Northbrook news in 60 seconds
Addressing attics
Tom Poupard, the Village of Northbrook's director of development and planning services, is retiring Jan. 29 after 31 years. Helping engineer things like the village's Affordable Housing Plan in December, his career is winding down as some longtime goals are being realized. He presented another of them at its meeting Tuesday night, how to treat unfinished attic spaces in Northbrook homes.
"I will say it's a problem that we've been trying to come to grips with for awhile," he said.
In Northbrook there is a floor area ratio limit of 40%; for a lot of 12,000 square feet, a home should be no more than 4,800 square feet. Attic spaces are not included in that square footage, and most homes go right up to that floor area ratio, Poupard explained, so the village can't issue building permits for an improvement to the attic.
Should a resident wish to do something with a larger space above a garage, for example, the options are to leave it unfinished, use it as storage or convert it without a permit and risk building something that is not inspected and potentially unsafe. This frustrates some Northbrook residents.
The village's Architectural Control Commission reviewed this matter and endorsed several concepts to be added to the zoning code, reviewed at Tuesdays village board meeting.
Key facets included using only attic space that was 7 feet wide and 7 feet tall to be used in the floor area. Using lots of 15,000 feet as a threshold, an additional 400 square feet of attic space - provided the 7-foot dimensions apply - could be added to the floor area ratio.
The Architectural Control Commission recommended a new definition of attic should be added to the zoning code. The board, on the path toward its affordable housing plan, had prior meetings discussing accessory dwellings. Trustee Muriel Collison said these attic spaces should be considered "hand in hand" with those.
The board believed this topic should proceed and, as Village President Sandy Frum said, it's "on to the Plan Commission with this."
Very long arm of the law
The Northbrook Village board also approved a resolution honoring telecommunicator Mike Nicholson for his 39 years of service in the Northbrook Police Department. His long career, beginning in the analog era, even included aiding the FBI by checking on a Columbian narcotics cartel.
Much of his time, though, was spent in the daily business of helping people calling in to the police as a public safety telecommunicator. Hired by the Northbrook department in 1981 out of the Glenbrook Fire Protection District, Nicholson's work in Northbrook began in a department that offered two consoles and a punch card data collection system. It ends as the department uses a computer aided dispatch system.
Along the way, he finished first in his class in the Illinois State Police Law Enforcement Agencies Data System program. He also served on the Northbrook Police Department's Award Review Committee and received awards and complimentary letters from Northbrook and other communities.
His personal file, the resolution stated, included recognition for superior work helping during severe winter storms, tracking down stolen vehicles and making presentations on counterfeit money and credit cards - and assisting that FBI task force in identifying people associated with a Columbian drug cartel.
Northbrook Garden Club
The Northbrook Garden Club will meet virtually at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2. Heirloom vegetables carry stories of the past and the people who grew them. Unlock a bit of local food and garden history and learn what may have been growing in Chicago area gardens 125 years ago, as well as what "heirloom" vegetables and flowers are available to us today. To join this 40-minute Zoom presentation given by Lisa Hilgenberg, register at nbkgardenclub@gmail.com.
Author virtual visit
Willowbrook School's fourth- and fifth-grade students get to meet New York Times bestselling children's author Alan Gratz in a virtual event Feb. 8.
Willowbrook librarian April Eichmiller arranged the virtual visit with the Tennessee native, who will deliver a presentation on how he does research, his creative process, his career and the latest of his 17 books for young readers, "Ground Zero."
Gratz, who lives in North Carolina, wrote a book called "Refugee" in 2017 that was on The New York Times bestseller list for more than two years and won 14 state awards. Several of his other books have had critical success, one of them featured on "The View." Gratz has been the writer in residence at schools in the United States, Japan and Indonesia.
Police report of the week
In a report categorized as a theft by the Northbrook Police Department, a complainant had used a credit card to purchase a gaming system online. When on Jan. 15 a family member went to pick up the system at a Best Buy on the 1000 block of Willow Avenue, they were told the item had already been picked up. The complainant checked with the store manager, who advised the complainant to contact the corporate office.