At tonight’s council meeting, at-large councilman Jim Montelongo will be attending via teleconference. Some notable items:

• River Trail Drive Plan — This is Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger’s brainchild to build townhouses along the riverfront from the Riverplex north to Spring Street, along with a Grandview-Drive-type road that goes by it. The townhouses would be on the west side of the road, and the river side of the road would remain parkland, giving drivers, bikers, and pedestrians an unobstructed view of the river. I attended one of the public meetings for this project and heard some discontent from environmentalists in attendance due to the fact that some parkland would be taken away in the course of this project. Apparently, their objections weren’t very strong because there’s been no formal opposition mounted, and this request to seek a developer appears on the consent agenda. Looks like a shoo-in.
• More land for the Enterprise Zone — I’ll let this agenda item speak for itself (emphasis mine):
  

  On June 10, 2008 Council directed staff to commence the process to expand the City of Peoria’s Enterprise Zone to include certain properties bordered by Sheridan, Glen, University and Lake and the Sheridan Village Shopping Center. Since that time staff has received suggestions and requests that the entire commercially zoned area within those boundaries be included in the Zone. Staff is now requesting that all properties zoned commercial/office within the Glen/Sheridan/Lake/University area be included with the original expansion application…. The new development has not been completely planned, and the exact dollars [financial impact to the city] cannot be determined at this time. The City would lose the portion of sales tax on building materials purchased within the City for these projects. However, the City will gain additional sales tax from the new retail development that occurs due to this expansion. Additionally, a number of new jobs will be created both from the construction as well as from the retail stores. And the investment would help revitalize and stabilize the area.

  This illustrates just how haphazardly we throw around enterprise zone status in Peoria. Some businesses surrounding a proposed enterprise zone want in on the action, so the council reflexively complies, even though these additional businesses have no plans and the city cannot even evaluate the financial impact of adding them to the enterprise zone. The city gets most of its revenue from sales taxes, so discounting sales taxes from such a large swath of Peoria without considering the impact on city revenues is injudicious. Yet it’s on the consent agenda.

• Making CHDO’s rehab older homes, not just build new — This is second district council member Barbara Van Auken’s idea. An example of a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) would be Habitat for Humanity (although there are others, of course). Ideally, they build new homes (in-fill development) and renovate older homes for low-income people. However, in Peoria, these organizations always build new. I personally find nothing wrong with that, as we have plenty of need for in-fill development in our older neighborhoods. But Van Auken would like to see one out of every three projects be a renovation. Since these organizations get federal money through the city’s CHDO funding program, the city can add those strings to the money if they wish. The CHDOs oppose this proposal basically because of the “unpredictable costs associated with rehab” (e.g., lead paint abatement, asbestos, etc.). The risk is that CHDOs may just decide not to do any more projects, in which case the city would lose the grant money and the development that CHDOs provide. The city staff is nevertheless recommending approval, with a promise that they will report back after a year on how well the policy is working. My only fear is that as many exceptions to the Land Development Code will be made in these rehab projects as have been made in new construction.
• Closing loopholes in the payday loan store moratorium — In response to criticism of her plan to put a moratorium on zoning certificates for payday loan stores, Van Auken has proposed this additional ordinance that would extend that moratorium to building permits. With the moratorium on zoning certificates, it only would stop standalone payday loan stores, but not stores in strip malls. This ordinance is designed to close that loophole.
• Van Winkle is back — Former public works director Steve Van Winkle is being appointed to the Traffic Commission. This won’t require much of a time commitment from Van Winkle since the Traffic Commission cancels most of its meetings. Also, recently retired city engineer Gene Hewitt is being reappointed to the Board of Local Improvements.
• Firefighters get a new contract — A new three-year contract has been negotiated between the city and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), giving firefighters a raise of 3.5% and other benefits.
• Methodist Hospital expansion — This is probably the biggest item on the agenda; there are actually three separate motions on this project; here, here, and here. Methodist wants to put their entire campus under institutional (N1) zoning, plus make modifications to Hamilton Boulevard; that latter item is resulting in the Historic Preservation Commission attempting to designate the boulevard an historic landmark. I’m confident this plan will sail through the council with very few questions. It’s amusing to me how I’ve heard about how “new urban” and pedestrian-friendly this design is, yet they want to get out of the West Main regulating plan (form-based code) and have requested numerous variances to the Land Development Code. Both of those codes are designed to ensure that the principles of new urbanism are followed, resulting in pedestrian-friendliness. And, incidentally, neither Methodist nor city staff have shared these plans with the Heart of Peoria Commission, not that anyone cares.
• Elliott’s strip club gets a liquor license — …and a bunch of taxpayer money, as expected. They’ll get a Class A (tavern) with a subclass 1a (2 a.m. closing) and subclass 2 (live entertainment) liquor license as part of a settlement agreement between the city and the owners of Elliott’s. Also in the covenant: a promise that the city will allow an “adult cabaret” in that location for at least ten years, and the payment of $50,000 in attorney’s fees to Elliott’s. That’s right! Thanks to the city fighting this, Elliott’s will get everything they wanted in the first place, plus $50,000 in your tax money! On a positive note, it could have been worse; $50,000 is significantly lower than what was predicted.