Peoria’s Zoning Commission yesterday approved Bradley University’s institutional zoning plan… well, most of it, anyway. There were some properties that Bradley will be bringing back for approval at the April Zoning Commission meeting. Meanwhile, the bulk of it goes to the City Council on March 13. WHOI also reports this:

People who live in the neighborhood say the school should stay out.

“The city of Peoria needs to preserve and strengthen its older neighborhoods and putting Uplands property into Bradley’s institutional boundary will not help that preservation effort,” said Uplands neighborhood resident C.J. Summers.

Hey, I’ve heard of that guy somewhere…. Yes, my concern is over this part of Bradley’s plan:

You see that dashed blue line that extends north across Main Street to encompass that property at the corner of Institute and Main? That’s the Pi Phi sorority house, and it is in the Uplands neighborhood. Bradley wants to include that in their institutional zone.

The Pi Phi house (1004 N. Institute) is owned by the sorority, and they want to move over near the other fraternities/sororities on Fredonia. So the plan is for Bradley to buy the Pi Phi house and do a kind of land-swap.

The Uplands Residential Association (URA) voted at their last meeting to oppose N-1 zoning for that property. That vote was reported to Bradley, and they removed the Pi Phi house from their request to the Zoning Commission, at least temporarily. So the vote at yesterday’s ZC meeting did not include the Pi Phi house.

Since the URA vote, Bradley has been working on a counteroffer, for lack of a better word. In return for the Uplands’ support for N-1 zoning, they would agree to restrict the uses of the property to offices or visiting faculty housing or some other mutually-agreeable use. The next URA meeting isn’t until March 8.

So, the way it stands is this. If the URA votes again to oppose N-1 zoning, Bradley has agreed to not try and add it to their institutional plan and will not buy the sorority property. If the URA votes to overturn their previous vote, then Bradley will go before the ZC in April to ask that the property be added to the N-1 boundaries.

Of course, the agenda for the ZC meeting yesterday said that the Pi Phi house was part of what they were voting on, which is why I went down there. It wasn’t until they got to that point on the agenda that they announced the Pi Phi house was removed from the request. But since I was already there, I went ahead and made my statement anyway. At least it’s on the record.

There are people on both sides of this issue in the Uplands. Some residents — and even Second District Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken — think it would be a good thing for Pi Phi to get N-1 zoning because the university is more responsive to code violations and other disturbances than, say, absentee landlords. Also, Bradley’s offer to restrict the use of the property appeals to some who live close by because they believe it will make things more stable.

My concern is that I believe Bradley’s restricted use offer is a short-term concession. Once they get the N-1 zoning, it’s their foot in the door for further encroachment. It would set a bad precedent. We shouldn’t be inviting Bradley across Main in the false hope that it will bring stability to the neighborhood. Expanding institutions will not bring stability, but instability. After what happened on Maplewood, if Bradley comes into the Uplands, it will make our neighborhood at the fringes more susceptible to speculation and make it harder to attract single-family residents.

We can’t just look at the short term. We have to think about long-term strategies. To let this change go through unopposed I believe would indicate we were tacitly approving future Bradley expansion into the Uplands. I don’t think that’s a message we want to communicate. We have to think about what impact this decision will have 5-10-15 years down the road, not just its immediate impact.

Incidentally, the Pi Phi house is unlikely to be returned to single-family use. It’s been a sorority at least since 1944, according to Ed Boik in the City’s Planning and Growth department. It used to be zoned as such, but zoning code changes around 1979-1981 rezoned the property R-4 (single family residential), but grandfathered in the sorority as a non-conforming use. So, short of tearing down the structure and building a single-family home, this property will probably always be non-conforming. So the fight here isn’t so much about the particular use of this property as it is the perceived encroachment of Bradley and what that might portend for the future of the neighborhood.

UPDATE: The Journal Star’s article is here. Wow, I’m getting quoted all over the place! I made it clear at the meeting, and I want to say again that I did not speak to the commission on behalf of the Uplands; I spoke only for myself as a resident. The president of our neighborhood association, Bernie Goitein, is the Uplands’ official spokesperson.