Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah, good evening. This meeting is the Planning and Zoning Commission and combined with the Village Board of Trustees, and we're gonna call this meeting to order. Lucy, you're gonna do the roll call? My microphone will turn on.

We'll go through the Planning and Zoning Commission first. Greg Scovitch. Diane Gormley-Barnes. Present. Robert Tantillo.

Present.

Barbara Lucente. Rick Minshaw.

Present.

Kat Hlatky.

Present.

And Anthony Bailena. From the Board of Trustees, Eileen Murphy-Donnersberger.

Here.

Charles Eck. Danielle Sveska. Here. Christina Saldana.

Here.

James Gazas. Anthony Iannocco.

Here.

And Village President Amy Jo Wittenberg.

Here.

OK, thank you. The next item on the agenda is the public hearing regarding the proposed zoning code and an update there. We need to make a motion to open the public hearing. So could someone make a motion to do that? I move to open the public hearing. Anyone second that motion? I second. Great. Okay. So at this time, the... Does it have to be... Oh, another roll call? Okay, let's do another roll call on this.

Does it have to be a second by the Planning Commission? It was a board member, not the Planning Commission.

If there's a second from the Planning Commission, for the clarity of the record, it would be appropriate, but...

okay who someone from the plan commission second the motion please i'll second the motion thank you diane

All right, let's move right into the roll call.

Roll call of the plan commission, correct?

Yes.

Greg Skovich.

Or everyone.

Let's do everyone.

This is a joint meeting. Okay. So effectively, the motion and the second could have been made by any member of the panel because we are behaving as a, in a joint meeting where both bodies already are assembled.

Okay, thank you. Greg Skovich. Diane Gormley-Barnes. Robert Tantillo.

Present.

Barbara Lucente. Rick Minshall.

Here.

Kat Hlatky.

Here.

Anthony Bailina. Board of Trustees Eileen Murphy-Donnersberger.

Here.

Charles Eck. Danielle Sveska.

Sorry, what am I being asked to comment on?

To clarify, this is to be a vote on whether you're opening the public hearing or not. So it should be a yes rather than a present order here.

OK. Start over. With planning and zoning? Yes. OK. Diane Gormley-Barnes.

Aye.

Aye.

Robert Tantillo.

Aye.

Rick Minshaw.

Aye.

Kat Hlatky.

Aye.

Board of Trustees. Eileen Murphy-Donnersberger. Aye. Danielle Sveska. Aye. Christina Saldana.

Aye.

Anthony Iannocco.

Aye.

And Village President Amy Jo Wittenberg. Aye.

All right at this time we're going to open up the public hearing on the proposed zoning code update and just so everyone has a grounding of why this topic is on the agenda. The purpose of tonight's hearing is to receive public comment on the proposed zoning code update and allow the Commission to discuss the proposal and identify any issues that may require additional review or direction. I will first ask staff to provide an overview of the process for this evening.

Thank you. And thank you all for your patience. This is not our normal procedure to have the joint meeting. So we're working out the kinks. But first I wanted to go over the order of the presentation and then give a little more detail about the purpose or the order of the public hearing and then give a little more detail about the purpose. FIRST, THE ORDER WILL START WITH A PRESENTATION FROM OUR CONSULTANT, CHANTAL POWERS, WHO WORKS FOR SAFE BUILT INTERWEST GROUP, WHICH IS A SUBSIDIARY OF SAFE BUILT. AND THEN WE'LL MOVE ON TO PUBLIC COMMENT AND THE COMMISSION DISCUSSION AND THEN WE'LL END THE PUBLIC HEARING. the purpose of tonight's public hearing is to receive public comment on the proposed zoning code update identify areas of general support within the draft identify policy and administrative issues requiring additional direction identify legal issues requiring additional review or clarification with our legal counsel and then assist staff the consultant and the village attorney in preparing the next phase of the zoning code update for board consideration and what the purpose what we're not trying to do tonight is conduct a line-by-line review of the draft or to resolve every outstanding issue HAVING THE PUBLIC HEARING AS I'VE EXPLAINED AT THE BOARD MEETINGS IS A REQUIREMENT IN ORDER TO AMEND THE ZONING CODE. AND THIS IS AN ALL OUT FULL BLOWN AMENDMENT. IT'S AN ENTIRE REWRITE OF THE ZONING CODE. SO WE ARE SATISFYING THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT OF HAVING A PUBLIC HEARING. BUT THIS WILL NOT BE THE FINAL DISCUSSION. THE DECISION IS NOT BEING MADE TONIGHT. AND THE FINAL DECISION ON ANY OF THIS WILL BE AT THE BOARD LEVEL. IT WILL BE ON THE AGENDA FOR THE JULY 9TH MEETING FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE BOARD. BUT THAT, YOU KNOW, WHETHER THAT IS THE FINAL CONSIDERATION BY THE BOARD OR NOT DEPENDS SOMEWHAT ON THE DIRECTION THAT WE GET TONIGHT. So just to give you a general idea of the discussion areas that we as staff would like to get direction on, what are the areas of general support by the commission as well as the board? What are the policy and administrative issues that... Actually, the discussion should identify policy choices and governance questions that may require further direction, including approval authority and decision-making responsibilities. roles of the Village Board Planning and Zoning Commission and the Village Administrator, appeals and review procedures, site plan review procedures, special use procedures, administrative approvals, and other administrative and operational concerns. Some of the legal issues we're interested in looking at are reasonable accommodations and accessibility provisions, non-conforming use and non-conforming structure regulations, appeal procedures and due process considerations, sign regulations, enforcement provisions and other issues identified by the village attorney, consultant, commission, board, staff or public. So I just wanted to frame the conversation. We'll have a presentation now by Chantal, and then the full commission and board can have more discussion, and then we'll get public comment. With that, I'll hand it off to Chantal.

