Survey seeks South Elgin residents' opinion

Do you like the look of townhouses? How important is bicycle parking? Do mining sites bother you?

Residents of South Elgin have until midnight Wednesday to state their preferences via an online survey that will help shape future development in the village.

The survey - a visual one that asks people to rate different images - is part of the process of combining and updating the village's subdivision and zoning ordinances into a single, modern and user-friendly unified development ordinance.

The work is being done by Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, which selected South Elgin to be a recipient of the agency's local technical assistance program. The UDO should be completed in about a year, after review by village staff members, input from the planning and zoning commission and approval by the village board, Community Development Coordinator Marc McLaughlin said.

"Everything will be centrally located - one document, one set of definitions, one process," he said. "We would like to have the ordinance go from all the way starting from annexation through building permit, and everything in between."

The 1969-era subdivision ordinance especially needs to be updated to conform with modern standards of development and the village's 2030 comprehensive plan, which generally calls for higher density and smaller lots, he said.

Also, the subdivision and zoning ordinances are sometimes at odds because they have different definitions, for example, regarding streets and roads, McLaughlin explained. "It's basic, but it's a huge problem," he said. "We just have to interpret what we think is the best case. It's a lot of massaging."

That's common among communities across the country, said Patrick Day, associate planner for CMAP.

"It's not wrong to make incremental improvements that address conditions as they are, and situations for your municipality, but it's best to look at all of your regulations together to avoid any misalignment," he said. "Oftentimes with municipalities with limited staff and resources, they have less time and expertise to actually comprehensively rewrite their ordinance."

South Elgin was among 25 communities - out of about 75 applicants - selected last year for the competitive local technical assistance program, said Bob Dean, CMAP director of planning. Five agency staff members are working on the South Elgin project, whose value is estimated at about $150,000 to $250,0000, he said.

Input from residents is an important component of the process, Day said. "There are contrasting development types, and it's important that the community weigh in on what they want the community to look like," he said.

The survey is available at https://southelgin.metroquest.com/.