Category Archives: City of Peoria

City of Peoria, Comprehensive Plan

Comprehensive Plan survey results are in

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Peoria LogoRoss Black, Assistant Planning Director for the City of Peoria, has released the results of the Comprehensive Plan online survey. You can read the summary results here (PDF file); more details will be released in the near future.

Take a look at them and tell me what you think. Here are some things I thought were interesting or notable:

  • The one-to-ten scale is inverted — lower numbers indicate higher satisfaction or importance and vice versa.
  • They’re still saying that lower scores indicate that something is “not important.” I think that’s misleading, as I’ve explained in this earlier post.
  • Survey-takers’ satisfaction with Peoria as a place to live is decidedly middling: 4.2. In other words, “so-so.”
  • Not surprising was that the top two districts to respond to the survey were the fifth and second districts (29% and 21%, respectively).
  • Very surprising was how many people took the survey who don’t even live in Peoria (18%) — they were actually the third highest group! Gee, thanks for the input, interlopers. I suppose one could make the argument that these are people who have businesses or rental properties in the city, but who personally live outside the city. If so, then the high percentage is even more disturbing.
  • Lowest district representation: first (5%). This is not surprising. The first district includes predominantly lower-income residents, many of whom presumably cannot afford computers and internet access, and even if they can, don’t have the time to spend filling out surveys. There are also a lot of renters who presumably would not have as much interest in the city’s comprehensive planning process. Many may also just simply feel disenfranchised — like nobody cares about their opinions anyway.
  • 93% of respondents were white, 5% were black, 1% were Asian, 1% were “other,” and less than 1% were Native American. According to the 2000 census, 69.3% of Peorians were white, 24.8% were black, 2.3% were Asian, less than 1% were “American Indian.”
  • The higher the income, the more people responded. 80% of respondents had a household income of over $50,000. 20% of respondents had household income less than $50,000. Median household income in 1999, according to the census: $36,397.
  • 35% of respondents would “like to live within walking distance from downtown and the riverfront.” That’s a little more than one out of every three respondents — a significant number.
  • The number one item under Public Health and Human Services: “Provide youth services that guide children toward good behavior.” Wow. Apparently it takes a government to raise a child. When I was a kid, we had parents to guide children toward good behavior. Now we need “youth services” provided by the city.

Your turn. What are your thoughts on the results?

City of Peoria

From the “how did we survive” department

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Here’s one of those breathless articles on how important it is to encase oneself in padding and a helmet when engaging in death-defying activities such as bicycling. I’m waiting for the “experts” to start pushing for joggers, then walkers to also wear lots of padding and helmets. Maybe they already do. Perhaps we should wear protective gear inside the house as well, whenever we decide we want to walk upstairs or — worse — downstairs. I’ll bet the statistics on accidents from people falling downstairs is staggering.

Bradley University, City of Peoria, The Uplands

Another “oops” in Bradley’s plan

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It’s enough to make a person paranoid. You may recall about a year ago, Bradley was rewriting its institutional zoning plan, and they wanted to include a part of the Uplands neighborhood in it. Specifically, they wanted to include the Pi Phi house, 1004 N. Institute Pl.:

The Uplands Residential Association said they’d rather not see precedent set for Bradley reaching across Main, especially after their track record with the Arbor District. At that time, Bradley stated they would abide by the wishes of the neighborhood association, and they did. They removed the Pi Phi House from their institutional plan.

But now, fast forward to this week’s council agenda. The institutional plan is being modified again at the request of Williams Brothers Construction because they built the new parking deck too close to the right-of-way on Main street. The only changes to the plan were supposed to be the revised setback requirement for the parking deck, a reduction in the number of parking spaces in the deck, and landscaping changes for better pedestrian access.

But guess what else was in there to be changed? On a whim, I decided to read the legal description of the institutional zone, and I’ll be darned if the Pi Phi House wasn’t added to the legal description! A suspicious person might even say it was snuck in. If this were to pass tonight as written, the Pi Phi House would be part of Bradley’s institutional plan, without any input from the neighbors, without anyone knowing about it.

