South Bend’s City Hall and County Council Are Wrestling Over Housing, Safety, and Data Centers

Chambers of the South Bend Common Council

A late-September snapshot of local government in the St. Joseph County seat

SOUTH BEND — In the last two weeks, South Bend’s City Council and St. Joseph County’s County Council have moved on housing, short-term rentals, neighborhood fire coverage, and a proposed freeze on new hyperscale data centers.

Mayor James Mueller, who no one seems to know, and his administration is pushing affordable housing and infrastructure while answering for a spike in homicides after two historically quiet years.

South Bend Civic Leader and life-long Democrat Rod Sniadecki said, “this mayor is a failure.” Sniadecki is a former member of the South Bend City Council.

The city remains under a 9–0 Democratic City Council led by President Canneth Lee.

Mueller, the city’s 33rd mayor, is the executive. County government is more divided, and that split showed up this week on data centers.

Housing money, a construction fire, and a soil fight

Housing is the administration’s signature claim. In June the city announced nearly $199 million in 2026 Low-Income Housing Tax Credit awards for six sites, including Donald & Main Apartments, Stadium Flats, Western Avenue Transformation, and Beacon Heights renovations. City officials say South Bend has drawn more than $291 million from the program since 2023.

That pipeline is not smooth. On Sept. 8 a large fire tore through the Stadium Flats construction site near Lafayette Boulevard and South Street. Mueller called it an “unfortunate setback” and said the city would keep working with partners; firefighters kept the blaze from jumping to nearby apartments and the South Bend Cubs Performance Center.

On Sept. 24 the Redevelopment Commission unanimously added a $700,000 city loan for Heartwood Commons, a planned 50-unit affordable complex at Main and Donald, on top of $1 million already pledged. Neighbor Rebecca Ford told commissioners she watched demolition debris pushed into old industrial wells. City officials and the developer said testing showed the soil is safe enough for housing.

The council also unanimously approved short-term rental rules on Sept. 14, two months after the bills first hit committee. The ordinances take effect in the new year.

Neighborhood safety and a crime rebound

On Sept. 25, two council members and Lafayette Falls residents pressed for a mutual-aid pact between the South Bend Fire Department and Centre Township after a south-side fire left one family with a total loss. They argued response time and coverage on the city’s edge are not theoretical.

Public safety is also the political pressure point. After two years of relatively low homicide totals, South Bend has recorded nine murders so far in 2026. A triple fatal shooting on Bissell Street and earlier gunfire near Eddy Street during Notre Dame football weekend put Mueller on local television this week. He said investigators have a strong suspect in the Eddy Street incident but not yet in custody, and that no suspect is in custody in the Bissell Street case.

He also argued a state change that ended Indiana’s handgun permit system took a tool away from officers who once could ask whether someone was carrying.

City data still shows criminally assaulted shooting victims trending down since 2020 through August 2026. Neighbors on Bissell Street describe weekend crowds of a hundred or more and want the parties stopped. Mueller asked aloud what police are supposed to do when large groups may be carrying concealed weapons on public streets.

County vs. city on data centers

The sharper policy fight sits one floor over, at the county.

On Sept. 22 the St. Joseph County Council voted 6–3 to send the Area Plan Commission a resolution to draft zoning that would block new hyperscale data centers in unincorporated areas. Sponsors, led by Republican Amy Drake, call it “data center balance.” Amazon’s New Carlisle campus and Microsoft’s Granger project — tens of buildings already approved or under construction — would not be halted.

Opponents, including Democrat Diana Hess and Republican Dan Schaetzle, warned that a freeze after the county already landed the state’s largest private investments would damage the business climate. Chamber officials have cited more than $1 billion in expected AWS tax payments over 30 years and more than 1,000 AWS jobs. The planning commission has 60 working days to draft language.

Mueller, who does not control county zoning, signed a Sept. 16 executive order barring city departments from signing nondisclosure agreements on data-center deals. He said the public should see terms. The city says its role on the Amazon project is mainly wastewater service; land-use control sits with the county.

Other live files

•  Union Station: An August $3.85 million Federal Railroad Administration grant will fund planning to reconnect the historic station to passenger rail. Mueller has been clear it is a planning grant, not trains next year.

•  Streets: Colfax Avenue streetscape work is underway; Public Works added more 2026 paving. Residents still wait on slower federally funded jobs such as Bendix Drive.

•  Budget: The city opened the sixth year of “Build the Budget” for 2027, the resident-input process that helped shape recent spending. Roads and neighborhood infrastructure remain the top resident ask.

•  Reparatory Justice: In June the council accepted a 138-page report on a century of racial discrimination in housing, jobs, schools, and city services. Mueller issued a formal apology and said the city would start operationalizing the nearest-term recommendations.

•  Townships: Portage Township Trustee Jason Critchlow is circulating a voluntary plan to collapse 13 St. Joseph County townships into three regional units, ahead of a state law that will force some small-township mergers. Nothing is adopted.

What it adds up to

South Bend’s local government this month is not one story. City Hall is stacking housing tax credits and street work while a construction fire, a soil dispute, and a homicide spike test the same administration. The county, with a different partisan mix, is trying to slam the door on the next wave of data centers after already inviting two of the biggest.

Residents in Lafayette Falls and on Bissell Street are asking a more basic question: when something burns or someone shoots, how fast does government show up? Not fast enough especially when you have a majority of lazy progressive Democrats who serve on the City Council while using government assistance.

Those are the files sitting on desks at 215 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. as fall budget work and Notre Dame home games both get louder.

This is written by Hoosier, for Hoosiers.