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Page last updated on September 30, 2022 at 10:57 am

For more information, please contact

Angela Van Rooy, Neighborhood Services Program Manager, 812-349-3420,  angela.vanrooy@bloomington.in.gov

 

THE CHALLENGE

The Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development (HAND) issues citations to households that violate the City’s trash, overgrowth, and snow removal ordinance (Title 6). Violations tend to be concentrated In neighborhoods with a high density of IU student rentals. The Bloomington Police (BPD)  receive a high number of requests for assistance with noise in these same neighborhoods. Calls to the BPD about noise levels are the third most plentiful category of requests. In 2019, there were an average of 21 of these kinds of calls (referred to as "nuisance" calls) per day. In addition, an informal survey of non-student residents of campus-adjacent neighborhoods reports their top three complaints to be trash, noise, and parking.

To understand the situation a bit better, Angela Van Rooy - Neighborhood Services Program Manager for HAND - put together a team of stakeholders that included representatives from neighborhoods with a high number of student rentals, IU Student Affairs, IU Student Legal Services, the IU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), IU student government, IU off-campus students, and landlords who rent to students. Together they identified two areas of focus: education and communication. In other words, (1) students lack the information needed to succeed as neighborhood residents, (2) and student/non-student neighbor-to-neighbor relations need improvement. 

 

THE IDEA

Through her connection with CITL, Angela was introduced to Jon Racek, Senior Lecturer in Comprehensive Design, and Peg Faiman, Founding Dean in the IU Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture, and Design, who were co-teaching a course in Comprehensive Design, which focuses on the principles of design thinking and human-centered design. Angela partnered with Jon and Peg and their students to use the topic of IU students transitioning from dorm life to neighborhood life as a case study for their class.

From October to December of 2021, the Comprehensive Design students worked with information supplied by Angela and focused on 

  1. Determining best methods for educating off-campus students about City ordinances and good neighboring practices, and 
  2. Examining ways to improve communication and relationship building among students and non-student neighbors.

Ten groups of students presented their ideas, and it became apparent that #2 was going to be far more challenging than #1. Since many of the complaints from non-student neighbors revolve around student non-compliance with the rules, the hope is that an improvement in #1 will lead to an improvement in #2. Therefore, going forward the project will focus on educating off-campus students.

Several student projects suggested some type of formal instruction. As such, the City proposes to work with the IU administration to develop a formal course that could be integrated into the orientation process that already exists.

In addition, as identified by many of the student presentations, there will be a need for repeated reinforcement of the information provided during the orientation. Providing additional resources while students are living off-campus and dealing directly with trash, parties/noise, parking, etc will be essential.

 

THE COST

Though nuisance complaints in the area are not entirely exclusive to heavily student-populated neighborhoods, according to the City of Bloomington’s Open Data through Socrata, in 2019, BPD received 4,684 nuisance calls, 4,988 in 2020, and 5,302 in 2021. There have been 163 nuisance calls to the department just within the first nineteen days of January 2022. You can review nuisance-related call data at https://bloomington.data.socrata.com/Police/Nuisance-Complaints/8mur-twyk.  According to BPD, it is too difficult to estimate the average amount of sworn office time those kinds of calls take because so much can vary depending on how long it takes for the officer to make contact with someone, to issue a citation is warranted, etc. However, if the number of complaints and violations were reduced, that would save BPD’s time.

In addition, a reduction in violations of Title 6 (trash, overgrowth, and snow) would free up HAND staff time because these matters involve neighborhood compliance officers in the field writing tickets and office staff processing these and mailing them to property owners. If tickets are not paid in a  timely fashion they are referred to the Legal department, involving more staff time.

One possible direct cost is the printing of materials to be disseminated to students. While information will certainly be available digitally, we anticipate that there will always be a need for physical copies of some kind (e.g., brochures, flyers, yard signs, etc.). It is difficult to estimate this value at the current stage of the project. 

 

THE BENEFIT

As a result of last Fall’s case study, HAND has been able to develop a two-prong strategy:

  1. Formal instruction before or at the beginning of students’ off-campus experience, and 
  2. Reinforcement when they are living off-campus and in most need of the information.

HAND proposes to work with students to develop testable prototypes in a section of the Elm Heights neighborhood in Spring and Summer 2022, with a targeted pilot launch this August. This work will focus on the Reinforcement piece of the strategy. Some of the ideas that might be tested include:

  • Branding: Design a flyer in two styles to test whether one garners more participation than the other.
  • Information delivery: Yard signs & door hangers versus email/text/website.
  • Frequency of contact: How often do we need to send reminders?
  • Messenger: Does the source of the information matter (i.e. City official versus a peer)?

If the ongoing research and pilot are successful in the coming year, the benefits will be plentiful. A reduction in violations of City trash, noise, and parking ordinances have the potential to:

  1. Improve off-campus students’ interactions with City staff. 
  2. Reduce the number of nuisance calls to the police thereby freeing up BPD officers or social workers for higher impact calls. 
  3. Lead to an improvement in relationships between student and non-student neighborhood residents, and 
  4. Positively impact the quality of life in Bloomington’s neighborhoods. 

 

FOR THE MOST UPDATED INFORMATION ON THIS PROJECT, SEEhttps://bloomington.in.gov/neighborhoods/neighboring

 

Metadata

City Departments: HAND, BPD

Point of Contact: Angela Van Rooy, Neighborhood Services Program Manager

Partners:  IU Student Affairs, IU Student Legal Services, the IU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), IU student government, IU off-campus students, and landlords who rent to students

Partner Point of Contact: N/A

Type of Innovation: New Service

Date Implemented: Summer 2021/ongoing