Smart Growth News

Illinois

FHLBank San Francisco Awards $32.5 Million in Affordable Housing Grants

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco awarded $32.5 million in Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grants in the first round of its 2010 funding competition. The grants approved by the Bank's Board of Directors in AHP Round A were awarded to 60 projects that address the diverse affordable housing needs of communities in Arizona, California, Illinois, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington, and will produce or preserve 3,375 housing units that are affordable to lower-income individuals and families.

AHP-funded projects create an affordable place to live for families with children, seniors, persons with disabilities, young adults transitioning out of the foster care system and other at-risk youth, people who are in need of supportive services or are homeless, and other lower-income individuals and households. ''In our region, the need for resources that provide vulnerable and disadvantaged populations with a safe, decent place to live is especially persistent, regardless of economic conditions. The AHP applications we received in this round reflect that broad, constant need,'' said Jim Yacenda, Vice President and Community Investment Officer at FHLBank San Francisco. ''We are pleased that our members are using our program to deliver such critical resources to their communities.''   6/29/2010

Resource(s): www.fhlbsf.com/

Mayors Launch Green CiTTS Program

The Green CiTTS program was launched on June 17, as mayors from around the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River area pledged to actively promote environmental sustainability. The Cities Transforming Towards Sustainability (CiTTS) project will take aim at four critical issues: protecting water resources and coastal areas, promoting low-carbon energy generation and consumption, adopting green land use and building design and encouraging green economic development. The program area includes Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Ontario and Quebec. Green CiTTS also plans to offer training, share best practices, enter research partnerships, and raise money for municipal projects.

Mayors from more than 70 cities have pledged to take part in the Green CiTTS program. ''Today we mayors have taken an important regionwide step forward,'' Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago said. Daley also stated that each year will have a different theme, and this year's theme is reducing and improving the quality of storm water runoff.

Starting with a $100,000 grant from the Joyce Foundation, the project hopes to to grow the budget by four to five times that amount.   6/17/2010

Resource(s): http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/

Columnist Challenges USDA’s ''Recipe for Sprawl'' in Beecher, Illinois

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) programs have fueled economic development in many small rural communities for decades, but its mortgage assistance for prospective ''rural'' homeowners may sometimes entice suburban sprawl. USDA, reports Tinley Park SouthtownStar columnist Guy Tridgell, changes its ''rural'' criteria every few years. ''Rural'' currently is defined by a town with fewer than 10,000 residents if not adjacent to one exceeding that number.

In the Chicago metropolitan area, this defintion of rural leaves out all of Lake, Cook and DuPage counties, but covers some Will County pockets, including Beecher and Peotone, located some 35 miles south of Chicago. One of the nation’s fastest growing – from 502,000 to 668,000 residents between 2000 and 2006 – Will County has ''got this growth thing down; no assistance is necessary,'' the columnist observes, focusing on the USDA’s ''recipe for sprawl in Beecher.'' With population of some 4,100 in 2008, Beecher is now getting a typical suburban subdivision – Prairie Park – being built by Castletown Homes.

The developer offers homes starting at $229,000 and townhouses starting at 179,000. He ''touts the proximity to Chicago, access to nearby expressway and the Metra station in University Park – all the qualities to attract the wannabe suburbanite.'' Nevertheless, missing its suburban nature, USDA found a police officer from Country Club Hills in Cook County – a city of 16,700 in 2008, about 15 miles closer to central Chicago – eligible for mortgage assistance for his new $240,000 Prairie Park home. He paid nothing down and his 30-year mortgage at a fixed 5-percent interest rate is guaranteed by USDA. Estimating his savings at $12,000 thanks to the USDA program, he told the columnist, ''I thought I was going to have to live in an area that was more agricultural. I didn’t know if I could apply or not. Surprisingly, I was able.''

The columnist worries about the program’s unintended consequences. ''If the housing boom of the last couple of decades taught us anything, it's the lesson of building on the suburban fringe. We feel the mistakes of luring folks to shiny, new subdivisions built on cheap farmland every day. The infrastructure can’t keep up,'' he writes. ''The schools can’t accommodate the swells of children, so they start raising property taxes. To pay those bills, Joe Homeowner drives from the boonies, where there are no jobs yet, to his office an hour or more away. There's nothing 'rural' about that.''   3/14/2010

Resource(s): www.southtownstar.com/

Springfield Alderman Gail Simpson Pushes for Urban Core Redevelopment

Although Springfield won a fourth spot on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC’s) best mid-size Smarter Cities list this summer and a fifth place on the Next Generation Consulting list of the Best Cities for Next Gen Workforce, its first-term alderman Gail Simpson recently said city development lacks “an equitable enough basis.” Simpson has promised to vote against any annexation west of the city until her eastern ward and other older neighborhoods get their share of growth. A Springfield State Journal-Register editorial supports her stance, hoping she will persuade Mayor Timothy Davlin and her nine colleagues on the city council to draw up and implement a center-city revitalization plan.

“I’m talking about urban sprawl. I’m talking about not paying attention to areas of the city that need attention. And developers take their cue and their lead from city leaders,” Alderman Simpson stressed. “I think at some point we need to sit with developers and encourage them to look at areas in the inner city to develop, come up with tangible ideas that will work in those areas. It’s happening all over this country that inner-city areas are being redeveloped. Why can’t that happen in Springfield?”

The aldermen of two adjacent wards, Mark Mahoney and Sam Cahnman, reported State Journal-Register writer Deana Poole, sympathized with Alderman Simpson, saying officials should encourage development in older neighborhoods, without stopping it elsewhere. South ward Alderman Frank Edwards felt about the same. “It’s quite obvious we’re having trouble putting development on the east side, and we have to figure out why that is,” he remarked. “But to force people to go on the east side, I think is wrong, too.” And west ward Alderman Tim Griffin thought some other areas’ residents biased against the west side, noting that its stores and expensive homes also generate more in sales and property taxes. “I keep hearing people complain that how come the west side gets this, how come the west side gets that,” he said. “Probably one of the main reasons is we pay for it.” The State Journal-Register acknowledges that west side developers and property owners may have paid for much of the infrastructure, excluding arterial roads, but they don’t pay for its maintenance. They pay neither for snow removal, pothole repairs, tree trimming and leaf pickup, nor for new water towers or electric substations necessary as the west side population grows, the editorial says, stressing, “The entire city will pay for that growth eventually, either in the form of higher taxes to serve those areas as they, too, start to age or reduced services because city workers are spread too thin.”

As Springfield has expanded mostly west since 1950, its population has increased from some 81,000 to about 120,000 now, but its area has widened from 10 to 60 square miles – a roughly 37 to 500 percent disparity and hardly a badge of “sustainable, smart growth,” the editorial points out, ridiculing the city administration’s belief “that throwing up a pretty theater marquee on South Grand Avenue, putting in a parking lot nearby and giving a few dozen homeowners federal grants to bring their homes up to code is going to the trick” and gratify older neighborhoods. “We’ll know the mayor has done some real work,” the editorial concludes, “when he convinces his friends in private development to do a big project in east Springfield.”   12/11/2009

Resource(s): www.sj-r.com/

EPA Recognizes Communities for Smart Growth Achievements

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson presented the 2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement on December 1 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Through the awards, four communities were recognized for their comprehensive approach to improving access to affordable housing, providing more transportation options and protecting the local environment for residents.

The four recipients of the 2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement are:

Overall Excellence: Lancaster County Planning Commission for Envision Lancaster County. Lancaster County, in south-central Pennsylvania, is known for its historic towns and villages, and its fertile farmland. To maintain the county’s character, its diverse economy, and its natural resources for future generations, the Lancaster County Planning Commission established a countywide comprehensive growth management plan, which protects valuable farmland and historic landscapes by directing development to established towns and cities in the county.

Policies and Regulations: City of Charlotte for Urban Street Design Guidelines. As the central city in a rapidly growing metropolitan area, Charlotte, N.C., is under intense development pressures. Rather than continue the automobile-dominated development patterns of the last 50 years, Charlotte adopted Urban Street Design Guidelines to make walking, bicycling, and transit more appealing and to make the city more attractive and sustainable.

Built Projects: Chicago Housing Authority, FitzGerald Associates Architects and Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation for Parkside of Old Town. Parkside of Old Town sits on eight city blocks that were once home to a public housing complex notorious for criminal activity. The redevelopment has transformed the neighborhood by reconnecting it to downtown Chicago and tying together mixed-income housing, parks, and new shops and restaurants.

Smart Growth and Green Building: City of Tempe, Ariz. for the Tempe Transportation Center. The Tempe Transportation Center is a model for sustainable design, a vibrant, mixed-use regional transportation hub that incorporates innovative and green building elements tailored to the Southwest desert environment. The Tempe Transportation Center is a true multi-modal facility that integrates a light rail stop, the main city bus station, and paths for bicyclists and pedestrians.   12/1/2009

Resource(s): yosemite.epa.gov/

DOE Invests in Cutting-Edge Wind Energy Research Facilities

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced new investments today in three university-led wind energy research facilities in Illinois, Maine, and Minnesota that will enhance the United States' leadership role in testing and producing the most advanced and efficient wind turbines in the world. The funding is from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the research will focus on improving both land-based and offshore wind generation.

''Wind power has the potential to provide 20% of our electricity and create hundreds of thousands of jobs,'' said Secretary Chu. ''We need to position the United States as the clear leader in this industry, or watch these high-paying jobs go overseas. The investment we're making today will help ensure that America has both the talent and the technology we need to compete.''   10/15/2009

Resource(s): http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=250

Green Infrastructure Key to Ensuring Sustainable Water Supplies for Illinois

Leading conservation experts, water system executives, local environmentalists and others agreed that managing stormwater with green infrastructure is a critical element to sustaining our water supply and preventing a future water crisis for Northeastern Illinois.

Green infrastructure took center stage at a recent regional discussion about sustainable water supply planning for Illinois, hosted by the Metropolitan Planning Council and Openlands. The event was centered on a report to be released by both organizations titled Before the Wells Run Dry: Ensuring Sustainable Water Supplies for Illinois.

Steve Wise, CNT’s Director of Natural Resources, presented a comparison of states’ clean water green reserve process and performances. Green infrastructure projects have been initiated in several states, including Kansas, New York, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. “There is no shortage of municipalities and community groups in Illinois that could and would implement cost- and ecologically- effective green infrastructure projects. Illinois could learn from these other states how to effectively promote and fund sustainable green infrastructure investments,” said Wise.

The report states the region could face a long-term water shortage as early as 2015. Implementing green infrastructure practices has the potential to increase Illinois’ allowable water supply from Lake Michigan by almost 30 percent.

Green infrastructure can help solve modern urban water management issues as they relate to land use and development. Green infrastructure manages stormwater by capturing raindrops where they fall. There is a growing awareness in the region of green infrastructure as more communities, including Chicago, Milwaukee, and Aurora, begin to roll out these types of projects.

“In Illinois and around the country, we should revise the eligibility criteria and priorities of public and private infrastructure funding to recognize the multiple values of green infrastructure, for stormwater management, water supply, community vitality, and quality of life,” said Wise. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides a 20% set aside specifically for green projects. Several states have used these funds to initiate a variety of green infrastructure projects.

Wise believes that “by streamlining local, state and federal funding mechanisms for green infrastructure, Illinois communities could help ensure that they have access to sustainable water supplies now and in the future.”   10/14/2009

Is Your Neighborhood Good for Your Health?

No matter how thoroughly prospective homebuyers or renters check out local schools, crime rates, property taxes or other characteristics, they rarely probe ''whether or not the neighborhood they are picking promotes a healthy lifestyle,'' writes Chicago Sun-Times Homes Editor Kay Severinsen in a report from Kane County Board's ''Smart Growth is Healthy Living'' workshop, noting that experts increasingly worry about too many neighborhoods forcing residents ''to drive everywhere'' and ''contributing to ADD (attention deficit disorder), high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease, lung disease and diabetes.''

In 1986, the average state resident ''was less than 10 percent overweight,'' but that increased to between 20 and 24 percent by 2007, she observes, agreeing that video games, television and high fructose corn syrup may be blamed, but advising readers to add their neighborhood to the mix, especially if it's a new neighborhood.

Most older neighborhoods have intersecting streets to schools, churches, parks or shops, but newer ones '' have spaghetti-like twists of streets that go nowhere except back to the starting point,'' she writes, describing a neighborhood in her own town.

''It was built in the 1990s and features the usual upscale homes with cedar siding and three-car garages. One side of the neighborhood backs onto a busy street. Across that street are lots of destinations -- a 7-11, a Burger King, a library, a high school and a YMCA. If you had a good arm, you could throw a baseball from the backyard to any one of those places. Yet every single resident of that neighborhood will get in a car and drive across the street to access them,'' she continues. ''Why? Well for one thing, they probably would not survive a walk across the street. There is no stoplight, pedestrian bump-out or marked crosswalk. And there is a lot of traffic because, frankly, the residents in this part of town don't walk anywhere. They drive, even to a destination 200 feet away. And they complain about the traffic.''

That's what most Americans do today, pointed out a workshop presenter, University of California, Los

Angeles, School of Public Health's Environmental Health Sciences Chair and Professor Richard Jackson, M.D., co-author of Urban Sprawl and Public Health (2004, Island Press).

Since 1969, he said, Americans drive 88 percent farther to shop, and 137 percent more for errands, with the average mother chauffeuring her children 75 minutes a day.

''We think obesity is a personal decision without realizing how much of it is out of our hands,'' he stressed, citing a 2004 study that found the lack of physical activity detrimental even for slim women, 55 percent more likely to die young due to a sedentary lifestyle.

Although it's difficult ''to retro-fit a place that was built more for cars than for people,'' the writer observes, there are actions ''to help you take back your neighborhood, lower your blood pressure and have happier, healthier children.''

