Meeting of what is the future of our city.

Right.

We take the role, please.

Okay.

Mayor Darcy?

Here.

Councilman Cardinals.

Here.

Ms.

Bottomly.

Here.

Mr.

Doris.

Ms.

Bruenberg.

Here.

Ms.

Howard?

Here.

Mr.

Martin.

Not here yet.

Mr.

O'Hara.

Here.

Mr.

Parker is absent.

He had a death in the family.

Mr.

Pryor.

Mr.

Randich is joining us.

Oh, you can hear us.

Great.

We can hear you.

Joining us remotely if you're on the screen, Steve.

Be careful.

Temporarily living.

Mr.

Rico is absent.

He let me know he could not be here today.

Last minute.

Dr.

Rouse here.

Ms.

Viveros.

Ms.

Walker.

Here.

Mr.

Stunich?

Here.

Chairman Rolfe.

Here.

So what is it?

Like 35 degrees out here.

What is it in?

Wherever you are, Steve.

Oh, yeah.

You gotta meet yourself.

See, we have to teach him how to operate this thing.

It's uh it's about 74.

You've said enough for today.

Silence.

Okay.

With that.

We need to get tomorrow.

Approval of the minutes.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes?

So moved.

Second.

Motion may and second at any questions, comments, hearing none.

All right, with that, we'll do roll.

Mayor Darcy.

Hi.

Councilman Cardinus.

Ms.

Bottomly.

Yes.

Mr.

Doris?

Yes.

Ms.

Gruenberg.

Hi.

Ms.

Howard?

Yes.

Mr.

Martin, not here.

Mr.

O'Hara?

Here.

Mr.

Parker is not here.

Mr.

Pryor?

Yes.

Mr.

Randich.

Mr.

Rico is not here.

Dr.

Rouse.

Hi.

Ms.

Viveros.

Ms.

Walker.

Aye.

Mr.

Stunich.

Hi.

Chairman Rolfe.

Here.

Hi.

All right.

First on the agenda is citizens to be heard on agenda items.

We have no one here in the audience.

Which brings us to old business of which there is none, and then move on to new business.

And the first order of business is a status update on the topic area workshops.

Okay.

So we have had two so far, which was the housing and neighborhoods on December 8th, and then transportation and mobility was on December 9th.

We had pretty good attendance at the housing and neighborhoods one.

And um I'll ask those who attended that in a couple minutes to give some feedback.

So we numbers going forward.

We we have asked people if they are if they would like to pre-register, but they certainly don't have to pre-read to register to come to one of these workshops.

We have 20 people so far signed up for the infrastructure and utilities workshop, which will be this Thursday.

We have 14 so far for open space and natural resources environment, which is on the following Wednesday, the 14th.

And arts, culture, and heritage, which is the January 21st.

We have 18 people signed up.

So well, we'll talk about communication strategies right now.

So we have been promoting this to over 800 people who have who are signed up as part of either taking the survey or attended our community workshops.

So we have a list sort of a distribution list of 800 plus people that have been getting emails now about the workshops.

Um and we get an uptick on pre-registrations every time we send one of those out.

Um we also have been targeting just well, we've been sending out so that was a general one about all the workshops, then we also are sending out individualized ones about the specific topic area workshops.

So the ones that are coming up have those messages have gone out or starting to go out for open space and um the environment, they'll be the next to set.

We'll be sending out we have we are starting to have uh completed the individualized flyers.

I'm looking at you, Diana, because yours will be then the next one.

We have the open space and natural resources individualized invitation um done for Boise and one who are the co-leaders of that, but the other ones are are are forthcoming.

We'll be getting those to the leaders of those groups.

Um another update about the workshops is we have had a slight shift on the focus.

So originally the thought was that the workshops would be um really targeted towards topic matter experts and then open to the public with the commute with community coming.

Um we've shifted away from that and really just trying to get people in the community to come to the workshops, and for a couple of reasons.

Um is that we really haven't this is a touch point in the process for the community.

So if you think about it, the last time the community was really engaged in the project was through the survey and through the workshop that happened on September 17th.

So uh which is the time when we gathered what the community priorities were.

So now we are in phase three of this project, and these workshops offer an opportunity for people to be updated on where we are at in this process, and then two really dive deep into um topic areas that maybe may really feel a connection to.

And someone can come to all of them.

Um so we really want to encourage attendance to for people who really care about these topic uh areas.

And what we are asking people to do at the workshops is we are presenting the goals and objectives of these chapters, these topic areas that uh you were presented with at your December meeting, and I think hopefully you guys were all able to reaccess the document.

Um it is posted on the city's web page for this project at this point in time, so the community can look at that.

So we are asking people to engage with those goals and objectives for the topic areas, and we want to understand if we we if the objectives meet um you know what they think had they been they've been informed are the priorities from what they've told us and what we've gleaned from the existing conditions report to them.

We're asking people who come to identify if there's things that are missing that we should be exploring more.

Um and then the workshops are just another opportunity to start teasing out some strategies and recommendations to help us refine the develop to develop and refine a draft plan.

And then finally, um the workshops are an opportunity just for knowledge sharing both ways.

So we have uh city staff who are the topic matter experts for these topic areas at the meetings, as well as community members who maybe are topic matter experts, and it's it's a flow of information both ways.

Um we've heard positive feedback from people who've come so far that they've really enjoyed interfacing with some of our um staff on a more personal level by standing around a table looking at maps and being able to ask questions.

Um so with that, I'd like to open it up just to see how you have any questions about the process going forward with the topic area workshops, and then if you anyone would like to offer any feedback for those who've attended a workshop so far, maybe ahead of the topics themselves, the encouragement of pushing it out on whatever social media you use.

Just take take the list and send the list out with just uh a brief hey if you're interested in what the future of your city is going to be.

Pick the one that's most interesting to you and come.

