Extensive discussion has been taking place in City of Evanston committees and throughout the community on the draft Envision Evanston 2045 Comprehensive Plan, a document intended to reflect a shared vision for Evanston’s future along with strategies for achieving it. (See the September and November issues of the Intercom for some background.) The mayor and others are working to move the process toward a City Council vote, but forces for delay seem to prevail.
 
Advocates for action and advocates for delay have presented recommendations to City Council. A new timeline was approved by Council on January 13, and approval of the Comprehensive Plan was separated from approval of a new Zoning Code. Under the new timeline, the Land Use Commission (LUC) would send Council a revised version of the Comprehensive Plan by March and would have until the end of August to complete their work on the Code.

Then, later in January, the LUC reported that it could not complete its analysis of and revisions to the Comprehensive Plan by the March target date. This makes it likely that the current City Council, whose terms expire at the end of April, will not be voting on the new Plan. Even a modest change in Council membership will require more discussion and more time to develop a coordinated response to evaluating the revised Comprehensive Plan, and, later in the year, a new Zoning Code.  

An LWVE working group on Envision Evanston 2045 has also been studying and discussing the proposed Comprehensive Plan. The group prepared a memo presenting their feedback, and the LWVE Board voted to submit it to City Council, the LUC, and City staff in January. The multi-page memo endorses the broad goals in the Plan and many of the specific policies and proposed actions intended to achieve those goals. However, it also identifies several broad topics and specific concerns that are either missing from the Plan or need further consideration. 

One general concern expressed in the memo is that the goals described in the ten chapters of the draft Plan are often interrelated, but the relations among them are not acknowledged or not sufficiently discussed. Also, it is not always evident that proposed actions will have intended results. More evidence could be provided, and procedures should be implemented for monitoring whether desired results are achieved. You can read the full LWVE Envision Evanston memo, including comments on each chapter, on our website.