Good evening, everyone. If things are just a little bit interesting, I'm not able to see the entire room, but I'll do my best to address everyone. I'm going to take a moment to share my screen so I can share my presentation with you. Okay, so as you know, we're here to discuss the comprehensive update of the village zoning code. In February of 2025, InterWest Consulting Group was contracted by the village to modernize and comprehensively update Chapter 42 zoning of the village code of ordinances. Our initial analysis of the code identified some inconsistencies lots of redundancies throughout the code outdated land uses and definitions overly complicated regulations and procedures and some conflation of use and structure regulations a lack of graphics and tables and figures and zoning districts that don't exist on the village map as well as zoning districts that are not entirely consistent with the intent of the comprehensive plan Thank you. So we started about creating a method of updating or modernizing the existing code. So when we say that this is a complete rewrite, it is in the sense that this is a complete reorganization and there is a lot of, well, some new content, but much of the content and the regulations of your existing code are still in place, otherwise we would create probably a lot of inconsistencies and nonconformities that wouldn't be helpful for the village. We started with what you have and built on that, reorganized things. So, we reorganize the code, we removed zoning districts that are not on the village map, renamed some of the zoning districts to kind of align a little bit more closely with the intent of the comp plan. We established a separation between use and development regulations, and with that also created land use and development tables that allowed us to significantly consolidate much of the code into just a few tables. We also used lots of graphics and figures to help increase clarity for what some of the regulations mean. And we consolidated lists of land uses into groups of similar land uses. We also removed some outdated terms and definitions and included some additional contemporary definitions and land uses. We've included some rules of measurement and performance standards and made some revisions to streamline the approval processes. I want to also note that just recently we revised the organization of the code. So I'm not sure if you had been given the updated chapters, but we have since split chapter 42 into chapter 41 and chapter 42. um but essentially we we kept uh all of the uh initial table of contents and just kind of broke it up a little bit more so we started with um compiling uh the different articles or reorganizing reorganizing the articles so that we had one chapter that dealt with all the general purpose and administrative regulate uh sort of processes one article um that described the different zoning districts and and the basic development standards within those districts and then article three we had development standards and regulations kind of beyond what's typical for each zoning district. And we also split out use standards and regulations. And then we had our final chapter for permits entitlements. Upon meeting with village staff, it was decided that it might be more useful for the village and maybe a little bit easier to allow you to kind of make changes in a more gradual way for us to split the administrative piece of the code into its own chapters we have now chapter 41 that is just the zoning administration is administration chapter and that consists of the general purpose and administration article and then article two is now permits and entitlements And then we kept chapter 42 primarily to deal with the actual zoning regulations. So we have zoning district regularly regulations, development standards and regulations, and then the use standards and regulations. We removed B1 and B2 zoning districts because they don't currently exist on your map. There were some standards tied to those districts, but primarily they were folded into what was formerly called the B3 district. And part of this process, we renamed the districts to kind of align with your comp plan. Since the comp plan is the village's guiding document of how development should occur over kind of an extended period of time, typically around 20 years or so. And then the zoning code is the toolbox to implement that vision. And so it's helpful when the zoning districts align with the districts that are kind of established or noted in the comprehensive plan. So we renamed the B3 zone to commercial retail. B4 is now, well, at least proposed to be commercial general. And then the B5 zone is renamed to public administration and also, well, renamed and rezoned. So the two areas that are currently zoned B5 consists of the public works site. So it seemed more appropriate for that to be under the public administration designation. And then there's one site that is definitely more commercial in nature, adjacent to the I-294. So we are proposing to rezone that to commercial general. The B-6 zone we're proposing as the light industrial office, as it seems, you know, the existing development in that area seems to align more closely with that district. And then I believe it was the... P1 zone is not located on the village map currently, but in any case, we kind of combined the P1 and P2 district and renamed that to open land. And we're also suggesting that the site where the village administrative office is located That is currently zoned R1, so we're proposing that that should be rezoned to public administration as well. We've also added zones R1A and R1B to address some of the long existing nonconformities in the Arrowhead Trail and Hiawatha Lane areas. So we were able to create separate land use and development standards tables. And this is where I was kind of pointing to earlier, much of the content of the existing code is really exhaustive lists of different standards, you know, how large the lot area needs to be for different zones, heights, setbacks, et cetera. And then similarly, each zone as it exists in the current code also contains an exhaustive list of different land uses And it's just not really necessary to group them in that way. And it's a little bit more efficient to, especially for anybody that's trying to implement the code or understand what the code means to just look at a table and be able to say, okay, well, I'm in this zone. So, and I want to I want to apply for this specific use or I want to develop the property in this specific way. And now I can see exactly what kind of land use entitlement I need or if it's just prohibited or permitted by right. We also included lots of graphics and figures. Sometimes the written text is just not really sufficient for us to really understand what something means. particularly when you're looking at something like the visibility triangle. You don't always have a clear picture of that just from the text alone. It's helpful in these instances to add some graphics for clarity. As I said, there were exhaustive lists of land uses that we felt land uses for the most part aren't necessarily important. It's the impact that they have on the area, how much traffic they create, how much parking is needed, how much noise they create, et cetera. It's generally easier, particularly when you're using a system with tables like we've created, to group similar land uses together or land uses that, in other words, have similar impacts on the environment together. And so we feel that something like general retail that can include anything from apparel to sporting goods, to gift shops, to florists, to pet supply stores, typically have about the same impact and the same general parking needs. Sometimes if you have some of the big box stores, they need a little bit more space for everything. and create more impacts. And we can address those if that were to ever occur in the village. But as I understand it, you don't have any really large big box stores. So it's not really an issue at this point. But if at some time in the future, some redevelopment happened, you got a Home Depot or something like that, we would look at that in terms of being, it could fall under the general retail category, but we could also at some point create development standards specifically for that size of general retail use. We also removed outdated terms. So things like haberdashery, as charming as that is, is not a hugely relevant land use anymore. So we felt, again, that's something that could kind of fall under, you know, the general retail or personal service sort of category. We included some rules of measurement. I know this seems a little bit simplistic, but sometimes if you just know that for a specific development, you need to provide one parking space per 200 square feet, it doesn't always end up on a nice even number. It's helpful to have that kind of criteria codified so you know okay in this instance we're going to round up right how to measure distances you know are you measuring from the property line to the Eve or a property line to the structure wall so we added some some clear clarifying rules and measurements for that We also added some performance standards. This is helpful, particularly when you're looking at special uses or any kind of use that might need an additional amount of discretion. You want to be able to have some controls over light and glare, noise, pollution, vibration, that sort of thing. And so if you have those things codified, then you can apply those standards to development and use projects. We're also proposing, and this might be potentially the most controversial piece of this, I'm not sure, but we're proposing on revising the approval process a little bit. This is primarily meant to streamline things and kind of In other words, make things a little bit easier to allow for city staff to have more time to do things that are a little more important. So rather than having staff write up multiple staff reports for several hearing bodies, we've Moved some of the decision making process for the more. Kind of administrative ministerial sorts of applications to. To staff in this case, the village village administrator. And we're also proposing that special uses and site plan reviews fall under. The planning and zoning commission as a decision, rather than a recommendation. And the reason for that is really that the planning and zoning board is typically a hearing body that decides land use decisions. And while your, your code currently makes. almost every entitlement a legislative action. We feel that it is a more streamlined and easy process if the board that's established to make land use decisions can actually make those decisions. They can always be appealed up to the village board if necessary. If there's anything controversial about a project. You can always kick it up to the village board, but that's that's what we're proposing and then variations zoning code zoning map amendments, comprehensive plan amendments and plan developments or. The redevelopment, so if you want to modify the plan development and existing plan development, we've created some standards for that and those would be recommended by the planning and zoning commission. And then the village board would be the decision making body on those. So that's the bulk of my presentation. I can take questions unless we need to move on to something else.

I'll ask if there are any questions.

Yeah, I'll open it up to the anyone here. Any questions based on the presentation that we've just seen? I know the approval process is streamlined a little more. Efficient compared to what we've all experienced, and I think we asked for that over the years. So that's a welcome change. But if you want to talk about that commission, we could certainly discuss that further.

I think part part of the intent of this rewrite was to was to have fewer situations where it was hard to interpret or it was you know people are having to come in for special experiences or variances for things that if they were just it was just clear in the code you know and things were more consistent that that more of those kinds of things could be dealt with administratively yeah so I guess that would be the hope is that there's fewer times when someone has to come and ask for a slight change. Right.