I plan to go on WJOL Tuesday morning and push them and try to do a regular spot in subsequent weeks to kind of say we have 20 show up, we need 30.

Can you come?

Please come.

Um Saturday morning, I will be at Leda with Diana and her board at their board retreat to talk about uh what's going on with this committee and the plan and anybody that would like that to be done to a group anywhere.

But that communication is the is the key.

But if if we don't touch them beyond those couple of points, uh we'll continue to have 20.

It'd be great to have 50 show up at all of these, because that might be a significant number in the in the world of uh planning professionals.

Yeah, I I think 40 was a great number for the first workshop.

Um I think we could even have more at some of these, yeah.

Um with that too, so staff has a PowerPoint presentation available that uh we can share with you if you again have an opportunity would like to get in front of a group of people and talk about the project.

Um you can certainly make little tweaks to that, so that's something that um I can share with you when um between Jim and I we've been giving presentations to different interest groups throughout the city.

Well, I've been working with Jane on we've set up a special topic area piece to get the school districts involved.

So all the school districts that touch Joliet have been invited to a meeting this Friday morning.

Um we're meeting at the uh Joliet Township High School Districts Admin Center from 8 to 10.

Jane will be there to present the project, what we're working on and get their input in regards to maybe impacts and effects on schools with the housing in particular, workforce development, things of that nature.

Good, good.

So if you'd like to join us, Jim Friday morning, 8 to 10 at the uh 8 a.m.

Yeah, 8 a.m.

we're having breakfast, and then Jane's gonna talk.

So yeah.

The housing meeting was passionate.

Uh I was able to listen to the group that was back here.

Uh there was two groups, but I like the passion.

I think when people hit that button where they're passionate about, they'll be here.

And that was really bad.

And I like the way with the format, the way it uh it took the way we could interact, so that was a real good group, and uh hope we have same thing tomorrow night.

Yes.

Um yes, I meant to mention we've been using a platform called Mentimeter if you had that experience with it before, so it's a way to um we have these two massive monitors.

One of them was up here last time we had this meeting, and we're able to show a almost like a poll, and people can interact with their phones or any kind of device, and if they aren't able to use their um device to engage with this online platform, you we had note cards available too for people to hand write responses.

Uh but the fun thing about the platform is that it's anonymous, so you people we were hoping people would be more willing to share their input on the questions, the prompts that were on the screen, um, and then the questions that appear on the screen so that everyone can see them and then also further engage, and there was no limit on the amount of responses that someone could do.

Um then I have set up touch points with almost everyone here about the upcoming workshops.

Um I haven't done land use and development yet, but that'll be the next one we'll be touching base on.

But every workshop's been a little bit unique, um, which is fine with primary objectives the same, but the format may change slightly, especially depending on if we know that there's like 50 people coming, then we might need to even utilize different spaces in City Hall that um for those meetings if we have a large large showing.

But we're we're adaptable and um really happy we can use that the space on those evenings.

Anyone have anything else they would like to ask about or comment on about the workshops?

How does that summary then get baked into this project?

Yeah, good give that information to the consultant and her team.

Yep.

The nice thing about the platform tool that we're using is that it's a simple download of a PDF and an Excel document too.

So people chose to handwrite their information.

We can input it into the same um spreadsheet so that their feedback is there, and then we're giving all of that to the consultant.

Yes.

Are those meetings recorded like this or no?

No.

No, because we're moving around.

Um, you wouldn't be able to capture conversations and presentations.

Is there a is there a possibility of kind of picking up what Dr.

Rouse is doing with the superintendents to do something with the all of the township superintendents that are part of the city?

Because that could be something we look at, yeah.

They've been we've been sending personalized invitations to the township superintendents, so that they're not just getting a mass email, but um we could explore doing something more direct with them as a round table.

Maybe and we could I'm happy to call them individually if that if that would help because their input's gonna be very important because picking up on what Hugh has said on a number of occasions while they are in the city of Joliet, their township might go beyond, but roads that we might be working on or new roads that we want to create don't end at the city or township limits.

They so I think it's important to uh to do that, okay.

Maybe even the county board members who have Joliet as part of their district, we should meet with, not just talk to, but get face to face with them.

Okay.

Anything else?

Okay.

We're gonna hurry up.

Steve.

All right.

Next on the agenda is an update on community workshop number two.

So today is January 7th.

Uh we do have another meeting in between now and or sorry, yeah, now and then this workshops, which is slated for Thursday, February 26th.

It's going to start at 5 o'clock p.m.

It'll either run at 7 30 or 8.

We haven't figured out the ending time yet.

It will be at the Juliet Public Library Ottawa Street branch, and it'll be on the set in the second floor, Daniel Burnham room.

We are just starting to work through the roll-out of the uh marketing plan for that workshop.

We have a staff as a check-in with the consultant later this week, uh, but they do have a schedule of what they're intending to do and how they're gonna roll it out.

Um, they want to do something similar to the last workshop, um, contemplating some maybe mailers and um promotional materials that would mirror what was done before.

I will be reaching out to the advisory committee again to think about staffing that workshop.

I know you'll all want to be there anyways, but um to help out to the welcome um table.

So we'll be doing that.

Um so okay, what are we doing at this workshop?

So one of the main focuses of the workshop is to introduce sub-areas that'll be further explored in this process, and this is actually a third agenda item for today, which we'll talk about.

So that'll be a workshop, one of the main workshop purposes is to look at these sub-areas, identify opportunities for improvement and integration of the community priorities into the sub-areas.

The project and outcome of the workshop would be feedback on these sub-areas, um, and then the which will help the consultant team further refine design concept plans, and then think about how those concept plans for these sub-areas can be applied to other similar type areas in the city.

So that would be one main objective of the workshop uh purpose of the workshop, and the other one that they're still we're still refining because we're trying to tease out again what we're gleaning from the topic area workshops and what how we can keep moving moving this project forward, building on what we've learned.

