Good morning, everyone.

Today is March 4th, 2026, and I call the Planning Building Zoning and Environment Committee to order.

In addition to being able to attend in person, remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom at the link on the agenda.

This meeting is being recorded through Zoom.

Per county rules and the open meetings act, attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons as long as the majority of committee members are physically present.

We have been notified in advance by member Kenizhnik that she requested to participate electronically due to a medical reason.

A physical quorum is present.

So they so Sarah may be marked as present and is eligible to vote on matters before the committee today.

As a reminder to members attending remotely, please ensure your camera is on at all times.

Okay.

So Member Frank, can you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I believe it's the flag and the Republic for which it stands.

Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Chair Altenberg.

Here.

Member Campos?

Here.

Member Frank?

Here.

Member Kinesnik.

Here.

Vice Chair Peterson.

Present.

Member Schlick?

Here.

Member Wasick.

Thank you.

Is there any addenda to the agenda?

No addenda to the agenda.

Do we have any public comment?

No public comment today.

No chairs remarks today.

Any unfinished business?

No unfinished business.

Okay.

New business.

Can I get a motion for the consent agenda?

Motion by Member Campos.

Second by Member Schlick.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to the regular agenda 8.2.

We have a resolution adopting a program design for Lake County Business Program.

And we welcome our sustainability programs manager, Robin Grooms.

Good morning.

Good morning, everybody.

Robin Halgram now.

Robin Holgram, yes.

Robin Holgram, sustainability programs manager.

Yes, today I'm bringing back the final design for the Lake County Green Business Program.

This is a program that's gonna recognize local businesses that have sustainable features in their facilities and equipment, sustainable procedures and practices conducted by their employees, and have future planning efforts to increase sustainability in their operations through a free online verification tool and an internal review by staff.

In January, staff recommended a program design, and the committee provided direction to proceed with the development of the program.

So at this time, we're seeking to adopt the program through the resolution provided today.

And if passed uh by the Lake County Board, the online application tool will be live on our sustainability page.

And uh an initial outreach push by staff will be conducted to begin seeking applicants.

Once a business is certified, there will be a scheduled recognition ceremony and a branding toolkit provided to the recipients to promote their achievements.

And I highly encourage each of the board members to consider local businesses uh within their districts who might be interested in applying.

You can always pass their contact information along to me as a nomination, and I'm happy to reach out to them and uh encourage them to participate in the program.

Okay.

Can I get a motion in a second?

Motion by member Frank, second by member camp.

Okay.

So does anybody have questions?

Member Wasick.

Reduce the carbon and waste footprint of businesses in general.

Yeah, so the general goals are helping our businesses save like save electricity bills, right?

And have those have these sustainability features, decrease their waste, increase their energy efficiency, decrease their emissions, and recognize them for all sorts of all sorts of green practices, including landscaping, water use, wildlife protection, all sorts of different topics.

And I know we don't have the specific resources to do audits and things like that, but how would we somehow do some very um tacit uh verifications of what they say they're doing?

Right.

So once uh a business goes online and they apply there's like a big list of different check boxes in different topics, right?

So it might be underwater transportation waste, all these different topics.

And for some of them we uh are going to ask for additional artifacts for verification.

So that might be let's say they say we have some EV chargers out in our lot that we use for employee vehicles it might be please provide a uh photo of the of the chargers or um if you're paying for renewable energy certificates to offset some costs can you send us an invoice for those to some some sort of verification if it's maybe some basic employee practices we uh can accept those um without additional audits but there are some processes ready to go to uh do additional verification and sort of a devil's advocate question what if a business claims that it's doing all these things and they really aren't is there any sort of provision for us to review it or to say you know you know can you submit more documentation?

How would that process work?

So if somebody were to come up later and say hey I don't think this business was entirely truthful um after they were verified they will have to sign they will have to say to us at the end of their application I certify that everything that written is true and if not this reward can be rescinded.

Okay so it's pretty much the honors system.

For for some things yes.

Okay thank you.

Okay member Frank Thank you chair uh Robin I love all the elements on here but I'm suggesting that you maybe think about including an asterisk on the hosting awarded business as a county board meetings with a resolution just because um we do have a lot of business and a lot of resolutions that happen at those meetings and the county administrator and the board chair uh work very hard to manage the time uh and the time commitment from county administration and the board members and the public and I think it might not always be possible to honor that commitment.

So I think we would just want to note that like hey this is something that may happen not guaranteed.

I just think we don't want to overcommit on that space on that page.

Absolutely and if uh if I can pull it up I believe the resolution says that they will have a ceremony where they will be given a certificate with a chance for like shaking a hand with the current Lake County board chair that may or may not take place at a county board meeting.

Is that is that how it's written on there the point on the agenda says county board meetings.

Oh okay okay I think the resolution itself just says there will be a recognition ceremony so there might be some flexibility there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Member Schlick Thank you chair and uh similar question to member Frank so I appreciate him asking that I think you know maybe their own ceremony if you get enough people may be something more suffice.

The only other thing is I'd love to see once you get this role and just what the branding kit looks like you know what type of logo it's on there I think it should be you know pretty ironclad that hey we're we're not endorsing you by any stretch we're just certifying that you are you know you are committed to sustainability and all these things that we've laid out so just you know I'm comfortable passing a resolution today I'm comfortable passing it at a board meeting but in the future when you get this role and just what that branding kit would look like, you know what we can expect to you know show res show our you know business leaders hey this is what you can kind of put in some of your you know your advertisement that hey you're a certified sustainability you know committed company so just something for the future and some I'd love to see you know when it's gets up and rolling.

