Geneva's Top Strategic Goal: Develop Mill Race, Bottling Works Properties

The city of Geneva named its top seven strategic planning goals this week in an effort to begin the 2014-15 fiscal year budget process, and some of the top goals might surprise you.

Perhaps not so surprising is to get the former Mill Race Inn property developed in some way, shape or form. The iconic Geneva restaurant served its last dinner nearly three years go, with the anniversary coming up on Jan. 23. The property has remained vacant, and despite a price drop and some developer interest, has not been sold.

Within that No. 1 goal is also to encourage development of the former Geneva Bottling Works property at 302 N. River Lane.

Other top goals include taking a proactive role in the Settlers Hill development, "educating" residents on the benefits of home rule, developing a plan for affordable housing and annexing the Kane County Judicial Center. That last one was news to me.

The way it worked, Mayor Kevin Burns, members of the City Council, city department heads and Strategic Plan Advisory Committee Chairmen Mark Brault met for the annual Strategic Planning Workshop n Nov. 1 with the focus on updating the Strategic Plan for 2017.

Those folks were each given five votes for the top goals. The goals with the most votes, three to six in this case, were the tier 1 goals. Objectives with two votes were on the second level an those with 1 or fewer made the third level of priority.

Here are the top seven, which fit into that first tier:

(1) Encourage development of the former Geneva Bottling Works property, Geneva Dam projects, and encourage redevelopment of the Mill Race Restaurant property.  — 6 votes


(2) Continue to take a proactive role in the Settlers Hill development plans.  — 5 votes


(3) Educate and communicate to council and citizens the benefits of Home Rule and perhaps begin working towards its adoption.  — 4 votes

(4) Annex the County Judicial Center.  — 3 votes

(5) Develop a citizen’s academy to cultivate awareness of local government functions, ways of participating, and understanding of issues.  — 3 votes

(6) Develop a plan for the creation of affordable/attainable housing.  — 3 votes

(7) Establish and adopt a capital funding plan in next 24 months, so that infrastructure projects (repair, replacement, and new) can be scheduled, tracked, and monitored. 

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