoever right and that's that's what I wanted to and and you didn't ask me to do this Mr. I'm saying this on my own. Um I think that that's a little unfair. Uh none of us are getting rich doing this. We're all volunteers. We're doing the best we can. None of us are experts on this. At least not maybe maybe some of you know more than I do. But from that standpoint, that's the answer I was looking for was who's the we because there's people out in the county asserting that the city's the one that's pushing this or the town's the one that's pushing this.

I don't know the background on that. But when you say we, it wasn't just Ray and Anthony sitting in a room together, right? Okay. Thank you. I have a question about who is it the actual author of the strategic plan? Who wrote it?

And were they are they regional planners or what does like and also maybe what what are the drivers? Yeah. So, I guess to kind of piggy back off of what Ry was saying, comprehensive plans almost always have a landing section. So, when we started the initial conversations of the county comprehensive plan, we're obviously going to include city, town, staff in that conversation because it's for the county as a whole. In those initial conversations, the development pressure conversation was had. And so, we knew we were going to be doing a land use element anyway. The city and the town said, "Well, we're going to do that anyway. Let's start with that. We'll do do that separately and then that's part of the comprehensive plan. So that this plan theoretically will plug in um chapter 8 of the county comprehensive plan with further updates, further outreach when we get to that point in the comprehensive planning stage. This plan is a plan that has been created by MCRPC in coordination and collaboration with the city, town, and county. So in every step of the way we've been working with staff members from the city and town and county uh specifically zoning departments that we've been meeting with as well as highway um but this plan has been every local government within that this plan has been actively working on putting this plan together. So the future land use classifications were all determined by city, town and county staff members and and their expertise and then we as MCRPC put all that information together. It comes out of our department but ultimately would be adopted by any of the local governments and in whatever way that they see fit. So you're getting the data from local government but also their directives or their drivers. This is what we want to see and then you're amalgamating that and putting it in

strategic plan. Yeah, we rely on our partners for for their parts of the the plan. So like you know not just data but like everything

direction. I think direction right? Well, we we of course it's a local collaboration collaborative effort and then to be honest MSPC staff don't know kind of normal you know comparatively speaking as their own staff and same thing for uh uh the city of Boomington and same thing for say you know uh Belfower or or Sabo I mean they know their area that's that community they know better than us. Uh and so in so they deal on day-to-day basis with maybe developers, development issues, solving cases, uh data from demographics data to other all sorts of data, right? I mean that's the day day-to-day job and so uh yes we rely on the expertise and our knowledge uh and then we'll just see how it all feed in together. Again, we're trying to look at it uh from a like a one unitit system uh system perspective.

I have another point to add to that as well is that this plan that we're producing or the regional planning commission is is what we do, but the city and the town can make their own land use plans whenever they want and adopt them whenever they want. And instead of MCRPC starting the comprehensive plan development process for the county and telling city and town, we do what we need to do and then they adopt a land use plan and then we look the other way even though they've already classified and put out their plan of what they intend to do in the areas that they have that jurisdiction. We and we believe that it's a better process for everybody to look at everything that's on the table and say this is what the city and the town are going to do. They have the authority to do that. it doesn't help the county at all by turning turning the cheek and acting like it's not going to happen. So, putting all of that into one document and making everybody aware of it, I think helps that overall planning process of not planning for a donut hole.

Yeah, it's important for us. You have to be cohesive, right? I mean, we can plan peace me or we can look at a more cohesive coordinated approach and and a collaborative approach. uh and so that's what we have done and and like many other project start on the staff level. So this is no different from any of the other projects uh that that we work on or other other local governments work on staff staff level and then we bring it up you know to the committee level and that's all exactly what's happening and we apologize you know I know different people have different perceptions and whatnot and again we we nothing to hide we we want people hey take it it's you be the champion it's your plan it's not the planner's plan you know at the end of the day uh so Yeah. So we we appreciate I mean all the public input and whatever. I mean there might be some misunderstanding or understanding you know it totally understood. I mean not many people we know don't understand what MCIC does although we've been in existence since 1968. Uh so understood. uh but I think it is is if we all work together and really for the common good is at the end for the quality of life is really all this planning efforts is is the goal it's the quality of life we in trying to enhance it we cannot do it by ourselves we as a small staff uh and just to look at this we we these are the major projects I don't want to even tell you the dayto day and all the different committees

other questions Jim and then B I know we've been going an hour and a half. No, that's as much time as we need observation. It's just elementary, but when you think about this, it reminds me of the east side corridor bypass five years ago. We probably spent five years talking about that. But when you think about it, you've got 20 county board members. You had nine city Bloomington council members, about six town of Normal, seven, eight. I can't even imagine how many rural community

elected officials we have and we all have different levels of engagement on understanding this is one topic of dozens that everybody has on their plate. So I looked at the words here it said uh regional comprehensive.

