Planning and Development Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the Planning and Development Committee meeting for Monday, July 13, 2026. Tonight's invocation will be given by Chaplain Gary Lundberg. We ask that you please stand if you are able. And we will immediately follow that with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Heavenly Father, we're thankful that you have called us together. Lord, you have brought so many blessings to our city, and we're thankful for all of those wonderful ways of providence and mercy for us. Father, I pray for a blessing on our Rockford police and fire department officers. Keep them safe, Lord, as they do their duties, protecting our citizens and making our city the beautiful place that it is. Father, we thank you for your promise that you will give us wisdom if we ask. If we are lacking in discernment and knowledge, we shall have all that we need from your hand. As the psalmist said, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Thank you, Lord, for that is an assurance that we shall hear your voice tonight. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We'll go ahead and move right into our public speakers, which we do have five today. If you have not noticed, we do have a new sound system, so we just ask that you step up to the microphone once your name is called. You will have three minutes to make your comments, at which time you will hear an alarm sound go off, and we just ask that you bring your comments to a close at that time. That being said, our first speaker tonight is Larry Washington.

All right, I ain't been here for a minute because that hadn't been doing any good. I'm normally talking about the Rockford Mass Transit District and how they treat those passengers down there. And all you got to do is go online and look at their reviews.

10 out of the first 12, one star.

one star, which is telling me the mayor and these aldermen ain't doing their jobs, which is committed to those passengers and everybody in this city of being appreciated. OK? Now, you can't tell me 10 out of 12 stars You guys are doing what you're supposed to do in helping those passengers be treated the way they're supposed to be treated on that bus. And I don't need this prayer, because it's just going to be business as usual tomorrow. That's all it's going to be. So I'm going to talk about what Alderman McNeely told me one day. She's the only alderman, the late Alderman McNeely, that showed me she cared anything about those passengers. She walked down them steps after I got through speaking. She says, Larry, I'm telling you this, ain't nothing going to change down there until those top five guys are gone, are replaced. And she said, the entire executive board needs to be fired. Now, this is just ridiculous, okay? This is ridiculous. Now, I'm going to talk about the ward I live in, and I've talked about this before. Several blocks, you can't walk down that sidewalk because it's covered with trees and bushes. One block of Rose Avenue, another of Michigan, okay? There's... buckling sidewalks on a school property, for crying out loud. You don't know how dangerous that is, Miss Trina. At the barber school, buckling sidewalk. And there's several in that neighborhood like that. This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Prof. Youssef.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the book of Proverbs, the first chapter, the seventh verse, it says, A fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Get wisdom, but out of all thou getting, get understanding. What I want to speak about tonight lies about African-Americans. They said there was no African-American to get the Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam. That is a lie. I'm going to name 21 tonight. James Anderson, Jr. He saved my life at Kamlo. Webster Anderson, Army. Eugene Ashley, Army. Oscar P. Austin, Marine Corps. Matthew Leonard, Army. Donald Long, Army. Milton L. Oliver III, Army. Captain Raleigh L. Pitts, Army. Charles Kevin Rogers, Army. Rupert L. Sargent, Army. William Bryant, Army. Rodney M. Davis, Marine Corps. Robert Jenkins, Marine Corps. Lyons Joel, Army. Dwight H. Johnson, Army. Ralph H. Johnson, Marine Corps. Garfield M. Langhorne, Army. Clarence Sasser, Army. Clifford Sims, Army. John E. Warren, Jr., Army. Martin Lyons, Army. African-Americans, you have no reason to have your head down because our people have fought and died for the United States of America. I also want to thank all veterans for their service to the United States of America. Welcome back home, my brothers and sisters. And don't forget them 7,000 nurses that was in Vietnam that saved our lives. Also, I'm glad you're here tonight, Mr. Sanders. I'm glad you're in that little girl right there. And Miss Sassy, Miss Sassy, I'm glad you're here. I didn't want to tell you this for a long time. And you, Mr. Denzel, I didn't want to tell you this for a long time. And I'm going to get it off my chest tonight. I don't like you. And you, I didn't forget you. I don't like you. I love you. And you can't do nothing about it. And happy birthday, my good friends. And I wish you many more. God bless you and your family. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to my good friends. Happy birthday to you. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you. Our next speaker is John Tack Brantley.