I think over the many years, this table that was last presented, the last screenshot there, from zoning certificates to reasonable accommodations, We had many times were involved in those and although we understood the reasons why, given the current framework of what we were abiding by, I think the decision process in that table helps us manage the exceptions rather than the all.

and I remember that happening five six years ago we were requesting that so this is a in my opinion a welcome change I don't know other opinions there okay I have to applaud the zoning committee for putting this together because it just it lays it out so that there's no at least at this point in time uh no misunderstanding of who does what when yeah

Yeah, and definitely the accountability. And then I think what this builds is a more timely decision rather than being bogged down with milestone meetings of the board and our commission. I think it expedites a lot of that and it'll be better for our village to get to that point. Any other further questions on the commission?

i i was going to ask there was a mention of kind of removing some terms that were outdated and things like that but as i was looking through the code there's a section about home occupations And it also does tend to list, it lists some things and then it doesn't list other things. And I don't know whether there's a way to simplify that back as well to make it more all encompassing. Clergymen and lawyers are allowed to have home offices, but architects and urban planners are not, for example. It's more a function of, are you sitting somewhere at a computer by yourself doing things or not? But then... than what you're doing um I don't know how that's been handled you know in other codes that that Chantal and her colleagues may have updated but is there a way to describe home occupations more just related to the nature of the activity and you know you can't have clients coming and going or you can't you know have things delivered to your house that that kind of stuff Chantal

performance standards for home occupations. We could also, if everyone is open to it, include home occupations in the land use tables for residential districts. And then that would help kind of clarify what type of permit is required for that.

I know in the past there's been

some discussion of if the resident had number, you know, official tax, things to kind of separate, you know, a small mom and pop business that's operating out of using eBay versus a formal home office, if you have an EIN number, and that might be something that you might want to comment on.

Well, I mean, I think you would want to look at the function of what's going on there as opposed to whether it is the EIN. I mean, it's really a functional rather than a form. So if the type of home business is one that doesn't have customers or clients coming to the home and it's really literally somebody working at a computer, that is more of a functional analysis as opposed to whether or not they've got a separate business entity that they're operating in.

Chantal, I believe the term you used was impact, measuring it by the, or classifying it by the impact it has, which is basically, I think, what Rick was just saying.

home that maybe actually sees clients from time to time. And you could establish some guardrails for how many people are allowed to visit in a day, how many deliveries, trucks, limit the size of trucks that are allowed, prohibit specific types of uses, automotive, repair or that sort of thing but yeah essentially if you know somebody is sitting at their home on a computer all day and doesn't see any clients just works on their computer effectively they're not having any other impact other than what they would just living in their home so Yeah, there's not a lot that you need to do in those cases, but there are obviously other cases that do require a few more guardrails. So we can certainly look at that.

VILLAGE, ARE WE, DO WE HAVE ANYTHING WHERE A BUSINESS LICENSE WOULD BE NECESSARY IF THE BUSINESS WAS IN A RESIDENTIAL HOME? OR IS THAT SOMETHING WE COULD LOOK INTO OR IS IT NECESSARY TO DO THAT?

WE CAN CERTAINLY LOOK INTO REGULATING IT MORE ON THE PERMIT SIDE THAN WHETHER IT'S ALLOWED OR NOT IN THE ZONING CODE, LOOK AT HOW WE REGULATE IT IN THE BUSINESS PERMIT SIDE.

THAT MIGHT BE A KEY INDICATOR the type of business and the intent that it has if it needs a business license comments yeah we agree there all right coming up with some good ideas some comments anything else

for it one more i i think it is really helpful that we have added some graphic explanations so that people who are looking you know reading the code understand what a front lot line and a side lot line and a front setback and a side setback are um my my concern and i don't know how we address it for a community like ours is there are so many properties that are not regular in shape you know there are quite a few that are rectangular and everybody has a front and two sides and a back but there are quite a few where we don't some people literally have a lot that is triangular you know or or there really isn't a clarity about what's the front what's the side um I don't know how necessarily how to address it other than to just wonder if there's any kind of examples chantal that you can think of where you know some kind of situations like that could be explained even if it was just something to give the staff some guidance as someone comes in and says i have this weird shaped lot like what how is this going to be interpreted in the code what is the actual buildable area of my lot um so that people you know before they go too far down the road they understand i think she's talking but we can't

Apologies. We can't always create regulations for every instance, but we can try to get as close as we can. In instances, particularly I think looking at the village makeup and I've seen that there are definitely a few properties that don't meet the current zoning standards for a lot size with depth, all of that. I think in those cases, you know, you could ask for a land surveyor to kind of check out what's going on in the property or, you know, if somebody brings a project to you, they want to build something on their lot and we don't know exactly where the lot lines are. Typically, you would have a licensed architect or land surveyor put those details together. This is a little more difficult for staff, but you could also ask for the property deed, which typically has... The coordinates of the lot, and, you know, maybe ask the landscape or architect. Architects to put those into the site plan for whatever project is being proposed. There's also some things that we can do, and we've added that to this current kind of iteration, that, you know, any situation that's a little bit out of the ordinary, the village administrator can recommend that. that a project go to like the next hearing body so if it was something that normally would be approved by by the administrator they can decide to you know take it up to the Planning and Zoning Commission and or the village board if necessary just

Something, Indian Head Park is in Cook County. Cook County does not currently hold plots of surveys with the deeds. The record of deeds will not be able to copy a plot of survey unless the property has not changed hands in so many years that the original deed, as it was recorded, had or happened to have applied a survey, but they cannot guarantee that they can find it and give it to you. So the only way is to get a surveyor. You can go to the maps department under the tax services, but that only delineates by the different plots in the whole town or township. so it still doesn't have the the actual dimensions and exact points where the surveyor would be able to find the metal markers so on that yeah as i said there's there's there's not a way to necessarily regulate for every potential situation um you know in in those cases um

It's hard for me to contemplate without an actual example in front of me, but if you think that there is a project that is being proposed that is exceeding the requirements of the zoning code or of that particular zone, Then, you know, it's something that you could take to the planning commission or to the board to review and say, you know, this is such an unusual case. We can't necessarily codify restrictions around this, but we can make reasonable. assumptions based on what is being proposed. So if you can clearly see that the project appears to be encroaching into the street or onto another property, that's something that you can prohibit or deny a project for and you know, have some discretion over the decision-making process. Yeah, I mean, you could also, it depends on, again, you know, what side of the property it's on. If it's something that's at least street-facing, if there's not a clear line or if there's not a straight line, You can create like sort of an average between points and call that the line for which you're going to call the setback line. So like if you have a curved front frontage, then you would go from point to point, draw a straight line, set it back far enough that any curves don't go beyond that line. and then set your setback point from there. We also have, I have some graphics that I could share with you at some point that deal with like cul-de-sacs because obviously, you know, you've got a rounded edge and, you know, there's not exactly a good straight line to use for your front setback. So, you know, that's another, thing that I could share with you. I don't know. I haven't noticed that there's very many cul-de-sacs in the village, but I might be mistaken there.

But we could be doing as commission is if you go by the table, administrative discretionary, anything that's recommended, we are used to getting a packet based on village administrators opinions in that they might be able to establish what's the front yard, the side yard, the backyard to help with our decision process and expedite it. Is that close to what we were open for?

well yeah i just i wonder where there could be guidance so if someone comes in and says i want to do an addition on my house and i they have this weird yeah they're on the inside corner of a curve or they're on the outside corner of a curve right the staff can give them some kind of guidance as to how it's going to be how it's going to be interpreted they wouldn't necessarily have to be i guess technically they should be in the they should be in the ordinance but the process for you know like like you mentioned how to sort of establish an average dimension that would be the governing setback like like somebody who's advising property owners just needs to have some clarity about how to do that and make sure that they're kind of advising everybody consistently And I don't know what the best way to do that is, but we would sometimes in the past get things and it wasn't really clear exactly how we were supposed to interpret what the code was telling us. We were floundering a little bit because there wasn't really clarity about how we should be interpreting what was in the code.

