The owner of the former Kendall College site presented a scaled-back development plan to a city committee Wednesday, but area residents said the plan still would create too dense a neighborhood.
Smithfield Properties presented the Evanston Site Plan and Appearance Review Committee a new development plan for 19 single-family homes and 44 townhouses to be built at the former Kendall College property, 2408 Orrington Ave.
“It’s nowhere near reasonable,” said Bruce Enenbach, a member on the 12-member Kendall task force. “It doesn’t go with the integrity of the neighborhood … We don’t think they should bring Lincoln Park to Evanston.”
Smithfield’s previous proposals had called for building 117 townhouses and 70 to 79 single-family homes and townhouses on the property.
Enenbach said the property should accommodate at most 20 single-family houses in order to maintain the character of the neighborhood.
The plan Smithfield presented Wednesday calls for an interior park in the center of a block surrounded by a ring of townhouses. The perimeter of the block would be lined with single-family homes, which would be separated from the interior townhouses by a U-shaped traffic loop opening onto Orrington Avenue.
“It incorporates ways to give everyone a choice,” said Robert Buono, Smithfield’s principal developer.
Smithfield purchased the property from Kendall College last November after the school announced plans to relocate to Chicago.
The property is zoned for university use, but both Smithfield and local residents hope the property will be rezoned for residential use.
The committee postponed further discussion on whether to recommend the plan until its next meeting on May 5.
Residents also expressed concern Wednesday that the current plan does not include reasonable space for back yards.
“No one who has children is going to move into these houses,” said Tom Gemmell, co-chairman of the Kendall task force. “There’s nowhere to play because there isn’t a backyard.”
Gemmell also said the newest proposal fails to meet the minimum distance required between a house and a sidewalk. In order to receive a permit to bypass the requirement, Smithfield might argue that the interior park benefits the community, Gemmell predicted.
“The interior park is kind of a joke … It doesn’t provide any green space for Evanston as a whole, let alone for the people who surround it,” Gemmell said. “No one’s going to send their kid into a street and behind a wall of townhouses that they can’t see through.”
Jane Smith, who lives in the neighborhood, said she was worried that the development would create more traffic on Orrington Avenue.
“This seems to me a very hazardous set-up you have here,” she said at the meeting.
In January Smithfield submitted to the Planning and Development Committee plans to build 117 townhouses, which met with opposition from more than 30 residents and Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th), whose ward includes the property. A month later, Smithfield submitted revised plans to build 70 to 79 single-family homes and townhouses.
