Category Archives: HOPC

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, HOPC

Preliminary capital budget includes $0 for Heart of Peoria Commission

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Unless the council asks staff to put it back in, the Heart of Peoria Commission will receive none of the $145,000 it requested from the 2008 capital budget.

Plans were to use the money to bring in a transportation expert to help the city develop a comprehensive transportation policy for the Heart of Peoria area (the process would include all stakeholders through the use of charrettes), a comprehensive marketing strategy for the Heart of Peoria Area with materials to raise awareness of the opportunities that exist for residential and commercial investment, and grant writing to get more non-city funding for projects.

Earlier this year, the mayor suggested changing the Heart of Peoria Commission from a city commission to a private advocacy group similar to Peoria City Beautiful. After further negotiation, a compromise was reached where HOPC would remain a city commission, but would meet less frequently (six times per year instead of twelve).

The council accepted the commission’s work plan, except for the capital budget items because they needed to go through the budget process with all other projects. We’re now in that process, and HOPC’s requested funding is not in the budget recommendation from city staff. Since the budget is currently balanced, a council member who wants to see HOPC’s funding restored will have to find an equal amount of money to cut elsewhere.

Caterpillar, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, HOPC, Traffic

Cat wants traffic patterns unchanged downtown

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One Way SignI meant to post this awhile ago and just never got around to it. One of the things the Heart of Peoria Commission is focusing on these days is fixing the streets. That doesn’t just mean filling potholes. It means making the streets more balanced thoroughfares — streets that comfortably accommodate not just cars, but also pedestrians, bicycles, and mass transit.

Downtown, there are a few street changes that the Commission would like to see and that the Heart of Peoria Plan advocates. In the Warehouse District, the Commission would like to see the Washington Street corridor improved by widening the sidewalks, allowing on-street parking, planting street trees, lowering the speed limit, and narrowing it from five lanes to three. IDOT put the kibosh on that plan, but there are efforts underway to change their mind. The Heart of Peoria Plan advocates changing Adams and Jefferson streets to allow two-way traffic again.

All of this talk about changing the streets downtown has led Caterpillar to publish their position, which can be summed up thus: status quo. They like things just the way they are, thank you very much. Here’s their full statement:

Caterpillar Inc. supports maintaining the existing traffic patterns on Adams, Jefferson, and Washington Streets in downtown Peoria (specifically one-way traffic on Adams and Jefferson, and two-way traffic on Washington).

We oppose any change that would reconfigure Adams Street or Jefferson Street for two-way traffic.

We oppose any change that would result in shifting heavy truck volume through downtown Peoria from Washington Street to other streets.

We believe that one-way traffic flow on Adams and Jefferson is smoother, less disruptive and consistent than would be the case if the streets were changed to two-way traffic. This is particularly true in front of our world headquarters on Adams Street. In order to properly host Caterpillar visitors, VIP vans, buses, and cars must be able to park conveniently and safely in front of our headquarters. Adams Street accommodates this activity effectively and safely in a multiple lane, one-way configuration.

Moreover, the image of Adams Street is a valuable component of the overall image conveyed by Caterpillar’s headquarters. We consistently receive positive comments from dealers, customers and visitors on the pleasant qualities of this area, and we attribute this ambience, in part, to the smooth, one-way traffic flow on Adams Street.

The current street routing in downtown Peoria, coupled with new and efficient links to Interstate 74, allows heavy trucks serving ADM and other industries to use Washington St. This pattern results in lower truck traffic volume on Adams and Jefferson through the most congested downtown areas.

The safety of Caterpillar employees is of the utmost importance. A key concern of our workers in downtown Peoria is pedestrian safety. In addition to our numerous buildings, Caterpillar employees occupy office space in many downtown office buildings and generate a large amount of pedestrian traffic during the typical business day. Changing streets from one-way to two-way
would create more vehicle/pedestrian conflicts at intersections. This would be especially true at the intersection of Adams Street and Main Street, which is traversed by hundreds of Caterpillar people daily. Although one of the busiest in downtown Peoria, it is easier to navigate because Adams Street is one-way. Our employees are familiar with the traffic patterns as they exist today
and know what to expect.

Caterpillar operates several parking lots for employees in downtown Peoria. In some cases the entrances and exits to these lots are located to accommodate current traffic patterns. For example, the exit from our parking lot in the 200 block of Northeast Adams allows for safe discharge in one direction on Adams Street, avoiding the safety issues associated with a left turn onto a two-way street.

We believe that any revisions to the current traffic patterns on Adams, Jefferson, and Washington Streets in the downtown Peoria area would be detrimental to our employees and visitors.