So that would be the other focus of the workshop is uh building on the information we have from the topic area workshops and with the goals objectives, and then starting with draft recommendations.

Um questions about workshop number two at this point in time.

Then Elaine, I know you brought up before we are still working on what the online engagement component will be, and I don't have an answer right this moment, but by February, we better have an answer.

All right, and then moving on.

All right, sub-areas.

So this project, our our contract with our consultant has always included looking at four sub areas, up to four sub areas of the city for further scrutiny and design and actual design look.

And I wanted to go over these with you and start eliciting a feedback that will further help the consultant team, especially as this is a focus area for the upcoming workshop.

So the first sub-area is the Lewis Juliet ball area.

A goal of why well, a goal of looking at this sub-area would be to re-evaluate the land uses in this area.

What I mean by that is it's zone B2, which is the same zoning as our downtown Juliet Central Business District.

So pretty much anything that goes here has to always get a variance or variation of use because the zoning doesn't necessarily match the land use or what should be the land uses for this area.

So we are we want to take a complete relook at the mall area through this process and ask the public what they would like to see here.

What would be a takeaway from the workshop is having little pins that people could put on this and say what would you like to see here?

What is what do any questions or comments about the Joliet Mall?

Yes.

Yep.

One question I'd have is how many acres total area?

I don't know off the top of my head.

Okay.

Ray, do you know?

I don't, but I can do a quick calc on that.

Sorry, Ray, we'll do a quick calc.

Good question.

And then the second question how do you get any metrics from the mall owners as to their thoughts or how viable is that mall right now?

Is it is it good?

Is it okay?

What's it the occupancy?

Yeah, occupancy.

Paulina knows occupancy of the mall.

Uh maybe last year it was about 90% occupancies.

It's it's always been consistently between in the 90s now with this new owner.

Not sure where it's gonna fall, but you'd be surprised on how high that number is when you get inside the mall.

Right.

So that's kind of a misnomer, right?

Yeah, just the middle of the mall.

Yeah.

It's not Carson and Sears, and so there's there's a lot of aggregate.

And the Yankee Candle shop just announced our closing.

Oh, they did.

Yes.

I just want you to know I know stuff.

He's on double deck clearance sale.

Everyone's gonna be smiling muffins.

I could just remember the uh old Chicago mall.

Some of the people here might remember that.

Some are too young.

Oh, yeah.

But they never had any anchor tenants.

No.

And it was a it was pretty much a flop within a couple years of opening.

Um that a little bit.

Yeah, I know it's a while ago, but I think you need the either the anchors or housing use.

Or housing.

We've tried to talk to the guy that bought the Sears property because it's three acres more than Fox Valley, and they put a thousand units there.

But he's not ready to do it again.

Little hiccup years ago that totally could do it.

Then it couldn't do it.

So we did a thousand at Fox Valley.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thousand and two units on three acres less.

I think they're 14 acres.

This is 17 acres.

If you've ever been up there, it's a really really good use for that property.

And hopefully we can find a way to create a plan for him to do that.

You know, the cost of money's up, the cost of construction is up.

So I think there are federal incentives for converting underutilized commercial space into residential, though, that was passed in.

I want to say 2022.

I'll look into that for you.

That should be a priority this year is trying to find a path.

That would really light up that whole area.

Absolutely.

Yes, yeah.

And then we would catch up to neighborhood.

We beat them again.

They're only ahead of us by 800 people.

There you go.

I just want to read Scott Worley.

I mean, I know.

Here you go.

But it would be such a great use of that property.

I I talk to him every once in a while.

He's actually in the car business, so he and I know each other.

Small fraternity.

The states made that a little harder though on those developments because now they want it's required that every unit have every parking space you put for residential has to be EV ready.

And I know one of the other towns has about 900 uh a development coming in that's got something like 900 parking spaces.

And the developers saying that's an additional 13 million in costs.

Yeah.

So it's just like it's another yeah.

Another one.

Every parking spot has to be UB ready.

If you if you're doing uh residential developments, if you're building single family, you gotta put uh a line in the garage.

Uh which okay, fine, like the cost of that is probably not terrible.

But if you're doing multifamily or you're doing apartments, you've gotta put those in now and gotta be ready for it.

And so the costs of that are just astronomical.

So another thing that kills development.

Yes, it does.

We we talk a lot to multi-family developers on this issue, and I will say there's still a lack of clarity on what ready means.

Um livening it would cost a lot more than just running conduit, and it seems to be being decided at the municipal level at this point, but either way, it's a deterrent.

It is we need to go after that legislatively because in my business, yeah.

We're we're everybody's walking away from solid EB.

The percentage of sales on that's gonna be I I drive them, I get it.

But the percentage of the automobiles are gonna be EV are not growing, they're gonna start shrinking again.

Because that was federally mandated, you know.

They gave away 7500 to buy one while that's all gone.

And the incentives aren't there, but the cost of the vehicles are up.

So in my industry, um like Toyota's not going heavy after it, GM's starting to back away from it.

So I I could see where you might have a 15 or 20 percent need, and we're gonna have to talk to our friends at the uh state level to get that kind of changed because to do 100% is ridiculous.

Right.

To your point, Mayor, uh today's Wall Street Journal had an article about the EV market share Ford's latest results out of five four hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand vehicles produced in the third fourth quarter.

Fifteen thousand, yeah, were electric.

They quit building the Ford F-150 lightning.

They said it's not working anymore because the cost of them are so high.

So maybe we can take that back to our legislative partners.

There's room for pragmatism there.

That that legislation was not pragmatic.

Yeah, I think one of ours was a chief co-sponsor on that.

One of our representors.

Somebody's got to change their mind and figure that out.

Okay.

That person being the Senate.

Yeah, one good guess, right?

Um any any other comments you'd like to share at this time about the sub-area number one, which is the Lewis Juliet Mall area.