She advises neighbors to organize and park cars along the street because narrowed streets slow down traffic.

To be safer while biking, cyclists should wear helmets and attach long-pole flags to the backs of their bikes, but also lobby community leaders for marked bike lanes.

What more?

''Pick one destination that is within a mile and walk it. No time? Plan ahead. Then make it a habit,'' she concludes. ''Talk to your alderman or a community official about adding pedestrian islands in the middle of busy streets. They make crossing wide lanes of traffic a lot safer.'' -- Sun-Times   5/17/2009

Resource(s): http://searchchicago.suntimes.com/homes/index.html

Cul-de-Sac Conversations: What They're Saying in Illinois

''The cul-de-sac, that little round patch of asphalt with maybe four houses on it, is almost a clich‚ of suburban life,'' writes Chicago Sun-Times housing section editor Kay Severinsen, observing that their residents ''want all the city services that longer streets get,'' and that neither cul-de-sacs nor twisted subdivision streets lead anywhere and spout all drivers on collector roads ''that quickly become overloaded'' -- two ever worse service and traffic problems now confronted by Virginia with new subdivision connectivity and walkability requirements and fair warning to builders: lay out ''go-nowhere streets and you will have to maintain them yourselves.''

Noting that in grid-pattern subdivisions with easy access to the outside, residents wouldn't be so car-dependent, most streets would share the traffic flow, and curbside-parked cars would temper passing speeds, the editor invites readers to see local differences for themselves.

''Drive through the narrow, grid-based streets of Chicago; 'traffic' is seldom a hot issue,'' she writes. Check out the older parts of our exurban areas. The Kane County portion of Aurora, for example, was built on a grid and has few traffic jams. Go farther east into DuPage County part of Aurora and the story changes, however. Traffic backs up several lights' worth along main thoroughfares because none of the side streets go through.''

As for grid advantages other than those and ''the health benefits of improved walkability,'' she quotes a former Milwaukee, Wisconsin mayor, Congress for New Urbanism President John O. Norquist, who pointed to better emergency service coverage and substantial savings on service costs.

''It saves lives to have connected streets instead of cul-de-sacs,'' he said. ''It cuts travel time (for emergency vehicles) and increases the area that can be covered by one fire station.''

Like him, Chicago-based Lakota Group consulting firm principal John LaMotte and Plainfield village planner Michael Garrigan believe the new Virginia subdivision regulations can be adapted to Illinois needs.

''We're behind the times,'' said the former, applauding Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine ''for being forward thinking and taking a statewide approach.''

Wishing he lived in Virginia, the latter said he is trying to facilitate such a change in Plainfield.

''We give developers higher density if they follow some TND (traditional neighborhood design) aspects and follow a modified grid,'' he told the editor, acknowledging that the use of state Department of Transportation funds to enforce subdivision connectivity and narrow-street standards ''would be challenging'' in Illinois.

''But Virginia has been a more conservative state, pro-development and free market,'' he added. ''If Virginia could do it, we could do it.'' -- Sun-Times   3/29/2009

Resource(s): http://searchchicago.suntimes.com/homes/index.html

Duany: Retrofit ''Inefficient'' Subdivisions and Strip Malls

''Sixty percent of what we have in America is dysfunctional suburban sprawl,'' but ''it's not so dysfunctional that we can abandon all that,'' said Congress for New Urbanism co-founder and Miami, Florida-based architect Andres Duany in a ''Make No Small Plans in the New Economy'' lecture at the Centre of Elgin, telling the audience of more than 200 Judson University architecture students and area municipal planners that while the ''ugly'' and ''inefficient'' subdivisions and strip malls reflect the long-predominant norm, they can and should be retrofitted.

''This is a precise disaster with a very precise solution,'' he observed, urging the listeners to rethink the task ahead, and plan for better affordable housing, mobile homes, naturally emergent retirement communities, and places where residents can grow their own food, but cautioning that ''green'' buildings alone don't make an area ''green'' too.

''Those buildings have to be within walking distance to public transportation, to other facilities,'' he stressed.

Outlining the history of urban planning, from the 19th century through the 1930s into the post-World War II era of the suburbs, reports Daily Herald writer Kerry Lester, the speaker pointed out that much of New Urbanism focuses on correction of suburban ills, to free people from their car dependence, provide them with better transit, and ensure easy pedestrian access to shops, restaurants and libraries.

He also said he would like more area universities to follow Judson, the University of Notre Dame and Andrews University, Michigan in offering New Urbanism courses.

Praising the three religious institutions for their environmental ethics, he told Judson students, ''Engage as serious individuals the reality that needs to be done because society needs you.''

In a subsequent e-mail post, a Daily Herald reader alerts others to an upcoming PBS documentary, ''American Cities: A Rebirth,'' partly filmed in Elgin this month.

The reader also invites the public to learn about the new possibilities at an April 18 workshop on community planning and design, organized by the students of Elgin High School's (EHS's) Environmental Program, and at its ECCO conference on April 25. -- Daily Herald   3/28/2009

Resource(s): www.dailyherald.com/

Massive New Green Development Planned for Abandoned U.S. Steel Site

Long abandoned and barren, a 573-acre U.S. Steel site on Chicago's Southeast Side along Lake Michigan will finally be restored to life as part of the planned transformation of an adjacent low-to-moderate income area into a 1,140-acre mixed-use neighborhood ''integrating eco-efficient design and smart growth principles with an emphasis on healthy living,'' reports Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) news writer Erika Brekke, quoting Chicago planner Marilyn Engwall.

''It's going to attract different developers, technologies and a new population that is attracted to the green lifestyle,'' she said, noting that given the project's scope and early planning phase, but also the shaky economy and reduced city planning staff, the redevelopment may take 20 to 30 years.

Called the ''South Chicago LEED Neighborhood Development Initiative'' -- as one of 207 projects in the national Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development pilot program launched in 2007 by the U.S. Green Building Council, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Congress for New Urbanism -- the massive land reclamation and neighborhood overhaul, including creation of a 17-acre lakeshore park, is expected to win Silver Leed certification this spring.

''Projects that pursue LEED for Neighborhood Development,'' pointed out NRDC real estate sector manager Jennifer Henry, ''help Chicago stay great -- and become greener -- by locating within or very near previously developed areas, incorporating less-auto dependent development patterns, and including greener buildings.'' -- Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism   1/14/2009

Resource(s): http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/

Can We Create a Sprawl-Free World?

''For a half-century we've watched the suburban sprawl machine ooze its ticky tacky across northeastern Illinois with little regard for aesthetics, for the rising cost of energy or, for that matter, the cost of leaving the region's have-nots behind in older, have-not communities,'' writes urban affairs consultant John McCarran on the Chicago Tribune op-ed page, envisioning a new ''sprawl-free'' world, in which Kane, Kendall and McHenry county corn and bean fields no longer are ''paved for row after row of split-level houses with 2-1/2 baths and three-car garages,'' a brave vision shared by the Chicago Metropolis 2020 group's speakers at a recent annual press briefing on its urban development and regional transit plan.

Although the popular self-deceptive belief in the unassailableness of sprawl -- because ''it's a free country'' and ''it's what people want'' -- may still hold, he sees an unprecedented opening.

''Now that the sprawl machine has slowed to a dead stop; now that its life's blood of easy mortgage money flows no more; and now that our trust in the unfailing wisdom of 'free men and free markets' has cost us half of our retirement savings, maybe, just maybe, it's time to revisit the inevitability of suburban sprawl,'' he writes, quoting Chicago Metropolis 2020 senior adviser Nancy Firfer, former Glenview village president.

''We have a chance during this pause to do things differently,'' she said, with Metropolis' recent ''Homes for Changing Region'' report projecting a faster regional population-growth rate in the years ahead, especially among seniors, who will need to live near shops and services, and among immigrants, who will seek affordability and close-in jobs.

Considering the former mayor ''no wild-eyed dreamer on the subject,'' the writer notes that during her two terms, Glenview -- about 47,000 residents, some 18 miles north of downtown Chicago -- ''grabbed more than its share'' of corporate headquarters, discount appliance stores and other tax producers, while its redevelopment of a surplus naval air station into an internal town, The Glen, offers no ''affordable-housing set-asides or subsidies.''

Still, it includes a Metra commuter rail station, retiree assisted-living units, energy-efficient condo buildings, pedestrian-accessible stores and schools, hiking and biking trails, and a fishing pond and a golf course, the writer observes, calling it part of ''the smart growth approach, as opposed to so many tract developments along the suburban fringe, where the stranded need to fire up their sport-utility vehicles to get a loaf of bread at the 7-Eleven.''

Feeling an ever-stronger public sense ''that tomorrow's economy need not be modeled on the one that just failed us,'' he quotes Nancy Firer again.

''It's time,'' she stressed at the Metropolis 2020 briefing, ''to start planning what the future should be.''

Click here to read about Chicago Metropolis 2020. -- Chicago Tribune   10/20/2008

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Walking to School Getting Muddy in Northbrook After Homeowner Removes City-Owned Cement Walkway

Although New Urbanism proves that sidewalks increase community awareness, physical activity and pedestrian safety, they stir up conflicts in some suburbs, writes Chicago Tribune reporter Susan Kuczka, citing Northbrook, some 20 miles north of central Chicago, where petitioners succeeded in keeping sidewalks out because of privacy concerns last summer, and Lake Forest, another seven miles north, where a clash over homeowner removal of a city-owned cement walkway last month may end in court.

The neighborhood kids and their parents had for 20 years used the 170 x 5-foot walkway to reach an elementary school and a public park, but after residents John and Deb Kunz moved ''into their million-dollar home last year,'' the reporter finds, they ''decided they don't like having strangers walking within close view of their living room window.''

Despite denial of a city permit to remove the walkway, the couple hired workers to rip it out, with unaware neighbors waking up in the morning to the sound of industrial drills.

''I just never imagined in my wildest dreams that they would be pulling out the sidewalk,'' said neighbor Pam Johnson, with resident Carolyn Kuperman adding, ''This was one of the key considerations when we purchased our home (because) we would be within a safe walking distance to school.''

Mayor Michael Rummel told the reporter he invited the Kunzes to discuss a compromise, ''perhaps making the new walk narrower and screening it with tall plants,'' she writes, but he also noted that they would likely have to pay its $5,000 cost.

''It's pretty clear that sidewalk has to go back in,'' he stressed, confident of the city's stance, especially since it had approved the subdivision plan with a stipulation for the walkway over the public utility easement beneath.

Advised by a property rights attorney, John Kunz said, ''There is no recorded public easement for a sidewalk.''

Officials dispute that statement, the reporter observes, with many neighbors wishing the conflict had been resolved before the weather ''turned what is now a dirt path into a muddy mess.'' -- Chicago Tribune   12/5/2007

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Legislature Goes to Bat for Complete Streets in Illinois

''The Illinois Legislature recognized what is becoming common sense across the country -- that our roads need to serve everyone using them, whether they are driving, walking, bicycling, or catching the bus,'' said National Complete Streets Coalition (NCSC) Coordinator Barbara McCann after lawmakers voted unanimously in the Senate and 109-3 in the House to nullify Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich's amendatory veto on the comprehensive Complete Street Law (AB 314), under which the Illinois Department of Transportation must include safe bicycling and walking routes in all planning for urbanized areas immediately and in construction by August 2008.

''By routinely completing their streets,'' she pointed out, ''transportation agencies increase road capacity, avoid costly retrofits, encourage physical activity and help create the walkable communities that so many people want today.''

Chicagoland Bicycle Federation Chief Strategy Officer Randy Neufeld echoed the statement.

''The law is a very cost-effective way to improve safety and access for bicyclists and pedestrians,'' he stressed. ''In the past, the state was prompted by death or injury to correct unsafe conditions on a given project. This law requires projects be built correctly the first time, which will save taxpayers' money and protect people.''

According to an NCSC press release, five other states have adopted some form of complete street law since the movement's 2003 inception, and eight have established other types of such policies, with California lawmakers considering a measure that requires all jurisdictions to plan roads for all travelers, including transit passengers and the disabled.

In related news, reports NYC Streets Renaissance's Streetsblog, an August amendment to the Illinois Vehicle Code requires motorists to leave at least three feet when passing a bicycle.

In an extensive e-mail comment on the Illinois' new law, blog reader Angus Grieve-Smith writes:

''The fact that there needs to be a movement, with a coalition leading to it, to provide basic facilities for people to walk from one place to another, is completely shameful.

''Also, why just urban areas? Many towns and cities are a comfortable walking distance apart (and many more are a comfortable cycling distance apart), and there are lots of country and suburb dwellers (including but not limited to the elderly, teenagers and the disabled) who don't have access to cars and public transportation. I know that urban areas might be a first step, but I think it's important to think and talk in terms of long-term goals. Limiting this to urban areas makes no sense in the long term.

'' 'We didn't build sidewalks here for 50 years,' says Norm Steinman, planning manager for Charlotte's transportation department. 'Streets designed by traffic engineers in the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s were mostly for autos.'

''It's worse that that. In these years, miles and miles of sidewalks in North Carolina were removed from the streets -- demapped, torn up and transferred to lawns and parking lots. If you walk around some of the older downtowns, you can still see traces (assuming you don't get run over first).'' -- Streetsblog   10/17/2007

Resource(s): http://completestreets.org ; www.streetsblog.org/

School District Facing Added Land Expenses as Total Cost Approaches $150 Million

Planning a 3,000-student high school on 80 acres -- roughly equidistant from the Indian Prairie Unit District 204 sectors of Aurora, Naperville, Bolinbrook and Plainfield some four miles away -- where they already own a 25-acre tract, district officials were ready to buy the additional 55 acres for $13.75 million in 2005, or $250,000 an acre, but a jury in a condemnation case decided the land was worth $518,250 per acre at the time the suit was filed, telling the district to pay the owners $28.5 million plus $2.5 million in compensation for loss value of their remaining 15.9 acres.

