Representatives from Oak Park, Berwyn, and Cicero met Oct. 5 at the Carleton Hotel to discuss how the three municipalities can cooperate to execute recommendations from the Roosevelt Road Planning Study.
The study was put together by Chicago planning consultant Farr Associates and financed with a state grant. The plan points out the corridor’s strengths and makes public based suggestions to help revitalize the area.
Possible upgrades include widening sidewalks, improving lighting and landscaping, building medians, and enticing specialty shops and residential development to locate on Roosevelt Road.
However, officials from the three municipalities said they want to wait and take a look at the infrastructure below Roosevelt Road before any renovations are made above ground, making sure that they’ll never have to go back and tear newly renovated streets up to make underground improvements.
Officials also requested legal staff to draft an intergovernmental agreement to be approved by the councils and board and to create a “Charter” in order to “formalize the Roosevelt Road Advisory Committee (RRAC) as a working intergovernmental advisory body.” All three communities recommended the committee contain 13 members broken down to: one business owner and resident from each community, one Roosevelt Road Business Association member, and two staff members from each community, which would include someone from the Oak Park and Berwyn development corporations.
Staff was asked to begin researching funding methods for improvements and preparing draft Requests for Proposals. Oak Park Trustee Ray Johnson recommended that the plan mirror efforts to improve Madison Street.
Officials said that attempts are being made to contact Chicago Aldermen to try to expand the project past Austin Boulevard.
Oak Park Village Planner Craig Failor hopes that increased residential and commercial development along the corridor will create more vibrancy in the area, with more consumers patronizing businesses. He also speculated that increased foot traffic would create “eyes on the street” to help cut down on crime on Roosevelt Road.
Reactions from Berwyn, Cicero, and Oak Park officials were generally positive. Craig Pesek, project manager for the Town of Cicero, said the differing attributes from each village could combine into one cohesive plan for Roosevelt Road.
“We have a great opportunity here to do something that hasn’t been done in a long time,” said Pesek. “We have three municipalities working together to create one area that we can all share together, we can all appreciate together, something that would affect each community in a positive manner,” said Pesek.
Ald. Benedict Brocato of Berwyn also expressed a belief that the project holds historical significance.
“Tonight is an historic night for three communities, Berwyn, Cicero, and Oak Park, coming together for one common goal: to make Roosevelt Road a road that everybody would want to walk, and drive, and shop, and play,” he said.
Zafar Mawari, president of the Roosevelt Road Business Association, also commended the high level of participation between the three communities and the breadth of the plan’s reccomendations.
“I think this has been an extraordinary example of the cooperativeness between the business community and the municipalities, and it has resulted in a very robust set of recommendations for how we keep the momentum up with the plan. … I hope we can continue forward on the same path.”
The main gripe with the plan, first brought forward by Berwyn Ald. Robert Lorero, was the apparent sluggishness of it. He pointed to the high number of checkpoints that Requests for Proposals would have to go through before being put into action.
“The RFP process … it seems like it was a little long-winded. Is there some way for us to abbreviate that so we can get a little quicker action on some of these items?” said Lorero.
Former Village Trustee Galen Gockel spoke during a public feedback period and continued the discussion about expediency concerns with the process.
“My intuitions and my experience is that this is going to be a very slow process with the RRAC advisory,” he said. “Its recommendations must be chewed on and massaged by the individual boards. It’s going to be a lot like running through a pool of syrup, and the potential for slowdown is very, very substantial.”
Barbara Becker, Berwyn, demanded the completion date of the project, and didn’t like the uncertainty of the time frame . The Illinois Department of Transportation wouldn’t be able to get started on the project till 2010, and Becker speculated that things might not get done till 2012.
Oak Park Village President David Pope responded with a story about the mayor of his college town spending tons of money to repave the streets, only to tear them back up shortly after because the sewers needed improvements. Pope wanted to make sure that the same type of mistake was avoided with the Roosevelt project.
“This is a long-term fix that ultimately contributes to the quality of life for people on all sides of Roosevelt road and I think it’s the long-term fix that we’re really trying to implement here,” said Pope.