Will we provide options or will it just be kind of like a free flow conversation?

It's a good question.

I don't know yep.

What do you mean by options?

Could you clarify?

Yeah.

So um if it's a housing opportunity, if it's multi-use, if it's mixed use, if it's like providing um options for residents to choose from, or if they'll just say, well, we like the mall option, and we just want to see.

I would guess that we're gonna want to dive more into details, so probably the even more specific.

Would it be beneficial to plant the seed of what we've seen in York building in Fox Valley by having maybe a picture of what it looks like with residential, then rather just having putting the pins in.

Have a picture.

This is what they've done in other areas.

And then would you consider uh what you think that work and joli at?

Because I really believe just from my um I think that's gonna be sacred.

But that's I think residential in that area has to happen.

I really do.

Uh we've seen it happen in other places.

I think it has to happen there.

And and this is a bad comment, but I gotta say it because I can sleep tonight.

This is funny comment.

You have to worry about electric cars and all that new oil we give them for Venezuela.

I don't need that.

I thought I heard that oil was specifically for diesel.

We can't really find it.

It's splits.

Not that we can't use that, right?

Right.

Gene, uh about 130 acres for that site.

130?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

And still five property owners, right?

The middle and each of the four anchors.

Is that correct?

That I don't know, but I can look that up.

Yeah.

Does the movie theater?

Yeah, still five.

I don't know that the movie theater owns its own.

That would be a sixth.

I don't I don't know.

But you're talking about more than just the wall area, correct?

It's that whole you did the whole the whole thing.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm talking just the mall at the five.

Many more with the other.

So could we put the number of acres on the legend at the top of each area just so that we have to do that?

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Because I think that's that is helpful.

Yeah.

This is the you know, the first you guys are the first look at this, so um, this is just preliminary information at this point in time.

So all things we're gonna help tease out, so comments like this are good.

Anything else about the mall area?

I'd like to add I think you know, not just for this sub-area, but yeah, specifically for this one.

Since we are identifying these as our key areas that we're gonna look at that we're asking for public comment at.

Um my big request would be that there's a an invite, something in the mail, an email, uh personal has reached out to people that own property in all of these areas.

I think that to me, I imagine like frankly, I live next door to the mall.

If I live in one of these units, I I would want to know, you know, maybe it's easy to say, like, oh, there's a comprehensive plan.

I don't know what that is, I'm not really that engaged in it.

But when you find out, oh, there's going to be a standalone meeting to talk about potential development at this 130-acre part area just north of my house.

Yep, I care about that.

I think that's a great touch plan, another reason to get people involved and engaged.

Um, maybe even signage that's out in that area, like what do you envision this to be?

Okay.

And the outliers, all of this that's highlighted is for consideration, or just the mall area.

Everything it's in here, this this could, you know, this is flexible.

Okay.

Um this is the area right now.

Ray, correct me if I'm this is all the B2.

Correct.

Correct, yeah.

Okay.

B2 is the zoning designation for this area.

Whereas if you go across Plainfield Road slash Route 30, it transitions to B3.

Okay.

Yeah.

That would be helpful.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think we'd also be helpful with the other um like on the side or something, like a zoomed out map of like Joliet.

Where they are.

Okay.

Good idea.

Right.

The next one is the bridge road corridor, which is on the far west side, uh, between Sheeton Farm Road and Black Road.

This corridor contains a mixture of B3 General Business, R1, which is single-family residential R3, which is one and two family residential zoning designations.

The 2004 Kendall County sub-area comprehensive planified this area on their future land use map for community commercial land uses.

So up and down this corridor.

So uh the thought of including this as a as a sub-area is that you know, we've got 20 years now later.

Um, it's it is time we think for a reevaluation of this corridor.

Most of this is again zoned for business.

Um, so taking a fresh look at this corridor, um, also exploring the possibility for what types of housing units would go here or could go here um through the lens of the community members that surround this area.

Could we do a uh kind of a bubble map over this at some point to understand?

Let's just say in a one or two mile radius, the the population of that area, and then beyond that, how much more housing is this gonna absorb?

Because I know there's uh 400 units going in right now a little west of that, and just to try and understand, you know, if we turn that all back into residential, is there a need down the road for a pocket of um commercial?

We just want to make sure we don't build a bunch of houses and make them drive four miles to get to commercial or two.

Because the traffic out there is going to be something we need to look at, obviously, as well.

But just to kind of get an idea, what's this thing gonna look like on a certain radius?

Yep.

And how big will the population be?

Because that that's pretty dense out there.

Yep.

Okay.

Not dissimilar to kind of what happened along Weber Road.

Um there's there's an argument to be made that you know, beyond that, you know, cut this in half, if you will, that's in higher des higher density residential helps support it, you know, commercial development and population growth out there.

But this is ridiculous a corridor worth protecting at least along the front edge for commercial.

Um that's that's a major throughput.

And as Plainfield continues to grow and expand to the west, um ridge traffic is gonna continue to grow.

Um, and that's like it's just at some point the commercial needs a place to go out there.

How far is that from the edge of Minooka, which is growing pretty quickly too?

Black road to Minucca, one mile, let's call it two miles as far as north-south goes, and then another mile west, plus you mean to the air change.

And Joliet will be at the center of that, right?

It is theoretically, yeah.

Um, I don't know if Minucka canoka can't get through Joliet to the north, like eventually Minooka short and job into each other out there, but um yeah, you're just a few miles from Minoka Minooka's development is north into Kendall, it kind of stops at Wilde Road, um, which is one it's only two miles south of black, actually, right?

Mile to 50 no three.

Now the dial mile to 52 mile to black.

But yeah, it's not far away.

I kind of look at this as the north end of Route 59 to north side of Plainfield.

That they used to be Wheatland Plains, and I remember somebody saying to me one day, that's gonna be 50,000 people in like a way.