For a company that touts fact-based or measurement-based decision making (Six Sigma), this statement sure is full of a lot of conjecture. Who would have thought that the “pleasant qualities of this area” could be attributed to one-way streets? Or that cars and vans cannot park conveniently or safely in front of a business unless the street is one-way?

I agree that we don’t want heavy truck traffic diverted from Washington to Adams/Jefferson. Preferably, the truck traffic would be diverted instead to the Bob Michel bridge for I-74 access, bypassing the most congested part of downtown altogether.

But the paragraph about worker safety is the one that really takes the cake for me. “Our employees are familiar with the traffic patterns as they exist today and know what to expect.” So, if we were to change Adams to two-way, Caterpillar is telling us that their management employees — most if not all of whom have advanced degrees — will become confused or disoriented by the change, resulting in pedestrian accidents and casualties? If so, maybe traffic patterns outside shouldn’t be their biggest concern right now. Personally, I believe Cat employees are sharp enough to be able to navigate the crosswalk with little difficulty were traffic to change to two-way. I guess I just have high expectations.

The Cat lot in the 200 block of NE Adams is on the southeast side of the street, which means that traffic out of that lot can continue unchanged simply by making it a right-turn only exit, were the street to ever change to two-way.

Suffice it to say, I don’t find Cat’s objections compelling. I’d like to see them have an open mind as Councilman Sandberg works with them and other stakeholders regarding the possibilities for these downtown corridors (Washington, Adams, and Jefferson) and how they can be improved.

Arts Partners, City Council, City of Peoria, HOPC, Peoria Public Schools

Council Musings

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Jennifer Davis has a nice article in the Journal Star today (Sunday) about how respect for the Peoria City Council has improved under Ardis’s leadership. I think that’s a pretty accurate statement. “Respect” is hardly a word that would describe the council under Ransburg. I have my criticisms of the council, but overall I think it’s doing a lot better than previous councils.

I’d like to make just a couple of comments on things that jumped out at me from the article:

Heart of Peoria Commission

But [General] Parker says he’s been pushing for an appointment to the city’s Heart of Peoria Commission for months. While he hasn’t talked to Ardis personally, he says he approached three different council members and even recently asked for it during public comment at a City Council meeting.

For the record, there are currently two vacancies on the commission.

Yes, and there have been two vacancies for a while. It was understandable to see them go unfilled while the future of the Heart of Peoria Commission was in limbo. Now that the council has decided to keep HOPC around, and since we’re only going to be meeting every other month, we really need a full crew. Names I have heard suggested for commissioners: General Parker (as stated in the article) and Mark Misselhorn. There may be others, but those are the ones I know have been bandied about. Considering the demographics of the Heart of Peoria Plan area, I think it would be a good idea to have more minority representation.

District 150/City of Peoria Joint Meeting

And, despite a public feud with District 150 last summer over a proposed new school at Glen Oak Park, Ardis, along with the entire City Council, has now agreed to a sit-down meeting next month with the School Board to find common solutions – the first such meeting in at least a decade.

I sincerely hope this meeting is productive, but I have my doubts. I know this has become a mantra with me, but it’s worth repeating: cooperation is not a one-way street. It’s not a give and take where the city gives and the school district takes. If the school district wants to improve relations with the city, there is no shortage of things they can do as good-faith gestures. Fixing up their properties in the Warehouse District would be a good start, as would selling the homes on Prospect that they bought at inflated prices on the speculation that they could put a school there. An apology to Bob Manning for unceremoniously cutting him off when he was addressing the school board on the issue would also be a nice gesture.

What the school district can do to help the city is provide a good education (with good test scores to show for it) in a safe environment (free not only from blatant violence, but bullying as well) and keep property taxes from rising (by not wasting money on unnecessary administrators and properties). What the city can do to help the school district is work to lower the crime rate and improve city infrastructure. If those things would happen, we would be able to attract more people to the District 150 portions of Peoria.

What’s not going to help is for the city to just give the school district money for this or that program (crossing guards, truancy center, etc.). The school district is its own taxing body, plus it recently got approval to fleece the public for more tax dollars through the Public Building Commission. The school district doesn’t give the city money to fix streets and sewers, nor should it. Neither should the city take its money and further subsidize the school district. If the city is keeping the streets safe and the roads and sidewalks repaired and the codes enforced, and if the school district is keeping the school children safe and the school buildings maintained and providing an excellent education, people will want to move here…

Arts Partners Funding

Which reminds me of another article in the Journal Star today, this one by Gary Panetta on the supposed need for the city to provide not actual arts funding, but arts advertising funding:

Should the city of Peoria use a slice of sales taxes to help publicize the local arts scene and market Peoria as an arts-friendly town?

