Zoning Districts

Description of zoning districts:

• R1 (Residential Large Lot): The R1 district is intended to accommodate single family residential development on relatively large lots plus a limited number of related civic uses while ensuring compatibility with surrounding patterns of development. This district may also serve as a transition between estate development and medium-lot development

• R2 (Residential Medium Lot): The R2 district is intended to accommodate residential development on medium-sized lots in single-family neighborhoods, plus a limited number of related civic uses, while ensuring compatibility with surrounding patterns of development. This district may be used as a transition between large-lot residential development and small-lot residential development.

• R3 (Residential Small Lot): The R3 district is intended to protect and enhance established residential neighborhoods by increasing the viability of owner-occupied and affordable dwelling units through small-lot subdivisions, accessory dwelling units, and property improvements compatible with surrounding development patterns. The conversion of existing housing stock to more intense land uses is discouraged. This district may be used as a transition between medium-lot residential development and neighborhood-scale residential, commercial, and institutional development.

• R4 (Residential Urban): The R4 district is intended to accommodate residential uses on small urban scale lots that offer a diverse mix of housing opportunities consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and other adopted plans. Properties in the R4 district typically have access to many public services that are accessible to pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles. This district may be used as a transition between small-lot residential development and urban-scale residential, commercial, and institutional development. 

• RM (Residential Multifamily): The RM district is intended to accommodate medium scale residential development, plus related civic and residential-supportive uses, at a scale that is larger than neighborhood-scale but smaller than urban-scale to ensure an adequate mix of housing types throughout the community. This district may be used as a transition between urban neighborhoods and more intense residential, commercial, and institutional development.

• RH (Residential High Density): The RH district is intended to accommodate high-intensity multifamily residential development, plus related civic and residential-supportive uses, to provide an adequate mix of housing types throughout the community. This district can also serve as a transition between other lower-density districts and the downtown or university areas.

• RMH (Manufactured/Mobile Home Park): The RMH district is intended to accommodate for manufactured housing developments with shared amenities in order to promote and preserve housing opportunities.

• MS (Mixed-Use Student Housing): The MS district is intended to accommodate an adequate supply and mix of housing opportunities for students in areas adjacent or within easy walking distance to campus and along nearby commercial corridors and with easy access to campus-serving public transit and to university-provided parking, such as the area located directly west, southwest, and northwest of Memorial Stadium. The district is intended to have a high percentage of student-oriented housing units, including larger developments that might not be permitted in other districts, but not totally exclusive of other types of residential housing units. This district should not be located in close proximity to the MD district but may also provide MS related commercial and retail-supportive uses.

• MN (Mixed-Use Neighborhood Scale): The MN district is intended to promote a mix of neighborhood-scale residential, commercial, and institutional uses with pedestrian-oriented design and multi-modal transportation availability, in order to promote context sensitive neighborhood-serving development at nodes and corridors near low and medium-density residential neighborhoods.  

• MM (Mixed-Use Medium Scale): The MM district is intended to accommodate medium-scaled projects with a mix of housing and storefront retail, professional office, civic and/or residential uses at a scale that is larger than neighborhood-scale but smaller than destination commercial uses or high-density residential development.

• MC (Mixed-use Corridor): The MC district is intended to accommodate medium-scaled developments with a mix of storefront retail, professional office, and/or residential dwelling units along arterial and collector corridors at a scale larger than the neighborhood-scale uses accommodated by the MN zoning district.

• ME (Mixed-use Employment): The ME district is intended to provide a mixture of office-related uses and medium-scale multifamily residential uses that provide significant employment opportunities for the community and the surrounding region.

• MI (Mixed-use Institutional): The MI district is intended to provide regulations for properties that serve as community institutions, including but not limited to parks, schools, cemeteries, golf courses, religious institutions, nonprofit gathering places, and similar uses, regardless of public or private ownership.

