By Bob Seidenberg
Members of the city’s Preservation Commission raised concerns Tuesday about height and density changes proposed for the Chicago Avenue corridor, leaning toward dividing zoning on the street to blunt the impact on homes in the Lakeshore Historic District, which sits just behind it.
No final votes were taken. Boiled down, though, the commission’s perspective was “we don’t feel a 100-foot building adjacent to the Lakeshore Historic District is a good idea,” said commissioner John Jacobs during discussion.
Commissioners spent nearly two and half hours reviewing the city-initiated amendments to the zoning ordinance, which is part of the overarching Envision Evanston 2045 project.
The recommendations by the commission will inform potential revisions to the proposed zoning changes, said Cade Sterling, a city planner who staffs the commission.
Previously, the group sent a written statement to the city’s Land Use Commission addressing preservation-related components of Envision Evanston 2045, listing changes the commission would like to see.
The recommendations included the creation of an advisory review process for certain types of projects adjacent to landmarks outside of historic districts and within the National Register districts, which at present lack that protection.
Sterling estimated at the meeting that between 12 and 20 buildings within the Chicago Avenue corridor are eligible.
At the Jan. 21 session, the commission focused first on the portion of Chicago Avenue running between Lee and Dempster streets, as Sterling gave a virtual tour of the district on the overhead screen in the City Council chambers, stopping at certain sites.
- “Can Evanston still fulfill its desire for a greater density without changing the zoning line bit along this corridor?” Commissioner John Jacobs asked. “That’s something I want to know.”
- Commissioner Stuart Cohen observed that the idea of replacing the corridor’s present ample supply of surface parking and car lots for car dealerships “is per se — probably as a long goal — not a bad one.”
- “The thing I think that becomes immediately clear, is that this is not one zoning district — that the density on the east side of Chicago Avenue should be restricted so that apartment buildings are probably in scale with the apartment buildings that are currently [there] — which would be four or a maximum of five stories … whereas … on the west side, which is in large part frontage against the train tracks, you’ve gotten higher development,” he said.
- Commissioner Carl Klein asked commissioners to think about the changes in the context of the experience of residents who currently live along Hinman or Judson avenues to the east.
- Right now, for those living there, “there’s open sky. You can see the sky looking west,” he said. “And if we keep it relatively moderately high [the height limit], then it would maintain that character” while also allowing for development.
A 1916 New York zoning case as a possible guide
Commissioners also recommended changing setbacks on the east side of the street, recommending an increase from five to 15 feet along the alley, allowing a more gradual step down toward the Lakeshore Historic District.
There are precedents for such a move, offered Sarah M. Dreller, chair of the commission and an architectural historian. She cited a landmark resolution in a 1916 zoning case in New York, which divided streets from lots, allowing added height to a building for each foot it was set back from the street line.
“It creates an opportunity for bulk, but they have to step it back at specific intervals so that’s it’s all regular,” she said of such structures.
Although no final votes were taken, commissioners showed consensus in support of up to four stories as the appropriate building type for the east side of the street, which abuts the historic district, and seven stories for the west side, which bumps up against the tracks.
Main Street business district
With Sterling leading the virtual tour, commissioners also discussed the proposed zoning for Main Street between Custer Street and Maple Avenue, west of the tracks, where the current zoning permits a height of 45 feet with a floor-area ratio of 2.
A marked step up in height and bulk
The existing zoning in that area permits building heights between 40 and 45 feet, a floor-area ratio (FAR, a measure of the bulk of a project) between 1 and 2 and a rear yard setback of 15 feet, Sterling told commissioners.
The proposed changes would permit heights up to 100 feet, a FAR of 6 and a rear yard setback of five feet.
In Preserve 2040, the commission’s own long-range plan published in December 2022, the commission called on officials to explore form-based zoning overlays (which would prioritize looking at the appropriate form and scale of developments, rather than only the distinctions in development uses that are the focus of Envision Evanston) in areas of “significant redevelopment potential, adjacent to historic districts or where high concentrations of significant redevelopment potential adjacent to historic districts or where high concentrations of landmarks exist.”
A view of the sky
In discussion at the meeting, commissioners spoke in support of making a distinction between the east side of Chicago Avenue, which abuts the mostly single-family historic district, and the west side of the north-south street which runs up against the CTA tracks.
Developers will still have the ability to go through the planned development process if they want to build a building taller or with greater density than the zoning ordinance permits.
The proposed zoning, designated M2, calls for allowing heights of up to 65 feet and a FAR of 5, Sterling said. A similar change was proposed for the Davis Street business district, which was also reviewed at the session.
“Can we please not touch this block for five years? Because it’s been through so much,” said Klein, referring to the streetscape project in the area that extended years beyond its projected completion.
- Jacobs noted that the district “has a unique pedestrian quality to it that you don’t necessarily expect on Chicago Avenue, but you do sense on Main Street. And I think it would be tragic to have 65-foot buildings lining that road.”
The New York case came up in this discussion, too. Cohen said that a setback set at upper levels is fine. He warned, though, that “the minute you permit them [developers] to determine the setback, and suddenly you don’t have building faces aligned, then I think the pedestrian experience … and the quality of their vanity … is destroyed.”
- “If Main Street is suddenly all eight- or nine-story buildings,” he said, “then the character has been changed in a way that doesn’t make it a semi-urban shopping street as it currently is.”
- Commissioner Lesa Rizzolo noted the proposed increase in FAR from 2 to 5, allowing buildings of greater bulk, “which is huge,” she said.
- “Behind this is what … two-story houses, right?” She asked. She noted that residents had spoken in the public comment portion of the meeting to express concern about the size of buildings that would be allowed on Chicago Avenue. “We’re not hearing from these people,” she said of the Main Street changes, “but we have the same thing.”
- Commissioner Beth Bodan noted that one of the defining characteristics of the district is its contiguous roof lines.
- “You literally have these visual lines … they work at the street level, they work at the curb of the streets,” she said. “Losing those lines and that comfort that provides a pedestrian, the bike rider, even to the driver along that street, I think you’re really losing something there.”
Smith: Discussion too focused on creating ‘boxes’
Commissioners also voiced concerns about changes proposed for the lively business district that runs along Dempster Street from Elmwood Avenue to the alley west of Hinman Avenue; as well as the downtown business district that runs west of the tracks on Davis Street.
Commissioner Charles Smith raised questions about the status of the building that houses the Campagnola restaurant, located farther south of Main Street at 815 Chicago Ave.
In distinctive buildings like that, “I think we’re just getting away from that in this conversation about buildings and setbacks,” he said, “and that we’re allowing for boxes to be placed along the street. And the danger is that there’s no kind of design or vision applied to the process, just allowing the process.”
The commission is scheduled to continue its review at its February meeting, examining portions of downtown as well as Central Street and the Florence/Greenleaf area.
At their Jan. 13 meeting, council members pushed back their adoption of a new zoning code to the fall, after this spring’s election, responding to extensive testimony from residents calling for more public engagement.