I alerted my city council person and city staff of the issue, and they have taken action to remove the Pi Phi House from the legal description. Pat Landes, Director of Planning and Growth Management, said:

  1. Staff reviewed the proposed ordinance scheduled for Council consideration tomorrow night and the 1004 Institute property is included in the legal; it should not be. You may recall that at one point during the previous two Bradley cases [adding Maplewood properties and cleaning up boundaries] in 2007 there had been consideration of adding the Institute property to the Official Development Plan area. You directed the removal of the property based upon input from constituents.
  2. A revised ordinance will be on the Council’s desk for tomorrow night’s meeting and will be e-mailed to you as soon as drafted and reviewed.
  3. The intent of communications, proposed and 20078] was clear – the Institute address was not listed in the subject matter and application, and was not included on any maps. We will be checking through all of the past ordinances to determine if the Institute address or legal was included in the legal descriptions and make any necessary adjustments.
  4. I apologize on behalf of the department for not catching this error in the legal submitted.

So, the legal description was “submitted” — submitted by whom? Bradley. Ultimately Bradley. The contractor (Williams Brothers Construction) is listed as the petitioner, but Bradley would have to sign off on any requested changes to their institutional plan, and they would have had to have provided the legal description, either directly to the city or through Williams Brothers.

No doubt this will be attributed to another unintentional mistake. Just like the parking deck misplacement was just a mistake. After these two “oops” moments from Bradley, and the “mistake” by another developer on Fairoaks, the “mistake” excuse is starting to wear a little thin. It’s starting to sound like the little boy who cried wolf.

City Council, City of Peoria

Council preview 4/22/08

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Here are some agenda items of interest:

  • The City is going to try to get a state grant to help pay the lion’s share of road improvement work for Phase I of the Sheridan Triangle project. “The funding request for this $975,000 project would be $748,800 ITEP [Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program] funding, with the city’s local match being $226,200.”
  • Also being funded through ITEP: removal and replanting of trees in the downtown business district. I don’t quite understand this one. The background states, “In honor of Earth Day 2007, Governor Blagojevich announced the new Replanting the Prairie State Initiative to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.” But I fail to see how replacing presumably mature trees with new twig trees is going to accomplish that goal — in fact, it seems like it would do just the opposite. Why would you replace trees? Why not plant additional trees where they don’t already exist? Unless, of course, we’re talking about palm trees that need to be replanted every year.
  • Bill Joseph is going to build an 8,066-square-foot “retail and restaurant building” in Bed Bath & Beyond’s parking lot (south side of W. Glen Ave., just east of N. University St.). That’s good, because we all know what a dearth of available retail and restaurant sites there are in Peoria.
  • JJ Ryans is moving out of the Metro Centre and into the old Silver Bullet (7719 N. University), so a liquor license has been requested. This isn’t particularly notable except for this statement in the council communication: “One of the three Commissioners who voted to approve [Arndt, Jackson, McCabe] should have abstained due to interest in nearby property.” That’s rather provocative. Was any action taken to educate or reprimand this unnamed Commissioner? Or is conflict-of-interest voting not a big deal?
  • Of course, the more volatile liquor license request is the one for Elliott’s (7807 N. University). The Liquor Commission voted 4-0 with one abstention (Jackson) to deny the request. You may recall that Elliott’s is a strip joint. The city has been trying to throw one roadblock after another in front of this place since it was first proposed in 2003. First it said it couldn’t issue an adult use license because it was five feet too close to a residential area. So the owners split the building in two and got their adult-use license. Then the city passed an ordinance prohibiting strip clubs from getting a liquor license (except for Big Al’s, which was grandfathered in). That didn’t stop Elliott’s from opening, though. Evidently nudity is enough to make a profit even without liquor. Then this past November, down around the St. Louis area, an ordinance just like Peoria’s was struck down by a federal court, prompting the council to repeal its ordinance. So now Elliott’s is back asking for a liquor license again. If the council denies it, they’ll have a lawsuit on their hands — one they’ll likely lose, in which case Elliott’s will get a bunch of taxpayer money in damages. The council should save the taxpayers’ money and give up on this one, then focus instead on a way of stopping — or at least containing within a certain geographic area — future nudie bars so this doesn’t happen again.
  • T. Y. Lin has been chosen as the engineering firm to look at the economic and physical feasibility of building a trail next to the Kellar Branch rail line. Now the council needs to give the green light to let a contract be negotiated, the cost of which will presumably be shared by the City of Peoria, Village of Peoria Heights, and possibly the Peoria Park District. Pioneer Industrial Railway has said they will not help pay for the study, opting to use their funds instead to pay for an inevitable legal battle with Peoria Heights, which is trying to kick Pioneer off the line.
  • Getting back to North University, the council will be making a decision on whether to allow a teen dance hall to open up in the same area. The proposed dance club at 7620 N. University, to be called Adrenaline, has to be more than 500 feet from a residential area according to Peoria’s current ordinance. The request is to change that ordinance — to lower the buffer to 200 feet. This request was first brought up two weeks ago and looked like it would surely go down to defeat. Councilman Montelongo asked for a deferral, and it comes back Tuesday with just one change — it would allow the Council “to impose additional conditions,” including “limiting the hours of operation” among other measures. The city staff and police chief are still against it, so I predict it will be defeated after all.
Bradley University, City of Peoria