Thank you.

So I had a couple questions.

So we're basically saying we're you know we're we're rolling out there that if you're looking for to work with a business that is sustainable that's a more green business these are the these are some businesses to consider.

We will not be hosting a list of the awardees on our website it will be up to that business to be able to have their own promotion and say hey we have been recognized as a lake county green business okay that was a recommendation that came from the previous committee meeting.

Okay and would that give them a leg up maybe you would know this uh with like our purchasing are we would we be more in favor of a green business or what what is our thought on that so for purchasing vendors have to meet the qualifications of the bid or the RFP right and if that's part of the requirements absolutely we always want to work with local businesses same thing with the RFP.

Because there may be some businesses who apply for the award but don't want to show for the recognition.

That's true too.

Okay.

Chair Hart.

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you to Robin for your research on this for what other um uh counties have done.

So I think it is is it Sacramento County?

Yep.

So that's sort of what we were kind of looking at it from.

But I know Robin and her uh previous positions has worked on some of these recognition projects as well.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

Uh look, I just think it's um there are businesses out there that care about how they are treating the land.

They are um, you know, using cisterns and and capturing stormwater and they're planting natives and they're working really hard to be great stewards of our environment.

And um, you know, this might be something small or it might be something big to them, but I I think given uh sort of the values of this board that it makes sense for us to recognize those businesses.

So anyway, just wanted to say thank you.

Member Wassett.

That we find a way to integrate it into our newsletters and in our general communications.

I'm sure you've already thought this through, but yes, especially during that initial push after uh if it gets passed at the board level, we want to do a press release, we want to and have have that branding ready to go figure it out right away.

Uh, so a business can apply once they hear the news.

And just one last question.

Have we reached out to our partners at uh the Lake County Municipal League to say, okay, you know, we'd like to have you know join us in this effort, or how are we kind of working with them if we are?

That has not uh happened yet.

I think after this meeting, that would be a great next step to be ready uh in advance of the board meeting.

Thank you.

So I do think this also goes along with our strategic plan of focusing on you know sustainability and all the different things that we're focused on, and you know, this aligns with our philosophies.

So it's it's very good.

Um other questions from members.

Okay, all in favor.

Sorry, hi.

All right, hi Robin.

I want I want to say thank you very, very much.

You're you're racking it, you're doing so many great things and um in your department, and we're very grateful.

We're really moving our agendas forward.

It's great very much.

Thank you.

Okay.

Let's go to 8.3.

And this is a joint resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation of 155,159 in fees associated with the filing of the Meadow View Material Transfer Facility local siting application by waste management.

And um Walter Willis was not able to be here.

We are gonna have Ruth Ann talk about it.

Let me get a motion first.

Motion by member Schlick, second by member Wasick.

Okay, Ruth Ann.

Excellent.

Thank you, Rethane Hall, assistant county administrator.

Um back in May of 2024, waste management actually came to this committee and they provide an overview of their intent to cite material transfer station adjacent to the county, the countryside landfill.

It's in Grays Lake, Illinois.

Um, and as part of that, we the board approved a host agreement at their meeting in January of 2025.

That sets forth how the application moves forward.

Um, one of part of that um host agreement is that it stipulates in section 14 that waste management pays for the expense for the pre-filing review as well as the um anything after the application is submitted in our preparation for the public hearing.

Um, and with that, we receive these filing fees from waste management.

150,000 is for the filing fee, and then there was uh an additional five thousand one hundred and fifty-nine dollars in reimbursement for legal fees for the pre-filing fee.

So we need to emergency appropriate that so we can make all of the payments for the expenses that are gonna come now with the review and the public hearing for this.

Um according to the ordinance, Lake County sets the date and time for the public hearing.

So we have set the date and time for the public hearing.

We're gonna have it at the university center of Lake County, and the public hearing is gonna be conducted on Monday, May 18th, 2026.

I'll be sending this information out to the whole board following this meeting.

The public hearing will start from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

Uh, it'll continue in that evening from 6 to 9 p.m.

Should we need to have any continuance?

We've set aside time on the 19th through the 21st, and any future times for the continuance will be set at the close of the first day of the by the hearing officer, and we'll make that available on our county website.

Um it's in our ordinance is that county staff and the county consultants shall not discuss the application or the review thereof, nor submit any reports or recommendations to the county board chairperson, the county board member, or the state's attorney.

Um, and so with that we have to remain um you kind of are like the jurors of this.

So there's no discussing of the application.

If you have questions about the procedure of the public hearing, we have Karen Fox, and I will request that you direct all questions to her in the state's attorney's office.

Okay, okay.

Member Wasick.

Thank you.

Uh, since this facility is going in across the street from where I live, I have a few questions right in the middle of my district.

Um so I'm kind of curious why this is an emergency appropriation since this was proposed like two years ago.

Well, this is actually more of a budget question for Patrice.

We did not receive the funds as part um and and plan for in our revenue.

So Patrice.

This is just an administrative action to um appropriate the revenue.

We can't spend the money unless we appropriate it and we wouldn't want to appropriate the expense without appropriating the revenue.

So we waited until we got the revenue from um the petitioner.

And now that we've received that revenue, we're just having you appropriate it so that staff can go ahead and spend the money for the proceedings.

And it's obvious that's the appropriation.