That issue. And I could present a few options to you.

Additional information on front loading to allow anyone that's coming in to understand what the rules of engagement are and that should expedite the process before it gets to us in a decision in that specific use there. Again, one more time, questions, comments?

I just want to make a comment that I want to applaud the idea of simplifying in this table that you put together the different possibilities so people can serve themselves. So I would encourage that once this is approved and amended to the full ready to go, that this be put in the website and encourage the residents to self-serve. Look at the table before you apply to anything. Look at your needs and if you have any questions, you know, this is the phone number to call or this is the, you know, this is the next answer to your next question. So thank you for putting this together.

Yeah, I think we talked about having a binder for new construction and different types of permit needs. Downloads. So I think after we get all this done, then we'll have to figure out what is the best way to educate, communicate, and implement what we're doing here. So our residents can easily get things approved. The same thing with permits, making sure we have OTC permits for most things and not have people having to go to the plan commission. You know, I remember one, and maybe this is a, going on a tangent, but we had one of our Acacia residents having to go to the plan commission for a railing, if you remember, for putting a safety railing on their stairway. So that's a strange, very, seems like a basic request, but the plan commission had to take that into consideration and vote on it in approval. It was very recently, last year. So, things like that, I don't know how you eliminate those types of requests. I mean, you still want to have the understanding that this railing's going up. But I wondered in our current code how that happened and if the current, the new changes would eliminate that to be more of an administrator approval. So that's just one example I had so if we look at the cases we've had over the last 24 months That was one I thought of but I just want to make sure of the cases you have heard Over the last couple of years some of those are we in fact Changing this so you the administration will have that decision right in the cases where they're very common sense and And I just want to make sure that we look at those and say, oh, yes, that's in the chart, and the administrator would make that decision. So when Ms. Allison had that request for the safety railing, she could have gone to Gavin or the administration as long as it was the right material and all of that, and the HOA had approved it, that he could make that decision with administration and not come to planning and zoning. So...

IN THIS CURRENT VERSION OF THIS TABLE THAT WE'RE REFERENCING, IT DOES SAY THAT REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS WOULD BE A DECISION BY THE VILLAGE ADMINISTRATOR THAT COULD THEN BE APPEALED TO THE PZC AND TO THE BOARD. BUT THIS IS THE ONE, THIS TABLE IS GOING TO, WE'RE GOING TO, I'M GOING TO WORK WITH RICK AND CHANTAL TO MAKE SURE THAT IT IS IN COMPLIANCE WITH REGULATIONS FOR THE STATE OF ILLINOIS AND MAKE SURE THAT When we come to the board, we'll make sure that this is exactly what you all want as a board to push some of these things down. But we're gonna have more discussions about that.

Yeah, and I think what we've always asked for as a commission is as we witness an example like that Someone is going through month to month to month with permits all the way through which is an expense to get to the point where it's in front of us and then we send it back because it had some inconsistencies and that timeline is We're experiencing that frustration. I mean, we'll spend whatever time is necessary to resolve it or make a recommendation, but it just seems a little unfortunate for the resident to go through all those chronological steps to get to the point where it's in sound fashion that we can make a decision. I think we're also in agreement that even though a lot of us are learners by pictures and visuals, the special use permits and site plan review, I think, in my opinion, it would be nice to know what the definition of that means as a newbie, understanding as a resident what constitutes a special use permit and have that kind of clearly stated, even though I like the fact that it's in a table, but to expedite someone that's seeking an improvement to understand they fall in a certain category, but then also have the village be able to help them out to determine if they're in the right category or not. Well, with that, we'll go around again. Questions? Comments?

Good to go, anyone?

Okay. All right. So we're gonna go to public comment and I'll ask the village council to have any comments regarding the draft or issues identified during the review process.

Do you wanna have public comment first or do you wanna have my comment?

It looks like it's public comment. So as far as, you wanna go first, or Ms.?

Just to add with respect to what Gavin had said regarding the procedures, one of the suggestions that we had had was to separate the two chapters, so you had 41 and 42, keep the administration as a separate part. From my review of what is going to be chapter 42, that's very consistent and very good with the upgrades I think the community has been looking for in the zoning ordinance. moving the procedures to 41 does allow for a little bit more discussion and a little bit more timing considerations as to when these delegations begin to become effective. There may be some things that we want to talk through. For example, if you're an appeals body, what are you looking for and what are you reviewing on appeal? What level of deference do you give to the decision that Gavin might have made? Are you simply substituting your own judgment for his or are you looking to see whether or not he had made a mistake? If it was a subjective decision or an objective decision, how do you weigh that? Same issue then with the village board is in terms of how you, if the village board is sitting as the appeals body, what standards of review are going to be used by that board. The other consideration is when people have applications for zoning entitlements and they come away disappointed, there's an appeal process to go to the court system and how and when do we want that process to become available to them. So those are the types of things we're gonna wanna be talking about over the next several weeks to see how these revisions to the approval process fit in and how we're going to sequence everything. But as far as the substantive provisions of the ordinance, I thought it was a very, very good proposal.

OK. Good news there. Thank you. So at this time, we're going to open up the floor for public comments. And when we do this, it's similar to I see some familiar faces out there. Have you go to the podium? You might have to adjust the microphone to your level. And then you know, state your name, address for the record, and we'll try to focus our comments towards the zoning code update. So if there are any comments regarding this and the public is here, this would be your time to come to the podium and make your comments.

Hi, my name is Frank Lush. I live 6411 Indian Head Court. I think it's a great idea, Christina mentioned, and I think Mary Jo too, Amy Jo, that when you do this, make it available online so people can look at it and it's simple to understand the system of how we can get things done. Because otherwise you're kind of lost with phone calls and stuff like that. But I think online is a great way to do it. okay so frank do you you see an advantage of it being online for also maybe your contractor or subcontractor to review to kind of expedite your discussions absolutely because uh you know they're going to ask questions and then if i have to go to the village and do i go to the zoning board or who do i go to but yeah if it's a step-by-step procedure that's great we do it okay today everybody uses you know so i think it's great okay well thank you frank

So just so you all know, we incorporated a new system called BSNA for our accounting platform. As part of that system, there is a permit and code review module. I think it's called a community development module that we are going to be implementing in a second phase of that software. So our vision has been from the start to implement and facilitate the process of our residents being able to put in for what we call now a simple over-the-counter, like a window swap or something very easy, could be handled all online. So you could be using the software. Many villages do this today. It's what we call an over-the-counter permit. It's a very basic permit. You can put it in. We get the information. You pay for it. Bing, bang, boom, it's done. And we're hoping you don't even have to show up here. Okay? So our vision is that it would be very simple. It would be a very simple, basic process for you to get many things that today you have to come in here for. Then on the more complex side, where you're doing a very complicated project, Those would still be able to be created and input online, but those are where we would need to have more of a dialogue and process to be able to understand the requirements and have our engineering and oversight of the projects and things like that. So as part of that whole community development module of the system that we call BSNA, having those educational materials and training materials for our residents will have to be part of that. So we can't just implement it and put this in without doing the training and materials that we need so residents know how to use it. So it's sort of a large project that we we have on our timeline and we look forward to making that happen as soon as possible.

