An incredible amount of material has been shared, consumed, chewed on, spit out...
What have we learned?
Riverside Info » About Riverside
5,000 Posts, What Have We Learned?
(4 posts)-
Posted Tuesday May 15, 2007 07:17 #
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I've learned it's still us against our elected officials...
I've learned more people are like me and do not want TIF and rampant McMansion-like commercial development promoted around here.45 minutes ago I met a mom and kids at Turtle park- a newcomer family 6 months ago from Bucktown. She said they looked at Neperville, Glen Ellyn and otehr western suburbs but she said "Riverside is so different. Like it's been preserved for a hundred years." I certainly agreed, then found myself so shaking my head reeling from the TIF and development that we seem so close to having shoved down our throats.
Another mother (here 2 years from Lincoln Park) there with kids referenced having family in Hinsdale and that her four year old son (thus being famiiar with Hinsdale) said, "Mommy I wish we moved to Hinsdale so I could see all the dumptrucks and earth movers." I said, sounds like he's already on our village board!
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Refrain...
I said don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone—”
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot!They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot . . .They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.
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Big Yello Taxi
Artist: Joni MitchellPosted Tuesday May 15, 2007 12:16 # -
your anecdotes square with my experience,too. yes, I believe people come here for the green, the space, and the schools, the distintiveness, the differentness, the 'planned out look and feel' vs random sprawl. TOday I went to a seminar in naperville on warrenville rd. Wd you believe I got lost? All those same looking corporetums that seems to come out of the cornfields looked like they were put up one parcel at a time with sense of integrated connectedness, which we do have here in riverside, bless you, mr olmsted.
the cbd is a part of the connectedness with the curvilinear spaces outside the cbd so that the olmsted space is all of a piece and is pleasant to experience. I was thinking as I was going down that warrenville rd, that planners can learn something about design in RIverside. But hurry up before it is too late.
Another anecdote: someone who LEFT (and not a recent newcomer): Long time Riversider since '68 - he moved out to BurrRidge since he said he 'did not like what was happening in the downtown.' He was still coming to Riverside Garage since he trusts them.
Another anecdote: a young guy from oak park hated all the congestion and came here. he spoke at a couple of the board meetings. He called the cbd 'beautiful'. I believe, between the lines, that he was comparing it to the overdevelopment in OP on Lake st.
We can pretty quickly VISIT OP and Hinsdale, but we don't have to become like them.
If we can keep, and even improve upon, the small town, land that time forgot cachet, then we 'll get people to visit us, too. they 'll come in just enuf numbers to help support another restaurant or gift shop , I bet. also, they'll remember RIverside and tell others to come and visit or even better, to live and competitively bid on residences to keep up our EAV's.
Posted Wednesday May 16, 2007 00:27 # -
I said
seems to come out of the cornfields looked like they were put up one parcel at a time with sense of integrated connectedness,
I forgot the word NO; too fast typing; typing before a final plan comes out; imagine if we did a typo in the redevelopment of Riverside? It is really hard to unring the bell and put the water back in the bottle once out.
s/b:
they were put up one parcel at a time with no sense of integrated connectedness
.
also, for any new people, here is a link on the specialness of riverside
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=31&page&replies=21.
We all know Riverside is a special place. Let's try to maintain and cultivate this special place.
An assumption: Riverside is a very special place and in the Olmsted designed space already contains the kernal of that specialness. As Stuart Smalley said: we're good enough :)
Hey, We ain't Stuart Smalley either. I was being flip.
Let's:
*gather together and identify what IS Riverside, essentially: hammer out a vision statement. We have started this exercise already:
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=206&page&replies=11*hammer out an ROD: Riverside Oriented Development. Study and plan what would be the best alternatives for any Riverside redevelopement in light of the vision statement; use TOD and all the other plans and studies that were done in the past (1999, straka, etc) to get a syncretic synthesis of all the best plans of the past level set with what is going on today with the present devleopment.
*review our building ordinances to make sure they are in line with the vision statement; we should do this, not consultants;
*review our village expenditures and make sure they are in line with the vision statements; do not spend on things that are contrary to what we are as a village and where we want to go as a village; yes, fix water mains that are borken; but , no, do not replace with infrastructure that will support high density housing, for example.
On the other hand, IF high density housing is what an ROD would dictate, what we all want, then we should go after it. The workshops that were held during the pause and in the referundum just held confirmed that at least SOME of the TOD's vision was not desired by the Villagers.
The TOD, for example, said that we should have another 100 high density units in the CBD. The VC has 22 units. That would be around...
FIVE VC's in the CBD
Can we handle this? Is this what we want in Riverside? Or is this a typo?
5 VC's?
Posted Wednesday May 16, 2007 11:17 #
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