Okay, I understand the nomenclature, but so let me let me uh understand this better.

So waste management is basically paying the 100,000 fee.

And then we're just like sort of covering our expenses with that revenue.

Correct.

That's the filing fee.

They are required to pay under the ordinance the county has in place, and that is what will be used then, yes, to offset all the costs.

Okay, because they're asking us to do this.

Right.

So we are spending time and energy and resources.

We're gonna hear this, we're reviewing it.

So yes, they're paying for it.

So are they also covering the legal fees?

And we're looking at um $45,000 worth of legal fees.

I mean, for the for the county staff, yes, for the review of the application, yes.

Okay.

We have an we have an attorney outside of Karen is handling the public hearing.

The internal staff review, we have hired a attorney.

Well, and I represent the board for purposes of this, which is why Ruth Ann too said if you've got any questions, come directly to me.

Um, because I will be the one helping you with that.

I will be representing the board at the hearing.

I can ask your questions.

You can be there, you don't have to be there.

So uh, but I will be, for lack of a better word, your mouthpiece in some regards.

If you have questions but you can't attend, I can go ahead and ask those questions at the at the uh hearing on your behalf.

Okay, so I'm intuiting that the only thing that we could really say about this right now is is the date and the place and the time, all right?

Correct.

Okay, that's fine.

And university center is charging six grand to run its space.

It's charging waste management.

Always grand.

Okay.

And we had to reserve the space for the entire week.

They'll only charge us for what we use.

If it only goes one day, okay.

Only goes one day.

If we have money left over, or um, we'll give an accounting of that.

If we need additional money, waste management is required to pay for that as well.

And and I know this is a very dense legal document with a lot of technical language in it.

And Walter kind of gave me a sample of it long time ago, but uh, will we have a chance to review some of it or all of it, or how does this work?

You'll be getting copies.

Yes, the application is available.

I'll be sending you information.

The application is available on our website.

Um we also have hard copies and we have many a flash drive if you want a flash drive.

I'll take a flash drive.

We have 20 of them, so happy to and Karen explain to me the process of the hearing.

So I know it'll be presented as the proposal that we've seen already, pretty much.

But how is the public comment part work?

Is it like one of our meetings?

How are the comments registered?

If people have objections to it, how does how does that go into the We've got applications in fact, some of which I still have to address, but we have forms they need to fill out that will be accessible on the county's website.

Um there'll be paper copies with the county clerk.

So if somebody were to come to view the record in person, uh they've they're gonna have forms there for them that they can fill out.

They're gonna be able to have a form for anybody who will be officially appearing in order to object.

And there's certain requirements and information we are going to want to have so we can provide that to the hearing officer so he knows how many individuals that might be.

Um they need to work, they need to provide us with their attorney's name or their attorney is going to be filling out those objection forms and indicating the appearance on behalf of any objectors.

There's also going to be a separate form for individuals who would like to make public comment.

There's a number of different options they have for public comment.

They can either come to the meeting, they can do it in writing.

Um, I don't know if we were going to do it via if there's going to be any sort of video access or anything like that.

But um, they have a number of different options to make public comment in connection with the actual application versus also some public comment if they wish, just in general, at the meeting itself, too, just like we do to any other public comment.

Okay.

Because it's basically an open meeting.

And let's say there are um certain residents who object to aspects of this plan and and they file their objections through either the public comment or uh a form.

What happens to it then?

It becomes part of the record.

And then if there's I mean, what would change the outcome?

I d honestly don't know.

That's up to all, that's up to the hearing officer to weigh based on the evidence that's going to be presented.

And then the hearing officer is going to come before the board and present his decision and his recommendations, and you all are going to have to decide if there's sufficient evidence to go forward with it or not.

And who will that hearing officer be?

I assume some independent third party.

It is, yes.

Yes.

And we've already contacted him.

Um, his name is John McCarthy.

He has done other of these sorts of citing hearings for many, many years.

So he's very familiar with the entire process.

Okay.

And when can we tell the public when this hearing is going to occur?

It's already so it's or it's going to be published soon.

We have it available on our website.

It is per the ordinance, it's the requirement of waste management to provide the public notice for this.

They have two options two times that they have to provide the public notice.

We have provided them for the ordinance, the information on when the public hearing is.

And they've already um put published notice of the application itself.

Um, and then yes, I believe they have to publish notice of this hearing in the same fashion.

So they will be doing that soon because I know we did just send that notice out.

Yeah, I've seen the the notice of the application.

I just need to know one last question, Karen.

Um can we put this in our newsletters?

You know, the next uh version next week.

It's public information.

Okay.

Um the the dates and times will be again published.

So I don't I don't see why not.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Oh, member slick.

Just it sounds like it might be fluid, but do we have an approximate time as an hour?

Is that to be determined?

So the public hearing the 18th, it will be from 2 p.m.

to 4 30, and then we'll reconvene from 6 to 9.

And depending on anything further, they'll continue it to the next days.

Thank you.

And I'll send that information out to the board.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Any other questions?

Okay.

All in favor.

Aye.

Okay.

Great.

Now, thank you, Karen.

You're welcome.

Now we are going to have a presentation on highlights from our housing lake summit and the coming next steps.

And we welcome Eric Wagner, head of planning, building and development, and we welcome Dominic Streso.

Our housing.

Okay.

Good morning, all.

Eric Wagner, planning building development director, Dominic Streso, community development administrator.

We're here this morning to talk about Housing Lake.