With $124.7 million in bonds approved by voters last year to ease overcrowding in the two older high schools and absorb future students, reports Arlington Heights Daily Herald writer Melissa Jenco, district officials expected to launch construction six months ago and open the more than $100 million mega-school, near a road intersection passed daily by 75,000 cars, in fall 2009.

Having 30 days from the jury's verdict to buy the land for immediate possession or to appeal, they began special meetings to consider what to do, while seeking information on other possible sites and their prices.

But despite slower residential growth than envisioned in 2005, and in contrast to a growing national trend toward smaller neighborhood schools, they are unwilling to scale down the plans, especially since they count on $17 million to $20 million from land-cash donations, bond proceeds and interest, which brings their land purchase and construction budget for this one high school to a possible $145 million total.

''We are certainly, most likely because of a downturn in housing, not seeing the growth we initially projected we would get,'' acknowledged School Board President Mark Metzger. ''But, as a whole, the board felt the (2006) referendum was not sold on the basis of future projections as it was on the basis of students already here. And we see nothing to suggest current levels are going to go down anytime soon.''

Without questioning the need for 80 acres to build a high school, a Daily Herald editorial says the district found itself in an unenviable position, stressing that the jury's decision ''should inject a sense of urgency that was missing earlier in looking at possible alternative sites.''

To avoid such a position in the future, it adds, the district should have ''a contract for land in hand before asking for money to build a school.'' -- Daily Herald   10/3/2007

Resource(s): www.dailyherald.com/

New Interchange Brings Economic Opportunities to Illinois Community, But Can Planners Play Catch-Up With Rampant Development?

Machesney Park Village President Linda Vaughn welcomes the long-awaited I-90-Route 173 interchange some three miles east of the village's center as great for its economy, and the Rockford Register Star understands her elation, but it also is ready to cry with other area residents over squandered smart-growth opportunities, with out-of-control development already making that stretch of the route along the northern edge of Rock Cut State Park ''a mecca for big-box stores and chain restaurants,'' all ugly and unplanned.

Hoping its not too late for village officials ''to mitigate some of the damage'' after they complete updates to their land-use plan, the daily's editorial says ''the magnitude of the bad-growth crime'' is especially obvious at the entrance of the state park, ''one of the region's most precious natural areas,'' where new commercial and residential development proposals will only make things worse.

''And the traffic! Holy carbon footprint. That's going to get worse, too,'' the editorial warns, mentioning plans for nearby hotels, offices and subdivisions with a total of 5,000 homes.

''We were always a bridesmaid, never a bride, until now,'' rejoiced Village President Vaughn in anticipation of ''the sales tax bonanza,'' the editorial says, commenting, ''Picture a bride in a garish dress of many colors and a flashing neon tiara with a loud brassy voice who just parties all night. Like the development along Illinois 173, blending is not her strong point.'' -- Rockford Register Star   7/3/2007

Resource(s): www.rrstar.com/

Gateway Connector Called Invitation to Sprawl for Illinois Counties

Although the state's three counties just across the Mississippi River east of St. Louis, Missouri, have recorded only a half-percent population growth to 558,098 since 1970, including 2.76 percent in the past six years, some people insist the rural area needs more highways and want to extend 11-mile Route 158 from Monroe and St. Claire counties some 18 miles northeast to Troy in Madison County, writes Stop 158: Citizens for Smart Growth group activist Richard P. Ellerbrake in the Madison-St. Clair Record, considering the proposed Gateway Connector outer beltway to St. Louis' southern Jefferson Barracks Bridge unwarranted and certain to invite sprawl.

''Sprawl,'' he warns, ''threatens us with its insatiable appetite for ever more taxes, public services, schools, fuel, (increasing) traffic accidents and threat to the environment, while the same number of people occupy more and more land at higher and higher cost.''

The U.S. Census Bureau figures he quoted show that most of the population change in the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, including the three Illinois counties, ''is internal movement,'' he points out. ''What looks like growth isn't. It's rearranging the chairs, and trading in rocking chairs for highchairs.''

Noting that the three counties' population ''has gone up or down slightly from year to year,'' without a big jump up that could make the calls for an outer-belt connector more plausible, he stresses, ''Stop 158: Citizens for Smart Growth believes it is important to know the facts so we can plan a future together based on reality, not myth.'' -- Record   7/2/2007

Resource(s): www.madisonrecord.com/

Chicago's Western Suburbs May Take New Look at Land-Use Plans to Ensure Denser, Mixed-Use Development

Astounded by some 100,000 newcomers largely from Chicago's western suburbs over the past several years, many residents of rural McHenry, Boone and Winnebago counties wish officials had stopped the influx, an expectation unrealistic but once again revealing the necessity to shift growth patterns toward mixed uses, higher densities, walkability and transit access, with Washington-based Urban Land Institute (ULI) Senior Resident Fellow Bill Hudnutt pointing out that the U.S. population is to reach 400 million by 2040 and that ''(t)hose people have to live somewhere.''

Looking for optimal solutions, reports Rockford Register Star writer Annette LaCross, Boone County may halt developer Gary Erb's proposed Flora Township project with 3,300 housing units for 10,000 residents on 1,467 acres in Belvidere, and pursue its own area land-use plan, which envisions 25,000 housing units and some 60,000 residents on 5,800 acres, packed with multi-story apartments and condos, stores and offices.

Another key difference, the writer notes, is transportation-related timing. The developer would launch construction immediately and finish by 2028, with the Belvidere School District warning it could not afford to take the more than 2,000 students from his project.

In contrast, the county would delay its project for about five years, until an I-90 interchange is build near the Daimler Chrysler Assembly Plant and the proposed Metra rail extension from Chicago allows creation of a multimodal transit center.

The county, pointed out its and Belvidere's planning director Adam Tegen, would ensure that development proceeds slowly over 20 to 50 years.

''Over the last eight years, there have been very few departures from the land-use plan,'' he said. ''We take it seriously.''

Former Winnebago County long-range planner Reggie Arkel, now with the U.S. Department of Transportation's Chicago office, considers high density housing crucial for the area and communities everywhere.

''When you have low densities, you're inducing a lot of traffic and the pollution and congestion that goes along with it,'' he said, also stressing the importance of walkability.

''With an efficient mass transit system, which such housing would support, it would reduce our dependence on the automobile,'' he observed, adding, ''It's time to go back to the original design (of downtowns), but not with the same mistake of having dirty industry next to homes.'' -- Register Star   5/13/2007

Resource(s): www.rrstar.com/

Close the Loophole: Winnebago County Wants Municipalities to Adopt School Impact Fees to Keep Developers from Avoiding Payments

Having adopted school impact fees in 2005, Winnebago County officials want Rockford and other municipalities to do the same, both to help their school districts and to prevent developers from trying to avoid such payments through ''pre-annexation'' deals -- a legal loophole, widened by a 2005 Illinois Supreme Court decision (Village of Chatham v. County of Sangamon) to let municipalities annex land even far away from their borders.

''It's a loophole we have to close,'' said county planning and economic development director Jim Hughes, pointing out that such annexation deals can free subdivisions in unincorporated areas from paying impact or other county fees.

After the 2005 court ruling, ''a city in another part of the state could sign a pre-annexation agreement with someone trying to develop land in unincorporated Winnebago County,'' elaborated Winnebago County Assistant State Attorney Gary Kovanda. ''If cities can take over subdivision jurisdiction, our impact fee rules wouldn't apply. Nor would we be able to collect building permit fees or any other fees associated with the county's development review process.''

County officials are focusing on Rockford, reports Rockford Register Star writer Isaac Guerrero, because the city has a pre-annexation agreement with Eagle Land Development (ELD) on a 203-home Redington Chase project within 1.5 miles of the city's border, an agreement which doesn't spell out the annexation date but absolves the company from paying more than $250,000 in impact fees for the school district.

ELD attorney Jim Tuneberg said the company didn't try to avoid the impact fees, but its project's proximity to the Rockford border made the subdivision subject to the city's requirement for urban sewers and water service, both dependent on annexation.

He agreed that the county and its municipalities should have the same development rules and regulations regardless of project location.

The problem is especially acute when ''a developer wants to build in the middle of nowhere,'' the writer notes, citing an example of Crystal Lake developer Larry Erb, who plans 1,600 homes for 1,300 unincorporated acres near Cherry Valley, some six miles southeast of central Rockford.

With his request for a pre-annexation deal ''snubbed'' by Cherry Valley and by Belvidere in Boone County another five miles east, the writer reports, the developer turned to Stillman Valley, a village in Ogle County, about 20 miles southwest of where he wants to build.

Rockford Legal Director Patrick Hayes said city aldermen may consider adoption of development impact fees as they discus the ongoing rewrite of their zoning rules. -- Rockford Register Star   3/5/2007

Resource(s): www.rrstar.com/

State Funds Help Fuel Sprawl When Economic Aid Goes to Wealthy Suburbs

In a thorough study of the state's $1.2 billion of business subsidies for the Chicago region between 1990 and 2004, the Washington-based Good Jobs First nonprofit center, which seeks economic development accountability and metropolitan smart growth, found that instead of helping the areas hardest-hit by plant closing and job flight, state agencies ''have favored affluent, outlying areas with low unemployment and the strongest tax base.''

Releasing the study at a Chicago news conference, Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy said the state has ''severely shortchanged'' Chicago and the poorer parts of Cook County, urging it to concentrate incentives in communities that really need help because of high unemployment or low incomes.

Entitled ''Gold Collar: How State Job Subsidies in the Chicago Region Favor Affluent Suburbs,'' the study shows that Chicago, with some 30 percent of the region's population, received only about 15 percent of the subsidies, while DuPage County, with 11 percent of the population, got 18 percent of the regional aid.

Good Jobs First studies released last month in Michigan and Minnesota revealed a similar subsidy distribution pattern.

''Most states fail to integrate their economic development programs with land use planning,'' pointed out director LeRoy. ''It's a costly mistake with tragic results for big cities and older suburbs.'' -- Good Jobs First   1/17/2007

Resource(s): www.goodjobsfirst.org/

Elgin Officials Review Draft Plan for Major Mixed-Use Project

Owned by the Kneip family trust, the 575-acre Yenrich farm on Elgin's far west side, five miles from its center, may be turned into a huge mixed-use neighborhood featuring a town center and 6,000 varied housing units, with some Elgin officials worried it would become a separate city, but others enthusiastic about the project, especially since Chicago-based Urban Retail Properties development division head Mike Levin promised its residents would be able to send their children to a store without fearing about their safety.

''This is the anti-sprawl development we've been looking for,'' said Councilman John Walters, pointing out that its mixed uses and density should make residents less dependent on cars.

Equally excited, reports Elgin Courier News writer Nathaniel Zimmer, Councilman David Kaptain had only one related problem. Concerned that the three major roads across the project would obstruct pedestrians, he suggested construction of overpasses or underpasses to free residents from taking their cars just to get to the other side. Accordingly, Mayor Ed Schock urged staffers and the developer to work hand in hand, stressing, ''It's absolutely critical we do this right.''

An early schematic plan, presented to the City Council by Geneva-based Lannert Group principal Chris Lannert, the writer observes, shows a town center surrounded by dense mixed-use development on 90 to 95 acres, with outlying condos, townhouses and another commercial area, then single-family homes along the edges.

The developer noted that the project, built over 10 years, wouldn't compete economically with established commercial centers and businesses within a 10-mile radius, because it would have far less retail. -- Courier News   8/10/2006

Resource(s): www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/

Changes to Winnebago County's PUD Procedures Would Keep Project Sites Close to Municipal Limits and Services

Sued by 35 Rockton residents and separately by the township for approving a 112-home subdivision about three miles to the northwest without normal hearings and thus depriving them of their right to object, Winnebago County will likely change its special-use permit procedure for Planned Community Development (PUD) this fall, with County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen saying his proposed zoning amendments would allow PUDs only within 1.5 miles of a municipality, which would ensure greater cost-effectiveness, better land use and real smart growth.

The amendments would rein in sprawl and promote infill-type development, he pointed out, because all future PUDs would have to use public water and sewer service, while municipal officials would be able to enforce their own regulations and approve the final plat. Rockton representatives on the County Board, Dave Yeske and Jim Webster, reports Rockford Register Star writer Geri Nikolai, endorsed the proposal, but township trustee Tom Jencius was disappointed that it still lacks a provision for municipal and individual challenges to county decisions in court. ''I moved to an unincorporated area 30 years ago because that's where I wanted to live,'' he observed. ''If you can't control development around you, what good is it?''

Noting that a legal challenge to a project makes it subject to approval by two-thirds of the county board instead of by simple majority, the writer reports that the proposal to change PUD requirements won't stop the fight against the 112-home project approved in June. -- Rockford Register Star   7/26/2006

Resource(s): www.rrstar.com/

Green Roofs, Energy-Efficient Home Improvements a Growing Part of ShoreBank's Investments in Chicago's Minority Communities

Created in 1973 to help revitalize impoverished minority communities the lending industry neglected, Chicago's South Side-based ShoreBank -- 71 percent of whose 480 employees in the country and abroad are African-Americans -- has invested more than $2 billion in this underserved housing market, expanding the portfolio in 2000 with conservation loans and investing $182 million so far in environmental and energy-efficiency improvements, most of the money used by customers to rehabilitate their homes.

Glad that the city also pushes for ''green'' rehabilitation and construction, ShoreBank President Anne Arvia told Chicago Sun-Times business writer Mary Wisniewski that the borrowers ''are starting to see that energy efficiency makes so much sense.''

