Expanding use of renewable energy. Coordinating green space andconstruction. Creating a bike-friendly, transit-friendly,car-unfriendly community. Building greater harmony between Evanstonand Northwestern.
It’s an ambitious agenda, but attendees at Thursday night’s”Creating a Sustainable Evanston” workshop at Beth Emet the FreeSynagogue, 1224 Dempster St., set these and other goals for theEvanston of 2025.
About 80 people attended the event, which was sponsored by theNetwork for Evanston’s Future and NU’s Students for Ecological andEnvironmental Development and co-sponsored by about 50 otherorganizations.
Attendees were divided into discussion groups of about six toeight people. Participants developed long-term goals for improvingthe city as well as short-term proposals which could be enactedwithin three years. Each group posted its top five ideas on largeboards at the front and back of the conference room.
Participants will meet again Sunday to combine the night’s ideasinto a preliminary report. They plan to release a final reportwithin two months.
Long-time residents and even one group of seven elementary-agechildren, aided by McCormick senior and former SEED co-chairmanDerek Supple, contributed ideas. Aja Klevs, 10, came to the meetingwith her mother, Evanston resident Mardi Klevs.
“We came because we kind of wanted to make a difference becausewe’re just kids,” Aja Klevs said.
Ald. Edmund Moran (6th) also attended the event.
“It’s a nice opportunity to have a cross-section of peoplecoming together and expressing their notions of what will makeEvanston a sustainable city,” Moran said.
Weinberg junior Charlotte Smith, a member of SEED, came to themeeting to “see what people in Evanston are thinking about.”
“The future of Evanston is important to the (NU) campus, whetherI’m here or not,” she said.
Evanston resident Jan Otwell said the decentralized process wasvaluable, though it sometimes seemed chaotic.
“Amazingly, you do come out with a good synthesis of ideas,”said Otwell, Medill ’50. “It’s like magic.”
Among the most common short-term ideas were passing a cityenergy conservation code, making Evanston safer for bicyclists andexpanding diverse affordable housing by enacting an inclusionaryzoning code.
Such a code would require developers to set aside a certainpercentage of their developments for affordable housing, whilepossibly granting developers financial incentives for doing so.
Several residents expressed a desire for greater communityinvolvement in city government decision-making.
Moran said he expected the Evanston City Council to consider theproposals raised at the meeting.
But the meeting’s purpose extends beyond the specific proposalspresented.
“The goal is to use this process here and what comes out of itto catalyze discussion in Evanston,” Network for Evanston’s Futureleader Steve Perkins told the group.
