Glenview Connect hears breakout room pushback
Break up the breakout rooms.
Last week's Glenview Connect workshop got lively after moving behind closed virtual doors.
"In the room I was in there was some interesting banter. I guess that's a nice way to put it," Village President Jim Patterson said as the April 15 meeting neared its end.
Another small group seemed to release pent-up frustration over the remote assembly's prior 198 minutes, if not the entire development strategy process.
"I don't understand how this is helping me," said an attendee of a breakout session monitored by Ricker Cunningham owner and principal Mary Ricker, who was forced to abandon the agenda and instead compile residents' complaints and desires.
The gist of the fourth Glenview Connect workshop, which at one point drew 89 Zoom attendees, was a review of the project's "Development Blueprint" and "Downtown Blueprint."
These concepts have been aided by public input and coordinated by Colorado-based Ricker Cunningham, a real estate economy and community strategy firm; and the Callison RTKL architecture, planning and design consultant group with its headquarters in Baltimore.
Residents have participated in two open houses and three prior workshops, plus activities such as a survey and self-guided site tours.
Presentation of the blueprint projects' final report is slated for a workshop May 13, with possible adoption by the board on May 27.
At the April 8 regular Glenview board of trustees meeting, the board passed a resolution authorizing Callison to update Downtown Development District regulations at a cost of $50,000, with a current and temporary moratorium on downtown district development extended to Oct. 21 from April 22 to create time for the updating.
On April 15 it seemed uncertain how eager residents will be, using Glenview Connect terminology, to either help the village "facilitate" or especially to "participate" - as in possible tax increment financing - in plans to bolster sites such as The Glen, the corridors of Milwaukee Avenue and Waukegan and Willow Roads, and downtown.
Some didn't sound eager at all.
"We're a little fatigued with taxpayer-financed development," one person said.
After seeing plans for a three-, four- or five-story mixed-use development bordered by Glenview Road and Church and Dewes streets, with green space east to Waukegan Road to highlight the river, in a breakout room people cautioned about density and lack of parking, worried about activity near Our Lady of Perpetual Help, doubted an accompanying traffic study, and sought to push residential to one of the corridors.
It also scraped old sores.
"We're already supposedly going to do this horrible Drake project (1850 Glenview Road), now we're going to put all these other buildings (there) ... When are we done building?" one resident said.
Opinions differed on stressing development along the corridors versus the downtown area, which one attendee called "the heart and soul" of Glenview and a trustee said "represents our brand."
To be continued.
"I think every time we have these small-group sessions we all as a team really learn a lot more and start thinking about some of our notions in a different way," said Ricker Cunningham's Erich Dohrer.