I want to say good evening to our audience. I see the mayor is not here. And most of all, our citizens of Rockford, Illinois. I want to start off by saying 250-year anniversary for the United States. Here, we got a wannabe Antichrist, Dick Taylor, Donald Trump, a convicted sex offender, 34 counts of felony, sitting in the White House corrupting this country. We talk about apartheid, apartheid, apartheid in South Africa. Yet the only whites that can come to this here country are coming from South Africa. We look here at right here for election. This year election, this past election, and don't let me forget about Project 2025 is alive and well. White privilege is alive and well. Jim Crow law is alive and well. They just put them under three new names. ISIS is nothing but the Gestapo. They have killed somebody today. They killed somebody in Texas. Eighty percent of the people they killed, I mean, they locked up. have nothing to do, never had a criminal record. We hear electionists coming right up. This past election, we had 38.51 Democrats that voted. We had 20.17 Republicans that voted. We had 41.32 Democrats independents that voted. We had 16% of the people that voted, 80,000 registered voters here in Rockford. Yet the mayor won by 11% of the vote. Just think, if 41.32% of the independents had someone that was running for mayor, the mayor would not be in office as we speak. The other thing that bothers me the most is even in the 13th Ward. The 13th Ward is made of 98% African-Americans. But yet we have an argument that when I come to him and talk about the concerns of our residents in the 13th Ward, he stopped talking to me and go and talk to a Caucasian. and ignore me. The next time you ever ignore me in public because the 13th Ward is my stronghold, I'm going to go right up to you and interrupt you while you're talking to that person. I haven't seen not one thing that our African Americans have done for us since they've been here in office. They have taken away the Memorial Hospital, the first hospital that was built here in Illinois. They have taken away the public aid office from the west side of Rockford. The biggest Schnucks grocery store. I can go on down the line. They have been taken away from the west side. What have our ethnic group, those that are in political positions, been able to do for us? We need to start standing up. We got 18,000 registered black voters with only 1,300. Thank you. 4,500 voters.

That's 1,500 that didn't vote.

Thank you. That's 1,500 that didn't vote. That's going to be my voting problem.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Erica Reed.

Okay. In May, Senator Martinez introduced S10380, which would require three semester and two continuing education hours on domestic violence for mental health licenses in New York. The New York Office for DV Prevention, the National Family Violence Center, and others supported the bill. In June, experts Jill Corey and Kara McAnlis Davis included my research in their training of therapists. My research includes a review of the national curriculum, mental health journals, and government hearings, as well as accounts from experts. What about Rockford? Well, last November, Representative West consulted trusted advocates. He repeatedly called them trusted. He wouldn't sponsor a bill or disclose their names or even their reasons. I asked three times. He wouldn't even bring up the subject in his group that determines federal education priorities. Since 2023, Vela ignored me and Stottleman's assistant, Bonnie, so that they were waiting on a recommendation from the Family Peace Center. In 2024, I attended a focus group there. I reported a local counselor who introduced me to a convicted batterer and other women reported attorneys and judges. The facilitator said that they hear frequent complaints about counselors and asked for my number. Jennifer told me to resend the bill to Stottleman. None of this was in the annual report. Because nothing changed, I made complaints last summer. Although Jennifer and the mayor didn't reply, Vela and Stoneman finally agreed to meet for 15 minutes. Vela said that Chicago advocates previously opposed education for attorneys, want domestic violence, and they're proud of it. In November, Vela claimed that he was still checking the statutes. Stoneman, who was on the Senate Education Committee, reprimanded me and said that he and the policy director at the coalition believed that classes would be a waste of time. Bonnie reluctantly admitted that he's had conversations with Jennifer, but wanted to elaborate. I began coming here last August. In February, the mayor canceled me on the night that Jennifer was scheduled to give a report. She called a month later, said she couldn't remember whether she's ever heard of the bill, didn't ask me to resend it, and suggested that I find counselors to support it. That's not my job. She told me that Nikki Tickner has been blocking training for attorneys. The last time I saw Nikki, she said, you're still having trouble with that bill? I'm preoccupied and walked away. Why should we pay DV executives six-figure salaries to block education for relevant majors and occupations with high malpractice rates? Why should we pay state politicians $99,000 and fund higher ed and accreditors like the APA when they refuse to offer common sense curriculum? Until recently, Leticia Wallace was the director for the Illinois psychologist. I talked to her in 2023. Why do lawmakers keep handing out licenses even though they know about the malpractice? I continue to urge the council to get involved. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Denzel Winter.

