When you look at the growth of the south and southwest metropolitan area, the question is: Which came first, the method or the madness?
More the latter than the former, it would seem.
The area’s development has been a consistent case of catch-up. The new residents of burgeoning communities strain the capacities of roads and schools.
Changing times rob some older suburbs of their economic vitality while others prosper.
Cooperative regional efforts are an oft-stated goal of local government officials but their focus remains within their own borders: Rivalry between governments can be harsh.
The region, however, is about to take a $1 million step toward getting its act together. If it goes as envisioned, there will be better roads, less blight, more jobs and–the holy grail of all planners–a solid regional approach to growth.
Earlier this year a consortium of eight southwest metropolitan agencies snared the biggest of the newest growth planning grants the state has to offer.
As part of Gov. George Ryan’s state’s massive Illinois FIRST project, $15 million is to be disbursed over five years through the Illinois Tomorrow Corridor Program. The program promotes local-level planning that integrates land development, transportation and infrastructure needs.
A $500,000 head start
When the first round of annual grants totaling $3.7 million were announced in January, the big winner was the Chicago Southland Tomorrow Corridor Initiative, which received $500,000 this year, to be followed by a like sum next year. The rest of the money was split up among 40 other projects, 22 in the six-county metropolitan area and 18 elsewhere in the state.
The Southland group will use its money to link together the work of municipal agencies, interstate corridor councils and agencies such as the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce of Commerce to develop long-range plans, not only for transportation but property development and economic opportunities.
“This is an absolutely far-reaching plan,” said Renee Cipriano, senior adviser to the governor on environmental and natural resources. “There is a good reason it got the most amount of money: It is the perfect example of what the Illinois Tomorrow Corridor Program is trying to achieve. It is going to allow the region’s leaders to take a step back , assess their situation and then move forward.
“One of the things it will mean to residents is that by better transportation planning, maybe it will lessen the amount of time they have to spend driving in their cars just to get life’s everyday tasks accomplished.”
Studying all forms of transit
Road improvements and commuter rail line extensions from Chicago south to Crete and southwest to Manhattan will be studied–both with and without the impact of a third airport at Peotone.
“This is the first time that so many different groups here are pulling together in a planning project like this,” said Brad Roback, transportation planner for the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association. “Essentially it is a broad-based intergovernmental approach to bolstering economic development by linking land use and transportation in ways that will help development.”
The grant money was officially awarded to Tinley Park, which is spending it as the consortium decides.
It is a pleasure to provide the service, said Ed Zabrocki, Tinley Park’s mayor. “For so many years, the south and southwest suburbs have been fragmented,” he said. “Quite frankly they were dumped on for years and years and years. And for too long we just moped along, taking it.”
But the project is a sign of how attitudes have been changing in recent years, Zabrocki said.
Thinking cooperatively
“A couple of different things are happening,” Zabrocki said. “People here first started saying, `Hey, we better look out for ourselves or we’re going to lose out’ and because of that they then began to say, `Let’s work together.'”
The Southland Tomorrow project will be an umbrella for the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, the Southwest Council of Local Governments, the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce, the Metro Southwest Alliance, Chicago Southland Development Incorporated, the I-57 Corridor Council, the I-80 Corridor Council and the southwest Interstate Corridor Planning Council.
In addition, new corridor councils are expected to be formed. Among them will be one that studies Lincoln Highway (U.S. Highway 30) from the Indiana border through Will County, and another that looks at Harlem Avenue from Bedford Park to Tinley Park.
If there is one person who gets the credit for getting the grant process under way, it is Mike Scholefield.
Scholefield, 54, grew up in Riverdale and has been a lifelong resident of the southwest metropolitan region. He now works as an engineer in the Mokena office of the firm Baxter & Woodman Consulting Enginners, which has many governmental clients. Before that, he served for eight years as a staff member of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association.
“The grant possibility was out there dangling in front of our faces, but Mike came up with the idea of how to make it such a great project,” said Vicky Smith, director of the Southwest Conference of Local Governments, a group of southwest suburban municipalities.
Scholefield is credited with the insight to bring so many associated groups into the same effort.
“Every time you bring new people into the mix, it’s a good thing,” Scholefield said. “Not only do they bring new ideas in but they bring with them their own networks of other people and organizations.”
Besides addressing regional transportation issues, the project will take a comprehensive look at property use and development.
“There’s a significant amount of properties in the region that are undeveloped, vacant or underutilized,” Scholefield said. “This project will let communities break away from pitting one town against another but instead look at how what is best for the corridor they are in might be best for them as well.”
A comprehensive database
One of the first tools to be developed for the entire area with the grant money will be a Geographic Information System database, a computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating and displaying geographically referenced information. The system would allow planners and potential investors to quickly and accurately study property for development.
Ideally, the global database, which has been contracted to Robinson Engineering of South Holland, will be precise down to individual parcels of land, Roback said.
“Both Cook and Will Counties are already working on parcel-based mapping, so we hope to piggyback on what they will be doing and co-develop a system we all can use,” Roback said.
When all systems mesh, it would mean that property being considered in Chicago Heights could be checked for dimensions and zoning, linked to the Cook County assessor’s office’s tax database and viewed online.
“For a number of communities, if it were not for this kind of a project, they would not even have the chance to consider having a tool like a geographic information system,” Scholefield said.
Control of the property information also will be enhanced if local governments work to cut red tape.
“Sometimes development does not happen because there are too many strings attached to the property and it simply looks like it will be too much work to make it attractive to an investor,” Scholefield said. “Work needs to be done to streamline those processes.”
No overnight success
When can results be expected?
“These kind of things take time,” Zabrocki said. “I don’t think people can expect to see something happen for several years.”
Zabrocki compared it to a project in his town that is just now coming to full flower.
About five years ago a plan was drawn up to improve Tinley Park’s old downtown along Oak Park Avenue. Since then area parking has been improved and a program to subsidize the renovation of business facades to a common look has unified the area’s look. This summer a village square with a centerpiece fountain was installed next to a Metra parking lot.
“With the bigger project you can achieve the same thing, but on a wider basis,” Zabrocki said.
“We’re getting momentum now,” Scholefield said. “I think the charge to all of us will be to maintain that momentum and get all we can from this project. I like to think in the long term there may be some results that come from this that nobody expected. I hope that in five years we can all look at where we are because of this project and see the difference it made and know that where it put us is a pretty good place.”