It's been some time since we presented to this committee on the progress of Housing Lake.

But today's meeting comes real soon after the coalition's sort of wrap-up of its summit in February.

The February Housing Summit represents the culmination of the work that the Housing Lake Coalition has been engaging in since last July.

Six meetings later, we're uh we're here.

We came together uh to celebrate our collective progress in assessing our regional housing challenges and figuring out a path forward.

So today we'll uh Dominic and I will recap the this phase one series that we've just wrapped and uh highlights from the summit itself, and then we'll talk a little bit about what's going to happen next with Housing Lake.

So, first we'll uh begin with a brief overview of the actual meeting series in this next slide here.

Um, Housing Lake's initial phase of work, uh, which was a seven meeting series, as I mentioned.

Um, you can see it on this timeline.

It was designed to really bring together stakeholders from a variety of sectors across the housing ecosystem, uh, get everybody on the same page about the state of housing in our region, and develop a general strategy for tackling the housing gap.

So at the kickoff event in July, event number one, we first convene sort of a very large and diverse group of county, municipal, township, government reps, workforce, and economic development partners, community health entities, educators, developers, builders, financial institutions, real estate interests, nonprofit service providers, and others with the goal of meeting uh the meeting series to sort of get everybody across the housing ecosystem on the same page about this the extent of the problem and what to do about it.

Uh, this initiative really isn't it's not the beginning of the conversation that we've been having about housing, it's sort of a couple steps later.

Uh, you'll recall back in 2023, the Lake County Partners commissioned a regional housing report, which um showed that uh countywide projected um housing gap for um our region is gonna be over 11,000 units of market rate housing, 1,200 affordable uh units for seniors, and 6,700 affordable units for families uh by 2027 at the current rate of housing production within the region.

That's a very sobering statistic.

Um, through hearing early on in the series um from various housing relate related thought leaders on how the housing gap risks both quality of life and health and economic stability and community impacts.

We level set an understanding of the degree of the crisis we're in and the needs for uh steps forward in solving this problem and unlock unlocking housing production within the county.

So later on, we kind of progressed through these workshops.

There were five workshops.

Um we developed a common set of what we call pillars uh for action in the housing arena, uh, four distinct policy areas, each of which identified problems and opportunities related to some aspect of the housing challenge.

Um and I'll cover that in a little bit of detail later.

Uh in the final meeting of the series, the summit that really was sort of designed to bring everybody back together under one tent to revisit all the work that we've done over the last several months, um, what we've accomplished, and then of course, talking about what happens next after we've done the wrap.

That's what we call the call to action.

I'll talk a little bit about that.

Um, I'll next recap highlights from a summit that we we just had in in February.

But before that, we'll take a couple minutes to watch a short video that encapsulates kind of the spirit of Housing Lake in our collective effort, and it'll share the vision of what happens next with our initiative.

Lake County faces a housing crisis.

We're short, nearly 8,000 homes.

In fact, the entire country is grappling with this.

An increased number of households, a shortage of homes, increased demand for diverse housing stock, and high construction costs.

While many communities remain stuck, each working to solve the crisis in their own individual lane.

Lake County chose to approach this differently.

This wasn't an issue that anyone could or should try to solve alone.

We have more than 50 municipalities, each with different rules and processes.

There's a workforce housing shortage that affects businesses, families, and our regional economy.

We need housing that offers solutions for everyone, from young adults and entry-level careers to seniors hoping to age in place.

This simply doesn't exist in many communities.

How can we bring everyone together?

Every person, place, and industry that the housing crisis impacts to form actionable solutions.

That's where Housing Lake comes in.

Lake County was named one of the best places for economic development.

But in order to have economic development, you need to be able to have housing for lots of different people in their different stages of life.

Housing in Lake County has not kept up with population growth.

And so there's a huge shortage of affordable housing, different uh types of housing, whether it's single-family homes and apartments and condos and townhomes and affordable housing throughout the entire county as opposed to just concentrated in certain communities.

Municipalities, developers, employers, nonprofits, and residents.

Over 175 people committed to finding real solutions.

Together, we created four foundational pillars towards change.

Policy reform that makes sense for Lake County's unique landscape.

Financing tools that actually work for our communities.

Partnerships between public and private sectors that deliver results.

An education of the situation at hand that allows us to cut out misinformation and work locally to deliver actionable strategies.

We have beautiful land.

We've got municipalities, we've got people who work every day, and they just want a place to live.

Looking at outside companies, outside cities, and seeing how they do things, I think is more of a collaboration and community kind of grassroots thing that needs to happen versus from the top down.

So my hope is that through this initiative that we can create on rips for developers, donated land, uh, if we got to do tiny homes or container homes, that we could open up the door for the diversity of types of housing and use the local workforce to build it.

From ADUs to deed restricted affordable units to duplexes, fourplexes, and more.

We're creating options that work for Lake County.

This isn't about one size fits all.

It's about giving our municipalities the tools they need and the support to use them.

Six subregions, and more than 50 municipalities united by one goal.

Housing solutions that work for everyone.

Join us in making Lake County a place where everyone can afford to live, work, and thrive.

So the summit was a celebration of all the work that we've carried on thus far, and it featured really a lot of really dynamic speakers and presentations.

We were treated to some inspirational opening remarks from uh various uh county leaders, including Chair Hart, Mary's Rockingham, and and Cunningham and Rotaring of Highland Park, and our panel discussion that followed that was a really a deep dive into some QA's around housing constraints and opportunities.