“Green Plays in Peoria” seminar April 23

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From a City of Peoria notice:

Please join the leadership of Peoria to discuss what Peoria can do to encourage continued improvement in………

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

“Green Plays in Peoria”
April 23, 2008
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Gateway Building

AGENDA

5:30 p.m. Welcome – City of Peoria, Mayor Jim Ardis
5:35 p.m. New Urbanism/ Sustainable Development – Ray Lees, Planning Commission Chair & Craig Hullinger, Economic Development
5:40 p.m. Civil Engineering and Construction – Dr. Amir Al-Khafaji, Bradley University
5:45 p.m. Green Navigation – Brian Davie, Farnsworth Group
5:50 – 7:00 p.m. Participants will break into small 8-10 person groups and develop goals/strategies
7:00 – 7:30 p.m. Small group presents goals/strategies to larger group

The goals and strategies developed by the participants will be considered in the development of the new City’s Comprehensive Plan.

More information at: http://sustainablepeoria.blogspot.com

More information at: http://peoriaed.blogspot.com

For comments or questions: Contact craighullinger@gmail.com

RSVP with Stephanie Grayson 309.494.8640 or sgrayson@ci.peoria.il.us

Sponsored by the City of Peoria and the Civil Engineering and Construction Department at Bradley University

City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, Zoning Board of Appeals

Exceptions: 3, LDC: 0

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Land Development TrashI guess we may as well just pitch the Land Development Code. It doesn’t appear that city commissions have any interest in actually enforcing it.

The Zoning Board of Appeals met Thursday to consider the case of 819 E. Fairoaks (corner of Fairoaks and Illinois). You may recall that the builder of this house submitted one plan to the city, then built something completely different. Specifically, the attached garage was supposed to be set back 6 feet from longest plane of the street side facade, but instead it was built 12 feet in front of the facade, a difference of 18 feet. This puts it out of compliance with the Land Development Code, and it means the house is not consistent with the other homes in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, on a 4-3 vote, a variance was granted. The City could appeal the decision to circuit court; that possibility is under review according to Planning & Growth staff.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the ZBA meeting on Thursday, but I did listen to a recording of it. The builder (and his representative) employed what I’m going to start calling “the Bradley defense.” He said that it was an “honest mistake.” You see, the original plan he submitted to the city wasn’t compliant, so he made several changes, and the revised plan was approved. But then — whoops! — doggone it if he didn’t accidentally give the original plans to the excavator.

