Naperville nears plan for land around station
Naperville's plan commission is expressing initial support for most of the city staff's recommendations for land use around the downtown train station on Fifth Avenue.
The only major change most commissioners are calling for is to use all possible city-owned land for commuter parking.
City planners have been working to update the land use plan for the area, which was last studied in 1998. Since that time, the city's public works facility that was once near the train station has moved to the west side of town.
The study includes land use, commuter parking, transportation and streetscape. The plan commission's main focus this week was land use. This portion of the study includes the area around the Metra station and both sides of Washington Street between Benton and Ogden avenues.
Planners recommend commercial uses for properties along Washington between Ogden and Fifth avenues.
Mixed use such as office, neighborhood retail and residential, is recommended for the Boecker property on the south side of Fifth Avenue between Center and Ellsworth, properties along Center Street just south of the tracks and those on Washington Street south of the train tracks.
On Ellsworth Street just south of Fourth Avenue, planners are calling for medium-density residential uses.
Washington Junior High, the DuPage Children's Museum, Kendall and Burlington Square parks and the Fifth Avenue Station complex all stay put.
With commuters spending years on a waiting list to get a parking permit near the train station, parking has been a major piece of the study.
The plan includes an 842-space parking deck just north of the tracks and a bus depot just south.
Planners also came up with two options for the Kroehler Lot and former public works site on the east side of the study area. One is for medium-density residential on the Kroehler Lot and commuter parking on the public works site. The other is for parking on the Kroehler Lot that could be lot or a deck and institutional/residential uses on the public works site.
But a majority of plan commission members said they want to send just one recommendation to city council, and they want it to be that both the Kroehler Lot and public works site are used for parking.
"By putting in more parking we're not adding more commuters, we're taking commuters that are otherwise being dropped off or taking the bus and giving them a place to park," Commissioner John Herzog said. "There's a huge demand for it, and that's all we should be focusing on."
Commissioner Joe McElroy was one of the few to disagree, saying the city should instead be looking at satellite lots where commuters could park and take a shuttle to the train station.
"If you put a lot more parking into that area I'm afraid it's going to harm the neighborhoods," he said.
Some commissioners and residents also expressed concerns about height regulations in the plan. Recommendations call for maximum heights of 50 feet for most of the area, which is the height of the Fifth Avenue Station mall. The only exception is the west side of Washington south of Franklin Avenue, which could have a maximum height of 60 feet, the approximate height of the Van Buren Parking Deck.
Some neighbors and commissioners, though, called for heights of not more than 40 feet. Some residents also expressed concern about the route buses would take to and from the bus depot and whether they would clog residential streets.
"What's important to us is that any of the development along Washington ... is respectful to the residents and the area abutting it directly on the other side of the alley and that anything done there does have a certain residential scale and character," said Thom Higgins, president of the nearby Park Addition Homeowners Association.
The city's Transportation Advisory Board will be discussing traffic-related portions of the plan when it meets July 11. The plan commission will continue its discussion of land use at its July 15 meeting. The recommendations ultimately will have to meet the approval of the city council.