Hello, city council. My name is Denzel Winter. And I want to piggyback on that young man, what he said about the bus people. I was on the bus one day. This young lady had a baby. And she had just come from the grocery store. and she was putting the groceries on the bus. And don't you know that she got reprimanded because she had to carry the baby in one hand and put her groceries on the bus in another? That shouldn't be happening. And I sat there, and I've witnessed these bus drivers talking to these people any kind of way. They're supposed to be serving the public. They don't own them buses. We do. And it's time that they start doing something about them people talking to the bus riders any kind of way. If they don't like their job, they should quit. Another time, a young lady got on the bus. She had a little baby. And she was asking the bus driver, well, does the bus go back down over there by McDonald's? He says, no. We don't have another bus. And she said, do you know of another bus? Now tell me. Somebody that knows their job or should know their job should know what buses that they need to get, that they need to tell these people to get on, to get home. All he had to do is say, well, this bus goes this way, this bus goes that way. But he was too busy pumping himself up and talking nasty to people. It's time that they start respecting people. They don't have no respect because won't nobody tell them anything. Won't nobody do nothing to them. They talk to you like they on the bus. And that's ridiculous. This woman had to walk at night down dark streets with her baby in arms and her groceries. What would have happened if something would have happened to that woman and her child? You know, you could say, oh, well, it's tragedy. No. Something needs to be done to these bus drivers that think that they own the buses. They think that they can tell folks what to do. I remember one time I was sitting in the bus station And one of the bosses come in there, and he got smart with one of the guys. The guy said, well, you know something? I know what time you get off work, and I'm going to be waiting for you. And he sat there, and he sat there. The guy was waiting, just waiting. And then he started sweating a little bit. Then he got up off his dead behind, and now he wants to go and talk to the guy. He should have did that before he got smart. See, that's what I'm saying. You need people that's going to treat people like people, not treat people like they're animals, not treat people like they don't have nothing to do. These people are human beings, too. We pay to ride on them buses. Thank you.

We'll go into tonight's agenda for our Planning and Development Committee meeting in just a second. I'll allow these two gentlemen to take their seats. While they do that, clerk, will you please call the roll? Here.

Here.

Here.

Here. Here.

Thank you. We have one item tonight, information only. Item one is a 2026 infill planning and development guide presentation, which I will hand over to you all.