Consumer interest in green roofs, efficient heating and other environmentally-friendly features, boosted the bank's conservation loans by 16 percent over the past year, the bank president said, adding, ''It fits so well around what we currently do around multifamily rehabs.''

Conservation lending promotes efficient use of materials, resources and energy, alternative power sources, and protection of land and water, the writer observes, noting that sometimes ShoreBank approves a conservation loan and a community development loan for the same project.

In its online mission statement, ShoreBank stresses that ''communities cannot achieve true prosperity without also attaining environmental well-being'' and that it invests ''in people and their communities to create economic equity and a healthy environment.'' -- Chicago Sun-Times   6/13/2006

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com/index/index.html ; www.shorebankcorp.com

River Edge Redevelopment Initiative to Help Illinois River Communities Clean Up Brownfields

Neglected and often too contaminated for locally shouldered cleanups, the state's riverfronts will get a financial boost under its new $20-million River Edge Redevelopment Initiative, with the first funds from the five-year pilot program going to home cities of the bill's Democratic sponsors, Aurora state Representative Linda Chapa LaVia and East St. Louis state Senator James Clayborne, whose legislative efforts were strongly backed by Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner.

''The River Edge Redevelopment Initiative,'' said Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, ''will provide municipalities and businesses with the additional resources they need to be able to clean up brownfield sites, which is going to attract more businesses and put more people to work.''

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity director Jack Lavin echoed the statement, saying, ''Governor Blagojevich and I want to thank Senator Clayborne, Representative Chapa LaVia and Aurora Mayor Weisner for working so hard with us to make this innovative new pilot program to grow our economy a reality.''

Aurora has about a dozen brownfield sites, totaling more than 100 acres along the Fox River, reports Beacon News writer Andre Sales, quoting Representative Chapa LaVia, who observed, ''Before, these sites were cost-prohibitive because you would use one-third of your money just on cleaning up the area.'' The same goes for several East St. Louis sites along the Mississippi River, and for other riverside communities not yet in the program.

''We have an opportunity here in Aurora, and across Illinois,'' stressed Mayor Weisner, ''to revitalize land that has been languishing for years without providing any economic benefits to our taxpayers.'' -- Beacon News   5/12/2006

Resource(s): http://suburbanchicagonews.com

School District Funding Policies That Favor Large-Lot Homes Bring More Sprawl to Rural Illinois Communities

Like other states where schools are too dependent on property taxes, Illinois practically forces its school districts to favor single-family homes on big lots over compact and multi-family housing, a governmental arrangement that keeps the districts afloat but inadvertently promotes sprawl, notes Great Lakes Radio Consortium (GLRC) reporter Shawn Allee, quoting Chicago area developer Jamie Bigelow who had to fight a local zoning board for his traditional neighborhood project several years ago.

He was initially turned down, with planners arguing that small homes would deplete the school district's budget. ''They wanted large houses on large lots, because for the school district, that will give them a lot of taxes with not as many kids because there's not as many houses,'' the builder recalls -- his hard-won compact project linked to nearby shops and parks, some of its streets closed to cars to let children play safely near home.

But such victories are rare, the reporter observes, while the residential push into outer areas wastes rural land, hurts the quality of life and increases infrastructure and service costs, along with busing.

In his district, some children spent about three hours a day on school buses, says Superintendent Charles McCormick, because ''the land use pattern itself disperses the students'' and the location of one student ''can add ten to fifteen minutes to a route.'' He points out that even high property taxes from big home subdivisions don't pay in full for education.

''If you were to run a business the way growth affects school districts,'' he notes, ''you'd be broke because you cannot keep up with rapid growth that produces for every student, a deficit.''

Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council expert MarySue Barrett says that to relieve communities from excessive reliance on property taxes, which would help limit sprawl and traffic congestion, the state must find new resources and absorb a bigger share of school costs. ''If we have a different way of paying for our schools that's less dependent on the property tax,'' she stresses, ''we'll begin to move away from this problem that's put a choke hold on so many communities.'' -- Great Lakes Radio Consortium   3/13/2006

Resource(s): http://glrc.org/

River Edge Redevelopment Initiative Designed to Help Illinois River Communities Clean Up and Redevelop Brownfields

''River communities were the original economic engines of Illinois, and there are countless underutilized and abandoned properties along major waterways prime for redevelopment,'' said Democratic Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, announcing his River Edge Redevelopment Initiative, which offers communities and businesses ''tax credits, exemptions and $20 million in new grant funding'' to help them clean up brownfields, spur additional growth and create more jobs.

Former industrial sites in the designated River Edge Redevelopment Zones, reads the gubernatorial press release, have become ''ideal settings'' for new productive land uses, including residential, office, warehouse distribution, retail, recreational, hospitality, and commercial.

As outlined further in the governor's budget speech, the initiative -- administered primarily by the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) -- requires approval of legislation sponsored by state Democratic Senator James Clayborne and Representative Linda Chapa Lavia.

The number of the state's brownfields is estimated at 7,000 to 10,000 -- many of them along the rivers. Their cleanup has accelerated since Governor Blagojevich took office in January 2003, returning more than 400 sites, totaling thousands of acres, for redevelopment or natural habitat and recreational use.   2/15/2006

Resource(s): www.illinois.gov/

Developer Files Lawsuit Against Sugar Grove Village After Village Denies Rezoning Request Based on Existing Ordinances

As if any invocation of smart growth, especially in a company's name, should free the company from local requirements and guarantee it immediate approval of construction plans, Smart Growth Sugar Grove LLC -- an Inland Real Estate Development subsidiary -- is suing Sugar Grove village in Kane County Circuit Court for nearly $2 million, claiming that rejection of its 132-home subdivision south of I-88 was ''unreasonable'' and ''arbitrary,'' and that the request to set aside part of the 80-acre site for a possible interchange constitutes ''taking of land without just compensation.''

Contrary to an ordinance that requires a Planned Unit Development (PUD) petition for all projects of more than three acres, which lets the village negotiate impact fees, preserve 40 percent of a site as open space and specify other details, reports Beacon News writer Angela Fornelli, the developers seek a straight rezoning of the tract from office to residential use, arguing that PUD would not ''promote any substantial public benefit.''

They also argue they need the whole tract to avoid building lower-quality homes on smaller lots, and they refuse to reserve land for an interchange because subdivision residents wouldn't be its only users. Consequently, the writer finds, they demand $1.4 million for losses, and at least $400,000 for the deprivation of due-process and for legal fees.

Village officials point out they simply follow their ordinances and expect the company to comply with the rules as all others must. Confident of its legal stance, Village President Sean Michels says, ''It's unfortunate that Inland feels they have to sue us, because we're really gotten a lot of compliments on the Bliss Woods subdivision they developed.'' -- Beacon News   11/17/2005

Resource(s): www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/

Rock Island Agrees to Plan for ''Rustic Living'' Subdivision on 16-Acre Wooded Tract Near City Facilities

Calling it an example of ''smart growth,'' the city of Rock Island -- one of the Iowa-Illinois area's Quad-Cities -- and HMV Development LLC announced an agreement to turn a wooded 16-acre tract, long held by its previous owner for a cemetery, into a 34-lot subdivision called Chippiannock Trails, which will ''offer rustic living in the heart of an urban area,'' observes Quad-City Times writer John Willard, noting that its residents will live within two miles of the Mississippi River to the northwest and the Rock River to the southwest, while enjoying easy access to a nearby medical center, a high school and other city facilities.

''This is a great opportunity for housing ownership between the rivers on land that had not been utilized,'' said Mayor Mark Schwiebert.

To facilitate the project, the writer reports, the city and the Rock Island-Milan School District will rebate a portion of property taxes for three years, with developers also expecting its inclusion in the city's expanded enterprise zone, which would exempt building materials from sales taxes. This could mean savings of $10,000 to $15,000 in property taxes and $7,000 to $10,000 in sales taxes, with the homes, on quarter-acre to over-half-acre lots, likely to cost from about $300,000 to $750,000. -- Quad-City Times   10/7/2005

Resource(s): www.qctimes.net/

Oversupply of Single-Family Homes Threatens Future of Chicago Area's Affordable Housing Market

If municipal policies, market forces and frequent public bias against affordable housing continue to favor increased construction of single-family homes on large lots, the gap between what the six-county Chicago region needs and what it gets will only widen as its population grows from 8.1 to 10 million in the next 25 years, warns a study released by Metropolis 2020 and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, predicting the most growth for Latinos, Asian Americans and African Americans, and for people over 65, most of them traditionally focused on less-costly, denser, multi-family housing, including apartments and rentals.

The study, reports Aurora Beacon News writer Steve Lord, predicts the highest population growth in the suburbs, with the numbers likely to double in Will County south of Chicago, and to increase by more than 70 percent in Kane and McHenry counties to its northwest.

All three, along with Lake County north of the city, already lead the region in percentages of single-family homes, and the study expects each ''to significantly oversupply large-lot, single-family housing and to significantly undersupply moderately priced apartments or condos as well as townhouses and duplexes and small-lot detached housing.''

The study notes that the lack of quality affordable units has turned many buyers in recent years to housing that might be beyond their means if mortgage rates go up, which could pose a wider economic problem. The issue is ''not just low-income housing,'' but affordability for everybody, stressed St. Charles (Kane County) senior city planner Shubhra Govind. ''You should not be spending more than 30 percent.''

With neither ''(c)urrent market financing programs'' nor ''government subsidy programs'' likely to rectify ''a serious future mismatch'' between types of housing the public seeks and can find, the study calls for municipal measures and multi-jurisdictional cooperation. It says municipalities should draw up long-term plans to ensure a variety of housing sizes and prices; review zoning and building codes to permit varied-type construction; include residents in housing and development decisions, possibly through local housing commissions; work together on sub-regional housing plans; and find new revenue streams for affordable housing preservation and construction.

Acknowledging that some of these steps are locally controversial, Metropolis 2020 senior adviser and former Glenview Mayor Nancy Firfer says they are backed by the mayoral caucus and at least will start discussions among the region's 272 mayors. Like other Metropolis officials, the writer observes, she is especially encouraged by the ''forward thinking'' of Kane County officials and municipal leaders, who see the need for diversified housing and smart growth. -- Beacon News   9/12/2005

Resource(s): www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/

Lake County Rural Preserve In Jeopardy After Antioch Zoning Board Rejects Regional Plan

Calling Lake County's idea to involve Antioch, Old Mill Creek, Wadsworth and Zion in the proposed preservation of a 3,400-acre rural swatch along Route 173, parallel to the Wisconsin border just two miles north, ''the first step toward promoting really smart growth,'' county planning, building and development deputy director Dennis Sandquist expressed disappointment over the Antioch planning and zoning board's 4-3 vote against the plan, not sure what happens if the village board also turns it down.

Wadsworth and Zion, reports suburban Chicago Daily Herald writer Sara Faiwell, have already endorsed the plan, drawn up by the county's Route 173 corridor council created last year, with Old Mill Creek awaiting Antioch's decision.

Several Antioch residents who attended the planning and zoning board meeting, the writer notes, thought a multi-governmental land conservation agreement might depress future property values and undermine local control.

Board chairman Vern Burdick, who cast the decisive ''no'' vote, also doubted such an agreement could be effective. ''It's a beautiful area, and we want to preserve it,'' he said, but ''getting four municipalities together is going to be a real problem no matter how we work this thing.''

But several other attendees supported the plan as certain to help save local character. ''A lot of us moved up here because we wanted a rural type area,'' argued resident Mary Drimalla. ''Since we bought it that way, we're trying to preserve our heritage.'' -- Daily Herald   7/16/2005

Resource(s): www.dailyherald.com/

Editorial Urges Officials to Pursue Smart Growth As Rockford's Land Consumption Rate Soars

The Rockford region's 70 percent land-consumption jump -- despite its merely 4 percent population growth through the 1970s and 1980s -- is ''not a record to be proud of,'' says a Rockford Register Star editorial, telling officials to beware of the Chicago area's problems and to pursue smart growth, which ''clusters homes and protects open spaces'' and ''is ultimately good for the bottom line.''

Glad that Boone County, south of the city, and Ogle County to the west -- the state's fourth and tenth fastest-growing counties -- heed growth challenges and move to meet them, the editorial chastises Winnebago County, which surrounds the city, for its tardiness.

Winnebago officials ''can recite the buzzwords, but they don't have a clue about getting off Square 1,'' the editorial concludes. ''Remember the Green Communities environmental visioning project of 2003? Where is it? Lost in a floodplain? All that work, and the county still doesn't have a single conservation zoning ordinance on the books. We may not totally understand smart growth, but we know dumb when we see it.'' -- Rockford Register Star   6/24/2005

Resource(s): www.rrstar.com/

Peoria County Outlines Strategy to Protect Rural Areas Through Smart Growth

Although they expect public controversy, Peoria County officials want to protect their rural area from sprawl through smart growth, with an environmental enforcement officer already at work, a revamped subdivision ordinance and a first-ever set of building codes coming up for board votes this summer, and the Comprehensive Land Use Plan slated for updates in about two years.

The new ordinance, reports Peoria Journal Star writer Angela Green, should concentrate development near cities and villages by requiring builders of ''major'' subdivisions of at least five lots or needing new roads to hook up to public water and sewer systems, and to ensure modern road construction.

Bans on individual wells in such subdivisions will guarantee that residents will have enough clean drinking water even during droughts, said County Planning and Zoning Director Matt Wahl, noting that it's also going to steer growth toward urban areas unless developers are willing ''to create a community water system.''

That's exactly what smart growth means to Board Vice Chairman Merle Widmer -- development in and around population centers. But his colleague Carol Trumpe, who heads the board's planning and zoning committee, observed that the county must still expect growth in rural areas for economic reasons and because it has to ''allow for the individual tastes of people.''