• MD (Mixed-use Downtown): The MD district is intended to protect and enhance the character of the central business district, to guide new development and redevelopment activities in the downtown area, and to promote a mix of moderate-to high-density development with active street edges. The zoning district is divided into six different Downtown Character Overlays and permitted size and scale of buildings vary among those Downtown Character Overlays to ensure that projects are compatible in mass and scale with historic structures in the surrounding areas.
  • MD-CS (Courthouse Square Downtown Character Overlay): The Mixed-Use Downtown Courthouse Square (MD-CS) character area is intended to maintain the historic character of downtown by providing a diverse mix of traditional commercial retail uses at the street level to capitalize on, maintain and enhance the pedestrian activity, and to visually define the sidewalk edges with interesting buildings that respect the established context of traditional commercial storefront buildings.
  • MD-DC (Downtown Core Downtown Character Overlay): The Mixed-Use Downtown Core (MD-DC) character area is intended to draw upon the design traditions exhibited by historic commercial buildings by providing individual, detailed storefront modules that are visually interesting to pedestrians, and to promote infill and redevelopment of sites using residential densities and building heights that are higher in comparison to other character areas within the downtown.
  • MD-UV (University Village Downtown Character Overlay): The Mixed-Use Downtown University Village (MD-UV) character area is intended to serve as a dynamic and key transitional activity center that connects the courthouse square with Indiana University, to promote infill and redevelopment of sites using moderate residential densities for the university village area and higher residential densities along the Kirkwood Corridor (Washington Street to Indiana Avenue) and to protect and maintain the unique character of the converted residential structures along Restaurant Row (4th Street between Lincoln Street and Dunn Street).
  • MD-DE (Downtown Edges Downtown Character Overlay): The Mixed-Use Downtown Edges (MD-DE) character area is intended to guide both new development and redevelopment activities to ensure that new development is compatible in mass and scale with historic structures in the downtown edges character area, and to create a transitional zone between downtown commercial and core residential development where design reflects a mix of traditional commercial storefronts and residential development configurations.
  • MD-DG (Downtown Gateway Downtown Character Overlay): The Mixed-Use Downtown Gateway (MD-DG) character area is intended to draw upon architectural detailing and thoughtful site planning to reflect the vital transitional nature of the district to the overall arrival and departure sequence to the downtown area and to create active mixed-use developments that link to adjacent neighborhoods and the downtown circulation network.
  • MD-ST (Showers Technology Downtown Character Overlay): The Mixed-Use Downtown – Showers Technology character area is intended to draw upon architectural detailing and thoughtful site planning to complement the mass and scale of existing historic structures, draw upon neo-traditional design concepts to extend the street grid and to create publicly accessible open space, integrate development that is strategically planned to promote mixed-use development focused on light industrial, manufacturing, and office uses where live/work, young professional, single-family, empty nester and retiree housing markets are targeted.

• MH (Mixed-use Healthcare): The MH district is intended to allow for the continued viability of medical related uses surrounding the current hospital site during the transition of the hospital from this zoning district to its new site in northeast Bloomington, and to control redevelopment of land surrounding the old hospital site while planning for redevelopment of the area is underway.

• EM (Employment): The EM district is intended to accommodate existing and future employment uses that provide basic employment needs for Bloomington and the surrounding region, while ensuring that the site design, uses, and development scale are consistent with adjacent development.

• PO (Parks and Open Space): The PO district is intended to accommodate and protect City-owned parks and open spaces and to limit structures and land uses to those compatible with the City’s management plans for such properties.   

• PUD (Planned Unit Development): The purpose of the Planned Unit Development (PUD) district is to encourage new and imaginative concepts in urban design and land development to promote and improve the health, safety, and general welfare of the residents of the City and to create distinct developments with unique urban design, mixed uses, enhanced ecosystems services, and substantial additional benefit to the City that would not otherwise be required by this UDO. The PUD district is also intended to accommodate innovative development layouts that preserve the natural, environmental and scenic features of the site or address challenges presented by specific site conditions.