He's gonna move out to the farm.

But it's it's really a dense area with with now a lot of grown-in commercial, and I I think to your point, Doug, we we gotta make sure that we understand that corridor is strong, and that ridge road was improved for high volume.

Yeah, yeah.

And it'll move people north and south very well.

So again, just trying to get an idea of the density of a that area because it could be safe for commercial.

Well, and saving some of it for commercial is gonna help because the costs of that growth is we need something to pay for it, you know.

Like the residential is not gonna pay for that growth, it's not gonna pay for police fire, public works, employees, everything else that so I reserving a good chunks of it for commercial is important.

We're just trying to figure that out, aren't we?

I don't know the boundaries for well right here.

Just to send you the article, suburbs are a bouncy scheme.

Like there's not anything with the urban three standards.

We have yeah, so Doug was just asking about boundary agreements.

We do have a boundary agreement with Plainfield.

It's it's it's um pretty close to I think what this demarcation is.

Um, so it's not it's maybe a mile north at most.

Um our boundary agreement with Plainfield is recent.

So we just I think approved it two years ago or so.

Um we are we have boundary agreements with Oswego, Shorewood, Manooka.

Those are going to be expiring in the next uh two to five years, six years, I think maybe for one of them shorewood.

Um yeah, yes.

Um other comments about this area.

Okay, all right.

The third one is looking at a legacy east side industrial area.

This sub-area which is Henderson Avenue on the west, Jackson Street on the north, railroad row on the east, and Cass Street on the south.

This sub-area contains a variety of zoning designations and somewhat incompatible land uses.

So you have former manufacturing or current manufacturing and even now current trucking operations along with flea market.

And residents, people live there.

So the goal with having this be a sub-area focus area is to explore reinvestment, revitalization opportunities and potential redevelopment opportunities in the realm of how if and how land uses could be made more compatible with each other through again reinvestment design opportunities in the future and looking at the regulatory framework that would support that happening.

It is Henderson Avenue on the west, Jackson Street on the north.

Okay, railroad, the railroad corridor on the east, and then Cass Street on the south.

Any comments about this area?

Have you gotten any idea from like there's quite a bit of like commercial industrial landowners?

Like have you gotten any feedback or does anyone know like what's going on there right now?

Um, we haven't reached out to anyone yet.

Um one of the areas though has just transitioned that went through a special use permit um process a couple years ago.

So we we have in touch with those property owners, which would be Page Avenue, Maple.

Is that trucking?

That that development is anything else that trucking one that we just did a I think vacation, right?

Yeah.

Street vacation.

Is there a reason that we don't have this sub-area going south all the way down to the railroad tracks down there?

Like here.

Uh yeah, you mean the Rock Island line?

Yeah.

The reason at this point in time, the reason would be just um for focus is to really keep it tight because it's it's gonna be doing design, so that would be a cost and a chain of looks.

These boundaries are I would say aren't necessarily hard and fat right now.

So it's just to me when I like take a look at it at a larger scale.

Yep.

To me, the like it's more than a map the block south of Cass with kind of the mix of use that we're having in the currently identified sub-area.

Yeah.

Um, and then I I guess another comment to that is there's a there's several areas in this area that where these land uses, mix of land uses is occurring.

So we thought this would be a good tight area that the concepts that would be emerging and the strategies from this area could then maybe do be applied if you did another sub-area south.

Um like Henderson Avenue on both sides as you have housing on one side, this would be south of Cass.

Yeah, and then you have industrial, um, and then there's certain uh pockets along Collins Street and other areas.

So the thought would be we pick one, and then that could be replicated for concepts that regulatory framework.

Yeah, I think that makes sense then.

So disregard.

Well, that's a good question because that applies also to the Ridge Road Corridor and um and others too.

We're really hoping that these sub-areas, the concepts that emerge from that as well as regulatory ideas can be applicable in other spots as well.

I think that as we work through this and as we have our next committee meeting, and that should be expressed as well, right?

Recognizing that, hey, look, like this combination exists elsewhere.

We're looking here as an example as a starting point.

So I think that way people aren't like, oh, why isn't extended out to here?

Why isn't my neighborhood in this, or like I live in something similar?

Yeah.

I I can speak about this in general.

Obviously, this isn't unique to Joliet.

Uh a lot of communities have this mixed use challenge.

Um getting out of it is a terribly expensive proposition.

And it is the reality is that when it comes to industrial properties, they would industrial properties there's a lot of value because uh an entity can cheaply operate a business out of there.

Um and the cost to move to a new facility is taking in a lot of cases, and it would discourage these companies from moving, and a lot of these are your legacy businesses who have been in town for decades.

Okay.

Um the idea of you know, making this all industrial is probably not all that appealing because you bump into residential uh all around it, and you run run into essentially the same problem.

So theoretically, you'd like to have vision toward you know tidying up some of the old industrial as prod properties come offline.

It doesn't matter what vehicle you utilize to do that.

It requires long-term land acquisition that is incredibly expensive and frankly usually a little bit higher than the risk profile for than most municipalities are willing to take on.

Um these are tough, tough challenges that you have to bite at incrementally over decades.

Um but I'd like the idea of trying to set vision for these and think about how to approach them.

Um but I think it's important to say you're not alone in this, particularly for communities that have railroad going through them.

I can I can find one in every town in Northeastern OH.

Have you seen it done right in certain places that serve as a model or um I've had a lot of people ask me if I can find a couple million bucks to move their business out into a newer building, and um the spoiler on that is that couple million bucks is always hard to come by.

Um but it is could we find 50,000 for new fencing or you can start to mitigate impacts.

Um the truth is that's probably the only plausible even medium-term solution.

The size of these, I agree.

I moved a steel factory once, built a new one, and then created the development.

Like it can be done if it pencils, like there's a series of ifs.

So you almost need that company to be in expansion mode where they kind of have to.

