By Ketul PatelThe Daily Northwestern

The rocks must go.

If there was one thing nearly all the attendees at a Tuesday night forum agreed upon, that was it.

About 100 people came to the Evanston Lakefront Visioning Process Public Workshop to discuss their concerns and hopes regarding the results of a focus group survey about the city’s lakefront. A consulting group hired by the city conducted the study, which is an early step toward creating a master plan to govern development along Evanston’s shores.

Many of the residents said they would like the city to remove the rocks that form the barrier between the water and Evanston.

Libby Hill, a representative for the Bird Conservation Network, a group of 20 bird clubs, said after the meeting that she would like to replace the rocks with natural dunes.

She said restoring the dunes would be beneficial for the birds that live along the shore.

“There’s no sense that the lake is a natural phenomenon,” she said. “We need to restore that connection between land and lake.”

Hill said the meeting was a good chance for residents to give the city feedback about the plans, but she wished more people expressed interest.

“There’s not a lot of variety in what people wanted to see at the lakefront,” she said. “(The meeting) hasn’t engaged the larger community that will use the lake.”

Jeff Smith, Weinberg ’77, agreed that Evanston should work to restore the dunes on the lakefront, calling the waterfront a “hardened shoreline.”

Smith also said he was skeptical about how much this meeting would affect the aspirations of the city.

“There’s a danger of co-opting energy – there’s a fine line between facilitation and manipulation,” he said. “But I have faith that the extremely strong environmental concerns will be heard.”

Residents also said they wanted to protect the lakefront from overdevelopment or commercialization. Meeting attendees said they wanted to preserve the look of the beach’s brown houses, which blend in with the natural scene.

Other attendees said they wanted parking along the lakefront but also wanted to ensure that it would be environmentally friendly.

Evanston resident Mark Lazar said too much development on the lakefront would disrupt the people who live near it.

“My hope is that we understand that the lakeshore in Evanston isn’t like the lakeshore in Chicago, where we have Lake Shore Drive serving as a barrier,” he said. “People live right across from the lake. You don’t need to have a huge parking structure on the lake.”

Participants also said they wanted to make the beach financially accessible for all Evanston residents.

Douglas Gaynor, director of the Department of Parks/Forestry and Recreation, said the citizens’ suggestions will help the consulting team prioritize the goals for the lakefront. The consulting team will then develop a Vision Framework Report, which will be used as a guide in formulating the Lakefront Master Plan.

“It’s going to be a procedure over time to implement this plan,” he said. “We’re going to need patience in this.”

He said after the meeting that the total project could take 10 to 15 years depending on the number of changes proposed by the master plan.

Reach Ketul Patel at [email protected].