Politics & Government
Downtown Planning 'Kind of Like a Game Show'
About 80 Genevans come to the Public Works Department on Wednesday to find out more about the downtown plan—and to answer the $64,000 question: What do we want Geneva's downtown to become?
Who knew city planning could be so much fun?
About 80 Geneva residents cared more about the future development of Geneva's downtown than they did about Back to School Night at Geneva Community High School or Genevan Lexie Tomchek's debut on America's Next Top Model.
OK, maybe they don't have kids in high school or aren't themselves kids in high school. But they came to the Public Works building on South Street for good, smart conversation and they got it.
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The master of ceremonies for this affair was John Housal of Houseal Lavigne Associates, LLC. He is bright and articulate and knows his stuff. From the outset, he told the audience that tonight would be "a little like a game show," and it didn't take long to hear some answers.
"The whoe thing is, Geneva is unique, and we need to improve on what we've got, not change it," said Colin Campbell, a Sixth Street resident, after the meeting. "I think the process is very interesting. The way they gather statistics and were able to feed that back to the audience instantly was very valuable."
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Everyone in the audience received a clicker and a clipboard. The clicker was the gameshow-like device that collected the votes, ran the data through computer software, prioritized the items for discussion and projected graphics onto a screen for all to see.
It was a little like Jeopardy meets America's Next Top Model.
Who were the winners?
More people picked the Bears than the Cubs or Blackhawks as their favorite team.
And the No. 1 answer to the first question on priorities for the downtown was "improve pedestrian safety and mobility." It was followed closely by "improve State Street."
If new development would occur, what types would you like to see? No. 1 answer: Mixed use. No. 2: Entertainment. No. 3: Parks and open space.
"That's kind of tricky, " Housal said of that last item.
What's the biggest challenge to overcome? (1) Lack of entertainment options, and (2) the current business mix, but the voting was close among several choices. "People in this room are saying these are all the things that need to be addressed," Housal said.
"Let's imagine a big bag of money fell out of the sky and hit the mayor in the head," he proposed. "Let's go, what do we want to do?"
The downtown area under discussion extends from Stevens Street on north, past Seventh Street on the west, to the Kane County Government Center on the south and all the way to the east shoreline of the Fox River, Community Development Director Dick Untch told the audience.
Some of the discussion and conclusions from this meeting—the first of many conversations the city will conduct in coming weeks—will be displayed on the city's Web site.
In the end, what did Housal learn from the experience?
"It was nice to see people identify the history and character of the community as the items of most importance," he said. "And at the same time, I think everyone here was open to the idea of appropriate new development."
Mayor Kevin Burns went from a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Third Street to the Public Works building for the Wednesday-night game-show-like community dialogue.
"Our job really is to listen," he said. "It's exciting to see a lot of new faces here tonight, and that is invaluable."