Yeah, because if they can keep operating out of the old one, they're going to.

And that's when you can work to acquire and you can be creative about you know, putting different incentives in place to help offset the cost of the property and acquisition, but like just it's it's one by one by one.

Yeah, there's a lot of ways.

Now, directly to the north is that the existing Canadian National Yes.

Okay.

And how how would that affect?

I mean, I don't see as much traffic out of there.

Are they still running strong?

Um, I I don't have a response right now, yeah.

My expectation is that when they construct the project in Shanahan utilization of this site goes down.

I can tell you I drive this a lot, and I live that direction, and I I come that way into town, and um traffic is diminished there relative to what it was right now.

I don't know if that's uh an ongoing strategy though.

Okay.

Yeah, it's very comments about this as a sub-area.

Right, then the sub-area number four is Chicago Street and then McDonough Street corridors, so just on the um east side of the displays river, and then on the west side of the UP and the NSF railroad tracks.

Um to the city.

Um we are interested in in re-evaluating this as a entry corridor and and also as a um corridor for people with their lived experiences.

Um people live in this area, it's close to the downtown.

We want to reevaluate this through multiple different lenses, so not just beautification, but um how we can encourage um quality better quality of life in this area, um, engage people with um you know, connecting them to the downtown and to other parts of the city.

Um there's also potential zoning mismatch in this area, and again, looking at this from a reinvestment and revitalization standpoint.

What why on this one are we including the the jail, the pace facility, like we know those aren't going anywhere, they're not getting redeveloped.

The city owns that or I think you own now from the county that pace bus barn.

Leased it, what yeah.

I mean, those that whole half the whole top half of this isn't going anywhere.

Sure.

Yeah, I had the same thoughts.

Um, but I at this point we were just we just had it shown for the consultant to look at just in case they had that some other different vision, but um I I had the same reaction as you.

Yeah, why are we spending money on an area where half of it's never gonna change?

I guess the one I guess the one thought I had why this would be we would still have the consultant look at that area is is the connection of this of the areas south of there that is that would be in the focus area into the downtown.

So we've talked um about is there is there a way to have a shared use path or or better connection with our trail system from our trails that terminate in different parts of the downtown um further south, so that would be the only thing I can think of that would yeah.

If it was because it my only thought was if there's a financial concern on why can't we expand the other lot?

Yeah, could we tighten this up and spend a little more money somewhere else?

Yeah.

Okay.

I think looking north of that, the ETOD study pretty much covered that other area as well as choice neighborhoods looking at that area.

So we we do have some overlap just to the north of that.

Yep.

And this is a main corridor into our community.

We really need to focus on that.

I don't disagree.

I'm just asking the question.

Is it included just because you can't avoid it?

This is one of the reasons why we're bringing it to you is to get feedback just like this.

I think if you don't include it, then you might overlook it for some reason, and it's important to remember that that is there, it's not moving, and you need to take into consideration for any feature plans.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jane, I would only add, you know, if you reduce this by half to because I I agree.

I was gonna ask that same question.

Half of this is not going to change.

I understand the entryway you want to bring people in to have a beautiful, give them the right perception of Joliet.

But one area that wasn't mentioned on the east side is that U.S.

steel 50 acre and that 30 acres immediately, or I hope it's 38.

Is it ETOD looking at that?

Oh, okay.

I thought the ETOD was done.

Yeah, the ETOD is not the same.

The choice neighborhood.

Pardon?

The choice neighborhood one I think comes to that one.

Um, I don't even know if U.S.

steels in that.

Um when I look at this, this doesn't bring in the uh the new bridge at Route 80 and some of the areas around there that are gonna need to be repurposed with the state.

Would we want to expand this picture a little bit?

I it's not in there, I don't think, is it south of McDonough Street um is is being looked at right now through the interstate 80 displays of the state.

So that's kind of focused.

We so we thought this would be a good bridge to building on that plan for this as a sub-area, but that doesn't mean again the findings from that plan will emanate into the study of this area.

I'm gonna touch on U.S.

Steel real quick.

We're working with U.S.

Steel, all the buildings are down.

They have an intermediary company in the acronym as IDA, I'm not sure what that means.

Industrial development advantage.

So what they do is they go around the country and they work with U.S.

Steel and other sites and other companies that have these brown field issues, and they they figure out what can be done there, what remediation is needed if you were to restart everything and how much would that be.

So right now we're in that process.

I think they're pretty close to completing that.

And then they they do a mitigation with US steel where they indemnify U.S.

steel based on certain criteria, and then they indemnify the end user based on the same thing as long as you follow the remediation criteria that's laid out.

So we're working right now to figure out what what do we have and what can we use that canvas for?

And I I would agree that's great.

Um I think you know I'm a little bit involved with with US deal on some work we do there.

But that property, I think it's like 39 32 or 39 acres immediately south, and then you have a lot of vacant land immediately to the east of their interspersed housing, but again, that's a major corridor coming into Jolia from Logport.

And we get a lot of business from that area at our coming in.

And I don't think we should forget about that.

Uh one big parcel, US steel and that parcel below offers a lot more than just a 50-acre.

We've also met with the owner of that parcel below that 38 acres.

I think it's quite well taken.

Uh I don't want to speak for Jane or the consultant, but we can certainly ask what the uh marginal cost is to add another sub-area, uh, or if it would be worthwhile to spread them that thin.

Uh but I think that uh it is a point well taken that that's a significant parcel uh of developable opportunity uh that isn't gateway from the board.

Uh that isn't gateway from the north.

That's one of those things where we need to work with Lockport to that's a that's a major corridor.

That whole Solid Street corridor is major.

And um, I guess I'm gonna throw it back out there because I said it during the election, I'd like to see that become a center for that part of our community.

We're looking at the sports score there, which I talked about, and people think I'm crazy, but first we have to make sure can we do what can we do out there and how much can we go on the ground, where can we, and then that's just one idea.