To compound matters, when the city inspector came out for a footings inspection, he signed off on the project. I caught up with City Inspections Manager John Kunski this past Tuesday and asked him how that happened. According to Kunski, the policy is that the builder is supposed to have a copy of the city-approved plan on-site. When the builder is ready for the footings inspection, he calls the city, and a city inspector (who’s usually out in the field) goes directly to the site to inspect it — he doesn’t have time to go back to the office to get copies of the site plan. In this case, the builder did not have the plans on-site, and the inspector didn’t have the site plan either; but in an effort to be customer-friendly, he signed off on it anyway because everything else was in order. Kunski said he’s strictly enforcing the policy now.

After that, I talked to at-large councilman Gary Sandberg, who used to be over the Inspections Department himself before he became a councilman. He said that there’s no need for the inspector to go directly to the site when called. The builder is supposed to give 24-hours notice — plenty of time for the inspector to gather all the site plans of the properties he will be inspecting before heading out to the site.

At the ZBA meeting, however, it was explained that enforcing the site plan was a secondary concern of the building inspections department. The primary concern is that the site is prepared properly so that whatever is built will be safe and stable. Ultimately, however, even the builder acknowledged that, while the city’s miscue compounded the problem, the builder was ultimately responsible for the error in construction.

So, now the house is almost all built. What to do? Of course the builder wants a variance. His basic argument is that this house is better than what was there before, and the neighbors approve of the house as is. The house “improves the character of the neighborhood” and it would be too costly to correct the mistake. He went on and on about how all the neighbors were thanking him for making the neighborhood so much better, and how grateful they were that he got rid of that rundown house that was there. It was “a simple mistake,” he said, adding, “just like Bradley.”

I should mention that the builder is not actually going to live in the house or the neighborhood. He bought the property and built the home just to turn around and sell it again, and hopefully make a little money on the deal. That would explain why he might not have noticed or cared that the contractor was building it wrong.

Judging from the recording, it sounds like the ZBA made its decision in favor of the variance based on the argument that this new house is better than what was there before (reportedly a rundown house everyone was pleased to see razed).

So, I guess that’s the new standard. We didn’t really need to spend all that time and money in charrettes, consultants, experts, etc., writing a complicated, legally-defensible zoning code based on the Heart of Peoria Plan. Really, all we needed was what I like to call the “Unwritten Development Code for Older Neighborhoods”:

Unwritten Development Code for Older Neighborhoods:
(based on decisions by Zoning and ZBA commissions)
Build whatever the heck you want. We’re desperate, and we’re willing to sell out whatever ideals we have if you’ll just build something… anything… please!! We’re begging you!

Last November, the Zoning Commission and the City Council voted to disregard the LDC for some development next to St. Ann’s Church. Now the ZBA has shown they’re willing to toss it aside as well. Bradley’s parking deck issue was a little different (not a design issue like St. Ann’s and the Fairoaks house; it was self-reported and compensated for with an improved pedestrian streetscape). Nevertheless, it was an exception to the LDC, and it’s already being invoked as a precedent to justify non-compliance.

The exception is becoming the rule.

City of Peoria

Race Relations Commission members to be named tomorrow

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From a City of Peoria press release:

Mayor Jim Ardis and Dr. Amir Al-Khafaji, Chairman of the Peoria Race Relations Commission, will hold a news conference on April 11, 2008 at 1:30 p.m., in Room 400 at City Hall, to announce the names of the individuals who have been selected to serve on the newly formed commission.

At the Mayor’s State of the City Address this year, he announced the formation of the Peoria Race Relations Commission to focus on race issues in the community and to develop positive means to deal with them. Dr. Amir Al-Khafaji, is the Chair of Civil Engineering and Construction at Bradley University.

City of Peoria, Form-Based Code, Heart of Peoria Plan, HOPC

HOPC Update

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I thought you might be interested to know what’s going on with the Heart of Peoria Commission these days. Here’s a quick look:

The Executive Summary

One of the top things on the Heart of Peoria Commission’s work plan this year is to develop an executive summary of the Heart of Peoria Plan. The Plan as it exists now is a large-format (11×17), 78-page color document that is expensive to reproduce (~$150). Even as a commissioner, when I asked for a copy of the document, I was presented with a stapled, single-sided, photocopied, black and white version.

