Regulating density-a municipality’s power to decide whether it is to be a quiet bedroom community or a bustling place where people shop, work and live-is perhaps its most effective tool in determining its character and overall look.
Some towns have the opportunity to start almost from scratch, as their populations double or sometimes triple, while other mature communities are constantly readjusting to meet changing economic and social conditions.
“A lot of social engineering is undertaken in the name of density,” said Craig Malin, assistant to the village manager of Vernon Hills, one of the fastest-growing towns in the state. Its population of 18,500 is double that of 10 years ago, and four times the size of 1970, he added.
“We want to have a range of density,” Malin said. “We want to be an inclusive community.”
In its latest comprehensive plan, Vernon Hills is attempting to be a diversified regional center where densities vary to allow both for more concentrated areas of population around a commercial district and for larger lot sizes to accommodate bigger homes, he said.
“We’re not the standard Lake County residential-only town,” Malin said. “If all you are is a bedroom community . . . that’s what causes a lot of the suburban-urban angst,” meaning traffic congestion and the resulting loss of time for leisure activities.
“A well-balanced community will have areas that are more dense,” agreed Bill Ganek, village administrator of Algonquin and former planner for Crystal Lake. “The goal is not necessarily an absolute control of density. We’re approving a number of projects with townhomes because we feel where it’s located, it’s appropriate.”
“What causes suburban sprawl is low density,” Malin said.
And that has been the regional trend.
The population of the Chicago metropolitan area between 1970 and 1990 grew by 4.5 percent, while land used by new residential development exploded by 48 percent, according to the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC).
“The same number of people in northeastern Illinois to support an infrastructure that expands over twice the area is an expensive public cost. . . . From a governmental perspective, that’s when it becomes a problem,” said Richard Mariner, manager of land resources at NIPC.
Problems of sprawl include less open space, which eats into wetlands necessary for environmental balance; the erosion of agricultural production; and the need for additional sewers and water lines, which tends to raise housing prices, said Margaret Sachs, NIPC senior planning analyst.
“We recommend doing infill development, where the infrastructure is in place,” she added.
“You want a certain amount of density,” said Ed Marciniak, president of the Institute of Urban Life at Loyola University. “Population density ought to be related to mass transit and expressway patterns.”
Services can be more efficiently delivered to areas of greater density, planners and developers agreed. Conversely, too many people coming on line too quickly can put too great a load on police, fire, school and park departments. Most town planners said they work to find a balance.
Crystal Lake, for example, which experienced a huge building boom in the late ’80s-its population grew by half again to 28,000 during the last decade-created a comprehensive plan in 1991 that reduced all residential densities, said Scott Viger, planning director.
“Crystal Lake sought to manage growth,” Viger explained. “Our largest year ever was about 500 building permits.”
The town also added a zone at the edge of town calling for 5-acre-minimum lots to create a “feathering” effect as population thins out near town boundaries. Another concern was environmental, and the city acted to protect sensitive areas for its lake by reducing density there.
St. Charles, also on the heels of a massive residential building boom in which lot sizes were growing to meet demand, is seeking in its new comprehensive plan to encourage more affordable housing through multifamily developments, said Dan Olson, community planner.
“To get affordable housing, you’re not going to get it by setting minimum lot sizes at one acre,” he noted.
St. Charles’ minimum lot size for single-family homes is 6,000 square feet, he said. The town is aiming to maintain 28 percent of its housing stock in multifamily homes.
A typical minimum lot size for single-family homes is 8,400 square feet, or between three and four homes an acre after accounting for streets and parkways. Increasingly typical in towns aiming to decrease density, such as Crystal Lake and Algonquin, is 10,000 square feet.
Lake in the Hills, which is projecting its population of 9,000 to double in the next five years, has raised the minimum lot size to 8,400 square feet, said village administrator Tim Savage.
“I don’t know that we have a philosophy identified here” regarding density, he said. “We constantly look to our neighbors and see what their standards are and adjust accordingly.”
In many cases density is determined by location or its topography.