Answer: Sure, assuming all the streets, sidewalks, and sewers are repaired, our fire stations are fully staffed, and the police force has crime under control throughout all of Peoria. Otherwise, no.

After all, if Peoria wants to become part of a high-tech future, it’s going to have to offer young professionals something beyond a place to work and sleep or a few cookie cutter movie theaters. And it should do better at increasing public access to and knowledge of arts events and organizations already here, especially for children whose daily lives don’t leave much room for arts and culture.

Let me ask you something, what’s the arts culture like in Germantown Hills? Or Dunlap? Or Metamora? Or Morton? And how much money are they spending in those communities on the arts? I’m assuming they must have lots of arts and entertainment and that the promotion of those amenities is being paid for by tens of thousands of dollars by the city halls of those towns, right? That’s why they’re growing by leaps and bounds, right?

I’m not saying that arts aren’t important; they are. But advertising them is about as far from an essential city service as you can get. People (even the coveted “young professionals”) aren’t going to move to Peoria because it’s “arts friendly” or because we give Arts Partners $100,000 to advertise the arts we have. They’re going to move to Peoria because our schools are good, crime is under control, and the infrastructure is sound. Everything else is gravy.

If the Civic Center doesn’t need that $75-100,000 in revenue, then lower the HRA tax or else use the money to provide essential services, like fixing the stormwater runoff problem in the fourth district or the $400 million combined sewer overflow project or maybe adding a couple more officers to the police force. Let’s get back to basics and stop frittering tax money on non-essentials while the essentials are suffering.

City Council, City of Peoria, HOPC

Heart of Peoria Commission lives on

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The City Council on Tuesday approved the compromise agreement that will leave the Heart of Peoria Commission intact. The compromise agreement had three parts:

  1. Approve the Heart of Peoria Commission Work Plan — The council approved this work plan with one exception: the money that’s listed in the capital budget column was not approved Tuesday, but will be requested through the normal capital budget process.
  2. Expand the Planning Commission by two positions — There are no openings currently on the Planning Commission, but it’s important to infuse New Urbanism principles into that commission since they are responsible for the Comprehensive Plan, which is the city’s vision document. Thus, in order to appoint a couple of Heart of Peoria Commission members to the Planning Commission, two new positions needed to be created, expanding the size from seven to nine members.
  3. Appointing several HOPC members to other commissions — This is what was suggested in the Committee on Commissions report: that HOPC members would be dual-appointed to other commissions in order to instill the principles of New Urbanism into the existing committee structure. The appointments that were made were:
    • Joe Richey — Planning Commission
    • Dick Schwebel — Planning Commission
    • Nancy Biggins — Zoning Board of Appeals
    • Pat Sullivan — Traffic Commission
    • Bill Washkuhn — TBD

Mayor Ardis was on WCBU’s “Outside the Horseshoe” program with Jonathan Ahl Tuesday night before the council meeting. He explained that, while he originally planned to expand the Planning Commission by four members, there was some concern from current Planning Commission members about that, and that reducing the expansion to two members was part of the compromise agreement. WCBU will eventually put that program up as a podcast, so you can check this link to see if it’s there yet.

The next Heart of Peoria Commission meeting is scheduled for Friday, August 24 at 8:00 a.m.

City Council, City of Peoria, HOPC

New Heart of Peoria Commission proposal submitted

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Mayor Ardis had proposed decommissioning the Heart of Peoria Commission back in May. His proposal then was to take the HOPC members and place them on other commissions. Most notably, he wanted to increase the size of the Planning Commission by four members and put four HOPC members in those newly-created seats.

However, the HOPC discussed the Mayor’s plan at their next scheduled meeting and communicated to the council that the commission believed it could be more effective continuing as a city commission rather than as an independent advocacy group, but that it fully supported the proposed dual appointments. When the issue came up for a vote in June, it was deferred a couple of times, most recently until July 24. So it’s on Tuesday’s agenda.

In June and July, the HOPC met a couple of times and hammered out a work plan to aid the council in considering whether to keep us or not. On the agenda, the Mayor has submitted a new recommendation. This one would have the Heart of Peoria Commission remain a commission, provided that capital funding in the work plan go through the normal process for all commissions (fair enough).

