The controversy simmering in Lake Forest these days boils down to where the city will park its garbage trucks, and whether the land on which they are parked now could be put to better use.
That’s where a technique referred to as “visioning” comes in, the art of visualizing future possibilities.
Lake Forest officials presented architectural drawings at a recent public meeting in the Gorton Community Center, showing how the 14 acres at Laurel and Western Avenues might appear if all the ideas offered by 150 residents at a “visioning session” in January were incorporated there.
City officials showed parks, condominiums, offices, townhouses, apartments, senior housing, a hotel and a restaurant on land now occupied by the Lake Forest municipal services building, Broadacre Management Co., Knauz Autos and the former Blanchard building materials yard, just north of downtown Lake Forest.
“This is a rendition, an interpretation,” Mayor Howard Kerr emphasized several times. “This is not something the city has agreed to.”
But Kerr also pointed out that Lake Forest is in a crunch as the last remaining open land in the city is expected to be fully developed between 2005 and 2010.
“We’re trying to take a 50- to 75-year look at the city’s needs,” said the mayor. “Whatever decision we make on municipal services will have a profound impact. It may be the last opportunity to make a decision with the diminishing land opportunities in Lake Forest. That’s why it’s so important.”
A central issue is the future location of Lake Forest’s Municipal Services Department, which needs a place for its garbage trucks, snowplows and salt piles now on 7 acres at the Western Avenue intersection.
The facility could stay where it is, said the mayor, but it is crowded and city officials favor buying 14 acres at the northwest tip of Ft. Sheridan. City officials have been negotiating for months for the purchase, which is highly controversial and opposed by some residents and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
Lake Forest is now waiting for a “concept paper” from the Army, spelling out terms and conditions for such a purchase, Kerr said. When it arrives, it must be approved by the City Council before negotiations with the Army continue.
As the process drags on, the recently elected mayor said it is time to consider alternatives in case “the deal with the Army does not go through.”
Lake Forest is considering moving the department to the 26-acre site of the former Grove School.
Kerr said it would be less expensive to move the municipal services center from Laurel Avenue than to stay there, but ultimately it depends on the preferences of taxpayers and their willingness to pay for options.
Scott Freres, a principal of the Lakota Group Inc., urban planners based in Chicago, explained the proposals for the 14 acres.
“It fits in fine with a higher-density, multifamily mixed use,” said Freres, but some of the discussion centered on how much traffic such a development would bring to downtown Lake Forest.
“I’m rather stunned with considering on the order of 1,500 to 2,000 car movements a day (from such a development),” said Ald. Rob Lansing (1st).
“I’m not sure there is an infrastructure to support that density.”
One of the complications of the 14-acre tract is that four land owners are involved.
At the meeting, one of the owners, Broadacre Management Co., indicated that it already is moving to develop its 3.7 acres for a complex of financial planners and investment services. The firm is operated by brothers Bert and Robert Meers.