I mean, so we're in the process right now.

We've been working well with U.S.

steel for the last couple years.

They've taken all the buildings down, so they made it safe again, and and it's speed of government.

We're getting there.

Well, as a government employee, I'm gonna push back gently and say it's the speed of uh international business on this one.

That's true.

And then U.S.

Steel wanted to sell the IDA, they could sell the IDA, but they don't want to sell at the price that IDA says they need to sell at to complete the remediation as they've determined, right?

I'm I'm innocent on this one.

The part of the problem was that they were they were being corded by Nippon Steel to be bought out, so that locked US steel from any real engagement of conversation, and then when the federal government changed and Nippon could buy them now they have a course with a new owner that they they can make decisions with.

And they did not change the head of real estate.

So the good thing is the dialogue continues with the same person at US Steel, and and so we are moving forward with what we can do.

But that is a real important piece of property for our community, and we want to make sure we do the right thing.

We get one chance at it.

And we have talked to the owner of the 30 acres contiguous to the south.

So we're we're looking at that as an 80-acre piece.

That makes that just makes sense, a bigger parcel.

If I can just make a plug here, um CED still has its US EPA brown field assessment grant.

Um that corridor was one of the corridors that we specifically attempted to target.

Um we have money for phase one and phase two environmental remediation on sites.

So as you're doing these sub-area looks, if you run into sites where it's like, hey, um, we need a little bit of help here, um, please reach out.

Um we have consultants working that that know a lot more than me in terms of like what EPA will ultimately approve.

But look, if it's an eligible site, you can get through phase one and phase two and go back and apply for cleanup money.

So like let's use federal dollars wherever we can.

Um we've had a hard time getting folks to come along on some of those.

Um I think you probably know the owners better than we do.

So by all means, if there's opportunity, please let us know.

I I would just add to that.

U.S.

steel has spent the past 20 years solely cleaning up the site.

I don't know that the neighboring property has done anything with that.

And that was the nail mill.

There's a lot of there are a lot more chemicals associated with the other side, the the how do I want to say it, the other property?

Um just from the way they process steel and the way they coded steel.

So there are a lot more chemicals that could be in.

I don't know, and maybe you know, have they done any?

So that could be something that the city looks at where where's the neighboring property as to remediation.

We can call that owner and ask him do we have any phase one, phase two on that to understand what we're getting into in redevelopment there?

And if federal money is available for assisting with that.

We'll talk to the owner first.

Would that be the best path, Doug?

I I mean it talking to the owner first is always the best path.

And and make no mistake, if you still own the property at the U.S.

steel, if you still own the property and you're the one that made the mess, feds aren't funding you for that, right?

It's it's about subsequent property owners and like some of the challenges they're facing.

But yeah.

I don't think we want to redo batteries there, do we?

Not if you're not selling electric cars.

All right, any other comments on the sub-area four.

So do we want to so we leave that space like it is, we don't want to modify it?

I think the point's been well taken.

I mean, we'll think we're all of them know that we would suggest modifying it, but that doesn't mean they can't still you know I guess indicate or show things that can how this area connects to the downtown.

I think it can be done without whopping that up.

That does make sense.

Yeah.

So really it just stops realistically just before you get to the Osgood, yeah.

That'll probably be the best.

Yeah.

So interestingly, Urban Three might kind of give us some some bubble maps on like population sizes and places like that that we can work from to take a look at that stretch of Chicago Street for redevelopment.

Is that part of what they're gonna do with us?

What Urban Three will do, uh they're less uh a parcel by parcel analysis, but rather they they they do that analysis, but they do that analysis as a function of uh the entire land use of the city, right?

So if you take a look at you know however tens of thousands of taxable area there is in the city of Julian, let's call it 40,000.

They'll say uh of that X amount is single family residential, and it's uh corresponding land use value is Y.

And they can look at you know the Louis Juliet Mall and say this produces uh X amount of value per acre per year based on assessed value and sales tax.

Uh that's useful when you think, and their work is useful when you think about what land what underlying land use you want and what kind of end uses you want to achieve a financial goal.

In terms of vision and planning, you know that that dovetails because you know what the community wants, that's fine.

That there's a you could want a, but you should also know that A will produce a corresponding value.

And now that you know that corresponding value, do you still want a or does that change your preference?

You know what I mean?

So that's a long way around the barn of saying Urban Three touches that, it will influence and certainly inform the work that uh staff and then council will consider, but on a parcel by parcel, what should this be?

I mean, you could look at the end result of Urban Three and say, well, that informs how I conceptualize what I want there, but it's not gonna run like uh a cost benefit on a particular use on a particular parcel.

And their timeline is what another 60 days or so.

Uh we're gonna uh look to see a presentation to council uh late first quarter, early second quarter.

Yeah, that's our goal, that's my expectation.

Thanks.

All right, any other comments on the topic areas for this one's.

I was just gonna ask if our guest on the big screen had any comments on what we've been talking about.

No, sir, Jim.

I'm I'm gonna follow along just fine.

Just wanted to double check.

I thank you.

I didn't think you were asleep.

I just wanted to double check.

Okay.

Next on the agenda staff reports.

I don't have anything this time.

Um other projects that we're working on kind of since December have had a lull.

We've been doing more just staff and consultant touch-ins, but um, nothing big to share at this point for the other major land use projects.

So with that, we can move to member comments.

Do you have anything you want to share?

Um, yes, I would like to share.

Um the chamber is partnering with the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, and we are gonna be a regional host for the Civics B.

Um, it's for sixth through eighth graders.

And it could be a homeschooled student from a charter school or in one of our school districts.

Um they submit an essay.

Um that's the first round.

And what I am in need of are 10 judges that would um score the essays in that first round.

We will narrow it down to three.

The judges narrow it down to three, and those three students go to Springfield, and then they compete with all of the Illinois school districts, and they go to Washington for the final competition one goes to Washington.