Good news. And then the module probably has some functionality of uploading PDFs and documents and plate of survey and. Yes, it does. Yeah. OK, good. All right.

And when we do that, of course, you will all know it'll be we'll have a separate part of the meeting where we do a demo and all of that probably. So you'll you guys will all see that as it gets implemented.

um because i'm sure you'll be interested to see how that will be facilitated for basic projects yeah i think uh gavin if you or if you know of a could you ask the module a question and could there be an answer given the ai element of you know do i need a permit for putting sod in my backyard

I think, no, I don't believe that BSNA has that capability, but because it's more internal, you can apply for things. You will be able to apply for things online, but I don't think you'll be able to ask any questions. That's a different project that we can also work on. A lot of villages are shifting to where they have chatbots on their websites, and those are operated by AI. I haven't... I haven't seen one that's really good yet, but I'll keep looking at that. But that would be a whole other issue. In the meantime, you're going to have to depend on the human intelligence that you see before you.

Well, and I think to that point, I mean, if we're publishing our code, if we're publishing our documentation and policies online, there are plenty of opportunities to just use the existing AI to ask the question, and it will mine that information. So I think that gets us a step ahead anyway.

Excellent. Okay, good. Further public comments? Frank, thank you for your comment there. If I see other people in the audience... Not at this time. Okay. Well, the public comment appears complete. Thank you, everyone. Are we going to take a motion to close the public? Yeah, let's do a motion to close the public comment section here. Public hearing, public hearing. And second has to be a commission on our side.

I'll second.

Okay, then that closes the public comment section of the meeting and now we'll do a vote. To close it officially, yeah.

This is a yes or no vote.

Diane Gormley-Barnes. Yes. Robert Tantillo.

Yes.

Rick Minshaw.

Yes.

Kat Hlatky. Yes. Eileen Murphy-Donnersberger. Yes. Danielle Sveska.

Yes.

Christina Saldana. Aye. Anthony Inako. Yes. And Village President Amy Jo Wittenberg.

Aye.

Thanks. The Triangle Business District, if you will. Sure. There's a, we're going to move to the commission discussion. Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah. So given everything we've heard to date and the forthcoming improvements, revisions, iterations, do we have any discussion that we would want to share possibly with Gavin and have him look into it further? I KNOW THIS IS ALL FRESH AND NEW TO US GIVEN THE TIMING.

REAL QUICK, I DO WANT TO SAY THAT I WILL SEND YOU THE PDF OF CHANTAL'S PRESENTATION AS WELL AS THE REORGANIZED VERSION OF THE ZONING CODE IN PDF SO THAT YOU HAVE THAT, THE MOST RECENT VERSION. Not substantial changes, but there are changes to how it's organized. As Chantel spoke to, as Rick spoke to also, we've separated the administrative part from the substance part, and that's what I'll send to you in PDF form.

I think it would be helpful to get it in the reorganized version and then depending on how much time we're being given if we could if we can submit some questions or clarifications and then we should tell able to sort of you know say like yeah this you're correct in your interpretation or this is the answer to this question something like that that would give us kind of a feedback loop before we have to forward a recommendation

yes we'll make sure that that happens so with the the restrictions we have in communicating with each other i think it would be important to have those available to us in some fashion but officially communicated out to everyone so if each of you will send any comments that you have to me directly i'll compile them all into a memo the answers here here are the questions that have been asked and here are the answers very good

the other piece that would be useful to have before that would be the proposed map because i did hear that we're talking about you know some things will will be a different designation than they are now for the for the public to be able to review it but also for us to understand you know where particular properties are going to be recoded that would help us understand the impacts as well

Chantelle, not if you can, if you heard all that and you can help us with that zoning map.

Just confirming what I heard everybody say, just so we can organize this for Chantelle and you can correct me if I'm mistaken. I've heard we need a new map of the zoning classifications. We need home occupations, potentially in the land use tables. We would like to address triangular lots or oddly shaped lots, front, side, backs.

We'd like to use graphics to delineate out of the ordinary items for those types of lots Yes There's a common destination Used for considering what the front of the house is and the US Postal Service uses it and it's already determined It's determined by the address The front of the house where the mail gets delivered is the front of the house. Just wanted to throw that in because we can actually consider it as part of our, not legal description, but terminology for permits to consider where the front of the house is.

The other item I heard is that Gavin will be sending you the PDF of the updated formatting of this and all of that to you in an email. And then if you have questions or comments, you will send those back to Gavin and he will get those questions answered and then back to you so you can see the answers as the commission. I ALSO HEARD A REQUEST FROM THE PUBLIC THAT WE LOOK AT TRAINING MATERIALS FOR OUR RESIDENTS TO BE ABLE TO USE THIS NEW CODE AND BE ABLE TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR THEM TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY HAVE TO INPUT FOR EACH PART OF THE PROCESS. SO THEY CAN BE A MUCH EASIER PROCESS FOR THEM. DID I MISS ANY ITEMS THAT YOU ARE FEELING YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE

I think, so there's a note here about zoning district changes and different districts to address the nonconformities. I would imagine that the folks that are within those zones might have some questions about what that fundamental impact might be to their property. And so I think if there were some clarifications that could be made around some of those changes and what those implications might be, I think that would be helpful.

we can pull that out and present it so that it's understandable to those folks. But the general impact will be they won't have to come to the Planning and Zoning Commission for just a basic thing, like adding a deck.

Yeah, and that can be part of the training part or the public presentation of this material.

That would be part of the education, yeah.

Okay, Gavin, any other? No, I don't think so.

Not on the zoning code. Okay.

So we could conclude on that part of our meeting. And now we're going to move to the... closing the hearing um you actually did a great job in summarizing the to-do's and the the next steps so that was a part of our process tonight um one more chance did we miss anything in terms of our expectations of what's going to happen um with the next meeting

We caught it all?

Yep. Okay, good. Well, pausing here, but we're going to close the public hearing at this point. I'll need a motion to do that.

We did that.

We did that?

Yeah. Are you sure?

Yeah.

You're very efficient. Appreciate it.

All right. And there's no one else providing testimony on the zoning code update. Good to go there. Hearing none, the public hearing is closed. Officially.

Thank you. Chantal, thank you. I'll be in touch.

Thank you.

Okay. With that shutting down, we have an item here to DISCUSS THE TRIANGLE BUSINESS DISTRICT AND THE MARKET ANALYSIS PREPARED BY S.B. FREEDMAN. GAVIN, YOU WANT TO TAKE THE LEAD ON THIS ONE?

