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1. MikeT
   Member

   why is camiros back in our town?

   VILLAGE OF RIVERSIDE
   AGENDA
   RIVERSIDE PLAN COMMISSION

   Tuesday, September 4, 2007
   7:30 p.m.
   Riverside Township Hall, Room 22

   A G E N D A
   1. Call to Order

   2. Roll Call
   Chairperson
   David Lesniak

   Commission Members
   William Cooney Jodi Arvis
   Paul Sterner Paul Kucera
   Doug Pollock Kenneth Kaval

   3. Approval of Minutes:
   A. Approval of the Minutes of the Public Hearing on July 19, 2007.
   B. Approval of the Minutes of the Special Plan Commission Meeting on
   August 1, 2007.
   C. Approval of the Minutes of the Regular Plan Meeting on August 7,
   2007

   4. Visitors, Petitions,
   Citizen Requests, and Communication
   A. None

   5. Business Signs
   A. None

   6. Old Business
   A. Site Plan Clarification-Village Center Sidewalk Pavement
   B. Text Amendment request by Mr. Wanner
   C. B-1 District Revisions (Camiros Memo)
   D. Site Plan Review-Starbucks (See Bob�s memo)
   E. Preservation Process/Plan Role
   F. Centennial Plaza(no action at this time)

   7. New Business
   A. Camiros Memo regarding Towers
   B. Parking Study of Central Business District.
   C. Dr. Orland , 21 N. Delaplaine new construction of dental office.

   September 4, 2007
   Plan Commission page 2

   8. Information
   A. Executed B-1 Ordinance-Note: This will be changed (wrong diagram
   adopted).
   B. Meeting Notices for 9/11
   C. Zoning Variation for a 4 car garage (218 Herrick)

   9. Adjournment

   Posted Monday Sep 3, 2007 22:35 #

2. Catherine
   Member

   I see mention of a revision to the B-1 [CBD] zoning ordinance. Either it is to correct the B-1 map footnoted in paragraph 8, or it could be anything. To allow a PUD there or anywhere would require an ordinance.

   What can their memo about "the Towers" say, I wonder.

   Posted Tuesday Sep 4, 2007 13:01 #

3. spatny
   Member

   Chairperson Lesniak was not in attendance, so not everything was discussed. Unfortunately the rump commission voted to recommend a text change to the Village Code that will - for the first time - allow sidewalks to be made of anything other than exposed aggregate concrete. The VC developers will be allowed to to use pavers and edge them with smooth, tooled concrete, just like all those wonderful and world famous places like Schaumburg and Arlington Heights use. In other words the Commission that originally approved the site plan and design for that ugly, oversize warehouse in the first place have gone and bent over for the developers again and will now give the Village Manager what she wants - the ability to fundamentally change and "update" the look of downside Ribverside from the bottom up. I guess that's why she gets the big bucks.

   The VC and its immediate environs will now be the prototypical new look for Riverside, which the developer described as "highly finished", and that look will now extend right out to the curb. Of course, this "new look" will be carried over into the Centennial Park re-do, except there they seem to have gotten their wires crossed and - at last look at least - have the paving they are attempting to slap into the reduced park itself done in our standard exposed aggregate concrete and are specifying pavers - of some other type presumeably since vehicles as big as trucks and fire engines will roll over them continually - for part of Pine and all of East Avenue - no doubt surrounded by more of those ugly, white "tooled" concrete curbs they are slapping in all over town every time they do a road repair. Those ugly replacements for our unique, unobtrusive and time-tested stone gutters now demarcate with brutal clarity the road boundaries that Olmsted masked so well. Well they are making progress in changing Riverside if what you want to do is destroy the look and feel of what once made our little Village so unique. The baby is going out with the bathwater.

   Of course the Board will snap to and approve this change, and future developments will be pushed to go along with this new look, you can be sure. Now the CBD will start to be completely divorced from the look of residential Riverside by having large, oversize buildings crammed onto their lots with pavement changes to sidewalks and streets. I thought all this was soundly rejected at the TOD workshops? I must have been dreaming. This Board (and it''s participating commissions and supporters like the realtors) will have elevated itself right up there into that exclusive pantheon of memorable Tiverside over-achievers lke the ones that allowed Arnold Skow to cut up the Coonley Estate and approved the destruction of the Babson House and Estate. Oh woe is us. We slept while they fiddled, and Riverside is going up in flames, or maybe down in pavers.

   Keep your eyes peeled, TIF may have gone under water but I think it has mated with PUD (Planned Unit Development) and their progeny will be popiing up soon. Hope the schools will have room for them.

   Posted Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 09:02 #

4. spatny
   Member

   Almost forgot: Next week, fittingly on 9/11, the subject of a "new" tower and of course an accompanying kettle of other fish will go before this Board, presumeably with Cahir Lesniak back in attendance and rarin' to go. Since the VC already has exceeded the height limit allowed for the site with its elevator enclosure on the roof, and the gables slip in under some Chinese Camiros code frmulation, we shall get something ten feet taller "we can all be proud of" pasted up there with all the other shingle over plywood geegaws they've given us. It's a done deal. Like Cole Porter said in the lyric, "The faint aroma of performing seals" wafts across town, and it ain't from the flood.

   Posted Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 09:09 #

5. Catherine
   Member

   Thanks for going to all these ghastly meetings and keeping us posted, Spatny. Doesn't the Preservation Commission have or could they take any say or sway over preserving the look of the town? There's little point to sapphires and diamonds if they are set in a QVC plastic ring.

   Posted Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 12:45 #

6. spatny
   Member

   Putting "pavers" in Riverside signals the end of 130+ years of historical continuity. This ghastly crap will pop up everywhere. Look for a street planter coming to a curb near you.

   Posted Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 15:33 #

7. MikeT
   Member

   Would the pavers be the modern looking light colored pavers I see in so many suburban walk ways, or the older fashioned looking thick red brick cross angled affairs that I see at our train station?

   Posted Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 15:53 #

8. spatny
   Member

   Darker mottled color of the cheaper kind. Nothing like the real brick at the train station. The pavers for the streets around Centennial will be something else again, and have to have the traffic lines and warnings painted on them. Both are totally inappropriate. This is Florida cum shopping center materials and design. It is a very real denigration of something that is real, not kitsch. It is what one would expect from the people that design, develop and approve things like the VC.

   Posted Wednesday Sep 5, 2007 21:23 #

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