Good evening. Tonight, I'd like to planning and development guide. This is an information only presentation introducing the guide, why it was created, what it contains, and how we intend to use it. The Infill Planning and Development Guide is one of several initiatives the city is advancing to help increase Rockford's housing supply. This guide is not a capital improvement plan or a list of approved development projects. It's a planning tool that identifies where future housing opportunities may exist. As our community continues to grow outward, one of our greatest opportunities already exists within the city. Throughout Rockford, there are vacant, underutilized, and buildable sites that already have streets, utilities, parks, schools, and public services in place. This guide focuses on identifying those opportunities. Infill is about making smarter use of the infrastructure we've already invested in. Every new home built where streets, water, sewer, sidewalks, and public services already exist is generally more efficient than extending those services outward. It also strengthens existing neighborhoods by filling vacant land, encouraging reinvestment, and creating additional housing opportunities. Ultimately this isn't just a housing strategy. It's also an economic development and neighborhood revitalization strategy and Rockford's adopted housing strategy framework identifies a need for between 6,000 and 9,000 additional units by 2035. No single solution will meet that demand. Rehabilitation, redevelopment, adaptive reuse, and infill development all have a role to play. This guide focuses specifically on the infill portion of that larger strategy. After evaluating opportunities across the city, we've identified 50 strategic development areas. Together they represent more than 1,000 acres of development opportunity. The sites support a variety of housing types from single-family homes to mixed-use development. This guide gives us a practical inventory of opportunities that can be shared with developers, property owners, and future partners. This wasn't simply an exercise in mapping vacant land. Every site went through the same five-step evaluation process. We considered infrastructure, access, compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods, development potential, and long-term viability. The result is a focused inventory on sites with the strongest development potential. Different locations call for different housing solutions. Some sites are better suited for single-family homes while others support duplexes, townhomes, or mixed-use development. The guide intentionally promotes a balanced mix of housing options rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. The opportunities are distributed fairly evenly throughout the city. They serve more than 20 neighborhoods, are located in every planning area. While the west side contains slightly more acreage, opportunities do exist citywide. The guide is intended to be a citywide resource rather than focusing on any one specific neighborhood. These are conceptual examples showing what development could look like. They're not approved development plans or proposed projects. Instead, they help illustrate the development potential of different sites and different housing types. The complete guide contains detailed profiles for each opportunity including the existing conditions, ownership considerations, infrastructure, and the development characteristics. The value of this guide is that it focuses on implementation. Instead of just identifying vacant land, it identifies sites that are realistic candidates for future development. It gives both staff and the development community a practical starting point for future housing investment. Identifying sites is only the first step. Going forward, staff will actively promote high readiness sites, coordinate infrastructure improvements where appropriate, keep the inventory updated, provide early development assistance, and continue marketing these opportunities. The guide is intended to be a living document that evolves as projects are completed and new opportunities emerge. In closing, this guide represents a proactive strategy for expanding housing opportunities while strengthening existing neighborhoods. It provides developers, property owners, and the city with a common roadmap for future investment. These are opportunity sites. They're not commitments. Developers would still require willing property owners, market interest, funding, and the normal review and approval processes would still exist. As we move forward, it's also worth noting that the recently enacted 21st Century Road to Housing Act reinforces many of these same principles reflected in this guide by encouraging communities to increase housing supply, redevelop underutilized properties, and make better use of existing infrastructure. While implementation will continue to evolve, Brockford is well-positioned because many of the strategies outlined in this guide are already aligned with the direction of federal housing policy. Thank you, and at this time, we welcome questions and discussion on the development guide.

Sorry. I'll start over here to my left, Alderwoman Tarina.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to speak on your committee. Can you please go back to the slide? It was like the third one or something. It showed like the breakdown of the wards. It wasn't broken down by ward, which I wanted to see, actually. But I was trying to understand in the packet when I was looking at it, the numbers. What do the numbers mean?

So these are just snapshots from the plan itself. The full plan has a corresponding site index that lists all of these sites, where they are, the acreage, the type of development that we would expect at them as well. So again, this is just a snapshot from the plan.

OK. My other question is this. You mentioned promoting remote riding. Well, you talked about marketing and promoting. What would those efforts look like?

Well, I think we would be working with some of the developers and builders that we already talked to on a frequent basis. Some of the sites that are indicated on this plan, we've already had discussions with some of the builders.

I'm sorry. Can you go on? Because I can't concentrate.

That's fine. Apparently, one of our speakers left their phone, I would say. Sorry about that.

Can you start from the top?

Yeah, sure. So we have discussions with builders and developers all the time. And part of this would be to help steer them towards some of these sites that are available that can be developed. And we've had some that have come in already and talked to us about some of the sites that are listed. And when I first said, hey, it would be a great idea if we would start identifying more of these sites throughout the city, Director Lise and myself said, hey, let's start identifying these sites and see what we can do. So I came up with a rough list, and Colin polished everything off and did a fantastic job of putting this all together. It was basically looking at areas where we had infrastructure already, or if there needs to be any infrastructure expansion, it's just a matter of filling in those holes that exist with maybe a water main extension or a sewer extension. but it would allow us to develop some of these areas and then create, whether it's single-family lots, two-family, and some of the areas are already zoned for R2 and R3, and we identify that in the plan. So we say, hey, you can do multifamily on the site, you can do townhomes, you can do duplexes, whatever it may be.

So we're only working with... like developers we already know. We're not necessarily going outside of Rockford with any efforts yet.