Yes, just wanted to, we sent out the market analysis report draft to you on the Planning and Zoning Commission. We sent it to the board and the Economic Development Committee discussed it on June 2nd and right now it is just a draft because they've gotten to a point where they need some more direction from the village uh before they can go to the next step and the next step would be a financial feasibility study and what they give us a financial feasibility on is dependent on a few questions but let me let me go through kind of a summary of the report and then i'll try to make this quick But tonight we're not seeking approval of a specific redevelopment plan or a preferred concept. What I'm looking for is feedback and policy direction that staff can then provide to SB Friedman as they begin the next phase that I just described. By way of background, well, you know that we engaged SB Friedman to do this and to determine what types of development might be supported by current market conditions in the area. They evaluated existing site conditions, demographic trends, housing demand, retail demand, redevelopment constraints, and comparable developments throughout the region to identify realistic development opportunities. This area has long been viewed as an opportunity, as our biggest opportunity for economic development in the community because it's one of the few remaining in the village and it's one of only two commercial districts in the village. and because we're we're largely built out other than than a few lots and including all of these in this area the consultants findings point to several conclusions first multi-family residential development appears to be the strongest opportunity SECOND, RETAIL DEVELOPMENT IS LIKELY BEST VIEWED AS A SUPPORTING USE RATHER THAN THE PRIMARY DRIVER OF REDEVELOPMENT. AND THIRD, THE STUDY CONCLUDES THAT THE SCALE OF REDEVELOPMENT IS LARGELY DEPENDENT UPON SITE ASSEMBLY. SMALLER REDEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES COULD OCCUR UNDER EXISTING OWNERSHIP PATTERNS, WHILE LARGER REDEVELOPMENT CONCEPTS WOULD REQUIRE GREATER COORDINATION AMONG PROPERTY OWNERS AND POTENTIALLY SOME LEVEL OF VILLAGE PARTICIPATION. AS PART OF THEIR ANALYSIS, SP FREEDMAN DEVELOPED THREE POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES. THE FIRST IS INCREMENTAL REDEVELOPMENT. Under this scenario, redevelopment would occur as opportunities arise. Existing ownership patterns would largely remain in place and development would focus on vacant parcels and smaller scale projects. The second approach is a partial redevelopment or strategic assembly scenario. This approach would focus on assembling key redevelopment parcels while retaining some existing commercial uses and creating opportunities for a larger mixed-use development pattern. The third approach would be comprehensive redevelopment. This scenario would involve assembly of most redevelopment parcels within the district and creation of a unified mixed-use district that could support larger scale multi-family residential development and supporting retail uses When the Economic Development Committee discussed the study, several themes emerged. There appeared to be general recognition that redevelopment of the triangle will likely require a long-term perspective and that redevelopment should be viewed as an economic development opportunity rather than simply a land use exercise. there was also significant interest in understanding what type of residential product would best serve the village particularly where future redevelopment should focus on attracting downsizing rest i'm sorry particularly whether future redevelopment should focus on attracting downsizing residents seniors empty nesters workforce housing or a broader market rate rental population The committee also discussed the realities of site assembly, the potential role of the village in facilitating redevelopment, and the importance of understanding the financial feasibility of any redevelopment concept before making policy decisions. And that's what brought us to you here tonight to get some of your feedback also. The consultant has indicated that before they proceed with financial feasibility modeling, they would like additional policy guidance regarding several questions. So tonight I would like to focus your discussion on three areas. First, which of the redevelopment approaches best reflects the long-term vision for the triangle area? Are you more comfortable with, so those three alternatives that I talked about?

Oh, thank you.

FIRST, WHICH OF THE REDEVELOPMENT APPROACHES BEST REFLECTS THE LONG-TERM VISION FOR THE TRIANGLE AREA? ARE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE WITH AN INCREMENTAL APPROACH THAT ALLOWS REDEVELOPMENT TO OCCUR OVER TIME? DO YOU FAVOR A STRATEGIC ASSEMBLY APPROACH THAT FOCUSES ON KEY REDEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES OR DO YOU BELIEVE THE VILLAGE SHOULD CONTINUE EVALUATING A MORE COMPREHENSIVE REDEVELOPMENT STRATEGY? IN OTHER WORDS, ASSEMBLING ALL OF THE PARCELS THERE AND DOING ONE GIANT REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT. THE SECOND QUESTION IS WHAT TYPES OF RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS PART OF FUTURE REDEVELOPMENT EFFORTS? SHOULD FUTURE PLANNING FOCUS PRIMARILY ON MARKET RATE APARTMENTS? SHOULD SENIOR HOUSING BE CONSIDERED? SHOULD WORKFORCE OR INCOME RESTRICTED HOUSING OPTIONS BE PART OF THIS DISCUSSION? ARE THERE ANY CONCERNS OR PREFERENCES REGARDING DENSITY, BUILDING HEIGHT, PARKING, OR OVERALL SCALE? THIRD WHAT ROLE IF ANY SHOULD THE VILLAGE BE PREPARED TO PLAY IF LARGER SCALE REDEVELOPMENT REQUIRES SITE ASSEMBLY OR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION THIS COULD INCLUDE INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS REDEVELOPMENT INCENTIVES LAND ACQUISITION PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS TIF ASSISTANCE FINANCIAL BUSINESS DISTRICT REVENUES OR OTHER REDEVELOPMENT TOOLS AGAIN, I'M NOT LOOKING FOR A FINAL DECISION TONIGHT. I JUST WANTED TO GET SOME FEEDBACK AND KIND OF A GENERAL DIRECTION AND GUIDANCE TO SHARE WITH OUR CONSULTANTS SO THAT THEY CAN DO THAT FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY STUDY. WHICH IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT STEP. SO I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING YOUR THOUGHTS. THANKS. WE CERTAINLY CAN PUT THIS ONLINE.

believe actually it is already online it's on our it no it's on our we have a page dedicated to the triangle business area and it there is a link to the document there right so if you want to see the document it's very comprehensive you can take a look online I would invite the public to do that that are interested in the redevelopment of the triangle

And in front of you tonight, those three question areas that I just went through are on this single sheet, so you can remind yourself as you talk.

So I think the Economic Development Committee has been, I think, I know we've been working on this for a long time. In fact, the whole village has been working on this. Speak into the microphone. Okay. working on this for a long time. So Gavin said it's an opportunity, but it's also a challenge, as we all know, because it's been sitting there for years and sort of doing nothing. However, what we want from the board is, as Gavin said, is we want some direction. I know what we've sort of thought we should go incrementally. First of all, we don't own all that land, so that's an issue. And it would be, let's start small, make it look good, get the villagers excited about what we can do with the triangle, and maybe persuade some of the other owners up there that we need to work harder to make it look good. But again, we need your feedback. And if we get your feedback for something bigger than that, we also need your help in making that happen.

So are you saying that when the EDC went through this proposal, correct, this presentation, and when they looked at option one, so we have the options up on the board here. I can't see. We have all three of them. So were you telling us that they're, Feelings about it just in the EDC was this number two option. Is that what you're saying?

These in the in the report these are on page 47 48 and 49 the last three pages

i believe holistically as a committee we settled on the the second option sorry we settled on the second option as being the the one that we would like to consider pursuing the most that is correct so option two as you are looking at this just so when you get the presentation you can take a look at it the economic development committee who's been very involved in this we've taken several trips to look at other developments um And there's some great people on that committee. So just so you're aware, and this doesn't mean you should have the same opinion, but their feelings were looking at this redevelopment capacity alternative number two. So this one was the one I believe that they felt was more with what they felt would be appropriate for the village.

Well, what we can handle at this time, too.

Yeah, I mean, I think overall the thought was, like, if money was no option, the third venue would be the one to pursue, but we realized that that's not the case. So I think overall the committee decided that the one that made the most sense was the second one because the first one is essentially just status quo, not really doing anything. Correct.

So with option number three, the comprehensive redevelopment, what financial monies are you referring to?

I don't remember exactly what the quote was that they had initially laid out in the discussion, but I thought it was.

Eight million.

I was going to say millions, yeah. Eight million is what buys us the property? Ish.

If everything goes well.

Yeah.

