After working for a year on a new comprehensive plan for the village, La Grange is close to implementing the measure it put together with Teska Associates, an Evanston-based landscape firm specializing in community planning and urban design.
But that doesn’t mean all elements of the plan have been agreed upon.
Trustees at a recent Village Board meeting put off discussion about allowing five-story buildings beyond the village’s downtown area, and trustees had concerns about the plan fostering an overly homogenous look to La Grange.
“We want to be careful when we put out examples of templates and overlays for what we ask for buildings to look like,” Trustee Beth Augustine said.
Augustine pointed to the design standards requiring “compatibility with adjacent, nearby buildings … compatibility of materials and colors on the building … and compatibility of architectural elements on the building.”
“When you look up and down, for example, La Grange Road or Harris or Burlington or Hillgrove, you don’t see this uniform, everything the same color, same type of roofline building. What I don’t want to see us turn into this kind of beige, template community,” she said. “I want to make sure we are very thoughtful to not create something that we are not. We want to have high standards for construction, we have an aesthetic eye and we have a commission for that, but I don’t want to put too many examples in place, because we’ll get too many of those and that’s not what La Grange looks like or feels like.”
Trustee Glenn Thompson, echoed her sentiments.
“We’re an old town and we don’t have consistent colors, I don’t think we should have consistent colors. That’s not what old, main streets used to look like,” he said. “I would like to see compatibility of materials, but not necessarily colors. I don’t want all of downtown to look like the corner of La Grange and Ogden.”
Teska consultant Michael Blue sought to ease fears that any aspects of the proposed plan were set in stone.
“This is not meant to be the definitive list, it’s meant to be an example,” he said.
Thompson also noted the rising real estate prices and talked about changing demographics — including declining public school enrollments in La Grange — and how it might affect affordable housing.
“From when this study was first put out, our median income is up $124,000 to $144,000, our population has actually slightly gone down,” he said. “So we’re seeing a younger population with less kids moving in, but we’re also seeing a more affluent base. We have to address affordable housing in this town. I think it’s important that we look at the stats. We’re a fast-growing, fast economic, high society town, but is that really what La Grange is based on?”
While discussion of building heights was put off until the next Board meeting, it was still a concern of at least one resident.
John Pluto indicated that the idea of allowing 5-story buildings on La Grange Road south of 47th Street to Plainfield Road was a bad idea.
“I think it’s a mistake for our village to do that in that particular area,” he said.
Pluto noted that the already significant area flooding could be made worse, saying “if we’re going to do some future planning, we’ve got to do planning on fixing our infrastructure before we go hog wild with increasing densities in the village.”
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.