One goes to Washington.

This past year, which was about a month ago, they had the final in Washington.

Um and we had a plan, it wasn't we weren't a host last year, but um a plain field student made it to Washington.

So 6th through 8th.

Um but it would require between one and three hours, depending on how many essays we receive.

The goal is to have 50, but it's our first year.

Um 20 is a really good number.

So you would be reading 20 essays.

And the question they need to answer is what in general, um, is there a problem or a need in your community, and how would you address it or fix it?

So um I was gonna reach out to several of you personally, but um it would be very helpful if this group we had a few um judges.

And it's all yeah, obviously online.

Any questions?

So the um February 4th is the deadline for these essays um to be turned in.

And it's pretty easy.

It's the U.S.

Chamber Foundation Civic Spee, if you want to look it up.

Um, but it's pretty exciting.

I know Teresa's encouraging it in her school district.

Well, it's interesting because even after you score them and somebody is a winner.

I think the essays would be interesting to find out what younger people think.

Sure.

And see if there's anything in there that can be a part of looking to the future.

You want to harvest their ideas, it's good.

I'm for that.

And if you have any time, you could look at the final competition in Washington, and it's just amazing to see these young students.

And how they can I ask you to maybe circulate the link to do that?

Absolutely.

That may that way Doug can and anybody else that has time will be.

And if you know of someone you think would be a great judge.

Oh, that's cool.

That's interesting.

Yeah, they you know they want it to be as big as a spelling bee, the national spelling bee at some point.

That'd be cool.

And how many words are in each essay?

Oh, I've heard classic 255-paragraph essay type thing.

Yeah.

I mean, I I haven't gone into the nitty-gritty of the essay.

They um, I mean, it's all online, they've got great information.

We could overnight them to Florida.

Yeah, right.

It's all virtual.

He could do it.

Just want to keep you engaged.

I'm not picking.

Are you looking for are you looking for an invite or what?

I have an announcement.

SEL Community Development Services, we have rolled out our home remodel and repair program, and we are assisting um a minimum of 20 homeowners to uh repair their homes.

Uh our grants are 1,000 to 3,000 dollars, and so we are looking for individuals who would qualify.

They do have to be low to moderate income.

So uh we have rolled that out and we are currently accepting applications.

So if there's anyone at your school, at your churches that you know might benefit from this, please have them uh visit our website.

It's SEO Community Development Services.

When do the application when does the application period end?

Uh right now we don't have a deadline for it to end because we want to utilize all of the funds that we have.

Right.

So I'm telling the realtors about it tomorrow.

Okay.

If you all aren't busy, uh Sunday, January the 18th.

Um, if you've been in Juliet for a while, many of you remember the old uh Martin Luther King celebration that Dr.

Isa Singleton and uh and Operation Push used to do.

Uh we are rebooting that up this year.

It'll be Sunday, uh the 18th of January, 6 o'clock PM at Mount Olive Church.

Um it's co-sponsored by National Hookup of Black Women, the Rainbow Bush Coalition Joliet chapter, NAACP Joliet chapter, Lebanon Baptist District Association of Joliet and Vicinity, the Alliance for Civic Engagement, and who was the last sponsor, I cannot remember.

Um I lost track that quick.

But yeah, Sunday, the uh 18th of January, 6 o'clock at Mount Olive.

Our guest speaker will be uh the Reverend Dr.

Charlie Dates, who passed your Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, and he also passes Progressive Baptist Church.

Um Congresswoman Lauren Underwood will be a guest speaker as well.

So invite you all to come today.

Can I make one comment on the planned document stuff you sent out?

Yes.

Uh can we get pictures from other parts of Joliet in there?

Like we talk about how we want to unify the city.

Yeah.

And I was mentioning to Jim.

If you look at the pictures and all the stuff we put out, Joliet's only about five blocks long.

Yep.

Be good to include the rest of the town.

Yeah.

Okay.

I heard that from another committee member, so that I have, I guess, one announcement.

Um, just our another government partner of ours, Julie Township High School Districts, they're doing their state of the district address.

This was on January 29th.

Um, it's in the early evening.

I think it's I don't know what school it's at this year, might be central, but any case, um, encourage people to go if they haven't gone already.

Um they have, I believe, a pre-registration on their website for that.

So learning about the district um's priorities for the upcoming school year.

Is it Julia West?

It's a Juliet West this year.

Okay, starts at five.

Thank you.

What was the date again?

January 29th.

We're gonna talk about schools.

Um the application period is open for the internship program, high school internship program, which both Joliet, you know, public high schools and JCA students are eligible to apply.

Go to the CED's website, grab something like 150 positions this year available for high school students.

Uh and we've Kayla told me this morning where we crossed a hundred applications already over the Christmas break.

So like kids are starting to apply.

Um, so yeah, if you have high school kids in your life, send them to our website, apply for jobs.

Okay.

Also, if you have kiddos, that new scholarship, the um Silver Cost Healthy Community Community Scholarship Commission, scholarship, sorry, um, is out.

So the deadline's coming up January 15th.

So please tell kiddos to apply at high school.

Also, get your flu shots.

Um, I got sick like uh three weeks ago, and I'm still lingering with a cough.

So please get your flu shots.

Don't get the sickness.

It's really bad.

I very much appreciate it.

Well, I thought all the input this morning was good.

I think the sub-area discussion particularly was good.

And look forward to those modifications being made and looking forward to the meetings that are coming up on the different focus areas, and then the second community workshop.

And I would just again encourage everybody to promote them within whatever area of influence you might have.

I think would be helpful to do so because you know all that input is very important, and we really don't want to miss anything as we're as we're driving this thing home, so to speak.

So thank you for your efforts.

Amen.

Anyone else?

Next on the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Fog from the pulpit.

And a second.

All those in favor of adjourning.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Meetings adjourned.