BECAUSE THE DAY WE START MAKING OFFERS FOR PROPERTY IS THE DAY THEY ALL START COSTING MORE.

THAT'S THE VILLAGE MAKING OFFERS TO BUY IT, NOT DEVELOPERS.

THAT WOULD BE THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY. I MENTIONED YOU COULD DO A PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP WHERE WE'RE WORKING TOGETHER, BUT IN THE END, THERE WOULD BE A COST TO THE VILLAGE, A LARGE COST.

but i think you're inferring if a developer came right and said i want this entire area and i'm willing to pay for it is that something that would be it was that discussed at the edc level and what were people's thoughts about i think the phrase that danielle used was if money was no object but i don't i don't think we're going to have a develop if if we were going to have a developer come in and and make that kind of offer it would have happened

Has it ever been floated out there to bring in developers to take a look at everything? We have talked to developers, yes. And the consultants in developing this report also talked to developers.

I'm not saying I have any issue with number two. I'm just wondering if... We're just leaving out a whole lot of real potential revenue streams by cutting out number three.

Take a look at the developer interviews chart.

I understand that.

Yeah. I thought that was very insightful when you guys take a look at this. There are some challenges that I think are important to understand. So I know we all want the panacea, but I think at this point, EDC thought two was it. We would love all of your feedback. Diane, I think we got some feedback from you, which we appreciate. So if you would like to restate some of those and anybody else, that would be great.

Well, yeah, I can forward the initial thoughts I had over to Gavin to sort of collect with everyone else's. But yeah, I concur with the committee that I think number two provides a lot of the advantages that we're looking for. um because the original the original concept that was done years ago just as I was joining the the zoning commission looked at the area that's if you go back to number I don't know if it's possible to go back to number two but the area that kind of wraps around and backs up to the tollway even if a developer controlled the whole site I think they would look at those properties you know as having a certain kind of potential and then the the corner that has the visibility and the frontage would be would be thought of in a different way as well if we if we explore ways to help someone know assemble the properties that back up to the tollway to create sites that are large enough to do some kind of housing you know town homes or low-rise condos or you know an assisted living facility or something then then at some point that corner will become more appealing to someone to do development that the village might not need to help with you know correct And that and the point that they I think that the consultant made about the gray sliver that shows there is that that's that's the condo buildings that were built not that long ago, right so which are the kind of uses and density that we're looking for. A developer isn't going to come and just buy them out so that they can replace that with something else. That's kind of the one spot in this whole area where the kind of density that would make sense to really support the village financially is already in place, right? And so to try to figure out how to kind of build around that in a way that makes sense. then the question just becomes how what are the different scenarios for the village assisting with that process and what's the finance you know the financial outlay initially and what's the timeline and what's the potential payback so i guess for for sb friedman are they asking us to pick one and then they'll kind of run different scenarios yes okay because that's really going to be the issue is yes what's in the bank now and how long do we have to wait for some kind of PAYBACK TO OCCUR AND HOW LONG IS THE VILLAGE IN A PICTURE SHOWN TO WAIT AND BE A PARTICIPANT IN AN INVESTMENT THAT HASN'T PAID BACK YET.

EXACTLY. TO REITERATE WHAT EILEEN SAID, THE COMMITTEE DISCUSSED A LOT GETTING SOME MOMENTUM GOING BY DOING SOME OF THE SMALLER AREAS, AND THAT WILL INCREASE THE APPEAL TO A DEVELOPER, WHICH WOULD BE MORE LIKELY TO LEAD TO A DEVELOPER COMING IN saying hey I see that this is working at this at the let's say they start with the corner or they start with the closest to the tollway either way that makes the other part of it more appealing and you get synergy going that's that's a word that gets used maybe too much but you just start it starts building on what has come before and that would be an ideal situation

And in that scenario, does that include putting a facelift on what's already there and cleaning and refreshing that? I mean, I'll be honest with you, there's not too many developers that want to develop around that. It looks terrible. Frankly, it's in poor shape. So you just kind of wonder, I mean, with, you know, and some of my problem with number two is we're going to build around what's frankly kind of junky so um so i mean you're gonna have all this kind of newer stuff and then we're gonna have this property and it's almost like are we adding all this new stuff to then waste what we could really do in the future well that's right and that's you know a big uh impediment uh and it always has been for the last several years if we had the money to buy the building that would solve it

But I think once we start getting down this road, we've taken some risks and spent some money this last two years. We all said we're taking a risk here, but we can't do nothing because we've done nothing, right? So we all got together and we took the risks to get SPF involved and do these projects. Now we're on our second project. So we have to keep up our- End of the bargain. well, our focus to finish this. Now, we might keep focus and do the financial and find that we get to the end and we could be very successful, we could be limitedly successful, or we could be not successful, right? And I'm hoping that we'll be very successful and the momentum, as you talked about, will build for that area and that the developer will see what's going on. Doesn't take anyone more than five minutes to see what's going on with the strip mall.

Right.

So I'm hoping if we can get the other parcels, people interested in those for if it's senior or whatever, then they're going to say we need a better retail. Because that was the second part of this presentation and proposal was that there is retail opportunity. Yeah. So that would have to be considered. We all know that. I mean, who are we kidding here? You're right. It's dumpy. It's second, you know, sole proprietorships that have been there for a long time. They're great business people. We love them. They're great partners with our village. But if you're putting all these really nice apartments in or condos, the retail component is going to have to be developed. What that means, I think we're going to have to wait and see.

Yeah, and what the committee decided is we just need to do something. I mean, we can't just sit on our hands and say, well, there's too many impediments. The building looks terrible. It's sort of landlocked there where it's at. It's not near transportation. There's a lot of drawbacks to that triangle.

But there's also a lot of positives. I mean, it's right off... a lot of major intersections, there's a lot of traffic that goes past there. Yeah, there's some impediments, but there's also a lot of really good benefits to where that is, too. Absolutely, and that's why... I mean, that parking lot is filled all the time. Yeah, why is that? I mean, once again, it's not the business owners that are there. It's the person who owns the strip mall that doesn't take care of his property, which brings and makes it all, you know, look terrible. But I think for as many things as it... it hinders there's a lot of really great opportunities that could be had there and i agree we have to do something but we shouldn't just jump at doing something we should do the right thing

Well, I think we have to next take the third step, and we have to do the next step with the S.P. Friedman to get the financial analysis. So I think the bottom line here is we need your feedback on the alternatives. Knowing that the EDC was looking at option two, we'd love to know what you think. So why don't you guys all get your feedback into Gavin on that? And he can answer any questions just like we can on the other zoning changes. We'll get all the questions together and then send them back to all of you. So we're all doing this together and that we're having a dialogue about what we think is the best thing moving forward.

So I'm not saying that option three is off the table. I'm just saying what we recommend, but, you know, I mean, if the board can help us do option three and come up with ways to do it based upon what Friedman, let's go for it.

And you're very valid on two. I'm just curious. in some of the things, the way I see too is, we're gonna build all this really nice stuff around it, we're just gonna have this eyesore in the center, and it's gonna prevent us from our true full potential, versus maybe there's some things we can look and think about, maybe there's even some incentives that we can put together I think there's some other thinking that we can have versus, I have no problem with two. I look at number three and it's like we could really do something special or just kind of, you know.

And one of the things when our commission was looking at this a while back, one of the barriers from I think a couple of developers was our existing code prevented them from doing what they would like to do.