Oh, here we go.

And uh panelists uh at in that uh that panel discussion represented sort of a wide variety of stakeholders into the housing ecosystem.

Uh, we both had representatives from Illinois, uh county and um municipal government.

We had developers, uh, a couple developers from the nonprofit and the market rate housing uh sectors, uh, and it was empty by Kevin Cons and I of Lake County Partners.

Uh the panel discussion was really a great way to warm up the crowd toward the main event of the day, uh, which was what we call the call to action to kickstart the implementation phase of Housing Lake that we're going to be getting started on in these next few months.

So, what exactly is the call to action?

In the most tangible sense, the call to action's sort of housing lake's um phase one uh deliverable.

It's a it's a work product that we've uh developed.

It's a digital resource uh document that encapsulates all the collective wisdom that we've gathered in the Housing Lake meeting series, pulling together housing data, strategies, tools, and next steps for our regional housing initiative.

And it's it's really kind of like the the tangible work product of of this group thus far.

Uh the structure of the document, the housing uh housing lake call to action document memorializes the insights of uh the coalition that lays out strategies, what we call the four pillars for housing implementation, and I'll discuss that next.

The structure of the document, the housing uh housing lake call to action document memorializes the insights of uh the coalition and lays out strategies, what we call the four pillars for housing implementation and I'll discuss that next also includes an engagement toolkit for participants and a look at the road ahead for our region as we look forward to implementation.

Here's a sample of some of the pages in the document and there's also a QR code on the top right side of the screen here that can actually get folks to the document itself and it's on the website and it's downloadable and you can review it in full.

So as I said the uh in its most immediate sense the call to action is is a resource manual distilling all the work that we've done thus far.

But in a broader sense our call to action is really a clarion call to the region to a gesture to our regional partners to stay engaged in this process going forward, stay connected and committed to you know working together to help um unlock housing supply in our region that's so badly needed.

And while many of the tools and solutions are yet to be developed the stakeholder engagement is really starting right now.

So we're um on the verge of a number of of things that we're going to be um tackling in the coming months.

So and to help with that we have developed a stakeholder engagement toolkit it really helps stakeholder communities and organizations and individuals you know start conversations around housing within their various corners of the housing ecosystem gives them some talking points that they can use in conversations with local folks presentations templates for presentations that they could use to educate their their uh their colleagues their bodies um and then some social media content that we can you know we can see being utilized in a variety of different contexts to educate folks so those are um those are social media you know sort of plug and play graphics and captions and so forth that can be used in variety of contexts whether it's a newsletter on a website what have you so looking at next steps we'll we'll talk about the work that's um that we're starting to to formulate and that's going to carry us through the next several months here so yesterday the um HCS committee um also had a presentation on this topic and they um recommended approval on a resolution authorizing a memorandum of understanding between CMAP and and lake county for um moving forward together in a collaboration on the implementation the implementation phase for housing lake uh the mo you will be presented uh to the county board for adoption next Tuesday um and specifically covered in the MOU are um uh a number of uh you know sort of prescriptions around um how to work together um it's sort of built on the um the four pillars that are sort of the policy anchors for this in a this engagement um the uh the the pillars are what you see here on the screen they they're sort of helping divide the work up in the next three years into a series of different policy policy related workshop series and for each one of these pillars we're gonna have a a distinct series of of workshops around the objectives that are identified for that respective pillar and so the idea is that from across the diverse sort of spectrum of our stakeholders we're gonna have folks um sort of leaning into one uh workshop series or another depending on their subject matter of expertise and interest and by continuing the engagement with the stakeholders from across these all these sectors within the housing ecosystem we're gonna continue to to build on the partnerships that we've already developed in the in the introductory series of meetings so I think this is an opportunity to get a lot of really good um feedback and consensus around some of the some of the the um the the results and some of the deliverables that we can achieve within each one of these houses with within each one of these pillars so now what I'll do is I'll kind of walk through the the specific um objectives um that are embedded within each one of these uh four pillars so for the first pillar which is the policy and regulatory reform pillar this is really designed to shift our uh regulatory and policy paradigms around housing um and construction so we can really move the needle on our urgent housing gap the priority objectives here really focus on a series of of approaches to both remove regulatory barriers to housing construction to identify ways to diversify the housing stock in the county and a plug in housing in areas that are ripe for growth in the second pillar funding and financing tools uh this is the one where we tackle that one of the key components of a successful housing strategy which is how to pay for it

The priority objectives here really focus on a series of approaches to both remove regulatory barriers to housing construction to identify ways to diversify the housing stock in the county and plug in housing in areas that are ripe for growth.

And the second pillar, funding and financing tools.

Uh, this is the one where we tackle that one of the key components of a successful housing strategy, which is how to pay for it.

Um the cost of housing are continuing to grow up.

And in order to help subsidize housing, you need to have some ways in which you can incentivize that priority objectives here focus on making the stakeholders within the housing ecosystem more aware of funding resources that already exist, but also growing the funding sources that are available to us or the funding streams to expand the opportunity to subsidize uh the costs of housing for future production.

Uh the third pillar partnerships and development capacity recognizes that as a region of stakeholders, we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Uh, the pillar aims to really build on the partnerships that we started in the meeting series in phase one and use those partnerships to advance our policy goals.

And finally, pillar four communications and education is probably the one of the hardest pillars to tackle, but it's also one of the most um impactful ones, I believe.

