When it comes to the proposed Five Thirty One Partners development at Madison and Ashland, our River Forest government keeps engaging in a process cloaked in an aura of impropriety and pretense — unlike anything I’ve seen in 50+ years as a professional city planner.
I and other professional planning colleagues are confused at how the village president and most of the village trustees – the ultimate deciders on the Madison Street proposal – can conduct a public relations campaign in which they show their support for the forthcoming development proposal in the village newsletter and website with FAQs that promote the development, and via letters and One Views in Wednesday Journal’s Viewpoints section. They’ve even used our tax dollars to hire a public relations firm to build support for the development. The PR campaign sends a clear signal to the Development Review Board that this proposal is to be approved.
The village president and trustees make the final decision on this proposed development. The village board – and Development Review Board – are supposed to arrive at a decision based on findings of fact derived solely from the evidence submitted in writing and at public hearings and whether the proposal complies with the village’s comprehensive plan. And if our elected officials are to live up to their word, they need to also assess compliance with the village’s affordable housing plan and age-friendly plan.
But they’ve already tipped their hands by conducting this PR campaign in favor of the development. The motions they’re going through are pure pretense since our village president and most of the village board have already signaled their support for Five Thirty One Partners’ development, whatever the ultimate details may be. All the open houses, including the one I attended, and requests for public input appear to have been for show.
I can understand the justification for secrecy if this were privately-owned land. But we the people own the land and were shut out of the selection process from Day One. We the property owners have no idea why the village president singularly rejected a 2024 proposal to build 15-18 unit forever affordable cottages for seniors to enable them to remain in the village they helped build. We the owners have no inkling of what other proposals were made. We the owners have no clue as to whether the outreach to potential developers sought the inclusion of affordable housing – something President Adduci promised would be done on a case-by-case basis when she summarily rejected adopting inclusionary zoning six years ago.
The village hasn’t even told us what Five Thirty-One Partners is paying for the land we own.
I’m not expressing an opinion on the merits of the specific development Five Thirty-One Partners has proposed so far.
What concerns me here is how can we possibly get a fair decision from the village president and village trustees when the majority of them are engaged in a public relations campaign to win the hearts and minds of the public to support this development, which was kept, in utmost secrecy, from the taxpayers who own the land?
That’s not the transparency all of our elected officials promised when they ran for office.
That’s not the sort of clean, good government the citizens of River Forest expect and deserve.
Instead, it’s a bundle of improprieties that cast doubt on the legitimacy of this entire process.
We deserve better.
A River Forest resident since 1987, Dan Lauber is a past president of the American Planning Association and twice of the American Institute of Certified Planners. His research on zoning procedure has been published by the Advisory Commission on Housing and Urban Growth of the American Bar Association.