The writer adds that a current county study will map out environmentally sensitive sites, or ''environmental corridors,'' to provide for more comprehensive development guidelines. -- Journal Star   5/9/2005

Resource(s): www.pjstar.com/index.shtml

Belvidere's Smart Growth Developments Praised for Preserving Green Space, Creating Livable Neighborhoods

''Belvidere shows it knows how to adopt 'smart growth','' says a Rockford Register Star editorial, complimenting the Belvidere City Council for planning the 6,500-acre mixed-use West Hills development on Boone County land as early as eight years ago and now launching construction of the first of three subdivisions to meet ''the rising demand for new housing while preserving green space and creating livable neighborhoods.''

This project, reaching the Boone-Winnebago county line midway between Belvidere and Rockford, the editorial notes, ''should serve as an example to other municipalities for how to do growth'' instead of pursuing ''the random construction that has consumed so many cornfields in northern Illinois.''

A future home to some 12,000 residents, West Hills will offer mixed-income, multi-family and detached housing, a welcome shift from things past, when subdivisions targeted particular income groups and created ''a certain monotony,'' the editorial observes. ''Smart growth allows for more variety and focuses on building a neighborhood, not just a subdivision,'' it concludes, adding that the council's ''forethought'' also places West Hills in the city limits, securing a new tax revenue boost. -- Rockford Register Star   4/7/2005

Resource(s): www.rrstar.com/

Kane County Officials Urged to Act Now and Plan for More Affordable Housing

Alarmed by decade-long increases in home and rental prices across Kane County, on the eastern edge of metro Chicago, a panel of local, state and national experts agreed that officials must immediately focus on affordable housing, especially since the county's just-released 25-year land-use plan projects a gain of about 81,000 residents by 2010 and another 22,000 by 2030.

If at least half of Kane land is to be saved as rural and open space, reports Chicago Tribune writer William Presecky, the county's municipalities must be able and willing to meet 90 percent of its future housing needs, with forecasters basing that number on rapidly changing demographic data on age and race groups, household makeup and lifestyle trends.

''If we're going to deal with the challenges we're going to face as a result of growth,'' said Kane County Board Republican Chairwoman Karen McConnaughay in her speech to some 300 participants of the inaugural plan-implementation workshop, ''we have to be able to reach consensus,'' not only on affordable housing, but also on traffic congestion remedies and water supply protection, problems slated for similar workshops in 2006-07.

Commenting on County Planning Director Kai Tarum's findings that county household incomes and home values grew by 52 and 67 percent, respectively, between 1990 and 2001, Fannie Mae senior policy analyst Catherine Godschlak pointed out that home ownership and rent affordability for teachers, police officers, firefighters and others on whom communities depend is also ''a fairness issue,'' and Fannie Mae's American Communities Fund director Cindy Holler urged the county to tackle the issue now, before it becomes unsurmountable.

Industry representatives echoed these calls. ''When you don't build houses, prices go up,'' said National Association of Realtors (NAR) Smart Growth Advisory Board Chairman and California Association of Realtors President Jim Hamilton. ''The people are still going to come. The developers are going to build. You have a golden opportunity right now to plan your communities.''

NAR smart-growth programs manager Joseph Molinaro added, ''We haven't been building the housing that people are telling us they want.'' -- Chicago Tribune   3/24/2005

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Judge Validates DeKalb County's Anti-Sprawl Comprehensive Plan in Rejecting Rezoning Request

In an indicative win for DeKalb County's policy of curbing sprawl, Circuit Court Judge Michael Colwell validated its comprehensive land-use plan and zoning ordinance by upholding the county's rejection of a 2002 request to rezone a 30-acre homestead in Pierce Township from agricultural to residential use, which would let resident Janice Nelson subdivide the land into 10 lots for homes expected to cost between $400,000 and $500,000.

The resident, reports Chicago Tribune writer William Presecky, sued the county in 2004, arguing that her heavily wooded property, bought for $186,000 in 1976 and valued at more than $550,000 now, would be worth about $1.3 million after rezoning, and that the denial amounts to a seizure.

The judge disagreed, with the county's special counsel, Chicago attorney Ronald Cope, saying the decision ''lays the seed for developing concepts which help balance the need to preserve farmland and ... allow for reasoned and measured growth.''

County Planning Director Paul Miller pointed out that the county's 2003 comprehensive plan, named by the Illinois chapter of the American Planning Association as best in the state, directs development to areas adjacent or close to its 14 municipalities. ''DeKalb County has never discouraged growth and development,'' he said. ''To the extent that it occurs, it should occur in and around the cities, in part because that's where the services are.'' -- Chicago Tribune   3/11/2005

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com

Elgin's Rural Annexation Plans Raise Open Space, Quality of Life Concerns

Fueled by its projected population increase from 94,000 to 162,000 within 25 years and by its ambitious 2003 growth-control plan, Elgin's western annexation push beyond the Cook County line, far into unincorporated Kane County land, is meeting stiff resistance from Kane officials and residents as detrimental to their open space preservation efforts and the semi-rural area's overall quality of life.

Accustomed to their standard acre-plus minimum lots, reports Chicago Tribune writer Richard Wronski, they don't want to see houses on one-third-acre lots, proposed by Residential Land Fund I LP for an upscale 940-home subdivision near Campton Township. They fear the project's impact on the area's two-lane roads, schools and wetlands.

The investment fund spokeswoman, Katheryn Hayes, tried to assuage these concerns, pointing out that besides 600-acre residential and 56-acre commercial sections, the project would include more than 200 acres of open space, and that fund officials promised to purchase land for a new school and to ensure adequate impact fees.

''Everything is being planned within the long-term vision of the city and county for the area, using smart growth principles,'' she said. ''We don't see how a subdivision of $500,000 homes can be bad for a school district.''

Still, in an ''unprecedented move,'' the writer notes, the Kane County Board and Campton Township have asked Elgin to refuse the project, the federal Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service opined that it could harm wetlands without proper safeguards, St. Charles' Community Unit School District 303 complained about its prospective financial burden, and residents are gearing for a fight.

Preserve Campton president Patsy Smith told the writer residents could accept the project if the lots were as large as theirs. ''It still would give you the feel of country living,'' she said. ''But to have a traditional (smaller-lot) subdivision right behind your home, that's hard for people to take.'' -- Chicago Tribune   1/24/2005

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Retirees Like Convenience of Chicago's Older Suburbs

Some of the old Chicago suburbs are becoming the region's hottest retirement places, reports Chicago Tribune freelance writer Jane Adler, finding many seniors attracted by their village-like, pedestrian-friendly streets, renovated housing and other downtown amenities, and many builders ready to meet the increased market demand with further investments.

''We are within walking distance of 25 restaurants,'' exclaims new downtown LaGrange resident Paul Anderson, 77, who, with his wife Judith, bought a condo featuring an elevator instead of stairs and even moved their dietary supplement business just across the street. ''This is a fabulous location,'' he stresses, ''you can get anything you want here.''

A long-time Schiller Park home owner, Nellie Johnson, 72, signed a contract for a three-bedroom downtown Schiller Park condo in an age-restricted building under construction, happy that the neighborhood is ''not out in no-man's land'' and that she won't ''have to use a car.'' Schiller Park community development director Cathleen Tymoszenko sees the seniors' influx as ''a catalyst to downtown development,'' also noting that medical and other service provision to seniors in compact ''gray zones'' will be easier and speedier than it often is in spread-out single-family subdivisions.

Age-restricted buildings, like those being built or planned by St. Louis-based HPG Cambridge Inc. in LaGrange, Geneva and Naperville, the writer adds, offer van transportation, health services and weekly housekeeping, while their restaurants are open to everyone. -- Chicago Tribune   11/21/2004

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Subdivision Can't Find a Home in Greater Chicago's Village of Huntley or McHenry County

After Neumann Group's idea to have Huntley -- on Greater Chicago's northwestern outskirts -- annex 411 grassy acres for a 619-home subdivision was rebuffed by village leaders for its prospective impact on services and its lack of a Metra rail station, the developer's representatives took it to the McHenry County Board only to be told by the district's board member Richard Klasen, ''This is not smart growth.''

His colleagues, reports suburban Chicago Daily Herald writer Charles Keeshan, echoed the statement. Like Village Administrator Carl Tomaso, they all worried about how the currently proposed subdivision density would affect traffic and schools.

Neumann's vice president of acquisition, planning and entitlement, Marty Eppel, said the company would do its ''fair share'' to extend nearby Algonquin Road through the subdivision, but isn't required to fund most construction, calling it ''a regional improvement'' proposal. He promised to work with the county while taking the project through its planning process, despite County Board member Tina Hill's advice to take it to Huntley ''and work out an annexation.'' -- Daily Herald   11/5/2004

Resource(s): www.dailyherald.com/

Success of Chicago's Millennium Park Has Office Building Owners Thinking Mixed-Use

Spearheaded by Chicago Democratic Mayor Richard Daley, with most private fund-raising by Sara Lee Corp. retired chairman John Bryan, the $475 million redevelopment of a former rail yard, parking lot and adjacent tract on the downtown's eastern edge into the 24.5-acre Millennium Park, open since July, greatly exceeded its initial plan and spurred residential construction throughout the area, with U.S. Equities Realty vice president and park manager Roark Frankel saying, ''Overnight it went from solely a business center to a super-sized neighborhood.''

Buyer demand is strong and developers ''are picking up that vibe,'' he tells National Real Estate Investor writer Paula Widholm, who finds that contracts and reservations for new condos around Millennium Park jumped from 182 in 2003 to 408 in the first half of 2004, and that condo builders are making 15-20 percent in profits.

A luxury 57-story tower that will overlook the park is almost sold, and agents report brisk sales for 62-story, 46-story and 44-story condo towers nearby -- their three-bedroom units ranging from $700,000 to $1.6 million.

According to Appraisal Research Counselors vice president Gail Lissner, this housing demand ''is making every owner of an under-performing office building rethink its highest and best use,'' with Metropolitan Properties of Chicago LLC president Louis D'Angelo already turning the 80-year old Britannica Centre office tower into 220 residential units.

So-called ''hip-retail'' is also replacing some ''dingy first-floor vacancies'' along Michigan Avenue, the writer adds, noting that a new Segway store will both sell the company's personal transportation movers and use them for local architectural tours. -- National Real Estate Investor   10/1/2004

Resource(s): www.nreionline.com/

Kane County's Rural Communities Work on Comprehensive Plans to Manage Projected Growth From Chicago

Since the Chicago area's growth is almost stretching the land capacity of Cook and DuPage counties now, the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) expects development to move mostly west, into predominantly rural Kane County, its population projected to increase from 404,000 in 2000 to more than 692,000 by 2030.

Much of this growth, reports the suburban (Oakbrook) Business Ledger, will hit small communities. For example, the village of Sugar Grove -- west of the county's largest city, Aurora -- will see its population jump from under 4,000 to nearly 63,000, with village president Sean Michaels saying, ''You can't stop growth. With DuPage built up, we are the next logical step.''

Consequently, the village has already drawn up a comprehensive land-use plan for the next 10 years to manage development, says its Economic Development Corporation executive director Perry Clark, rather than just opening ''the flood gates.''

The same goes for the county's second-largest city, Elgin, whose population will grow from some 94,500 in 2000 to 162,400 in 2030. Envisioning 13,000 new homes, Elgin economic development vice president Chris Manheim says long-term planning, like a ''three-legged stool,'' requires balanced residential, commercial and industrial development. He hopes Elgin will become a residential base for new skilled and high-tech workers, noting that companies have long been buying property in the area, many of them ''looking to put their headquarters out here.''

At the same time, both Sugar Grove and Elgin officials confirm Kane County Development Department executive director Philip Bus' observation that future demographics are bound to change, with many new residents expected to be older, to come from Chicago and its suburbs, and to prefer small lots, townhouses or apartments.

''This is a different population increase than we have seen in the past,'' director Bus says, noting that right now the county has ''10,000 Baby Boomers turning 55.'' And this demographic shift, The Business Ledger observes, may fit well with Northwestern University's Infrastructure Technical Institute director Dave Schulz's call for greater density as the best way to secure proper urban growth and fiscal stability.

Residential growth doesn't pay for itself, director Schulz stresses, saying, ''If you put 3,400 new kids in a school the new resident property tax won't pay for those kids.'' But higher density areas will both support transit and attract businesses within easy walking distance, he points out, with retail tax augmenting local revenue and helping fund services that residential property tax can't cover. -- Business Ledger   8/31/2004

Resource(s): www.thebusinessledger.com/

Alarmed by Rapid Growth, Sycamore Voters Ask City Officials to Freeze New Subdivisions Until Current Projects Are Completed

With Sycamore's population up by 2,300 in the past four years and another 3,000 homes on the books through 2011, almost 71 percent of primary election voters in this small Dekalb County city passed an advisory resolution asking officials to freeze additional subdivisions until the ones currently planned are completed, but exempt extra housing for elderly, handicapped, and low-income residents, a powerful message welcomed by Mayor John Swedberg, who said it affirms ''what I've been telling them (council members) and the city for a while now -- that we need to move toward smart growth.''

The mayor noted that the city has already moved in that direction, with its comprehensive plan and limits on housing permits, but must do a lot more. Brought about by the Citizen Action for Reasonable Expansion (CARE) grassroots group formed last fall, reports the county Daily Chronicle writer Renee Messacar, the referendum reflects residents' concerns that overly rapid growth would harm farmland, overcrowd schools, strain services, clog roads, and irreversibly alter local small-town atmosphere.