I've also got a couple other parts you're not seeing. I've got some marketing pieces that go with this as well that are one page handouts that when you guys are out in the community or if you're at conferences, you can hand developers or hand future developers. Again, this is just a snapshot from the planning document itself, but we plan on definitely updating this more than once a year. As projects are completed, we can update them in the plan itself. We can add new areas as well.

And the plan would also be to contact those regional builders and developers in the area that we know of. And we would also reach out to the Realtors Association and let them know this is available now on our website. They can take a look at the document. And this way, it will provide a lot of information. And hopefully, it can help generate some interest that way as well.

I have one final question, please. We get a lot of questions, and there's always talk about, why don't we ever do tiny homes in Rockford? Can you answer that question, and would that be a part of this?

So ironically, I was just in front of the Community Relations Commission last Thursday talking about some of the proposed zoning text amendments we have, and that issue came up is what about tiny houses? And my answer always is you can put up a tiny home because we don't regulate the square footage of a home, but what we do regulate is the building codes. So as long as that home meets all of our building codes and our zoning setbacks for the lot, it's permitted to be put up on any single-family zoning site in the city of Rockford. Okay.

Thank you. Did you still want to add? Sorry, I'm learning this new system here.

No problem. Thank you, Chairwoman. Just to add and just to reinforce what Scott was saying, this is part of how we're creating a marketing plan, because we have had a lot of interest in Rockford. The news that we're on different housing market study, like we come in number one, that immediately meant we got calls. But we wanted to have a tool available. When we found when we were on those calls, we knew certain things about certain sites. But we wanted to have the full inventory and something that represented, like this does, a whole city view alongside. Because I have spoken at the Home Builders Association. I have gone to the realtors, like Scott said. And we know that there is a tension. So this is a great platform now that we will be able to use with a more developed marketing plan and connect more into those statewide conversations that are happening. I was with a team of Illinois representatives for a housing discussion just a couple of weeks ago. So that was with the head of IDA and others and could outline and say, we will literally have sites identified. And when you see the full plan, we When it's site 48, you see a map. And then you see the map of where the utilities are. You see all the information that it developed, the first information they would need to say, this looks viable for me. So we wanted it now in hand. We will have that whenever these conversations come up. And so we're starting to push it out. And after introducing it to you all, we will be doing even more of that.

Thank you. Alderwoman Meeks.

Thank you so much. OK. So I hate to make this an east side, west side thing. I really do. But what I'm seeing is 39 identified properties on the east side, 10 on the west side, and then one centrally located. How did we get to this point? Because I really need to see where the energy is for bringing development on the west side of town. And I was really excited about this. to be able to see how we were planning on utilizing those spaces that were open on the west side. And this is not giving me what I expected.

OK, I can answer that, Alderwoman Meeks. If you look at the slide up there, you'll see that it's 53% of the vacant properties are on the west side and 47 are on the east side. So it's very equally balanced, in my opinion. Where are we?

So the west side has a couple larger sites Yeah, so the west side numbers wise I believe there's ten Areas that we're looking at but two of those areas are over 200 acres of themselves doesn't mean there's 200 acres total buildable area But there are a larger area For that study area

And also I'd like to add that when we come forward with the tax amendments to the zoning board next Tuesday We're looking at this infill overlay district and that that will be overlaid more than likely on the west side of Rockford was significantly impact hopefully the Specifically the 13th Ward I think which is the one of the areas we identified as needing the most help and that would be a large area that that overlay would be included in because there is an area of know there's areas where you go down a block and there's four houses but then there's four vacant lots and in the next block there's only three houses and there's five vacant lots so hopefully that infill overlay will help address that as well this is just a part of as Sarah was saying there's just another one of these steps in helping to develop a strategy for housing for our city

Does this cover the specific wards that were identified in the housing study? Because it was specifically, I know Ward 11 was heavy. Ward 13 was there. Ward 5 was there.

Ward 11 specifically, there's a large area of R2, and one of the things that we're proposing with the text amendment is to allow three and four family developments on some of those lots as well. So hopefully that will encourage people that own vacant lots in those areas to go ahead and build a three or a four family, which would provide more units and more housing for a city.

