2722 Greenbay Project Use of Alley is Unsafe for Residents and Customers

The Developer of 2722 Greenbay wants to use the public alley customers to stack cars in to drop off and pick up kids for the sports facility despite it's narrowness and the fact that there are 22 garages which have cars that use that narrow alley. The developer should put all parking and pick up on the develpment site.

To understand why this proposal is a major problem, it helps to look at the actual zoning purpose of a public alley. In city planning, an alley is a specific type of public "right-of-way." Unlike a main street built for moving traffic, an alley is designed strictly for service and utility access. Its primary purpose is to provide a clear path for garbage trucks, emergency vehicles, delivery drivers, and utility workers, while giving residents a safe way to reach their backyard garages. Alleys are intentionally narrow because they are meant for short, passing trips—not for stationary vehicles.

When a private development plan incorporates a public alley to satisfy its daily customer queuing needs, it fundamentally breaks these universal rules of urban design. Routinely stacking traffic in an alley transforms a shared municipal infrastructure asset into a private, commercial staging area. This creates a predictable traffic bottleneck that forces neighboring residents, public utility services, and fire trucks to wait on a private entity's operational schedule just to navigate a public right-of-way

. We would never grant a commercial restaurant or coffee shop the right to block a residential alley with a customer drive-thru line because it fits their business model, and this high-volume sports complex should be held to the exact same standard

. The developer has a strict legal and ethical obligation to demonstrate that their operations can function safely and appropriately entirely on their own property. In proper city planning, a business must design its private land to handle its own customers, idling cars, noise, and congestion rather than transferring those problems onto the surrounding neighborhood. The city should not ask, "Can we somehow twist the rules of the alley to work for the developer?" The true question is, "Can this development operate without compromising the public alley and the residents who already rely on it?" If the answer is no, then the development plan must change—not the purpose of our public infrastructure. I urge the city council to deny any plan that relies on the privatization and obstruction of our public right-of-way.

In professional urban planning, an alleyway is a specific type of public "right-of-way" designed strictly for service, maintenance, and utility access. Its primary zoning purpose is to provide a clear, unobstructed path for municipal sanitation trucks, delivery drivers, utility workers, and critical emergency response vehicles

. It also grants immediate local property owners safe, unhindered ingress and egress to their backyard garages. Alleys are intentionally designed to be narrow because they are built exclusively for brief, passing trips. They are never meant to accommodate stationary, idling, or stacked vehicles. []

Furthermore, the City of Evanston has a core fiduciary and administrative responsibility to uphold planning best practices and protect public infrastructure. A fundamental rule of development review dictates that a private enterprise must fully internalize its own operational impacts. The developer has a strict obligation to demonstrate that its proposed use can function safely, appropriately, and entirely within the boundaries of its own private property

. It is a failure of urban planning principles to allow a developer to externalize its congestion, idling, noise, and safety hazards by transferring them directly onto the surrounding neighborhood infrastructure.

The city’s review process should not be centered around the question, "How can we modify or twist the rules of the public alley to make this project work for the developer?" Instead, the core planning question must be, "Can this specific development operate at this location without compromising the integrity of the public alley and the safety of the residents who already rely on it?" If the traffic demands of a 55,000-square-foot facility cannot safely be contained on-site, then the private development plan must be altered—not the legal purpose of our public infrastructure

. I strongly urge the City Council to reject any planned development provisions that rely on the routine obstruction and privatization of our public right-of-way

.