Happy with referendum results, CARE activist Joyce Smith said, ''Now we will see how the city council and government act and if they start listening to the people.'' The writer adds that local contractors and builders asked the council at several meetings to consider how slowing down growth could affect area jobs, property values and housing costs. -- Daily Chronicle   3/17/2004

Resource(s): www.daily-chronicle.com/

ULI-Chicago to Help Elburn Village Plan for Growth While Keeping Rural Character

Having already outlined a basic smart-growth strategy on its own, Kane County's Elburn Village, just west of metro Chicago, will get comprehensive expert advice on how to prevent sprawl and keep rural character, as one of three municipalities selected by the Chicago chapter of the Urban Land Institute for its Technical Assistance Program this year.

The institute has been helping local communities with planning since 1947, reports Kane County Chronicle writer Dan Chanzit, quoting Campaign for Sensible Growth executive director Ellen Shubart, who says it's ''a big deal'' for Elburn, which needs the expertise, but doesn't have the funding and ''(t)his is a way to get them going.''

Village President James Willey also is excited about the opportunity to have local issues examined by ''a set of fresh eyes.'' He is eager for specific advice on how to maintain the village's downtown business district and spur high-density housing near the Metra station. The writer notes that the institute's technical assistance panels include developers, architects and experts on law, finance and transportation, all working with local officials, residents and business leaders during the study and the planning process. -- Kane County Chronicle   1/7/2004

Resource(s): www.kcchronicle.com/

Chicago's State Street Renovation Goal: Revitalize Schools, Rebuild Community

Prompted by Mayor Richard Daley to cooperate on redevelopment of the blighted State Street corridor between 31st and 47th streets near downtown and Lake Michigan, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) enlisted top local institutions -- the University of Chicago, DePaul University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the MacArthur Foundation and others -- in a landmark effort to reinvent the area's 25 schools and make them a magnet for the return of middle-class families to this Mid-South neighborhood, which will offer a mix of 7,000 new subsidized and market-rate housing units.

Slated to begin in 2005, the school reinvention may include new curriculum, greater preschool and after-school opportunities, public-private partnerships and other programs, report Chicago Tribune writers Lori Olszewski and Carlos Sadovi, quoting CPS CEO Arne Duncan, who said, ''We're aiming for dramatic change; we're not going to recreate the status quo,'' adding, ''No other school system in the country has pursued this link between community revitalization and school development.''

In response to local concerns that some neighborhood schools may be closed, CPS chief education officer Barbara Eason-Watkins pointed to the reopening of Dodge and Williams schools this fall, saying, ''I think we've seen the value of starting with a clean slate.'' Other officials also noted the importance of better schools for the area, one of the most segregated nationwide. ''We are trying to turn dysfunctional neighborhoods into healthy mixed-income communities,'' asserted CHA CEO Terry Peterson. ''It's a delicate balance to pull something like this off. You can't do it just with the housing and retail development. You have to get the third leg and that's the schools,'' observed Chicago Community Trust chief operating officer Terry Mazany, while Alderman Toni Preckwinkle said new housing, sidewalks and utilities cannot create strong neighborhoods alone, stressing, ''Communities are tied together by schools.'' -- Chicago Tribune   12/19/2003

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Computer Model Helps Planners Simulate Long-Term Effects of Development Decisions

Started as a University of Illinois proposal to Kane County for a computer simulation of future urban growth effects in its Mill Creek watershed and tested since in Peoria by the governor's Smart Growth Task Force, the Landuse Evolution and Impact Assessment Model (LEAM) will help planners and the public visualize the potential long-range impact of specific development decisions on soil erosion, water quality, job market, school accessibility and other community prospects, with LEAM creator Brian Deal saying, ''We can simulate what might happen in an area in the next 30 years.'' Running on the University's supercomputer, reports Daily Illini writer Smita Krishnaswamy, the model divides a target area into 30 by 30 meters (about 100-square-foot) cells, with each cell assessing itself and its probability of change, depending on a set of input variables, including roads, utilities, schools, jobs and other growth elements. A LEAM contributor, urban and regional planning associate professor Kieren Donaghey said, ''By changing specific aspects of the model, we get a real sense of changing the outcomes,'' which will let the average person easily grasp all implications of planning and development decisions. Geography professor Bruce Hannon stressed that with LEAM ''we can show the dynamics of urban sprawl on a map, right before our eyes.'' He also pointed out that city leaders, who seek growth for its expected revenue but often get insufficient revenue to cover the cost of growth, can avoid the problem by using LEAM to calculate ''if growth at the (city) fringe does pay.'' -- Daily Illini   7/28/2003

Resource(s): www.dailyillini.com/

Prioritize Funding Requests, Illinois Rep. Tells Transit Agencies at Chicago-Area Summit

With cities and regions vying in Congress for money from a new six- year transportation aid package slated for approval later this year, Illinois Democratic Representative William Lipinski, senior member of the House Transportation Committee, held a Chicago area transit summit, urging officials from the city and state departments of transportation, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), the CTA, Metra and Pace, to prioritize their fund requests and decide soonest which of the three transit agencies would serve the northwestern Chicago-Schaumburg corridor. ''The RTA is probably going to have to be a little more proactive,'' said the congressman, anticipating another transit summit in May. RTA spokesman David Loveday said his agency is ready for multi-agency cooperation and CTA chairwoman Valerie Jarrett added that the congressman told officials ''we stand the best chance of securing the most funds for the region to the degree that we go in with one plan.''   3/18/2003

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Smart Growth and Infill Development Making a Difference in Chicago

''Smart growth appears to be on (the) right track'' in metropolitan Chicago, where a lot is being done to encourage the concept ''in the central city and many of its older, established suburbs,'' writes Sun Times housing observer David Mack, quoting Washington- based Urban Land Institute president Richard Rosan's remark that ''growth is inevitable, but what we do about where we grow is not.'' In Chicago's South Loop, the writer points out, ''a multitude of loft and other condominium and town-house complexes reflect a number of 'smart growth' principles,'' including brownfield redevelopment, historic preservation and warehouse conversion. In the suburbs, many towns and villages stimulate and help ''the development of condo association housing'' on downtown sites no longer attractive or economically viable. As an example, the writer cites La Grange southwest of Chicago, an urban village that joined the trend by using a former retail site for a mid-rise condominium and an old lumberyard for a town-house project a few years ago, and is now facilitating redevelopment north of the main business district, where a high-rise condo complex will include retail space -- all these projects within an easy walk of the village's bustling center and two commuter rail stations. ''Smart residential growth,'' the writer concludes, is apparent ''in the easy access to public transportation, downtown revitalization, use of existing infrastructure, infill development, pedestrian friendliness and public/private cooperation in the village's acquisition of land and the modification of local ordinances to permit construction.'' -- Chicago Sun-Times   3/7/2003

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com/index/

Joliet's Expansion Plans Worry Rural Illinois Residents

Will County's largest city, Joliet -- southwest of metro Chicago -- wants to expand westward by annexing 18 square miles (11,120 acres) in unincorporated Kendall County for an expected 22,000 homes and 76,000 new residents within 20 years, with Joliet community and economic director James Haller asserting, ''This is a natural evolutionary process'' not ''leapfrog development.'' But the prospects disturb many area residents worried about their rural quality of life as others are already selling out to developers. Those Kendall residents and growth-control advocates from Naperville's Conservation Foundation and Chicago's Openlands Project who would like slower and more limited transformation of farmland into subdivisions, reports Crain's Chicago Business writer Bob Tita, see their best and perhaps only chance in blocking ''construction of a wastewater treatment plant Joliet would have to build to serve the area.'' Joliet, the writer notes, is unlikely to proceed with annexation if unable to expand its sewage services. -- Crain's Chicago Business   1/25/2003

Resource(s): www.chicagobusiness.com/

Kane County, IIl. , Asked to Rework Nationally Acclaimed Resource Management Plan in Light of Growth Projections

As Kane County, on the eastern edge of Metro Chicago, expects its 5,000-people-a-year growth rate since 1970 to double and boost the population from about 400,000 to more than 750,000 by 2030, County Board Republican Chairman Mike McCoy told the county's Regional Planning Commission it's ''crunch time'' for reworking the 2020 Land Resource Management Plan -- nationally acclaimed for saving farmland, open space and water quality -- stressing that he and the board must ''carry the ball'' and define what the county wants to be, otherwise it ''will be just wall-to-wall suburban-type growth.'' The chairman said he and other officials, along with many residents who expressed their preferences in several polls, want the county to remain a transition area between urban and rural life, with half of its land retained for agriculture and open space. At the same time he warned that some municipalities seek ''extreme growth plans that probably don't fit into'' the regional 2030 plan, which will have to be sold ''politically,'' since ''it really won't have a lot of statutory power.'' Chairman McKoy, reports Chicago Tribune writer William Presecky, has led county efforts to buy farms and development rights from willing sellers in the state's first such land protection program and promised ''to stay personally involved'' in shaping its long-term land-use vision. A draft of the 2030 plan, the writer adds, should be released in November, with public hearings set for January 2004. -- Chicago Tribune   1/10/2003

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Affordable Housing Ideas Sought at Illinois Hearings

In a series of local hearings, the Illinois House Urban Revitalization Committee is gathering public input on state affordable-housing needs, hoping to draft a bipartisan response plan before the January inauguration of a new governor and, says Democratic Representative Jeff Schoenberg, ''get a jump on the incoming administration.'' Sought by several lawmakers and advocacy groups, led by the Statewide Housing Action Coalition and the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, reports Chicago Tribune writer William Grady, the hearings document the growing concern over the lack of low-income housing not only in Chicago, but also in the suburbs. Pushing for executive or legislative coordination of affordable-housing policies and means, some groups suggest statewide demolition fees, developer tax incentives, state funds for company housing assistance programs, and state laws to prevent discrimination against low-income housing developers. The writer notes that at the first hearings, in Chicago and Naperville, some developers listed local building codes and land-use practices among obstacles to affordable housing. On the other hand, Round Lake Park Mayor Ila Bauer said more and more local officials see the need for a broad range of housing options, but they are often held back from approving multifamily rental projects by the state's reliance on property taxes for school funding, since such rentals bring in more students than tax revenue. The writer adds that according to a 2002 Out of Reach study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Chicago area resident earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour would have to work 116 hours a week to pay a $778 one-bedroom apartment rent, seen by the government as reflecting the area's fair market value. -- Chicago Tribune   9/20/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/

Local Planning Fund Will Help Illinois Towns Update Comprehensive Plans

Governor George Ryan signed into law the Local Planning Technical Assistance Act, based on a model statute in the recent American Planning Association's (APA) ''Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook'' and hailed by the association as ''exemplary and trend-setting.'' An update to 1920s statutes, the act authorizes the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs to offer local governments varied assistance and grants from a specially created Local Planning Fund to help them devise, modify and implement 20-year comprehensive plans -- listing among their necessary focus areas land use and natural resources; all modes of transportation, including mass transit; services and infrastructure; and local and regional housing, including affordable and special housing. The act specifies that counties and municipalities that have adopted such comprehensive plans ''may be eligible for additional preferences'' in state programs for economic development, transportation, planning, natural resources and agriculture. Sponsored by state Democratic Representative Ricca Slone and Republican Senator Steven Rauschenberger, the act was strongly supported by the APA Illinois Chapter and the Campaign for Sensible Growth, ''an action-oriented coalition of government, civic and business leaders in northeastern Illinois' six counties working to promote economic development while preserving open space, minimizing the need for costly new infrastructure and improving the livability of communities.'' In an APA press release, its Senior Research Fellow and general editor of the ''Legislative Guidebook,'' Stuart Meck, said: ''The new Illinois law indicates the importance of providing technical assistance to local governments to support smart growth.''   8/15/2002

Resource(s): www.planning.org/newsreleases/2002/ftp0815.htm

Chicago Transit Sees Decline in Per Capita Ridership

Although the total number of Chicago-area transit riders was up in the 1990s due to a population increase, the per capita ridership declined and continued to decline through the first quarter of 2002, writes Chicago Metropolis 2020 president and CEO George A. Ranney, Jr. in a Chicago Tribune opinion, pointing out that the area's CTA, Metra and Pace system is not as user-friendly nor its land-use as smart as they should be, and stressing that any long-term transportation solution must include raising ''the private cost of driving to more closely approximate its full social cost.'' Chicago transit agencies, he explains, refused to follow New York City's 1994 introduction of the MetroCard, valid on all area train and buses and credited with raising their ridership some 30 percent in the 1990s, a trend still afoot notwithstanding the recent economic downturn and the September 11th devastation of Lower Manhattan. Also, the number of the area's homes built within a half-mile of a rail station fell from almost 50 percent before 1990 to only 9 percent in 1990-95, which ''makes poor use'' of transit infrastructure. At the same time, ''we continue to subsidize those who drive,'' he argues, noting that Illinois vehicle taxes and registration fees are nearly 30 percent below the national average and that Governor George Ryan and the General Assembly made ''the politic -- albeit unwise -- decision'' to suspend the state sales tax on gas when its prices soared in the summer of 2000. All despite expert estimates that ''drivers pay only a quarter of the real cost of operating a vehicle; the remaining costs -- things like congestion, sprawl, road maintenance and pollution -- are paid for by society as a whole.'' Absent ''a comprehensive, user-friendly transportation policy,'' he concludes, the region's gridlock will last, especially with another 1.5 million residents and more than a million cars expected by 2030. -- Chicago Tribune

(Editor's note: The experts' argument about drivers paying a quarter of vehicle operating costs deserves clarification since drivers -- or most Americans over 16 -- as part of the society, seem to be paying this quarter in addition to their societal share of the costs of congestion, sprawl, road maintenance and pollution costs.)   7/16/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/

Tri-State Initiative Could Bring Planning Cooperation to Southwest Lake Michigan Counties