Okay, and this...

there's not only the zoning one of app amendments but you also both you approve the beginnings of our infill development our direct infill development program this is a tool that we're going to be using to attract developers but if you remember we have the two programs where we're going to be looking at architectural designs and thinking about where we can help spur housing and those programs the two programs that were approved last time Those specifically, that's what we're first aiming for the wards that were identified in our consolidated plan, which I believe was 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th. Might have been 6th or 9th. I can't remember off the top of my head. So this, again, to Scott's point, we're doing multiple strategies. We're looking at our zoning code. We have those infill development programs where we're going to start looking at how we could direct build. And then this is another tool that we can use for marketing large amounts of acreage to other developers to try and get those conversations started too.

And I mean, do you feel that the issues that we've had, the barriers that currently exist on the west side for getting developers to come and build, what about this program is going to make it easier or better for them to do that?

Sure. particularly the info programs that we brought where we're looking at decreasing regulatory costs. That was the point of getting some of those architectural drawings is because we're trying to recreate housing there that doesn't have the comps we need for new construction right now. We need to decrease some of our cost to make construction more viable on the west side. That was part of that infill program. And our goal with this, then, is to then show on pieces of land in the larger acreage. In some cases, there's a plat already there. This is the type of housing it's already been structured to absorb. You could really do something here. They're not having to find, vet out, think about send staff to come to meetings to us to figure out where water is, to have to figure out where sewer is, to have to figure out all these different things. We're just putting it out for them to see so they can react to more quickly. That cuts down on some of that time. We're looking for all of the ways that we could shave off some of that kind of time in the upfront. so that we can enter into conversations. We're completely aware that probably for the first couple conversations, we're going to learn where we are financially, what's viable and not, and what else we might have to come back to you on. But what we're showing through this multiple strategies is that the city of Rockford is ready for those conversations. We're looking at this in several different lenses and that we're going to keep trying to innovate and keep trying to bring the solutions to you. This is going to help us start a lot of those conversations so that we can hopefully, if we don't have the answers yet, that we can come back to you and say, okay, this is what we need for the west side. This is what we're consistently hearing. Okay.

And last question. I thought I heard this. This is just kind of a summary of the actual plan.

Yeah, that's correct. The actual plan, I think, is 174 pages.

Yeah, when will we be able to see that?

I sent an email out. You can check your email, and you'll be able to look at it any time you want.

OK, I will do that.

It does take a little while to open.

All right, thank you. Alderman Thunberg.

Chairwoman for allowing me to speak on your committee One thing that I just read an article in the recent past impact probably in the past 48 hours so I haven't been able to run this by the the Northwest Illinois Alliance of Realtors nor the Northwest building trades, which they may be a little more familiar The crux of the article was was one of the denominators in that is slowing progress in home building is the lack of qualified individuals, i.e. labor, meaning trades individuals. So they said that was a double-digit percentage factor that they figured in was causing part of the delay in this new home building. So I guess my question would be, have you In the positions you're in, have you heard anything, any feedback from, whether it's realtors or the trades, of this dilemma locally?

I haven't heard about any shortages of labor. I can let Director Lai speak to that if she's heard of anything. But mostly what I keep hearing is I can't believe the cost to build a road. I can't believe the cost of, you know, some of the supplies that go into the home. And it's not just like, you know, you look at wood and you say, oh, you know, this is a great one cost. But then you start looking at all those things for the HVAC and your electrical and your plumbing. And those things are extremely expensive right now. The cost of plastic and steel has gone up a lot. And those are some of the biggest things that are causing a lot of these construction prices to skyrocket.

