Buffalo Grove trustees question $100K cost of consultants
Buffalo Grove is developing an economic vision for its Lake-Cook Road corridor.
But putting that vision into focus could involve spending six figures.
The village board in February adopted an Economic Development Strategic Plan that prioritizes creation of a long-term vision for the Lake-Cook corridor one of its key goals for 2016.
To make that happen, the board allocated $100,000 from the 2016 and 2017 budgets to hire consultants with expertise in marketing, development, land use, transportation and design.
Village Planner Nicole Woods said the village will begin seeking qualified consultants this spring.
But in the meantime, village trustees this week questioned Woods and Community Development Director Christopher Stilling about what the village would receive for the $100,000.
"This seems to be essentially a different version of a Local Area Plan," Trustee Jeffrey Berman said. "What's different about this suggested Local Area Plan, as opposed to Local Area Plans that we have done before, and what makes it $100,000 better?"
Stilling said that historically the village's planning process has been driven by the village staff. This process, he said, will stress community engagement.
"We're not professional facilitators in engaging the public," he said, adding that the consultant "will help us as a staff and village board move forward in making the right decisions and implementing some of these strategies."
Woods emphasized that the consultant would bring "high-quality" visuals into the process, providing three-dimensional imagery and other perspectives that would illustrate development and design ideas.
"Let me just say from my perspective, I don't need fancy pictures," Berman replied. "I need good ideas."
Buffalo Grove Village President Beverly Sussman and Trustee Joanne Johnson stressed the importance of getting the community involved in the process from the start.
"Because I know a lot of neighbors who didn't even know we were talking about a downtown," Johnson said, referring to plans to develop a downtown in the village that were abandoned in 2014 amid significant resident opposition. "And then I had friends who were really opposed to the downtown."
Trustee Steven Trilling said data should play a key role in the process.
"We really need to understand the marketability," he said. "We need to understand what footages are involved. We need to understand what engineering may be required. All the things that are data driven."
The village defines the Lake-Cook corridor as the area bounded by Arlington Heights Road, Checker Road, Weiland Road and Lake-Cook Road, officials said.