Politics & Government
City Council Quick Story: Community Garden Gets Go-Ahead; Next Up Is Open Talk on Historic Preservation
The City Council votes unanimously for a community garden, a heavy duty rescue pumper, a cultural arts assessment and Manchester Alley Rehab. But next week's Committee of the Whole might be a place for some fireworks over historic preservation.
The City Council said "yes" to a lot of important agenda items Monday night.
- The council voted unanimously to purchase for the Fire Department—a long-delayed purchase for $541,127.
- It declared five as surplus property and will sell them on e-Bay.
- It approved the use of city rights-of-way for sidewalk sales Aug. 5-7.
- The council accepted the , which in effect suggests that no new cultural-arts building is likely to get funded in Geneva in the near future.
- The city will annex a piece of the Prairie Green Forest Preserve District so that the Geneva Park District can offer community garden plots there in the spring, and it OK'd the purchase and license agreement for the garden plots.
The meeting was quick, efficient and without any controversy.
Next week's meeting—maybe not so much.
Find out what's happening in Genevawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
At the Committee of the Whole meeting on Aug. 8, the council will open up discussion on the Historic Preservation Ordinance. Mayor Kevin Burns said the presentation will be a "review and tutorial" that outlines some of the key elements of the ordinance.
One of those elements is a "non-consent clause," which basically says the city can designate any building within the historic district as historically significant.
Find out what's happening in Genevawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
And that might be the rub.
Residents who lobbied against the creation of a have concerns about the city's non-consent clause and likely will attend the COW meeting to suggest an ordinance amendment.
On Monday, May 23, the council agreed that it would not pursue the creation of a historic district in the area of South Batavia Avenue (Route 31) south of the Geneva Metra station. About 50 residents of the area showed up to protest, some saying that they didn't want government telling property owners what they could or could not do with their homes.
At the time, 11-year resident Jeff James was the most blunt.
“Please remove a level of beurocracy and stay out of my business,” he said.
Burns said the only time he can recall the city designating a building as historic was several years ago, when it gave that distinction to Riverbank Laboratories, 1512 Batavia Ave. Riverbank Labs was once part of the estate of Col. George Fabyan, the place where a team of top minds decoded and deciphered enemy messages during World War I.
It is "considered to be a direct lineal predecessor of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency," according to the city of Geneva website.