However, now the Mayor is suggesting only two seats be added to the Planning Commission instead of four. The two HOPC members who would be appointed to Planning would be Joe Richey and Dick Schwebel. Beth Akeson and I would not receive dual appointments until there’s an opening on an applicable commission (e.g., zoning, planning, ZBA, etc.). There’s no explanation given in the council communication as to why this change was made, but it’s the Mayor’s prerogative to appoint or not appoint people to commissions, so I don’t have any beef with it. After all, two is better than none, and I’m pleased that the Mayor has agreed to allow HOPC to remain (if it’s approved by the council, of course).

I’m a little concerned about whether HOPC will be able to complete its work with only six meeting per year, but we’ll see how it goes.

HOPC, Museum Block

HOPC finishes work plan, takes stand on Museum Square changes

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Once again, today may have been the Heart of Peoria Commission’s last meeting. On July 24, the city council will take up the issue of whether to change the commission’s status (that is, decommission it) or let it continue to meet. One question the council has is this: if the commission continues to meet, what work will it do?

That was the goal of the commission’s meetings last Friday and today: to develop a work plan to submit to the council. The top two goals the commission set were:

  1. Advocate and promote New Urbanism for transportation and public space.
  2. Assist in the implementation of the Land Development Code and Form District Codes.

On the first goal, it was recognized that the Land Development Code and Form District Codes primarily dealt with regulating private development (zoning, land use, etc.), and it was time to turn the commission’s attention to the public space. If there isn’t the public investment in “fixing the streets” (i.e., repairing deteriorating streets and sidewalks and, in doing so, improving them so that they accommodate a balance of uses — pedestrian, bicycle, mass transit, as well as automobiles), then the private development will be stunted. The commission can help facilitate progress in this area through the charrette process, education, input in the comprehensive plan, etc.

On the second goal, we also recognized that the work isn’t done yet with the form districts or the broader Land Development Code. We can work with the Planning department to develop a marketing plan for these areas, similar to what has been done on West Main with the Renaissance Park area through the efforts of the Renaissance Park Commission. We want to raise awareness of the opportunities that exist for redevelopment specifically in the form district areas but also throughout the Heart of Peoria Plan Area.

To help save staff time (and ultimately money), the commission agreed to reduce the frequency of meetings to every other month and disband its standing subcommittees. But in doing so, the commission also emphasized the importance of having the dual appointments of Heart of Peoria Commissioners on other city commissions (Planning, Traffic, Zoning Board of Approvals, etc.) as proposed in the original communication from the Mayor.

In other business, the commission also passed a resolution recommending to the city council that they deny the proposed changes to museum square and require that any future changes be in conformity with the Heart of Peoria Plan and the principles of New Urbanism. Specifically, the building mass on the block should be getting bigger, not smaller. If the museum portion needs to shrink, that’s understandable, but then part of the block should be reopened for private development, preferably mixed-use development that would include residential and retail components to keep the block busy perpetually and add more density to such a prime area of the central business district. The resolution passed by a 4-3 vote and marks the first time the commission has taken a position on the future of the former Sears block.

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, HOPC

HOPC meeting to be continued Friday

The Heart of Peoria Commission last Friday started working on our proposed work plan for 2007-2008. We will be finishing our work plan at another special meeting this Friday at 8 a.m., in the conference room in the Planning & Growth department. The meeting is open to the public, as always.

So far, the commission has expressed interest in focusing on implementing New Urbanism principles in transportation and the public space, continuing to assist with the implementation of the Land Development Code and the four Form Districts, and developing marketing materials for the Heart of Peoria Plan area to generate interest in reinvestment. These are subject to change and/or further refinement at this Friday’s meeting.

When the work plan is completed, it will be submitted to the City Council for consideration during their July 24 meeting. They’ll decide at that time whether to keep and fund the commission, or decommission us.

HOPC

HOPC to meet June 29

The Heart of Peoria Commission will meet this Friday, June 29, in the Twin Towers Suite 402 (front meeting room) to discuss this agenda:

1. CALL TO ORDER

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF MAY 25,2007 – attached

3. CITY COUNCIL ACTION ON STATUS OF HEART OF PEORIA COMMISSION – deferred until July 24,2007, see Attachment A, relevant minutes from City Council meeting

4. PREPARATION AND APPROVAL OF WORK PLAN TO SUBMIT TO CITY COUNCIL FOR JULY 24, 2007 CONSIDERATION – see Attachment B memo, which also includes attachments

5. UNFINISHED BUSINESS

6. NEW BUSINESS

7. COMMENTS: Public (5 minutes per person)

8. FUTURE MEETING(S)

9. ADJOURNMENT

The meeting will be from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Note the change in location; we usually meet in City Hall, but this time the meeting will be held in the Planning & Growth offices on the fourth floor of the Twin Towers.