What kind of stuff was that?

THE RESTRICTIONS ON RETAIL USE BELOW AND RESIDENTIAL ABOVE. THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN ANOTHER, THERE WAS A COUPLE OF THEM AND THEN PARKING LOT RESTRICTIONS AND THEN, I MEAN, WE GOT DOWN TO THE TYPE OF LIGHTING THAT WAS Necessary. So concurrent to this process, I want and given the fact that we're looking at code and its modernization, we want to make sure that we present ourselves to future developers that our code doesn't impede what typically a developer would like to do.

Question about the housing situation. I mean, this is pretty much adjacent to 294. Any concerns about quality of life or putting residential that close to the highway?

PEOPLE ARE BUYING OR RENTING OR PEOPLE ARE LIVING.

IS THERE A SOUND WALL OVER THERE?

NOT ONLY THAT, BUT A LOT OF THE HIGH-END RENTAL MULTI-FAMILY UNITS THAT ARE BEING CONSTRUCTED RIGHT NOW ARE NEXT TO TRAIN TRACKS WITH THE TRAINS GOING EVERY 10 MINUTES. And the reason why is because in that case, it offers the transportation for young professionals to go to and from work, and then they just walk to eat. In our case, we should consider the possibility of having more a system of housing and retail and amenities geared towards the people that are actually retiring because they won't need the train to go back and forth and if they have a car it will be one to move from here there and they're connected to through 294 and 55 and Joliet Road and whatever so this is it's even mentioned you know we we we should consider that a lot of the people that are buying or even renting homes right now are people that are retiring. And they're moving to places in La Grange because they're selling their homes from here in Indian Head Park and La Grange and countryside and moving to a retirement community. They're completely perfectly body able. They're moving at 60, 60 something and just living 20 years in a rental community. high-end rental, because they have a restaurant and a chef that they just go down to eat. And then they get together in groups and go together places. And they have one car and there's like accumulating dust in their garage because they barely go out in their car.

But there's another whole group of people in that age bracket that don't want to live in that kind of home. They want to have their own home. They don't want to be in assisted living, but they still want to sell their homes. And that's sort of who we're looking at for over there.

And they're moving to the branch, to that big community over there.

Yeah, and there's one on Wolf Road down the street, too, that they're building.

So would you all get the feedback to Gavin, please? Let's just say by the end of the month, could we make a decision? At least get the feedback to him by the end of the month so we can get this going. because or quicker so we can get SP Friedman the assignment because it it takes six to eight weeks or longer to get the next step if not 12 weeks so we want to get to that financial analysis and then we'll become the marketing part of this so we'll want to talk to them about those two things and what their timeline is so if we can do that Gavin does that sound reasonable

Sure, the sooner the better. I'd like it sooner than the end of the month.

Let's say by next Friday. How about that? A week from this Friday, which is the 26th. Could we have the feedback to Gavin, please?

and focus on those different alternatives, so the scale of development. The very patient version, the middle ground, or the super aggressive is one way to look at that. Or, I'm sorry, incremental, strategic, assembly, or comprehensive. Those are the three. WHAT TYPE OF HOUSING SHOULD BE CONSIDERED? YOU MENTIONED EMPTY NEST OR RETIREMENT AGE FOLKS. SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT WITH THAT. SOME CATEGORIES THAT WE TALKED ABOUT, WORKFORCE HOUSING, SENIOR HOUSING, THERE ARE MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO GET FUNDING, FEDERAL FUNDING, STATE FUNDING FOR THOSE TYPES OF HOUSING THAN MARKET RATE. So that's something, you know, it goes into the modeling. But, you know, if you tell me, oh, absolutely not. We don't want senior housing. We don't want workforce housing. That's the kind of direction I can give to S.B. Friedman. And they can take that and say, OK, in that case, it's going to. here's it's going to cost this much and here's some funding opportunity how you could fund it so consider that consider density building height parking resident demographics and then what role should the the village pay should we become landowners which opens up a whole realm of issues BUT, AND THEN TIF, YOU KNOW, HOW MUCH SHOULD WE RELY ON TIF ASSISTANCE WHICH FRANKLY RIGHT NOW IN THE BEGINNING OF THE PROJECT IS NOT GOING TO BE A LOT OF MONEY. YOU KNOW, IT'S GOING TO TAKE A WHILE TO INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IN OUR TIF FUND. BUSINESS DISTRICT REVENUES, AGAIN, WE HAVE A TIF DISTRICT THERE, WE HAVE A BUSINESS DISTRICT THERE AND BOTH THOSE EVENTUALLY WILL CREATE MORE REVENUE. And then how how much do we want to get into land acquisition and I'm going to say it out loud, but Do we want to use the tool of eminent domain? You know, that's a consideration and you can tell me, you know, we absolutely don't or sure That sounds like a great idea And then how much do we want to rely on public and private partnerships? I

So I just wanted to add one more thing that if we are considering the housing for seniors aside from the advantage of being able to go after some supplemental money for the project, we do not overwhelm the school system. by offering more housing to multifamily people. In that case, the spacing, you have to build bigger apartments for families, and now you're bringing a lot of kids and overwhelming the system, and this is a TIF area. None of that money, that property tax is gonna go to the schools, so we'll bring more people without giving them the funding. So I think that we should consider that, plus the fact that there's more people retiring. Great ideas.

So let's say by a week from this Friday, the 26th, get everything to Gavin so we can take that second step. And then if we do that by July meeting, hopefully we'll have an idea from SBF what the timeline is for the project, for doing the economic analysis that we'll need to have done. All righty, can we move on to the next item? What would that be, Bob, on the agenda?

That would be public comments do we want to entertain some public comments right now mr. Davis

Hi, I'm Tom Davis, 6482 Apache, lived here 47 years. That piece of property that we've been talking about has been vacant all that period of time, as we all know. Has anybody considered a domed or enclosed sports complex that would include, let's say miniature golf, video driving range, pickleball court or two or three those kinds of sports that would lend themselves to indoor type of use if parking is a Consideration you could do a first ground level parking and do everything above that It seems to me that that would also attract in terms of let's say something like miniature golfer or the driving range that that would attract people year-round and because winter weather would not be a factor, and it would also, I think, draw people into the area for restaurants and other kinds of businesses that we have locally. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THAT PROPERTY WOULD LEND ITSELF TO A RATHER GOOD SIZE INDOOR SPORTS COMPLEX OF SOME SORT.

WE'LL MENTION IT TO SBF. I KNOW WE DID TALK ABOUT ENTERTAINMENT, RETAIL, AND I THINK IT'S A SPACE CONSIDERATION, I BELIEVE, BUT WE WILL CERTAINLY MENTION IT TO THEM. ABSOLUTELY.

Well, it's just a thought, and I'm thinking in terms of if it's a, let's say, a domed or an enclosed facility, then you have year-round use as opposed to spring, summer, fall type of thing.

Anyway, just a thought. Great. Thank you. Great idea. Appreciate the comments. Any other comments? Do we have any other items on our meeting agenda? I think Commissioner Tantillo, I think you're next to adjourn our meeting.

Close the meeting, okay. So looking for a motion to close.

I move to adjourn.

I didn't finish my sentence. He didn't buzz in.

Second.

Second the motion, I heard that. All right, the meeting is closed. Thanks, y'all. All in favor, verbal, aye. Those opposed? All right, it's closed. Thank you all.