Central Street Neighbors Association Est. 2007

Guest Essay by Steve Test and Paul Breslin

There is a national trend of urban planners loosening or removing zoning limits on height and density and to eliminate or reduce zoning for detached, single-family homes to allow building more multi-unit residential buildings, so called “missing middle” housing. Minneapolis, Austin, and Houston, as well as the states of Oregon and California, are among the jurisdictions that have enacted these policies. All of these jurisdictions are distinctly different from the much smaller, land-constrained, built-out city of Evanston. The cities' housing stock has a much higher percentage of detached, single-family homes: Minneapolis 45.3%, Austin 46.5%, Houston 46.6%. Evanston: 31.8%.

The first draft of the EE45 Comprehensive Plan called for elimination of single-family home zoning and allowing by-right building up to four-unit residential buildings on any R1/R2 lot. In fact, significant portions of the language in the first draft could have come straight from many of the rezoning projects in other parts of the country. Much of that language has been removed from subsequent drafts, but significant vestiges are still there. So let’s examine those vestiges and the ideology that spawned them.

CSNA would like to thank all who sincerely participated in the survey we ran in May on how residents feel about some of the basic choices confronting the city. The response was nearly overwhelming for a volunteer organization. However, we have been able to compile the responses and are issuing a preliminary report, downloadable below.

The findings won't be surprising to any longtime observer of Evanston. The short takeaways are as follows:

Ed. note: This survey ran in late May 2025 and is now closed. This post remains up for the time being for archival reference only. To view the survey results, see “Central Street Neighbors Association Survey on Evanston City Size, Density, & Development (Preliminary Report)” (June 4, 2025).

As many know (but many still don't), Evanston is advancing a comprehensive plan makeover that will set standards for zoning and development decisions for the next 20 years, affecting residential neighborhoods, business districts like those on Central Street, and more. This Envision Evanston 2045 process, however, never asked Evanston residents some underlying questions about overall desired community size and direction. Bigger? Smaller? Taller? More urban? More suburban? Or is the porridge just right? To help fill some of these gaps, please take this survey. It's about a dozen substantive questions and should take only 5-10 minutes or less. Feel free to forward to other Evanston residents. To prevent manipulation in an online age, and limit responses to Evanston residents, we do ask for name and address. Thank you in advance!

Evanston Population, Density, and Development Survey (click to open)

A staple of spring in north Evanston for many years is the annual Garden Fair, tho participating organizations and locations have varied. This Saturday, May 17, from 9am to 4pm at Ackerman Park (Central St.

Despite what seemed like some hot division over direction of both the City of Evanston and its elementary school system, a large majority of voters in Evanston last week elected to sit not just on the fence but on the couch. The Cook County Clerk counts over 52,000 registered Evanston voters on the county rolls. Only 33.5% of them voted. However, the results are interesting.

For decades, Central Street has been home to ice cream,  fitting for a town that claims to have invented the sundae. Hartigan's at 2909 Central, a must-stop at least once a summer for every youth sports family, has been dishing it out since 1996, and old-timers will remember when it was a Baskin-Robbins before that.