Can you imagine putting Bloomington Normal together and Lexington and Hayworth and everywhere else? And it's it's a difficult task for everybody to understand what's going on. Um and I think the other thing that's missing from the good old days, the good old days was uh we used to turn on the radio and read the newspaper and communication has changed now. So, we're going to websites, we're going to social media, and we got all this conversation going on, and we just have to stay stay together that we're all working toward a common goal here of trying to develop a plan that is adaptable, is flexible, and can change depending on employment and all that. So, um, we got to be careful we don't beat ourselves up. We tried our best to listen whatever role we're in. Um but um life is complicated and you just have to

go with the flow and do the best we can.

Y I'll be quick here. I apologize. One of the comments that I've gotten a lot was uh involvement of the local communities and that came up a lot in our Farm Bureau. Um is is there as we move forward in this obviously we can't change the roll out the way it went the way people perceived it but as we move forward does it make sense maybe at some point in time to just put a set time limit on every 10 years or every 5 years because you know we look up there at at Anony's uh presentation that says 09 2017 20ou you know 2015 that really all rand I mean relatively random dates for those of us that flow in and out of of these type of positions. Is there a is there like a and maybe that hampers us too much, but I'm just I'm looking forward as we go to the next time we do this. Is there some kind of set interval we could do that to kind of

people would expect to come in?

Yeah. Well, but it's I mean you hit on a good point. I mean, when you think about the fact the last regional plan that we did for the department of county did comprehensive plan was 09. um very few people, none of the county board members are part of county board now uh and such and a lot of people were part of that process per se. In essence, reg uh Ray and regional planning were following kind of the process that was used in ' 09 um which started off with a land use plan and such. Um so there's really not that it's really not that difficult. what's changed is a lot of the people around uh in the community haven't been part of it per se uh and such and so um you know and we're in a rather testy time in our country in terms of testing and trusting government and such. So, we've got a little bit of that. Uh, and we certainly, I think in many ways, um, uh, didn't quite estimate and take that into account like we should, per se. But you're right. Uh, I think the county is is going to have to, I think, think about doing things on a little more of a regular basis, uh, per se. And I think also too, um, we have to do a slightly better job since we're the lead agency on this, uh, to kind of communicate to everybody broadly what we're doing and where this is coming from, per se, because this is all part of the normal planning process. There's nothing unusual about it. Um, it's going to happen. It's under discussion. There have been been no final decisions, nor will there be. Uh the the plan will be tweaked, will be changed as other people weigh in on it, and ultimately it's going to go to the county board for final approval for the county, but also land use is not is going to be uh

confirmed by the town and the county and each municipality within uh Mlan County is going to have to as Anthony mentioned develop its own process on how it uh approves these things. So there's nothing that people are being told they've got to do at this point in time. So there was plenty of time to change whatever is in that whatever is being presented and such. Anthony,

to that point, um the standard updating process for comprehensive plan is typically 5 to 10 years. There's not as strict a deadline. It kind of brings back to the point that city, town, county, KFax, eros, they can all do their planning process whenever they want. can't necessarily put a strict regulation on there. We can have our process and what we determine that to be. Um but but things change, priorities change, development pressures change and so it's difficult to put an exact time limit on on when you're going to do this plan, you know. Um but and also to the the point of adoption, it's up to those municipal governments to determine if they even want to adopt this plan. So, you know, we hope that this plan is good enough for the rural municipalities to use in the future. to help them plan for what could potentially come. Um, but it's not a requirement by any means for any of these these local governments to adopt this plan. Amy, can you address something?

Yeah. Um, so, you know, kind of what I'm hearing and is that there's nothing nefarious going on here, right? Um, and you know, I think we've learned and like can tell you stories from the unit five perspective of, you know, how people like we didn't know there was a deficit. We didn't know these things. when we talk about them multiple times a year, right? But people don't pay attention to it until it becomes important to them or it's in their backyard. Um, so I think, you know, while yes, we can beat ourselves up about maybe we should have done this differently in terms of the the publication, um, you know, that's hindsight is 2020. You have a plan moving forward. You got extensive speaking engagements, open to feedback. Um and so I think we look at this as an opportunity that this engagement look as is an opportunity to collect additional feedback and that's good right we want um people to be engaged and aware and if they got aware because they thought something bad was happening I don't care I'd like your feedback so thank you very much so um so let's look at that as a as a positive and and just move on um but the the question that I had about the actual plan development has to do with how do you balance um in a plan like this or is it a separate plan that evaluates the usage of existing space and when uh existing land perhaps is not leveraged to its full capacity like the Coachman Hotel site or um you know Eastland Mall for an example um you know we have lots of space that we have fully maximized. So does does this evaluate that? Is that a separate plan and a separate process? So instead of expanding our footprint,

protecting that rich agricultural land that we have um that you know once you once you turn it over, you can't turn it back to to rich agricultural land. So once it's gone, it's gone. And and we have to protect that as a natural resource as well.

