What's ahead for Mitchell land?

Keep the land green and development lean.

That was the majority view at Saturday morning public forum on the future use a major tract of land near downtown Naperville.

About 40 people attended the forum hosted by the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation and the local League of Women Voters.

At the onset, it was clear competing interests existed among the attendees.

Two pads of paper outside the forum allowed participants to express why they decided to attend.

A comment on one pad read, "Concerned (Naperville Central High School) will be patched instead of replaced." A comment on the pad right next to it read, "We can keep Naperville Central with a good remodeling job."

The 212-acre property in question, known as the Mitchell property, is south of Aurora Avenue and west of Washington Street and includes Naperville Central, Naper Settlement, Knoch Park and other local landmarks.

In light of Naperville Unit District 203's desire to renovate or rebuild Naperville Central, city, park and school officials recently began discussions about possibly building a new high school within the Mitchell property.

Attendees who want a new school suggested using the existing Naperville Central building as a park district or joint-use facility for the community. Another suggestion was a third high school built south of 75th Street is the answer.

Multiple comments expressed concern about increased traffic congestion, a dearth of parking and more noise created by dense development of the Mitchell land. Much of the property is currently green space.

Any development should be light, but with a view toward community needs 50 to 75 years into the future, participants said. To that end, audience members said they want to see more public transportation, perhaps even a trolley or light rail system.

Nearly all of the participants were past the age of 40. So another ongoing theme of the day was finding a way to minimize the use of taxes to fund any redevelopment so senior citizens can continue living in town. Attendees suggested recruiting some private businesses to help fund any developments.

The organizing groups plan to post an official summary and list of written comments on their Web sites by Dec. 1.

District 203 officials could decide before then what to do with Naperville Central.

Pending that decision, the city will host a few public forums in early 2008 for citizens to include their input into the process.