In an accord seen by its Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin signatories as the first in the nation, four agencies charged with planning in the 17-county area of southwestern Lake Michigan pledged cooperation to boost the region's economy and solve common land-use, traffic and environmental problems. Called the Wingspread Regional Accord -- after the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, where it was conceived last summer -- the document was signed by top officials from the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and the Chicago Area Transportation Study. Reporting from Chicago's signing ceremony, Chicago Tribune writer William Grady quotes the president of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, Herbert T. Schumann Jr., who stresses that ''the future of this region depends on initiatives that extend beyond Illinois' state borders.'' The commission's executive director, Ronald Thomas, says cooperation should help the four agencies secure state and federal planning funds, noting, ''We can reinforce each other's priorities.''   4/3/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Group Finds Mixed Results for Chicago's Tax Increment Financing Zones

Under Mayor Richard Daley's direction, the number of Chicago economic development zones with Tax Increment Financing (TIF) have exceeded 100 in the past few years and the City Council is considering several more, but the city-based public-interest Neighborhood Capital Budget Group found that 19 in its 36 study- sample didn't really need special tax incentives for their revival and siphoned revenue away from schools, parks and other local services, reports Chicago Tribune writer Gary Washburn. ''As the TIF program has become established,'' the study says, ''more and more neighborhoods that do not meet a common-sense definition of 'blight' are being pulled into the program.'' The assessed property values in 19 of the 36 studied zones have already been growing faster than the city average of about three percent a year by the time they were awarded TIF benefits. The mayor ''scoffed'' at the study, saying ''Sometimes you have to jump-start'' neighborhood renewal.   3/12/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Lisle Village Land-Use Plan Updates to Reflect Recent Downtown Master Plan

Lisle Village trustees approved Mayor Joe Broda's proposal to have consultants update the village's 1995 comprehensive land-use plan to fit a more recent downtown master plan, which would streamline zoning and help resolve such controversial issues as the location of a proposed Meijer store. Community Development Director Tony Budzikowski told Chicago Tribune reporter Barbara Sherlock that public hearings and other informational meetings will be crucial for consultants. The trustees also are looking into Tri-K developer James Corso's proposal to use a two-year-idle site of a senior housing project for four five-unit townhouses and four small office buildings. The senior housing project was halted after foundations were laid, the writer notes, because one of two investors declared bankruptcy. The development director said Corso's rough concept is consistent with the neighborhood's character, but details of the designs still have to be ironed out.   3/6/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Alternate Transit, Light Rail Plans for Chicago's Northwest Suburbs

With Chicago's Northwest suburbs in the grip of increased traffic and with local leaders long in favor of the light-rail Blue Line extension from the O'Hare airport terminus to Schaumburg, the Northwest Municipal Conference commissioned a study to devise transit alternatives for commuters on the congested Northwest Tollway, along with station plans and funding strategy. Consultants from a national Parsons Brinckerhoff firm, which will prepare the study, say the light rail extension through the northwestern suburbs could take $1 billion and ''a decade to do.'' They estimate that the federal government would cover half of transit improvement costs, with the rest coming from state and local sources. Tribune reporter Dan Mihalopoulos quotes Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder, who says, ''Everything we have is geared to getting people from the suburbs to the city. We're trying to make suburb-to-suburb connections ... There should be alternative ways to get to work besides a car.'' Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson adds, ''A lot of people want to be close to mass transit. Suburbia is changing.''   2/5/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Open Space Acquisitions Continue in Illinois

Under his $200 million Open Land Trust program enacted two years ago, Governor George H. Ryan announced a $2.68 million state acquisition of 570 acres along the South Fork of the Kishwaukee River in DeKalb County, with the county's Forest Preserve District planning to buy another 293 acres adjacent to its MacQueen Forest Preserve and make the total of almost 900 protected acres on both sides of the river available for public use. Kishwaukee is a Native American name meaning clear water ''and indeed this river is one of the most biologically significant in the state,'' the governor said, pointing out that the state's acquisition is important not only because of the land's ecological value, but also because DeKalb County has very little open space for public recreation. Department of Natural Resources Director Brent Manning said the land will offer ''excellent wildlife habitat, hunting and recreational opportunities.'' According to a state press release, during the Ryan administration, 42,219 acres of open space have been acquired for protection and recreation so far.   1/24/2002

Resource(s): www.state.il.us/

Assess Road Project Effects Before Construction, Says Illinois Senator

Undaunted by the expected strong resistance in the Illinois General Assembly, state Republican Senator Dan Cronin proposed legislation to make state transportation officials consider the cumulative area impact of major road projects and consult with local leaders and activists before starting construction. Specifically, reports Chicago Tribune writer John Chase, Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) designers would have to weigh historic, scenic and environmental effects of projected road-building, widening or resurfacing, and the department's secretary would have to address both local and outside views, including those offered by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the Illinois Arts Council and the Federal Highway Administration. Speaking at a news conference in Glen Ellyn, hosted by Neighbors Influencing Fifty Three Improvements (NIFTI) and attended by many Kane County, Itasca and Linconshire opponents of widening a large stretch of Highway 53 to five lanes, Senator Cronin said, ''anytime you take on a state agency, that tends to make them defensive and create resistance.'' The Center for Neighborhood Technology coordinator for transportation and air quality, Jacky Grimshaw, said if the senator's legislation is enacted, ''Illinois communities will be assured that highways will enhance rather than destroy their quality of life.'' Lincolnshire Trustee Bret Blomberg hailed the proposal for turning IDOT in new directions, adding, ''Now, they spend millions of dollars on designing a project, only to have to spend millions more after meeting with residents and hearing their concerns. Why not go to the communities first?''   1/22/2002

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

State Hopes Hopes Funds Will Lure Lake County Commuters to Public Transit

''With its notoriously clogged roads and rush-hour traffic jams that can turn short jaunts into hourlong ordeals, Lake County might seem ripe for more public transportation -- until you try to pry people away from their cars,'' writes Jerry Lawrence in the Chicago Tribune, citing state transportation official Peter Harmet's remark that even though half of the county's 644,000 residents live within a mile of a bus line or a transit station, only about two percent commute by bus and 3.7 percent by train. State officials hope that the proposed $800 million for area roads and $700 million for transit will help the county change its commuting patterns, but local leaders fear it won't be easy. A member of the Regional Transportation Authority board of directors, Dwight Magalis, recalls that participants in a resident meeting a few years back hailed the advantages of public transportation, but the problem was that ''they all wanted everyone else to use it -- and then they could still drive their cars on less-crowded roads.'' Lake County Board chairwoman Suzi Schmidt herself would ''love to take a bus or train to work (in Waukegan), but it would take forever'' from where she lives in Antioch. The writer notes that some transit improvement projects are already under way. Metra spokesman Frank Malone says the double tracking of Metra's North Central commuter line will more that double its Chicago-Antioch capacity after 2005. Pace bus system spokesman Blaine Krage says the agency is working to expand its 1996 shuttle service between train stations and employment parks near Lake-Cook Road and state Highway 60, along with the Vanpool Incentive Program that provides vans to 5-15 commuter groups, one of whose members becomes the designated driver while others pay monthly fees. According to Lake Cook Transit Management Association executive director William Baltutis, its shuttle ridership between Metra stations and 39 area businesses has grown 600 percent since 1996.   12/23/2001

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Near South Side Transformation on Schedule; Part of National Trend for Urban Universities

The $750 million transformation of Chicago's blighted 85-acre Near South Side site into a diversified 24-hour University Village neighborhood -- launched last year by the University of Illinois and a local developer consortium -- is on schedule, with one of the two dormitories for 750 students opened this fall, the construction of a retail district anchored by eight historic buildings well under way and 366 of 930 varied housing units already sold and slated for occupancy within the next several months. The project's 196 affordable units, reports Robert Sharoff in The New York Times, are priced between $143,000 and $228,000 for lower- income buyers; others range from $165,000 for a small loft apartment to $696,000 for a large town house. The writer points out that the University Village project is one of at least 60, in which the nation's urban universities are revitalizing their neighborhoods in partnership with private developers. In one of the most extensive endeavors in recent years, he writes, the University of Pennsylvania "has spearheaded the redevelopment of a 63-block area" in Philadelphia. Noting that Ohio State University in Columbus created a nonprofit Campus Partners company to redevelop a nearby area, the writer quotes the company's director, Terry Foegler, who says, "Unlike businesses, it's tough for universities to relocate when neighborhoods start deteriorating, so it makes sense for them to partner with various entities to try and revitalize these areas.   11/2/2001

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com

The waterfront-redevelopment revolution that helped transform such ...

The waterfront-redevelopment revolution that helped transform such big-city downtowns as Chicago, San Antonio and Baltimore during the last three decades is now an economic development idea trickling out to the suburbs and even the smallest town in the Chicago area, reports Chicago Tribune writer Ruth E. Igoe, mentioning Algonquin, Aurora, Elgin, McHenry and Naperville. Even though hard data about the economic benefits of waterfront renovation are absent and city leaders attribute upturns to many factors, urban experts agree, she writes, that such projects "can help kick-start" wider redevelopment. But experts also stress that the projects must be well planned and fit the community. Otherwise, they may flounder, as the upscale Portside Festival Marketplace mall at Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio initially had. Modeled after the successful Baltimore Inner Harbor malls -- in "blind faith that what was good for Baltimore would also be good for Toledo" -- Marketplace closed in five years, bringing enough people to the riverfront to pay its way only after reopening as a children museum. Waterfront projects also must promise adequate return for public investment and attract private capital. The writer notes that McHenry officials, trying to raise $8.8 million for a Fox River promenade to draw residents and businesses downtown, see signs of developer willingness to put $20 million in retail and residential portions of the project. She adds that one nonprofit organization that helps cities with waterfront planning is the Waterfront Center in Washington, D.C.   9/24/2001

Resource(s): www.enn.com

Convinced that rental housing is an underserved ...

Convinced that rental housing is an underserved market, one of Chicago biggest developers, the John Buck Co. - best known for its downtown office towers and a North Bridge retail complex -- plans to turn a Yellow Cab repair center on the Near South Side into a seven-story, 192-unit loft-style apartment building, with balconies, 10-foot ceilings and a parking lot. The company's partner, Greg Merdinger, who likes "near-in living" himself, says, "There is a strong demand for living near downtown and the quality of life in these areas is high." With many developers turned from apartment projects by harder loan terms, Merdinger makes them work by buying less expensive sites and speeding up construction. The company intends to start one apartment project a year, counting on those who don't want to pay a mortgage or don't have the down payment for a condominium. 08.01.2001   8/8/2001

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com

Chicago business leaders want drivers "worn out ...

Chicago business leaders want drivers "worn out by the daily commute" to know that they feel their fatigue, writes Chicago Sun-Times reporter David Roeder, noting that 103 companies have endorsed a Chicago Metropolis 2020 group's call to "to put more jobs within easy access of affordable housing and public transit," with their top executives signing a Metropolis Principles pledge to give those growth issues "considerable weight" in all plant or office expansion plans. Metropolis 2020 leaders say, the reporter writes, that "when people can't afford to live near work, it hampers productivity." He notes that as civic activists "celebrate Boeing Co.'s decision to move downtown, these executives fear that endless traffic jams will keep other business away." Metropolis 2020 Chairman Andrew McKenna, the head of the Schwarz Paper Co., sees the pledge campaign as a "call to collective action by business and local governments," with the principles as "a business code of conduct" influencing local land-use decisions. The campaign's leader, King Harris of AptarGroup Inc., notes "a growing recognition among businesses" that traffic and job accessibility is "a serious economic issue" and hopes for many more pledge signatories. Among the current ones are Allstate, Bank One, Sears, Motorola and dozens of smaller companies. Metropolis 2020, backed by the Commercial Club of Chicago, is also researching area zoning and planning. By the end of the year, it expects to publish a list of towns with "best practices" for locating affordable housing near jobs and transit stations, along with a list of towns lagging behind.   6/12/2001

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com

In response to Mayor Richard Daley's frequently ...

In response to Mayor Richard Daley's frequently voiced concerns over Chicago long-term livability, the City Council's zoning committee reworking the code, approved new "density bonuses" for developers willing to improve their designs and provide the public with such amenities as meaningful green space and better access to transit. Planning and Development Commissioner Alicia Berg says the committee is replacing "a system of bonuses that don't really benefit the public" with bonuses that will make the downtown area better for living and working. Until now bigger and taller buildings were allowed on lots bordering public open space or if their designs included either ground and upper-level setbacks or arcades, the latter often opene to a solid wall or "a crummy, wind-swept plaza without much landscaping." Now, 30 percent of a plaza must have a green or water surface, providing "quality open space." The new 18-point list of amenities eligible for density bonuses includes everything from fountains, riverwalks and landscaped terraces to broad sidewalks, rooftop gardens and underground garages. Metropolitan Planning Council spokesman Peter Skosey is confident Chicago downtown will look better and became more vibrant. 04.25.2001   5/1/2001

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com

Chicago's northwest suburbs offer peace of mind ...

Chicago's northwest suburbs offer peace of mind and affordability, writes Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey, blaming the current arguments against suburban development for missing a key detail: that many families view a suburb as the best chance to get an affordable house with a plot of land and access to good schools. People rush to the four-decades-old village of Lindenhurst in Lake County, 40 miles away from Chicago, because its new homes are priced between $160,000 and $250,000, as opposed to the $450,000 price range in the city's edge neighborhoods such as La Grange and Oak Park. The author admits suburbs have major flaws, including almost total car-dependence, but asserts that they offer community, space and more accessible local government, much as Thomas Jefferson envisioned. He also quotes a committee chairman for the National Association of Realtors, Ronald L. Myles, who sees some elitism in efforts to curb suburban growth.   11/28/2000

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com

In the last of his five articles ...

