Central Street Neighbors Association Est. 2007

Winter in Chicagoland can be long and hard, as can some public debates. CSNA, with activities such as our annual musical entry in the 4th of July Parade, has always been about far more than City business, and we want to thank you for staying involved, and offer past, present, and potential future members a break from it all! 

Many if not most cities with zoning, preservation, and similar codes also have periodic longer-range plans that serve as both aspirational documents and as touchstones to guide and evaluate development, including requests for variance from code. Evanston’s last comprehensive plan adopted in 2000 was the work of a citizen committee chaired by an Evanston architect and including many with planning and community involvement.

The saga of the magnificent Harley Clarke house and grounds, going back to the end of the Evanston Art Center’s tenancy, is almost as long and sad as that of the Civic Center, with a similar subplot of neglect of a public asset, and non-transparency at key moments. But maybe that’s changing.

In a 2007 referendum, Evanstonians by a 6:1 landslide voted to rehab the current historic Lorraine Morton Civic Center at 2100 Ridge Ave. (right, seen in 2007) and keep City government there. Sadly, City government over the next 17 years never respected that mandate with a maintenance or restoration plan for the building.

The university’s demolition of its historic 1920s football stadium is nearly complete. NU plans to build a temporary facility on the lakefill for, at minimum, football games, which the City will likely permit. Meanwhile, litigation by stadium neighbors challenges the legality of the Council rezoning. At least one count of the lawsuit will move toward trial, although the court on April 19 dismissed some procedural counts, finding that five votes of the 10-person Council were sufficient to pass the zoning amendment.

Nearly three dozen Evanston lawyers, at last count, have signed on to an open letter to Mayor Biss and the other members of the Council on an issue that that affects the legitimacy of the Ryan Field project and rezoning up for consideration at a special meeting tonight. Much public discussion has assumed that Mayor Biss can be a tiebreaking 5th vote if the other sitting Councilmembers tie 4-4. These local legal minds think otherwise, and that Evanston law requires six votes.

Monday, Nov. 13, the City Council is set to act on Northwestern University's petition for a planned development ("PD") and zoning amendment to the U2 district. That area, just north of Central Street, contains the football stadium, basketball arena, baseball field, and other facilities. NU's petition for PD was to demolish the former Dyche Stadium and erect a new, much larger facility with 35,000 "stadium" seats and skyboxes. The rezoning petition was originally to allow far greater commercial-like entertainment use of the sports facilities: initially, a request for up to 10 stadium-capacity concerts and unlimited up-to-10,000-person events annually (click the link to see the redline version of the U2 text). After multiple revisions in May and August, the request (click link to review) was modified to 6 full-capacity (35,000-seats) outdoor stadium concerts, up to 60 outdoor concerts or events of up to 7,500 attendees, and unlimited indoor concerts and events of up to 10,000 persons, including in as-yet-unbuilt banquet halls and auditoriums.