Crystal Thomas
The State Journal-Register
After lobbying by developers, the Springfield City Council voted Tuesday to delay final approval for the city’s 2017-2037 comprehensive plan on land use to Jan. 16. Nine aldermen voted in favor of postponing the plan’s final passage; Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin voted “present.”
In a series of meetings over the last two weeks, the mayor and aldermen were lobbied individually by the Development Policy Council, a group of developers, Realtors and engineers organized through the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, to not take a vote Tuesday to give them more time to suggest changes to the plan.
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Dean Graven, the group’s chair, laid out the economic development community’s concerns. He said the language in the comprehensive plan, a blueprint for how the city should develop and grow over the next 20 years, might make local and out-of-town developers uncomfortable with bringing their business to Springfield.
Graven said the group is not opposed to the comprehensive plan.
Carol Kneedler, chair of Inner City Older Neighborhoods, compared the process of making Springfield’s comprehensive plan with Bloomington’s. She said she wished the developers were more involved in the Springfield’s process, which happened over months. The steering committee had 24 meetings and ICON, along with the city, hosted public meetings.
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McMenamin said there had been ample opportunity for the developers to weigh in during the process. “It seems inappropriate for a certain group to get a special hearing on this,” McMenamin said. “That looks like what’s going to happen here.”
Ward 6 Ald. Kristin DiCenso said that in her meeting with the group Thursday she asked what specific changes the group wanted to see but was not offered any at the time. However, the group had presented some aldermen with suggestions to two pages of the plan’s preamble.
“To me, I kind of question what’s really going on here if certain aldermen are given certain information and other aldermen aren’t given the same information,” DiCenso said. “I have a problem with that.”
She asked that in the future, information would be presented uniformly to the council.
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The proposed plan can be read at www.springfield.il.us/Businesses/2037CompPlan.aspx
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 