By Joe Ragusa

BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington City Council will consider a proposal to rezone a property at the corner of Fell and Phoenix Avenues at Monday’s meeting.

The property at 1314 Fell Ave. is currently a single-family residence. City Manager David Hales said it used to be a boarding house in 2003, but the license expired and it was rezoned into a single-family residence.

“It’s been vacant. It’s been an eyesore. We’ve taken some property maintenance action against it,” Hales said. “But the issue here is there’s a local developer, Bob Vericella, that I think has an option on it. He’s proposed to go in there, remodel it, do some nice things on the inside and outside to bring it up to code.”

But part of Vericella’s proposal requires the property to be rezoned into a mixed-residence property, something the Planning Commission recommended to deny by a 6-2 vote in May. Hales said that’s because the neighborhood around that property is also mostly single-family homes.

Prior to the current owner purchasing the property in 2003, it was a sorority house for several decades.

Bloomington City Council meeting documents can be found here: http://www.cityblm.org

Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].