Well, that doesn’t exactly invite people to read the document and catch the vision. So the idea is to create a smaller, shorter, easier-to-reproduce, but still color version of the plan that would give the basic ideas in summary form. This could then be given to anyone who wants or needs to know about the Plan, from citizens to developers to commissioners/council members.

There were two options for getting this done. We could have a staff member do it (Planning and Growth Director Pat Landes offered one of her staff — Kimberly Smith), or we could see if someone from the original team that put the plan together (e.g., David Brain from New College of Florida) would be able to do it for us for a small fee.

We’ve run into roadblocks with both options. The first option (in-house) is stalled because, with the departure of Ed Boik, the Planning and Growth department is short-staffed, and so our staff liaison got pulled off the project. With the latter option, we run into funding issues. The council didn’t give our commission any funding this year, so we would have to try to convince a City department to spend some of their limited funds on this project. We’re still working on that option.

Sheridan Triangle

The Sheridan/Loucks Triangle project is moving along. After the Heart of Peoria Plan was adopted “in principle” by the Council, the next step the Commission did was get it codified for the Plan area. That’s when Farrell Madden came in and wrote the Land Development Code (LDC). The LDC includes four Form Based Code areas: Warehouse District, West Main (Renaissance Park), Prospect Road Corridor, and the Sheridan/Loucks Triangle. After the coding was finished, the Council passed a facade improvement program for the Sheridan/Loucks area (among others), which gave some incentives for the businesses to spruce up their storefronts.

Now in order for the area to really be revitalized, it takes not just private investment, but also public investment. The City needs to improve the streetscape in order for this area to be successful again. Right now the street is too wide, the sidewalks too narrow, and the traffic too fast. By installing wider sidewalks, pedestrian-scale lighting, street trees, and on-street parking, the City will incentivize redevelopment.

Even though this is obviously the culmination of the Heart of Peoria Plan and the LDC that was spearheaded by HOPC, the Commission has not been included in this latest phase yet. We weren’t invited (by accident, we’ve been assured) to the public kick-off meeting at Columbia Middle School. I heard about it, however, and attended anyway. While there, I talked to Gene Hewitt and Nick Stoffer from the City’s Traffic & Engineering department. They mentioned that they thought a Heart of Peoria commissioner should be on the Citizen Advisory Group (CAG).

I told HOPC chairman Bill Washkuhn that I’d be interested in serving on the CAG, and he forwarded my request to Second District Council Member Barbara Van Auken. She responded:

The representatives who are involved at this point are residential and business neighbors. At a later stage, we will seek input from others, including HOPC and Traffic Commissioners. I’ll notify C.J. when we are at a point where his contribution is appropriate.

After a recent Council meeting, I ran into Ms. Van Auken and asked her at what point in the process she would be bringing in the commissions, and she said once the engineers have some feasible options. Evidently she doesn’t want commissioners making suggestions of things that might not be feasible. So, once the engineers have several options from which to choose, she said the HOP and Traffic commissions will be invited to start participating.

Next Meeting

The next Heart of Peoria Commission meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 25, 8:00-10:30 a.m., City Hall, room 404.

City of Peoria

I can barely hold back the tears

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[Said Councilman Eric] Turner, who along with Councilman Clyde Gulley, were the only two to vote against the [Wal-Mart package liquor license] denial. “This is a national corporation trying to create an opportunity to compete with their competitors.”
—Journal Star, 3/26/08

I’ve been sobbing all morning about poor old Wal-Mart being denied that package liquor license at last night’s council meeting. Whatever will the Walton family do? How will they survive? How can they overcome this detrimental competitive disadvantage? Oh, woe is Wal-Mart! Is there no justice for this poor, persecuted store? Boo-hoo-hoo!