Peoria Standard

City of Batavia Committee of the Whole met Oct. 2.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

A Joint Meeting of the Batavia City Council – Committee of the Whole, Plan Commission, Historic Preservation, Active Transportation & Environmental Commissions October 2, 2024

Please Note: these minutes are not a word-for-word transcription of the statements made at the meeting, not intended to be a comprehensive review of all discussions. They are intended to make an official record of the actions taken by the Committee/City Council, and to include some description of discussion points as understood by the minute-taker. They may not reference some of the individual attended comments, nor the complete comments if referenced.

Drew Rackow got the meeting started at approximately 6:00 PM and introduced Trisha Parks Studio Lead with consultant Houseal Lavigne. Parks gave a PowerPoint presentation giving an overview of the plan process showing and describing 8 steps of the project. She said the goal is to identify the community’s desires and aspirations for the South River Street area in order to develop a plan to help guide reinvestment and strategies for implementation. Parks then went briefly through the steps. Parks noted the steps in order: Step 1 is a fact finding or due diligence period which includes getting to know the corridor and getting some initial feedback. Step 2 includes data collection, through surveys, map.social, stakeholder interviews and a business workshop. Step 3 is to craft a vision and determine goals with the understanding of where the corridor is today and what it should be like in the future. - Step 4 would refine the land use goals. Step 5 looks at actionable items and the next steps which will provide an action matrix and also includes potential financing. Step 6 is a gap analysis which includes a market assessment and recommendations for the financial feasibility of the project. Step 7 is the adoption process and Step 8 is a look at zoning. Parks then talked about further involvement where key touch points include the initial outreach meeting, a community open house on October 24, a presentation by Houseal Lavigne and a secondary open house later in the process. Approximately 42 officials went around the room and introduced themselves.

Parks introduced a 4 question workshop exercise to start gathering input. She noted that the purpose of the workshop was to understand the key issues, note which ones are the priorities, note key projects to focus on and what are the strengths of the current assets. A workshop questionnaire was handed out and the group took time to answer the 4 questions. Everyone then gave one of their top 5 responses to identify issues or concerns facing the corridor and the consultant wrote down each of the 28 issues or concerns on a large sheet of paper.

Next the members spent some time on the second question and chose their top 3 issues from the overall list while the consultant tallied them up. The top issue, which received 6 votes, is the cost of development. The second was a tie with 5 votes included: building & property maintenance, light industrial being unattractive, the appearance of the roadway and a lack of sense of place. Parks noted a common theme was appearance. Third place was also a tie and each received 4 votes and included: poor aesthetics, mixed jurisdiction, lack of active transit and traffic. Parks added that this exercise gives a sense of the topics that are most important from the group’s perspective.

The group then identified 3 specific projects or actions they would like undertaken in the corridor. Each official then had an opportunity to voice one of those three. Then, the primary strengths and assets of the corridor were mentioned out loud by the officials and the questionnaires were collected by the consultant.

Parks then gave some additional outreach opportunities noting the public website for general and specific information about the project. She mentioned that map social and a public survey are both available to make comments on the project. She reiterated the open house on October 24th between 6PM and 8PM and that there would be an opportunity to interact with workshop boards showing what the community wants to see. The meeting ended at 7:08PM

https://www.bataviail.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_10022024-2319