Yeah. I think that this this plan is meant to be general. Um, and so it doesn't necessarily exclude anything of that kind any infill development. It's it's not that this plan is meant to kind of not highlight that, but it's also or it is meant to work in conjunction with existing plans that already do highlight those topics. So the city and the town have extensive infill development topics in their existing comprehensive plans. And this map essentially this new updated strategic land use plan will allow them to have a new map to look at and still apply those existing comprehensive plan goals and objectives. And then for the county in this situation, they have that same opportunity to use the existing plan with new updated spatial information as well as this being the the kicking off point of updating a plan and being able to use this plan to go a little bit more in depth on some of the new topics that we're talking about, the new development pressures and housing shortages. And so this plan isn't meant to address every single detail of comprehensive planning. It's mostly meant to just give a updated informationational packet essentially that can be used in conjunction with existing information. So what I'm hearing is it's it's a separate separate but related project but that through this this process we can certainly express those concerns as a community and put the thereby puts pressure on the municipalities to demolish or take down a building that is needs to be condemned and somebody this process has been a great learning experience to understand what the outreach for the current and it's going to look like, what topics people are bringing up now that we can consider for that planning process. Um,

we didn't know it's going to turn out this way, but I'm glad it did. I think we're going to get out. It's a good learning to point. I think it was beneicial. If I may see just think of a couple examples have come up in the last few years. uh we adjusted our plans when Rivian came to town and said Rivian wants to do this town normal the other party said yes let's change our plan let's do this uh brand uh agricultural manufacturing

manufacturing the uh the uh distributor up in Lexington that wanted to locate on a corner intersection at the interstate So these things come up, those municipalities change their plan. So it's a general guideline. Anthony, you've done a great job. Thank you very much.

But I think we look at this as something that's etched in stone and this is a planning document that changes and evolves and whoever those elected officials are at that time can change it. Think about all the change in elected officials over the last since ' 09. mayors, managers, uh, race positions turned over twice since in the last 10 or 15 years. So, a lot of change. We just need to go with it. Yeah. And keep in mind, we're not the ones that are going to make the final call. That's not us. Um, that's the municipalities. They have the final say. We're advisory, but that's it. So, any other comments?

Resort.

Oh, please. uh the the mayor's plan look at as a guide there's a lot of law there's a lot of you know regulation look at as a guide a high level guide uh guiding principles and guiding you know whether downtown preservation farm and preservation compact development redevelopment versus suburban growth or expansion or employment centers and whatn not and think about and that's us think about the so many cases so many applications in city and town and then deal have to deal on a parcel by parel basis okay this land this five acres this 100 acres this you know whatever property whatever shape of property whatever there's a creek going through and there's topography issues uh uh roadway accessibility issue and landscaping and fencing and compatibility all those that's on that zoning case level um that would be considered by those local authority I mean the municipal governments so when they look at a case kind of soling case they that's what they do all those more detail analysis and then when they look at okay what's the guide says you know a guide book kind of blueprinting guide book and say okay it says low medium residential for example Oh, that be fits the big picture. But then there's some changes. Oh, me. Oh, Disney land, you know, coming to here and wow, you know, Jack Booth and and so that has to be updated. The plan has to be updated and yeah, we we we don't have we don't have magic balls. We wish we did what's going to happen in five 10 years, but I think we trying to keep up today. And one of

the reasons you know that like although it's been a while since 2009 when the plan was up there as I said and you all know see peace and quiet global recession no developers doing anything in our area but then when came uh with sustainability like part of a really important issue you know you know the whole country uh this 2020 2020 census information became available, there's more data available for us to make more informed recommendations and that's what we're doing. So yeah, there's no, it'll be nice to know, okay, set a expectation. Okay, so often we do a plan. Some cities and counties, they don't do it as frequent. Some might be 30 years, whatever. There's no change, but then if there's changes, they do it more often. Five, you know, years, three or whatever updates. And so, so that's kind of the context, if you will. And I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. And I think yeah, we we do our best and and uh but we yeah, we welcome you comments, you know, like I said, it's uh we need champions. It doesn't have to be us, you know, we we do our part is is what we went to school for and got paid and and do every day, you know, devote many many many hours and whatever, but at the end of the day is what the other comments, questions before we move on? Is there anything else that needs to come before the commission before we go into executive session? Okay, hearing none, uh, I'd like to declare that we're going to move into executive session. I'd like to ask anyone who is not a commissioner to leave the room.

Thank you all. Staff state the reason we're going under 2C1. Oh, well, we haven't been, but we're going in to talk about personnel personnel matter. So everyone else and will there be any action coming out? Noformational. Thanks a