It's really about regional engagement over the housing crisis that we're in to so we can help the community come along and become more aware of it.

And so it begins to resonate with within our communities and within our organizations across the county.

This is really kind of a hearts and minds strategy at its core.

I think one of the biggest impacts that our group could have in our work is to move our region ahead in some sort of cultural change around the topic of housing.

So there's a greater degree of community-wide acceptance uh and support for evolving the way we build houses and the way our communities look.

Um, this is really designed to meet the growing needs of our shifting demographics, um, which you know is is clear from the statistics that we've we've talked about in terms of those key demographic shifts that are driving some of the demand in housing.

Our communications and education pillars really designed to create a culture of trust and support for these other housing types and densities in our communities and in a manner that addresses these demographic shifts and the growing pressure on our existing housing stock.

We're primarily a suburban single family residential region, and our supply of these other housing types is in is really under pressure right now.

And so we're finding ways in which we can evolve thinking around housing that expands beyond the current, you know, perception of housing as a single family residential paradigm to allow for these other types of typology so we can accommodate um other folks to live here.

So looking ahead uh over the next few months upon uh the county and CMAP's execution of the memorandum of understanding uh Lake County and CMAP are going to continue our core teams, you know, weekly coordination meetings that's uh Dominic and myself um representatives from uh county administration along with CMAP and consultants.

We're gonna continue our coordination and laying out this next phase.

Uh, meanwhile, while we kind of build the structure for the this next three years of work with Housing Lake, we're gonna be organizing an interim program of uh webinars to kind of keep the uh community engaged, can continue stakeholder engagement around these topics and provide some potentially some educational opportunities for the general public around um the housing crisis.

And uh once we get some clarity on the dates for some of these uh webinars, we're gonna push that information out in uh the coming weeks and so forth.

Um, so that's uh that's our our presentation for the housing lake um status.

We are really at the beginning of what we would like to think of as a as a long-term collaboration with the region to really move the needle on housing.

It's not going to get done overnight.

This is gonna be a long slog, but one I think is well worth the effort because as you know, Lake County, one of our key strategic plan goals is to make it the the you know a quality place to live and work.

And in order to do that, we're gonna need housing.

Thank you.

I mean, we cannot thank you enough, Eric and Dominic, for all the work you've put in thus far.

This is really one of the most important efforts that the county is working on right now.

And we are 8,000 units short of where we wanna be.

And this is gonna take a lot of cooperation from all our municipalities to really jump in and also try to change the trajectory of you know how people are feeling about what affordable housing is.

We we need to educate people that affordable housing is housing all over the board.

It's not just housing for the lowest people on the ladder, it's housing at all different price points.

And a lot of our towns don't have that variety that's necessary to attract and you know, people who are coming and moving here from new companies that are moving to Lake.

Um, sometimes they don't have the opportunity uh to find what they need.

So we wanna create those opportunities.

Um we are working closely with Lake County partners on this as well.

And um, you know, they are hearing from all the companies that they're working with that the housing component is gonna be very important for decision makers when they're deciding to come to Lake.

Okay, um, member Frank.

Thank you, Chair.

Not a question.

Really just wanna say thank you and great work so far as you identified like the hard work is really ahead uh for the department.

Uh but uh director Dominic and your whole team, um, really impressive.

Uh I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the last stakeholder engagement session.

The attendance and the uh interest, the level of enthusiasm and interest from all the different stakeholders uh was really impressive.

Uh and sometimes in these coalition efforts, identifying the problem and talking about it is maybe the easiest part and going forward with the solutions and long-term implementation and framework and getting everyone on board and moving forward in the same direction is really the hardest part.

And I have a lot of confidence in you and your team that you're gonna continue to be able to drive us in that direction.

Uh very impressive work so far.

So thank you.

Okay.

Member Peterson, thank you.

Are you reaching out to all the communities in Lake County?

You're not just picking out certain ones.

We we think there's a place for everyone across the county within our tent.

I think I'm glad to hear that.

That's very glad to hear that.

And and I'll I will say that different communities are gonna come at this exercise in different ways.

You know, we have the more urbanized communities, some of which have actually gone like leaps and bounds ahead over the years in sort of innovating their their housing production approach and and embracing affordability, like you know, I think superstars, you know, are you know are are out there already and we can draw from their collective wisdom examples like Highland Park, Deerfield, they're doing a lot of really um you know, groundbreaking work in the area of housing.

And and so it this is not a reinventing the wheel kind of exercise.

We can we can draw in their experience.

But on the other end of the continuum continuum, you have smaller communities that maybe don't have you know uh significant downtowns.

They, you know, may be a bedroom community without really any urbanization, without urban infrastructure that is necessary to support density at scale.

And so even in these communities, there are ways in which they can you know incrementally help move the needle on housing production.

Things like accessory dwelling units in some of these larger lot communities are an example of ways in which you know a veteran community with a sort of a more rural lifestyle can actually increase the supply of housing without disrupting the quality of life of their communities.

And so I think there's a there's room for everybody within the tent, as long as we can reach them.

And one of the things that we've been really fortunate to be able to count on throughout this first meeting series is the hard work of our board members to recruit those folks.

And so we appreciate you know all of the work that you uh put into you know coaxing leadership in your various municipalities to come to the table.

We got a really good turnout from among our municipal um counterparts and I think we can only expand that as time goes by when we get into these workshops where really the tangible sort of you know nuts and bolts work begins.

Yeah.

