The City is embarking on an 18-month process to completely rewrite Peoria’s Comprehensive Plan, and you can be a part of it! There will be a number of community workshops and public hearings held so the Planning Commission and Planning & Growth Department can get as much public input as possible. If you’ve ever wanted to have a say in what the city’s vision should be or where the city is going, this is your chance. Here’s an informational flyer on it.

I know you’re all just dying to know the history of the Comprehensive Plan, so here it is from the 1973 Comprehensive Plan:

Planning in Peoria

As the city has grown, so has the planning process. The need for planning was first recognized in the late 1920’s with the “City Beautiful” movement being the stimulus.

On November 1, 1927, the City Council passed an ordinance creating a City Planning and Zoning Commission under the State Enabling Act approved June 24, 1921. On December 22, 1927, a contract was drawn for a “Comprehensive City and Regional Plan” to be done by Harland Bartholomew and Associates of St. Louis, Missouri. The plan was finally completed and adopted on March 15, 1932, and was entitled “A Comprehensive City Plan.” The planning process was only in its infancy in those days and the plan made certain recommendations but in respect to land use did little more than recognize what was existing.

The Commission remained intact and processed zoning requests and subdivision plats, but there was never a technically trained staff until a Planning Director was hired in 1958. In 1959 the staff began a Master Plan Study to obtain the needed guidance on such diversified matters as zoning, urban renewal, highway locations, utilization of future land use, and many other issues. The plan was completed in 1960 and entitled Planning Peoria… A Master Plan Report.

The annexation of nearly all of Richwoods Township in December of 1964 increased the emphasis on long range planning. The annexed area contained approximately 30,000 people but its ultimate capacity was projected at nearly 100,000. The chance to guide future growth lead to the developing of neighborhood future land use maps, the updating of the subdivision and zoning ordinances, the thoroughfare plan, and a number of background studies. The Long Range Planning Section was increased in 1971 and a scheduled program was begun to produce a completely new plan to replace the 1960 plan. This is the culmination of that effort.

The 1932 plan they mentioned was actually passed by the City Council in pieces between 1927 and 1932. The complete plan was published in 1937 along with an executive summary under separate cover. Both these documents are available at the Peoria Public Library (reference only). It’s interesting to peek into the minds of planners in 1937 Peoria by reading the executive summary, titled, “Planning a Greater Peoria”:

Why a City Plan?

Peoria grew, as did the majority of American cities, without planning for the future. AS cities grew larger and began to review the results of their labors, they were appalled to realize the harm resulting from planless haste. Streets had been laid haphazardly, existing streets were too narrow to care for the traffic demand, houses had been built so close together as to exclude air and sun. People soon discovered that their cities were neither efficient nor attractive, and realized that if they were to save their investments something must be done, not only to correct past mistakes but to see that such mistakes never again occurred.

What is a City Plan?

The demand for comprehensive city planning, which aims to bring about order in the physical development of the entire city, was the result of such realization. City planning is that phase of municipal activity which analyzes the character and probable extent of urban growth, suggests certain physical readjustments, and provides for the proper development and coordination of all future improvements. Properly administered it will make possible the gradual and economical development of an efficient, healthful, attractive city, free from the physical defects that hamper business and living conditions. City planning is essentially concerned with the physical elements of cities rather than with legislative and administrative matters. In brief, it provides a long-term program for physical improvements instead of the usual aimless and haphazard growth. Several thousand people may have some excellent ideas about the development of the city, but unless all ideas are brought together and properly revised and coordinated in a single comprehensive plan, it is impossible to expect anything but chaos in the city’s growth. The city plan is a beneficial instrument affecting the lives of all inhabitants, and should transcend all selfish consideration.

Fast-forward seventy-five years and, while the 1932 plan was not executed exactly as proposed, the fundamental concepts were incorporated into all subsequent plans: wider streets, less density for residential areas, and adoption of the first zoning ordinance for Peoria, beginning the regrettable process of strictly segregating land uses. The same concepts were perpetuated in the 1973 plan, which covered the newly-expanded city that was doubled in size by the annexation of Richwoods Township.

We’ve seen those plans come to fruition, and the result is not the “efficient, healthful, attractive city” we were promised. As a result, the Heart of Peoria Plan, adopted in principle by the City Council in 2002, completely reversed the plan put in motion seventy years earlier, at least for the HOP Plan area.

A lot of citizens were involved and a lot of work was done to put that HOP Plan together, but it only covered 8,000 acres of the city — more or less everything south of War Memorial Drive. The Comprehensive Plan (as its name indicates) covers the entire city, which stretches north practically all the way to Dunlap today. This document that will be created between now and the end of next year is going to be “the guiding document for development over the next ten to twenty years.” What’s our vision for the rest of the city?

Remember, the City is going to go by the public input they get from these meetings — if you don’t go and express your opinion or your wishes, the City won’t hear you and they won’t take your voice into account. So, it’s up to you. The future of Peoria is in your hands.