Politics & Government

St. Charles Aldermen Gut Residential From East, West Gateways

City Council committee recommends formal approval of the 2013 Draft Comprehensive Plan after making signficant change.

In a move that appeared to stun members of the city staff and the city’s own consultant, St. Charles aldermen on Monday stripped all residential deelopment as a component of the East and West Gateways from the 2013 Draft Comprehensive Plan.


The move came as the City Council Planning and Development Committee voted to recommend formal approval of the plan, along with a laundry list of far more mundane changes that many would consider “tweaks” rather than signifiant alterations to the plan.


St. Charles Community Development Director Rita Tungare agreed that gutting the residential component from the East and West gateways was a very significant change by aldermen.

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“The only hot-button issues, I think, were the residential components on the (West Side) old St. Charles Mall site, and the residential on the (East Side) Charlestowne Mall,” Tungare said. “... It eliminates single-family, multifamily, toenhomes, rowhomes …”


The aldermen’s actions would appear to put to rest some residents’ fears that the proposed comprehensive plan was not written tightly enough to prevent new multifamily residential developments from being built in the East Gateway area around Charlestowne Mall and the West Gateway area, whose focus along Randall Road has been the old St. Charles Mall site.

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During the nearly two-year process of drawing up the 2013 Draft Comprehensive Plan, some residents have insisted the city allow no apartment buildings in the two gateway areas, which they claimed are largely saturated with apartments already.


Still, the task force that worked to formulate the plan -- along with city planners, and consultant Houseal Lavigne Associates, hired to facilitate the process and to draw up the document — had sought to preserve at least some flexibility for future development in both gateway areas to accomodate ever-changing market conditions.


The task force crafted the plan to ensure no apartment complexes would be recommended in the two gateway areas, but which would allow some residential development, including “mixed-use developments” that encourage retail and commercial development on lower levels of buildings while allowing residences on upper levels.


One theory on such developments is that the residential component helps to create the foot traffic that businesses need to succeed, which ultimately makes the development sustainable. Sustainability has become a buzzword touching everything from development and revitalization to the functioning of government.


But aldermen appeared intent on pulling out the stops to preserve the gateways for commercial/retail development, period.


Fourth Ward Alderman James Martin was a staunch advocate of the change, saying that it would be preferable to narrowly define the city’s vision for the gateways than to leave the plan a flexible document that could be misinterpreted down the road. In regard to the efforts to maintain some flexibility in the draft plan, Martin said if a residential development comes up that city officials truly believe would be good for the city, the city council at that time could change the comprehensive plan to allow for residential development.


A key issue in the discussions central to the plan is related to the scope of the plan’s authority. Planners consider comprehensive plans to be policy documents that set a long-range vision — goals and objectives — for future development in specific areas of the city.


As a visionary document, they argue, the document must have some degree of flexibility to allow for changing conditions in the market for development and even changing expectations of residents.


As a policy document, the plan the is used to revise and reshape city zoning ordinances, for example, and also as a reference point by city officials — and by developers — in advancing future proposals for new construction or renovation/revitalization efforts.


Yet throughout the course of the proceedings, it has been apparent that some fear the flexibility afforded in the plan. Some have said the comprehenisive plan should be explicit in the goals and objectives it sets for specific areas of St. Charles to ensure deviations are kept to a minimum.


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