So at the beginning of the presentation one of the women uh briefly mentioned the type of housing you know different types of housing yes and she said container homes what is that?

So container homes are a type of modular construction.

And I think one of the things that we're going to be looking at are not just the policies around zoning, but we're also going to be looking at different ways we can reduce the cost and increase quality control for housing.

So it's quality but also in it as you know inexpensive as possible.

And so modular construction is a sort of a broad umbrella term for the type of housing that's not actually stick built on the development site but rather components or entire units can be produced in a factory ahead of time and the benefit of an approach like that is that you can you know you can standardize the production process outside of the weather and ensure that every single unit produced is exactly the same and so like some communities like Clay County have already we have programs where we recognize certain types of modular designs because we actually go to the factory ahead of time and we take a look at how they're building them to make sure that they're meeting all the required codes.

So the sort of modular construction arena is one of those areas that really hasn't been tested it hasn't been widely accepted within the county's municipal communities but we think that as part of our sort of overall toolkit of strategies for expanding housing supply we really want to take a look at um ways in which this type of product can be plugged in to the production it in ways that can actually benefit the developers bottom line okay thank you all right yeah I'm very interested in seeing you know if we can get drum up interests in that that's a completely new area that's way more affordable and if towns are willing to consider it it it might be something you know really interesting to uh to bring here yeah I think we're envisioning like this is going to be a really the overall sort of workshop format is going to be we're going to try to make it as interesting and as diverse as possible so not not just getting together and brainstorming solutions in a room but we're also going to be looking at opportunities to get out there you know into the area and maybe take a look at some you know some of these these products in action you know tour tour a facility where we can see housing you know factor factory built housing being produced take a look at how it actually lays out on a site where it's been utilized.

So you know we can maybe you know educate some of our stakeholders maybe bring them along a little bit on the on the design approach.

Now are any of those container home areas or or those tiny homes are they and does anybody any community in Illinois have those?

Yes there are actually there's modular construction in general is is it's out there it's in different parts of the okay of the uh of the of the region and so like even in the era of container homes which is a very small subset of modular construction there are like actual examples of buildings that have been built you know within our region that could actually be visited and we could take a look at you know what these how these things are laid out on the property and what they look like how they feel.

All right I think that's great.

Okay.

Uh member Wasick.

Thank you chair and Eric this policy structure is great bones.

And thanks to you and Dominic and Krista and your entire team and everybody else who's involved Patrice and Ruth Ann I I think you know we are literally constructing a a frame for a much larger structure that will help everyone but uh my main interest is piggybacking on what you were talking about alternatives.

And and I was wondering which of the pillars and which part of this program can incorporate um innovative approaches to alternative housing uh we mentioned tiny homes accessory dwelling units I know cook county has a green modular program that it's that's started already that we can take a look at North Lawdale and and also just you know kind of thinking out of the box forgive the pun about new construction techniques and just stressing innovation.

And and also just, you know, kind of thinking out of the box, forgive the pun about new construction techniques and just stressing innovation.

So which pillar would that fall into?

How would we follow through on some of those ideas?

That's squarely within pillar number one, which is the policy and regulatory reform pillar.

I think that may end up being one of the more popular workshop series that, you know, from at least from our communities uh standpoint from the municipal standpoint, because some of these communities don't have the the technical uh resources or staff to develop these types of innovative, you know, policies on their own.

It really benefits from this sort of regional approach.

And that's the model that we've we've followed in in other similar types of regional exercises over the years.

You know, we've we've put together these um task forces around policy uh and enhancements and and I think the communities that end up participating in those are able to get essentially they're they're able to get content at a fraction of the cost that they otherwise be spending on staffing or consultants to do the work in a you know in a vacuum.

So I think the one of the real nice side benefits of this is that we're giving communities through this this collective effort, we're giving communities the ability to get access to important policy policies and work products that they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford.

And just one follow-up, Chair.

Um, so I'm assuming, and maybe I'm perhaps assuming too much, that what we develop and what we discover through our workshops can or will lead to say a model ordinance, uh similar to our solar ordinance, which is a template for our municipal partners.

Yeah, I I'd call it rather than a model rather than calling it a model ordinance, which is one sort of one set of prescriptions, I would call it a model regulatory toolkit.

Okay, where as I was saying before, communities run the gamut from rural to urban.

Sure.

And an urbanized community is going to be drawing from different sources of information than a uh rural community in terms of what you know, zoning reforms, etc.

might be available to them given their their geography.

But you having a toolkit of these various different approaches um is a way of meeting communities where they're at based on their geography, their their population, their infrastructure, and so having that toolkit that could be as broad as possible to meet all the communities' needs, is I think the best way to approach this from a regional perspective because if every community has the opportunity to participate at their level in this undertaking, incrementally, you can start adding up those numbers, and we can really potentially make a big, a big impact on the housing gap.

Okay.

Thanks.

Member Schlick.

Thank you, Chair.

And Eric, you know, obviously great work.

It was a great presentation.

You could see a lot of work and a lot of thought went into this.

And it was kind of one of my points that you guys were very specific about being collaborative and trying to work with our area partners.

And I I could say that from I know a couple of communities that took part in this, they were really excited about it, but I I think they've switched a little tone to concern, not from this partnership, more the state is kind of overbearing a little bit, talking about some of the things they're going to do legislatively that I think we as a body have to keep an eye on to make sure that like we in Lake County are trying to do things right.

We're trying to be collaborative, make things possible.