Thank you. Thank you. I would add to that, too, that yes, I have heard that even more than just right now, there's an anticipated shortage by looking at who's becoming an apprentice and who's moving into these trades. Again, like I said, I've attended Home Builders Association and have talked to Andrew. The current president has participated in several stakeholder meetings with us. And what they have said is they can find people to do new construction, but enough to do it in the places that pay really well, right? Like if they're going to look to build and you can build the same house in Beloit and Janesville or McHenry and make more because of the limited amount of money. that they have, they're going to do it there, because they'll make more money versus Rockford. And they've even said they'll make money in Rockford. They can just make money somewhere else, and we don't have enough staff to spread that out. So that's part of the growing concern for us, then, is to think about what we could do in that space. And that's part of, again, looking at how we reduce costs in the front end in any way that we can so that that equation and that competition becomes less of a thing. And then we stay in the relationships that we need to to help entice them to be in Rockford and to give them tools and easier pathways to see what's possible. I will say to the other thing that Will continue to do as staff is to work with them and understanding Like I mentioned the trip that I took to Columbus. I went with an Illinois delegation to look at the creating of modular homes and how to do that at scale in a way that does workforce development and still uses unions for on-site construction. But the number of workers that you need is greatly reduced. And because you're doing things in a factory for in mass construction type of way, this is part of the type of solution they're looking at, knowing that the labor force for construction is dwindling. Thank you.

Thank you. Alderman Grant has my apologies.

So I know the document talks about infill, but there's a big section right in the middle of the, let's just call it the map, that is not, there doesn't seem to be a lot of numbers in that section. And so I know one of the concerns that I hear consistently is I have a lot of empty lots. And I know that's a program that Director Lies and we're talking about, but is there Because I look at the properties that are there, and they're all big properties like on the west side. But there's still a lot of small properties within the center of that circle that can provide, that have the water, that have the sewer, that have all those things. And yet they're not identified here. Is there a way that we can correlate or put some of that individual lots into this diagram so that it's not forgotten about?

Yes. So there's a lot of vacant lots throughout the city, right? Whether it be maybe a home was condemned and torn down or a fire and we had to take it down because of the fire. But we didn't really concentrate on just individual lots that were scattered. We kind of looked at more of the clusters of large lots that were part of this infill program. Individually if there are lots and somebody was interested in building in your ward and we could we could easily Identify a lot of those as well and come up with you know, a list of properties that are available as well Just ask that that be included somewhere in the document so that I know that it is hard to build a tiny home or do something like that but there we have a lot of

empty lots on the west side that are not as big as some of those entities that are on the peripheral of that map. So that's the only thing I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Were there any other questions or comments? Alderman Logman?

Thank you. Just one comment. Happy to hear about the topic of rehabilitation of these older homes, too, because I'm thinking about a lot of the second ward, or maybe even the 13th ward and the 12th ward, a lot of older homes that when you have younger families, You know who want to move into a house. You got to be pretty handy to live in some of these older homes And so that might be a deterrent from moving into some of these homes like in central Rockford where we all want Central Rockford or near Westside near Eastside to be strong for our community so building up some of these rehabilitated homes because of course what we don't want is you know, and I think we've all seen it in our wards a little bit where a home needs some work and No one lives in there for three four or five years all of a sudden. It's just a vacant home for a decade and that does you know, that is a negative effect of property values, too, so Yeah with the new federal legislation that can address that too, but appreciate the focus on rehabilitation a lot of the older homes in our city, too Thank you other alderman Salgado

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to speak in your committee since I'm not on it. Real quick, Scott and team, so I'm assuming this came out from the 2030-2040 plan that you guys proposed on high density, low density as part of those conversations to develop these pockets, these areas. The question that I have, when are we looking to engage our land bank, our trustee program, to kind of take some of those. And I say this because it's all about the margins, right? Let's just be frank. People are going to develop where they're going to make some sort of margin, right? Because it's going to be real thin. No one's going to want to build somewhere where assessment values, they're not going to get the return on investment. Let's just be real. No one's going to want to build a $300,000 plus home in the 11th ward, right? That's just a given when assessment values are 115, 120, 125, 150 at the most. And so by the time to get the return return on investment could be 30 years or plus, right? And so unless you truly love that area and that's where you want to be certainly you will build a house and so as part of the tools I think that you know as other one Meeks and some other folks are saying is You know, is there any tools that you can leverage with the land bank as part of this process? To address this. I know this is one tool one piece of it right and so you know whatever plans we have coming in because we designated this in r2 multi-complex whatever it makes sense from that perspective but um also engaging our partners um especially you know when it comes to the lending bank or the trustee program where some of these properties are you know in there that can provide some incentives for those individuals and i do agree with you 100 percent is let's leverage our utilities because it costs money to figure out where this is, the hookups, the costs that are associated. I like the architectural thing that we have platforms there for developers that don't have to spend that much money on that. So I think that's a good piece, but I also think working with our partners on that, and I'm not saying you haven't because that's not what I'm hearing or have heard, But I definitely think that that is a leveraging point for us as a city to reach out for the land bank from that perspective, right and so This is just a stepping stone. Like you guys said, I'm sure there's gonna be more details I like Alderwoman granite, you know to add to this some of this stuff, but just wanted to get your take, you know, if that's one of the conversations you guys had with with the land bank, a regional one plan to work on some of these strategic development marketing tools that you guys have out there.

