Green Acres residents are divided over a zoning designation that would restrict demolition and new construction in their neighborhood. Bloomington City Council members will now decide what happens.
Many of the approximately 450 houses in the eastern quarter do not want multi-storey apartment blocks in their midst. Others fear that the establishment of a heritage conservation area would restrict their property rights.
Some landowners support high residential density in the area and believe that a conservation zone would unduly restrict development.
The problem arose last spring when a developer proposed demolishing a row of five Green Acres homes to make way for the construction of an apartment complex.
On May 9, the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission considered the demolition of the houses, which city staff had recommended because they did not meet the criteria for historic classification.
Some members expressed concern about the demolition of an entire block of houses and the impact on the neighborhood and put the demolition permits on hold.
Neighbours take action after demolition work stalls
During a meeting two weeks later, the city’s historic homes program manager presented a report on the neighborhood’s past. A longtime Green Acres resident who attended volunteered to collect data and prepare an application for historic preservation listing.
The neighborhood’s application for inclusion in the conservation district was accompanied by a petition signed by 73 people – 48 of them homeowners and 25 renters – supporting the proposal. Several people sent emails to the city expressing their opposition.
Additional conservation district supporters attended the HPC meeting on June 13. In July, residents held three public meetings to inform their neighbors and gain support.
“It’s a charming neighborhood, a popular place to call home in a city full of luxury apartment buildings and parking garages. That’s not what we want in Green Acres,” says Lois Sabo-Skelton, who lives in Overhill Drive and supports the conservation area.
The Green Acres neighborhood was founded on a 160-acre farm purchased by abolitionist William Moffat Millen in the 1840s. From the 1920s to the 1960s, the area grew into a neighborhood with 467 lots.
Located close to the Ind. 46 Bypass, Third Street, the Illinois Central Railroad tracks and the IU campus, Green Acres offers a mix of homes including ranches, bungalows, cottages and split-level apartments.
A council report describes the overall style of Green Acres as “minimalist traditional, a blend of colonial, craftsman and modernist architectural influences.” The houses lack “ostentatious ornamentation and emphasize efficiency and the use of local materials.” The report concludes that Green Acres “is eligible for local conservation designation.”
The residents come to defend their territory and stand against the district
More than 50 people attended the conference on monument protection on August 12. The conference room was full; the participants stood along the walls and in the hallway, listening intently.
Some said dense development, such as apartments, was beneficial and inevitable in an area so close to the IU campus. Others argued that it was important to preserve the single-family housing development that has existed for nearly a century.
About 20% of the homes are owner-occupied and the rest are rented. Longtime residents said Green Acres is a place where renters and owners value the mixed interaction.
The grading would slow change in the neighborhood through a process that requires review and approval of demolition or new construction. In the case of Green Acres, a local real estate agent has found a buyer for the property if demolition is approved. The plan is to build student housing on the site.
Nine Bloomington members of YIMBYANA, an organization that supports affordable and inclusive housing, signed a letter opposing the conservation area. “We believe this would limit almost any new development in the neighborhood,” the letter said. “This neighborhood is highly desirable as it is within walking distance of the IU campus and the commercial corridor along East Third Street and College Mall Road.”
Housing advocates: Bloomington South senior starts housing rights group called YIMBY-ana
The city’s website states that a historic preservation district is appropriate “when there is significant development pressure,” which is the case with Green Acres, “or when the stock of buildings to be protected, while historic, do not individually have high or unique architectural value.”
After three years, the preserves in Bloomington will be granted historic district status, which brings restrictions on property changes unless residents of the area vote to remain a preserve.
The historic neighborhoods of Near West Side and Maple Heights in Bloomington, for example, were originally conservation areas.
Sabo-Skelton assured Green Acres residents who fear tighter control of their property that there is no intention to go in that direction. She and other supporters simply want to keep residential homes and parking lots out of their quiet neighborhood.
“People are afraid of a lot of restrictions, and we don’t want that,” she said. “We want to preserve the character of our neighborhood.”
Municipal monument protection commission supports nature conservation district
After a three-hour discussion at the August 12 meeting, members voted 6 to 1 in favor of the conservation district’s proposal.
The final decision rests with the Bloomington City Council. It is unknown when the item will be on the council’s agenda.
The simple houses that are to be demolished do not display great architecture. They are neither remarkable nor historic, but plain and typical of the working class.
“The distinct lack of historic structures in the area highlights why this nomination is wrong and should be rejected,” NIMBYANA’s letter said.
But Green Acres residents appreciate the mix of affordable housing occupied by everyone from college students to older, long-time homeowners, single people and families with children. It’s an increasingly rare mix of city and college residents where both can afford to live and thrive in an established community where neighbors know and look out for each other.
Marines Fornerino came to Bloomington from Venezuela in 1988 to attend IU. She saw the Green Acres neighborhood from her window in Eigenmann Hall and then rented a house there. Years later, she bought her home on Roosevelt Street. “Green Acres is unique in many ways,” she wrote in the conservation district petition, which “generates a special sense of place in its residents.”
These houses are scheduled for possible demolition:
- 2201 E. Seventh St.: A one-story, little-changed 1940 house with a corner porch and bay window, it was owned from 1950 to 1959 by IU chemistry professor Robert Fischer, who studied the benefits of adding fluoride to toothpaste, which led to IU receiving the patent for Crest toothpaste.
- 310 N. Jefferson St.: A 1945 minimalist bungalow with an attached porch that was occupied by the owner until the 1950s and has been used as a rental property since the 1960s.
- 314 N. Jefferson St.: A minimalist National Home-style ranch house built in the early 1950s. Anna and Russel Gross lived there from 1957 to 1965. He was an officer in the Army and later a janitor at IU. Anna Gross taught in single-room schools in Brown County during World War II and then earned her bachelor’s degree from IU in 1953 at age 39.
- 318 N. Jefferson St.: The house is a mirror image of the building at 314 N. Jefferson St. IU French professor Edward Najam, who was associate dean of IU’s College of Arts and Sciences from 1958 to 1963, lived in this house in the late 1950s.
- 324 N. Jefferson St: An unaltered gable-front bungalow built in 1940. The house has had several owners, including Charles Munson, a local bar owner who died in a traffic accident at age 39. Sociologists, graduate students, Peach activist Joe Grabill, and Japanese philosopher Ori Kan lived there for over two decades. In 1978, local sculptor Jean-Paul Darriau and his wife Cherry bought the house and lived there until 2007, when it was sold to a rental company.
Contact HT reporter Laura Lane at [email protected] or 812-318-5967.