“It’s much harder to protect our (flat) landscapes because they’re so easy to develop,” said Sam Santell, planning director for Kane County, whose comprehensive plan is aimed at concentrating growth closer to city centers and preventing suburban sprawl.
“So when you drive your car you know where the city stops and the country begins. . . . We want to retain that edge,” he said.
Toward that end, Kane County is promoting cluster developments, where buildings are grouped together to allow more open space, as well as greater use of open space to preserve environmental integrity, biodiversity and water resources, he said.
Usually, however, the marketplace is the overriding concern for developers.
The general developers’ formula goes: “The more homes the builder can put on the property, the higher the yield and the lower the price,” said Jon Fogg, president of the Illinois division of Centex Homes, which is building in Bartlett, Lake in the Hills and Crystal Lake.
If the town sets lot sizes at a minimum of 10,000 square feet, however, and the developer believes he won’t be able to sell enough at that size to make a profit, he’ll walk, noted Jerry Hoskins, vice president of the Zale Companies of Buffalo Grove.
But builders agree that high density isn’t always the goal.
“Sometimes a piece of property lends itself to lower density,” Fogg said. “Sometimes, by trying to be greedy, you can actually minimize your potential. . . . Four (houses) to an acre can look like Fido’s rear end.”
Hoskins agreed, noting that Zale plans to develop the 1,100-acre Cuneo property in Vernon Hills at two units per acre. “We felt like that was the best use for that piece of property.”
Densities will vary at Cuneo and will include a lot of open space to suit the landscape, which has two lakes and will have a golf course. House prices will vary from $300,000 to $1 million, he added. Townhouses will be included in the mix, Hoskins said.
“Buyers like open space. It gives them a big yard they don’t have to take care of,” he explained.
To ensure that towns maintain open areas, most villages require developers to donate a certain amount of land or cash for parklands. A typical ratio is 10 acres per 1,000 new residents.
Then there are towns that allow only very large lots, which means pricier homes, wealthier residents and, inherently, a less-dense area. But sometimes using lot size to lower density can have unanticipated results.
Lake Forest, for example, in its last comprehensive plan in 1978 set lot sizes at 1.5 acres for new developments. The idea was that having average-size homes on such large lots would increase open space.
Instead, density appeared to increase because people built ever-larger houses that seemed to fill the lots instead of leaving lots of open space.
“It takes a suburban setting and gives it more of an urban density-type of feeling,” said Charles Crook, director of community development in Lake Forest. “It’s inappropriate.”
What Lake Forest did in the late ’80s to restrict this phenomenon was to set a building scale ordinance establishing a ratio of a house’s floor area to the lot, he said. Instead of the usual method of limiting house size by establishing setback rules, Lake Forest limited the size of the house so it wouldn’t dwarf a large lot.
Many North Shore communities have followed suit with similar rules, Crook said. Lake Forest may go further, possibly by raising minimum lot sizes, in its next comprehensive plan, he noted.
Density rules can become intertwined with goals to limit growth-and that irks some developers.
“Density is used as an inhibiting factor against growth” in the Chicago area, argued Tracy Cross, head of Tracy Cross & Associates, a real estate consulting group. As a result, he said, “in the northwest and southwest suburbs, developers chose the path of least resistance” and moved farther out.
Cross argued that individual towns, each with its own set of density requirements, are not considering the ramifications of their decisions. If people are too spread out, companies will bypass the region and choose areas where amenities and housing stock is more concentrated, he said.
“The (national) trend is to higher densities to offset increasing land costs,” he said. “(It’s) an attempt to constrain exurban development,” which includes costly extensions of public service amenities, such as water, sewer and utilities.
Still, what works against the desire to control sprawl are home buyers, who resist areas whose regulations limit space. Whereas high-density zoning often translates into townhouses or other multifamily housing, a single-family home remains the American dream.
“There is a very strong feeling on the part of most buyers that they want a single-family home,” said Sachs, of NIPC. “But I think townhomes are becoming more and more accepted.”
