A major take-away from Glenview’s four-day workshop to envision the village in 2030 was that residents want the village to fix the Lake Avenue and Waukegan Road intersection.
But there were plenty more, from improving the village’s bicycle lane network and pedestrian safety at intersections to protecting open space, to using LEGO blocks in thinking about how large industrial or office sites might someday become something else.
“I think it’s been excellent and helpful,” said Rachel Dosé, who moved to Glenview from Evanston in 1972. “I think it’s really important that people realize that the Waukegan Road corridor is more and more going to be part of the downtown area.”
The workshop, or “charrette,” ran from Sept. 28 through Oct. 1 and was part of “Glenview Looking Forward” – the village’s year-long effort to revamp its comprehensive plan, the primary map telling developers what residents and officials want to see and where they want to see it. The plan and the zoning code are essentially developmental DNA dictating what can be built and where.
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Results from the workshop will now be discussed and debated by the comprehensive plan commission, chaired by former Village President Kerry Cummings.
A draft of the new comprehensive plan is scheduled to be released in January 2016, officials have said, and the final draft is scheduled for June.
Along with improving the Waukegan Road/Lake Avenue intersection for traffic and pedestrians, village officials said the top priorities that emerged were desires for safe east-west bicycle paths that connect to other bike routes, effective and attractive “gateway” and landmark signs for downtown Glenview, protecting open space and improving pedestrian safety at intersections around town.
Participants agreed that downtown and the Waukegan Road corridor between Glenview Road and Lake Avenue are evolving into one district that needs distinct “landmark” and way-finding signs. They also used LEGO blocks in a map exercise to consider how large (10-acre or larger) industrial or office sites might someday redevelop.
It’s a handy visual tool that allowed people to see how different land uses can work together, said Felipe Zubia, principal associate with Matrix Design Group, the Colorado-based consulting group hired by the village to oversee the comprehensive plan revamp
Different-colored blocks represented different potential uses – from low- to high-density residential and commercial, office or industrial – but each piece represented an acre.
So for a 20-acre site, 20 blocks could be placed to visualize how different land uses can co-exist and work together and participants had to discuss, hash out and agree on what could or should be done, Zubia said.
“We’re visual creatures, really. Everyone works better with visual cues,” he said.
From here, the work to collate the charrette’s results, information and feedback begins, said Jeffrey Brady, the village’s planning director. While those results are “by no means the solution to anything,” they will provide direction on how to move forward, he added.
“The project team will go through what we’ve found so far and the village’s current standards, and evaluate what may need to change moving forward,” Brady said.
A charrette (French for “cart” or “chariot”) is an intense workshop designed to spark activity and discussion that quickly leads to conclusions and solid next steps. They can last from one to several days with each day’s results becoming the basis of the next day’s activities.
According to the National Charrette Institute, the term originally referred to art and architecture students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 19th-Century Paris who worked into the final minutes before a project deadline, when their works were collected in a cart, or “en charrette,” by proctors.
Charrettes are designed to get information and feedback via group participation, small group sessions, field trips or other activities. This one focuses on “visioning” which village officials define as “a community-wide process that helps discover shared aspirations of a desired future.”
Jon Davis is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.