Okay, so I'll hold the land bank comment basically in trustee lots to the end, but just to kind of address your point, you know, we wanted to identify parcels that were in the private sector for the most part. Although after we started going through this, we did include one land bank site as a part of this, and now they're actually going to market that site for sale and development for somebody. That's the old Martin Luther King Jr. grade school site. We've identified a couple of excess park areas that they may be getting rid of as well, and school district properties that it doesn't appear that they're ever gonna build anything on. But the rest of this is all private sector. And we just wanted to identify these parcels saying here's some great opportunities that exist throughout our city. At and as for the the trustee program and the land bank I know that director lies is working with them on a lot of different things and she can speak to that But we do part we do have discussions with them as well because obviously Some of the properties that have gone to the land bank have been out there and they've been rehabilitated and people are living in them now and they're nice nice-looking places and they've done a great job, you know and Some people are getting a house for 30,000 and they're putting, you know, 80,000 into it and it's now worth 200,000, which is fantastic. That's exactly what we want to continue to see to Alderman Logeman's point, reinvestment and rehabilitating these older structures as well.

Are there any other questions or comments? I do have one final comment in question. Um, I too, when I looked at this map, I thought the same thing as, uh, the 12th Ward, Alderwoman, because you do see 10 identified areas on the west side, and then you see a bunch on the east. But then I looked to the right, and I saw that acreage. So my thought process was, well, hey, we've got all this acreage over here on the west side. I guess my first thought was, will I start to see developments like maybe Concord or Fairgrounds or Auburn Manor or something like that because they do have these large amount of acreage whereas you can do maybe some of the smaller units on some of the identified on the east side there. So my question to you all as city staff, when you are having these meetings with developers and things like that, What will be your recommendations to these developers coming forth as to what your recommendation will be? Is this going to be something that you are asking market value, something low income? What will be the recommendation from the city when you're having these conversations?

Great question We were always going to have a conversation of doing everything at market rate if possible now Some people are going to come forward and they're probably going to be you know dealing with some type of assistance But that's not something from a zoning perspective that we're going to be looking at These part these larger parcels that are spent that are primarily on the southwest side Those areas are targeted for mostly medium density to and I should say low density and medium density housing So I don't expect to see anything that's the size of Auburn Manor or Concord Commons anywhere in those. And I don't think we'd want to entertain that, actually. But if it was done right, obviously multifamily can be beneficial to the city if it's done right. And we'll entertain pretty much anything from a developer. And obviously the final vote on anything that would go through zoning is going to be the city council. Understood.

Yeah, I just want to add to and part of introducing it to City Council tonight And it's on the website for anyone to review but especially for all of you as you look at your wards We're available to meet with you to talk over the sites that might be in your ward or other things that weren't Maybe in this plan that you would have expected to like Colin mentioned we needed a starting point We have a plan we're gonna be marketing this that doesn't mean we won't want to add to it. We want to talk about more sites. We're more than happy to think about the mix and what you want to see or the residents maybe you've talked to around these areas. When we're getting developments in or we're getting interest, I'm trying to send you information on that. We had one in the seventh ward. Somebody brought in sort of a drawing of it. I sent it to the alderman so then she could talk to residents about what does this mix look like? What would you think that they would accept or want to see around this? When things are coming in, we're hoping to start a lot of those conversations. And if I know where your head is and what you want to talk about, happy. That's a great thing for me to bring into that room. So feel free to, we're available to you to talk this through more individually. Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments? Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Second. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. This meeting is adjourned.