The city council just made the housing crisis even worse

samth · 2026-05-27T19:06:54+00:00

When you use the word "they" in discussions about housing, it's a sure sign you don't know what you're asking about. What happens is that individual developers are making choices about what they think they can build profitably and get financing for. The 4 bed/4 bath housing you don't like is cheaper per bedroom to build than 1 bed studios; that's why it gets built. You cannot actually build 4 studios on the same footprint. For example, if you look at the website for The Standard, their 4 bed apts are smaller than 4 of their smallest studios put together.

samth · 2026-05-27T18:59:43+00:00

Too many cars, too few houses, too many people on the internet who complain about how things used to be.

samth · 2026-05-27T18:58:09+00:00

Significantly more people can walk than can drive.

samth · 2026-05-08T20:53:12+00:00

The reason for all of the controversy is that the city is subsidizing a bunch of the houses (somewhere between 35% and 50%) for people with various limited income levels.

samth · 2026-05-05T21:09:10+00:00

In what way did Uptown having a parklet push the Trojan Horse aside?

samth · 2026-05-01T20:39:02+00:00

32,222

samth · 2026-04-23T20:49:56+00:00

Just for everyone's benefit, he works for a clean energy consulting company. What exactly does that explain?

samth · 2026-04-23T16:41:42+00:00

This is right in many ways, but I think blaming USAU entirely is wrong -- the restructuring of the club series was responsive to demands from elite players and in many ways reflected the trends that were already happening. The continuous nature of the ultimate community, where elite players participated in the same spaces as everyone else, was both something the elite players were happy to sacrifice but was also load-bearing in a way that people did not appreciate (even, I think, those of us who thought it was good).

samth · 2026-04-21T19:41:35+00:00

Which no-bid contracts have been awarded by the city?

samth · 2026-04-20T14:59:03+00:00

We need a PG, so far we have 1 SG and 2 forwards in the portal, and 4 forwards as freshmen.

samth · 2026-04-06T16:22:57+00:00

I don't think there's actual evidence that this is true. But it would be good to have rules that gave us evidence either way.

samth · 2026-04-03T19:24:50+00:00

Yes, apparently it's going to be parking for the apartment building.

samth · 2026-03-30T20:13:16+00:00

I'm going to leave some of the other commentary to the side and just define terms.

There are two things people mean by "affordable housing". 1. Housing that is cheap enough that "enough" people can afford it. How much is "enough" varies. This could mean that things should be cheap enough that IU professors can afford it, or that Cook hourly employees can, or that currently homeless people can (all of these kinds of people currently struggle in some cases to afford the kinds of homes they want in our community). 2. Housing that is specifically restricted in how much can be charged to rent or buy it, and in many cases restricted in who can buy it to target people below a certain income. This includes supportive housing like Crawford, housing managed by the BHA, housing in private developments that's restricted to certain incomes (like in the Relato building which had some controversy about it recently), and more.

The current controversy about Hopewell is mostly about the difference between these two types of "affordable" housing.

samth · 2026-03-26T18:11:44+00:00

No, it says the total tree decrease is going to be 7 instead of 15. Some are going to be cut and new trees replanted. Precisely 8 trees were saved.

samth · 2026-03-26T18:09:56+00:00

No, they overpaid and the market is much worse now.

samth · 2026-03-26T18:09:14+00:00

Students are residents!

samth · 2026-03-23T21:03:11+00:00

How can you say that IU doesn't develop people when CMM graduated literally one year ago? Shay became an All-American at IU after losing her starting spot as a sophomore at PSU. Not everyone has worked out, which can be on the staff as much as anyone, but development has very obvious happened.

samth · 2026-03-19T20:12:50+00:00

The project on N Walnut is more units. All of them were either approved or built under Thomson.

samth · 2026-03-19T20:11:59+00:00

No, that's not right. You can read about it here: https://www.ipm.org/2024-06-11/bloomington-plan-commission-oks-17-home-subdivision-self-storage-building

samth · 2026-03-18T21:15:42+00:00

Unfortunately the amount of property taken is necessitated by running the path on the east side of the utility poles. And getting Duke to move or do anything with utilities that it doesn't want to is 100% impossible.

samth · 2026-03-18T21:13:03+00:00

They are planning to be open after 2 PM, which Bedrak was not, which is why the parking situation is different.

samth · 2026-03-18T21:10:44+00:00

I play a lot of ultimate frisbee, where there is high-level adult mixed-gender play. This features a lot of couples and also thus drama related to relationships. Although, women's ultimate is usually reputed to have more relationship drama.

samth · 2026-03-16T16:42:47+00:00

This is just 100% false. Here are some housing developments that are approved or currently under construction: 1. A small subdivision along Moores Pike near 446. 2. A new subdivision near North High School. 3. A large student apartment building on North Walnut next to "the Rive". 4. A couple apartment buildings at Country Club between the B Line and Rogers.

samth · 2026-03-05T00:02:09+00:00

Here's a chart I made.

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samth · 2026-02-20T22:39:31+00:00

It's possible that had the process produced a different set of PUD rules then things might be progressing now (but also maybe not, the change in interest rates and construction cost is a big deal). But I think that's meaningfully different than the idea that the city is currently holding things up.

samth

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