With urban sprawl continuing to threaten natural habitat across Cook County, Glenview lawmakers have updated the village’s 2008 “Plan For Nature” to include everything from ecological restoration to urban ecology recovery, officials said.
The Village Board, at its March 19, meeting voted unanimously in favor of a resolution approving updates to the 2008 “A Plan for Nature in Glenview.”
“The approach of the plan … includes a very extensive inventory of the village’s open space and habitat throughout the community,” Jeff Brady, Director of Community Development in Glenview told the village board at its March 19 meeting. “There’s a lot of improvements that have been made over the years and still more to come.
“This document provides a significant amount of support in the village’s efforts for going for local, state, and federal grants for the improvements for the naturalized areas,” he explained. “One thing that Glenview does take significant advantage of, is not as many communities are prepared to go ahead and do the natural environment work as Glenview.”
The two-part plan includes summary and technical sections, Brady explained. He said the “summary report” includes policy considerations and action plans, and provides an “overview of Glenview’s ecological history and a range of updated project and policy recommendations for natural areas.”
The technical report includes an inventory of 120 identified sites throughout the village and 39 “high priority” sites, Brady said. He said it also describes natural area restoration techniques, potential funding sources, and other information related to improving the Village’s natural habitat.
“It’s just interesting over the years to see how many improvements are being made through the community especially along the West Fork,” he said.
And for the third year, Glenview is organizing a “No Mow ’til Mother’s Day” initiative to support the local ecology, the habitats of pollinators and area wildlife.
“Through this initiative, Village residents are encouraged to skip mowing their lawn (or a portion of their lawn) and will be exempt from lawn mowing code enforcement through Mother’s Day on May 12,” the village website says. “Keep this program in mind as you begin to make your seasonal landscaping plans!”
The resolution passed by the village board on March 19 says: Whereas the Village intends to update a plan that creates a program to manage the natural areas and natural resources of the Village for the greatest public good in a manner that is both financially and programmatically sustainable while maintaining flexibility for future adaptive management. It goes on to say that the village desires to approve an updated plan that will serve as a guidebook towards establishing, protecting, maintaining, improving, and managing natural areas in the Village of Glenview and that the village has determined that it is in the public interest to approve the updated “A Plan for Nature” in Glenview to provide natural area and natural resources management guidance throughout the Village.
“As noted in the Village’s Comprehensive Plan, the moraines and streams form ecological corridors, which connect many of our natural resources. Corridors are a useful concept because they facilitate the protection of linear landscape features such as streams, and connect isolated fragments of habitat into larger cores or hubs of open space” according to a 331-page January report prepared by Hey and Associates, Inc.
“There was a big focus on the connectivity,” said Brady. “You have these hubs or corridors so the concept here is to link all of these so you have naturalized corridors.”
The connectivity of public and private natural areas was an important focus of this plan,” he added. “There’s a lot of opportunity on the smaller sides of things. You don’t need to have a multi-acre site to have an impact on the village’s natural resources.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