In the last of his five articles on growth-pattern changes, Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey describes Prairie Crossing, a decade-old community in Grayslake, Lake County, as a national model for a better suburbia. More than 60 percent of the 700-acre site is left as open space, two rail lines run nearby and plans for a station are under way. Builder George Ranney Jr., the former head of Inland Steel, is amazed by the response to the conservation community idea of dealing with sprawl by saving open space and predicts many more such projects in the Chicago region. But he also observes resulting affordability problems. Five years ago, some homes were still priced under $200,000; now prices range from $269,900 to $427,000. Plans to make the community more affordable by building homes with rental apartments over garages were rejected by residents and officials. Still, the critic writes, Prairie Crossings and similar New Urbanist communities, like Seaside and Celebration in Florida, Tyron Farm in Indiana and the Kentlands in Maryland, reflect hopes to make suburban areas function and feel like small towns instead of tract developments.   11/28/2000

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com

Scenic America, a national organization created in ...

Scenic America, a national organization created in 1978 with a mission to preserve natural beauty and distinctive community character, released its 2000 Last Chance Landscapes report, listing the ten that are most threatened by billboards, new roads and other symptoms of sprawl. This year's list of the last chance landscapes includes Oakmont (Verdugo Mountains), Glendale, California; Ravalli County, Montana; the entire state of Colorado; Upper Mississippi Blufflands Region of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois; State Highway 131 between Ontario and Rockton, Wisconsin; Erin Township, Wisconsin; Springfield, Illnois; Poplar Point, Anacostia, Washington, D. C.; Cook Creek and Tributaries, Springfield Township, Pennsylvania; and the Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke Ranges, Massachusetts. Scenic America President Meg Maguire said these ten landscapes typify problems present in many other areas. Yet, for every problem, she stressed, there is a solution which other communities have adopted, showing once again that change is inevitable, but ugliness is not.   11/28/2000

Resource(s): www.scenic.org

The nation's new suburbs are growing out ...

The nation's new suburbs are growing out of control, warns Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bay, suggesting the solution may lay in smart growth, in spite of the challenges to the concept's meaning by the Heritage Foundation, the National Association of Realtors and dozens of think tanks. Noting that the smart growth movement seeks mixed-use, dense suburban development near transit, along with revitalization of old urban cores and preservation of open land, the author quotes Realtors official Ronald L. Myles, who says what may be growth to me is sprawl to you. The official adds that government controls would raise home prices and bar development on the cheaper fringe land, preventing the less-affluent from buying suburban homes. But the writer points out that this 'build first, ask questions later' approach ... imperils the quality of life in the state and across the nation. More than half the country's population - at least 140 million people - live in the suburbs, he continues, yet this suburban nation is forming without the planning and architectural vision that aided growth of cities and rail suburbs 100 years ago. He acknowledges that Illinois has started to address sprawl. This year, Governor George H. Ryan created a subcabinet post to examine growth issues and facilitate a state-municipality information exchange. He also established the Open Land Trust, with $160 million over four years for land preservation and set aside large funds for open space purchases under the Illinois FIRST and Illinois Tomorrow plans. The state is helping Chicago to revive its blighted areas and keep local businesses, while the Senate's Illinois Smart Growth Task Force is readying a sprawl report for next year's legislative session. Still, the author sees the state's approach as passive and quotes the governor as saying that he is not sure if we are ready for a legislative solution resembling the Maryland model.   11/22/2000

Resource(s): www.suntimes.com

To leave residents of Chicago's congested north ...

To leave residents of Chicago's congested north lakefront Wateredge neighborhood a small crack in the wall of high-rises along Sheridan Drive, the City Council's Zoning Committee plans to rezone the drive's last vacant parcel from R-6 to R-2, which would allow only detached single-family homes or perhaps a park. Residents fear that the parcel's owner, the Midwest Partners company, wants to jam another 15-story high-rise amidst a block already packed with seven high-rises, two mid-rises, 1,300 homes and a hospital. If you put them side-by-side like the single-family homes we're taxed as, says the president of the Association of Sheridan Road Condominium Owners, Sheli Lulkin, it would be the equivalent of 65 city blocks. Resident Melvin Glick calls the density ridiculous, adding it takes 10 minutes to cross the street. But some experts think such a steep down-zoning may lose in court. Denying it any rational basis, the company's attorney, Bernard Citron, says if the parcel is needed for a park, the city shouldn't take away all its value, but make the owner an offer to purchase the property. Local alderwoman Mary Ann Smith describes the planned rezoning as an effort to keep the area's only open space and make amends for a broken planning promise to extend Lake Shore Drive north to Evanston. We're trying to take a small step to mitigate the damage, she explains, and to make an impossible situation workable.   8/28/2000

A national public accounting, consulting and research ...

A national public accounting, consulting and research firm specialized in affordable housing, San Francisco-based Novogradac & Company LLP, will hold its Urban Revitalization: An Affordable Housing Conference July 13-15 in Chicago. Stressing that new and rehabilitated affordable housing has helped bring economic strength to many city centers, the firm's managing partner, Michael J. Novogradac, said the conference will explore the latest opportunities in urban revitalization for the affordable housing industry, with a focus on low-income housing and historic preservation tax credits, tax-exempt bonds, Hope VI and private grants, and other financial tools for urban redevelopment.   6/22/2000

The U.S. Energy Department has chosen Chicago ...

The U.S. Energy Department has chosen Chicago as the launching pad of a project to turn some of the nation's brownfields into "brightfields," by outfitting them with solar power-collection equipment, without disturbing any contaminated ground. Spire Corporation will build a photovoltaic cell factory on a former debris-reprocessing site, closed by the city for violating environmental laws. The city and ComEdison will buy $2 million and $6 million worth of Spire products, respectively, for installation on homes, schools and bus stop shelters. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says "incorporating solar and other renewable energy technologies into the re-use of industrial properties makes economic and environmental sense." His department is working with several other cities to identify their possible "brightfields."   8/10/1999

On a tour of seven nature preserves ...

On a tour of seven nature preserves in northern Illinois, Governor George H. Ryan signed an Open Land Trust bill and promised that the state will become "a more active partner in the drive to preserve and save open space and reclaim land." The $160 million, four-year bill will help communities with loans and grants to buy or improve land for conservation or recreation. Saluting the Governor for his commitment to open space, Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar pointed out that money for such amenities as a bike trail "isn't easy to find, especially after we pay for roads and other infrastructure improvements." The bill spurs the open space momentum in the Chicago area. In April, voters in Chicago's collar counties approved more than $200 million in bond issues for open space and land preservation.   7/27/1999

Chicago: In a backlash against suburban uniformity ...

Chicago: In a backlash against suburban uniformity and "cookie cutter" designs typical for the low- and middle income housing markets, many towns in the Chicago area are passing anti-monotony codes and renovating their centers, while developers are bringing back traditional, mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, with diversified housing, public facilities and parks. An associate director of the City Design Center at the University of Illinois, Tom Forman, says "people are beginning to realize this stuff really does matter in their quality of life."   7/2/1999

DuPage County: The Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom ...

DuPage County: The Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom shelved a controversial plan for a four-lane highway through the area's largest forest preserve, the 3,400-acre Pratt's Wayne Woods. Canceling a $659,000 preparatory study, the chairman called it a "poor use of the taxpayers' money" and said the highway "would be detrimental" to the forest's ecological system.   5/28/1999

Chicago: The Union League Club of Chicago ...

Chicago: The Union League Club of Chicago, one of the nation's top ten city clubs dealing with social, cultural and growth issues, endorsed Governor George Ryan's $12 billion "Illinois FIRST" proposal to improve infrastructure, transportation and education. "Illinois FIRST," or Fund for Infrastructure, Roads, Schools & Transit, the largest public work program in the state's history, is crucial for long-term state economic growth and quality of life.   5/28/1999

Chicago: Expecting its downtown population to double ...

Chicago: Expecting its downtown population to double by 2010, the city is stepping up conversion of obsolete Class B and C office buildings into residences for empty-nesters, young professionals, city employees and others who prefer to live in the city center. The current list of 24 conversions under way or on the drawing board will soon include two more projects, with developers awaiting only the City Council's approval for tax increment financing, or TIF.   4/1/1999

According to a mail survey in fast-growing ...

According to a mail survey in fast-growing DeKalb, Kane and McHenry counties, residents would support an average annual $484 tax increase per household for five years to save 20,000 acres of open land in each county. The survey, run for the American Farmland Trust and Northern Illinois University, extrapolates the average from the range of the five annual tax increases the respondents would opt for: 14 percent for $2,000; 25 percent for $1,000; and 34 percent for $570; with 25 percent against any new tax for open space protection. The survey's confidence range is 95 percent.   4/1/1999

Cook County: Conservationists are pressing County Board ...

Cook County: Conservationists are pressing County Board president John Stroger to call a referendum on a $150 million bond issue for open space purchases. Noting that DuPage County approved a $75 million preservation ballot in 1997, and that Kane, Lake and Will counties will hold similar ballots on April 13, the conservationists are urging an 8,000-acre expansion of the Cook County Forest Preserve District to its 75,000-acre legal limit, before sprawl makes the land too expensive for the public pocket.   3/1/1999

Chicago: Protecting the Near South Side from ...

Chicago: Protecting the Near South Side from being turned into "downtown Manhattan," city planners told the Walsh, Higgins & Co. firm to scale down a 4,900-unit residential project on a 26-acre site zoned for 3,000 units. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, in recent months Mayor Richard Daley "has taken on several developers, regardless of political connections, forcing them to downsize buildings and include more open space."   2/1/1999

Chicago: A study of land use in ...

Chicago: A study of land use in the 13-county, 4.4-million-acre metropolitan area shows that current low-density development, combined with population growth, could more than double urbanized acreage, from 1.1 million to 2.4 million acres by 2028. The study, by the Openlands group, says that in the next ten years alone sprawl acreage could grow by 55 percent, imposing on the region unsustainable infrastructure costs. Suggested remedies include creating a governor's land-use office to shape high-density growth modeled after Maryland's "Smart Growth" policy, and earmarking more funds for protection of open space.   1/1/1999

Chicago: Between 1994 and 1996, the Chicago ...

Chicago: Between 1994 and 1996, the Chicago area's road congestion has grown from the fifth to the third worst in the nation, holding the average driver in heavy traffic 42 hours annually and costing them all $4 billion a year. A new study of the nation's 1982-1996 traffic data by the Texas Transportation Institute proves that new roads are neither cost-effective nor able to relieve traffic. The Chicago area would have to build 271 lane miles a year, at a cost of $692 per family, just to hold congestion to the current level. The study says that road construction should be part of a comprehensive transportation and land use plan.   12/1/1998

Chicago sold 11 small neglected lots to ...

Chicago sold 11 small neglected lots to its nonprofit NeighborSpace group for a dollar each, to be cleaned up and landscaped into eight neighborhood parks. The group, in a joint effort with the city, park district and Cook County Forest Preserve, buys or otherwise acquires city lots and helps volunteer organizations create and maintain pockets of green throughout the city. It has added about 50 such pockets, totaling 33 acres, to city-owned parks.   12/1/1998

A new nationwide study of sprawl and ...

A new nationwide study of sprawl and infrastructure costs shows that each house built in Illinois burdens state taxpayers with almost $33,000 for schools and infrastructure. The study was done by the Carrying Capacity Network in Washington, D.C., a group advocating population growth control. The group's spokesman said that taxpayers Òare being forced to subsidize growth, whether or not they want it.Ó   12/1/1998

DuPage County: The County Board's new chairman ...

DuPage County: The County Board's new chairman, Robert Schilerstrom, seeks greater cooperation with Governor George Ryan and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on regional issues, including transportation and open space protection. The new Lake County Board chairman, environmentalist Jim LaBelle, voiced similar themes. He pledged a push for forest preservation, better planning and higher quality of life in all communities.   12/1/1998

With mortgage rates at 30-year lows ...

With mortgage rates at 30-year lows, 1998 is shaping up as a record year for single-family home purchases. Data released by the Mortgage Bankers Association at its annual session in Chicago shows that the numbers of existing and new home sales may reach 4.73 million and 859,000 respectively. Half of the $1.44 trillion in current year mortgages represents new loans; the other half, refinancing.   10/1/1998

Cook County: Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Congressman Glenn ...

Cook County: Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Congressman Glenn Poshard, proposes redevelopment of 10,700 acres of brownfields to attract business while limiting suburban sprawl. Saying that people need economic opportunities where they live, the congressman promised efforts to speed up freight through the city, reduce its air traffic congestion and promote a high-speed rail link with other Midwestern cities.   8/1/1998

Chicago area houses 500 feet from transit ...

Chicago area houses 500 feet from transit stations are valued at about 26 percent more than similar houses a mile away. This property value increase around the area's 96 transit stations is documented in a survey by the San Francisco firm Gruen, Gruen and Associates.   7/1/1998

The number of Chicago area firms subsidizing ...

The number of Chicago area firms subsidizing their employees' transit costs grew from 800 to 900 hundred last year. The Regional Transportation Authority is improving its Transit Check program to attract more participants. Under President Clinton's 1999 budget proposal, the maximum fare reimbursement for mass transit users will be raised to $165 a month.   4/1/1998

A Metro Chicago Information Center poll shows ...

A Metro Chicago Information Center poll shows that more than 70 % of the area's suburbanites support measures to preserve farmland and 82 % favor zoning that would allow single-family houses on lots smaller than currently required.   4/1/1998

The American Farmland Trust, the Chicago Environment ...

The American Farmland Trust, the Chicago Environment Commission, the Homebuilders Association of Greater Chicago and EPA Region Five, together with other local and federal officials, announced cooperation on a plan for smarter and more sustainable growth to meet the region's housing needs while protecting farmland. The cooperation was sparked by a Northern Illinois University study, "Living on the Edge: The Costs and Risks Of Scatter Development." The study, done for the American Farmland Trust, found that sprawl in the Chicago suburbs is often subsidized by higher property taxes in adjacent communities. Sprawl also delays emergency response to distant residents.   3/1/1998

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