In another episode of the ongoing Envision Evanston 2045 saga, the Land Use Commission discussed specific recommendations for the comprehensive plan at a Wednesday meeting.

Envision Evanston, the city’s new comprehensive plan and rezoning overhaul, outlines a 20-year development plan for the city. The plan has been met with criticism from many residents. 

On Monday, City Council split the comprehensive plan from the associated rezoning measures after many residents expressed discontent with the project’s timeline at recent community meetings. The Land Use Commission is now expected to make a recommendation on the comprehensive plan by the end of February, following Envision Evanston’s original deadline, and a recommendation on the zoning plan by the end of August.

On Wednesday, the Land Use Commission spoke solely about the comprehensive plan and invited representatives from numerous city boards and commissions to the meeting to summarize each group’s discussions about the plan. 

Much of the early discussion centered around lingering confusion with the plan’s timeline. Ellie Shevick, president of Evanston’s Parks and Recreation Board, emphasized that the board had yet to actually vote on its recommendations due to the recent change in the timeline. 

Regardless, Shevick expressed discontent with the city’s current policy toward parks funding. Her staff wants the plan to increase the city’s investment devoted to maintaining parks. 

“Our playgrounds are in a dire state right now,” she said.

Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Dreller said that her commission would like to see several changes to the plan, including the designation of a reinterment site for the inadvertent discovery of Indigenous ancestral remains and the implementation of demolition delay procedures. 

Housing and Community Development Committee member and Weinberg Prof. Chloe Thurston said that while the HCDC decided not to issue a statement to the commission, many members had questions about the relationship between affordability and housing density described in the plan. 

However, Thurston reiterated that the HCDC was “pretty supportive” of Envision Evanston. 

“The committee was appreciative and complimentary to work that’s gone into this and, in general, saw this as a good roadmap in the future,” Thurston said, quoting Ald. Eleanor Revelle (7th), who chairs the committee.

Environment Board member Katarina Topalov, meanwhile, said that the city should incorporate pedestrian-friendly designs, urban green spaces, reliable public transportation and other sustainable planning measures. 

Some commissioners expressed the need for specifically articulated numerical goals in the comprehensive plan.

“If we don’t have a target about what we’re trying to do, we’re just stirring up a lot of anxiety, without really having an end game,” Commissioner Darush Mabadi said.

Many representatives, including Shevick and Dreller, emphasized the need for the comprehensive plan to correspond with the strategic plans of their respective boards. 

Throughout the meeting, commission Chair Matt Rodgers encouraged contributors to remain cognizant of the length of the document. He said that in place of including every minute detail, the comprehensive plan could reference individual strategic plans to minimize its complexity.

“The general plan is comprehensive, but there also has to be some limit as to exactly how large we let this document grow. It can’t be 10,000 pages, because nobody would ever read it,” Rodgers said. 

Commissioner Brian Johnson echoed this sentiment, saying the comprehensive plan should be more of a “mission statement” that details the city’s “aspirations.” Most commissioners agreed that, in order to accomplish this and more accurately reflect the city as a whole, the document should shift its focus from narrowing in on “centers” and “corridors” to a broader conversation about Evanston’s neighborhoods. 

Stemming from the complex nature of the document, some commissioners and presenters highlighted their concern with the practical considerations of implementing individual boards’ and community members’ suggestions.

“I’ve been racking my brain on how that actually gets done. I wish I had a better answer for you,” Dreller said.

Dreller said that the Preservation Commission favored the inclusion of an implementation chapter to address these concerns. Commissioner Jeanne Lindwall said that such a chapter was “absolutely critical.”

Above all, Rodgers highlighted the commission’s desire to be able to return to the document and amend it over time.

“These are living documents,” Rodgers said. “They aren’t documents which are supposed to be put on a shelf that are supposed to guide us for such a long period of time.”

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