We don't want to um make things harder by trying to shoot do a one size fits all, which we aren't.

We are trying to do, hey, this fits in different communities, like you said.

So I think that's something that we as a board, I wouldn't maybe blog down the committee with this, this group should really work with our legislators to make sure, hey, it's important.

We can't just shoehorn something into the county, you know, because you think it works down in Springfield.

So it's something I brought up yesterday in legislative, um, you know, and our our lobbyists are on it.

I think it's something we should pay attention to.

So and then the second one, your second pillar about financing, I think for my area, which has a lot of probably developable land, maybe the most in the county, you know, member Peterson and I can wrestle about that, I guess.

Who's got more land?

The cost to get some of the infrastructure to these sites is the biggest barrier that we're gonna have to overcome.

And it's gonna take everybody, I think, to figure out how that's gonna happen.

So, but I appreciate the effort.

And I think there's a lot of good things to come out of this, and you know, that model policy, like member Wasick said, I think that's a good first start, and then that I think the biggest chip will be number two, where hey, how does how do we help you pay for some of these ginormous costs?

Uh at least get the infrastructure there, you know, the roads, the sewer, the water.

So, but great work.

I look forward to seeing how this grows.

Thank you.

Member Keniznik.

Hi, everybody, thank you.

Um, I just want to follow up on the question that Chair Altenberg asked a few minutes ago.

She asked whether or not um there are any municipalities in Illinois that have built container home developments.

And I just happened to be um I just happened to spend two days last week in the city of East St.

Louis, and I did get a chance to tour exactly that kind of container home development.

Um, the city of East St.

Louis is faces enormous challenges that generally speaking, Lake County doesn't, uh in terms of a much lower tax base and in all kinds of um issues.

Uh and you know, if if they were able to find a solution like that um to part of their housing crisis, then you know, certainly Lake County ought to be able to as well.

So if there's anyone listening who would like, you know, to be connected with the folks that were kind of behind that development, I'm happy to set that up.

Um and the other thing I'm just gonna share, I've had a a strong interest in container homes for a long time.

There is a small business owner in my district, Buffalo Grove.

I might technically be in Chair Altenburg's district, but um, it's pretty close to the border between our two districts.

It's called SI container builds.

And um, they also so the the development in East St.

Louis is specifically for people who are unhoused.

Um, but SI container builds, the owner has expressing an interest in wanting to help um address the issue of a lack of housing for people who are facing homelessness, but also um a uh desire to help provide more affordable housing.

Uh and I personally love the idea of container homes because it's it's reusing something that already exists, uh, which I feel like is environmentally very responsible.

Uh, plus I love the idea of um, you know, supporting any business anywhere that um is involved in recycling these containers uh in order to help address the housing crisis and you know it'd be really great um if you know we kind of were able to go down this path of looking at container homes as a possible solution, meaning of our communities and there may even be a possible partnership with a company that creates jobs right here in Lake County.

So I just wanted to share that, and uh everyone is free to reach out to me if they want to see pictures of the development in East St.

Louis that I saw last week.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Member Peterson, followed by Member Volitzek.

Thank you.

I'm just gonna throw this out here.

I don't have a problem with container homes.

Okay.

But I just think it's gonna be a hard sell when you call them container homes.

Because I'm gonna tell you the first thing that came to my mind.

You're gonna take a semi-trailer and you're gonna turn it into a home.

I I just think call them something else.

I just have to throw that out there.

Thank you.

We need better branding, maybe.

Okay.

Member Volet Sick.

Thank you, Chair.

And um thank you, Eric and all who Dominic and Lake County Partners, everyone who is involved.

Sorry, screen um in this extraordinary effort.

I can't think of um many that are more important than housing.

And it's so complex and so complicated.

Um, it was a really um interesting and worthwhile process to um to watch and to be involved with, um, just in terms of attending some of these meetings.

Um I all of the buckets that you uh have created through this process.

Um, it I'd be hard pressed to name one being more important than the other.

Um, but I think the education component and the trust that you speak of and the trust building and bringing everybody under the umbrella is so so important.

Um, I know I'm not alone in um, you know, receiving call.

I would say the the calls that I receive from residents in this um in terms of complaints in you know, around housing issues revolve around two sort of two common threads.

One is the the sort of NIMBY mentality, um, which isn't all of us to some degree, this idea that you know, you you support a development just not here near me, but also um a distrust in government that the del did the development was approved because the local government wants more property taxes.

Um I think this education component is super important to bring people up along, but also that as we are moving forward and looking at regulatory reforms, that how these developments go up is is equally as important in terms of the quality of the homes.

mentality um which isn't all of us to some degree this idea that you know you you support a development just not here near me but also um a distrust in government that the did the development was approved because the local government wants more property taxes um and so I think this education component is super important to bring people up along but also that as we are moving forward and looking at regulatory reforms that how these developments go up is is equally as important in terms of the quality of the homes um no matter in in what way uh you know whether it's single family housing multifamily container homes but the the quality of of the homes um and the environmental impacts and just the design of the developments themselves that more thoughtful design and bringing people along will do um much I think to sort of bridge that that trust gap in some communities so thanks again everyone thank you any further questions from committee members uh member wasick kind of alluding the to the alternative housing idea again but do we have bandwidth within the structure to say create pilot programs for new building technologies let's say we wanted to try out uh 3D printed homes or something but they're not ready to scale up or maybe they're just they want a place to try and see if it works in a community do we have the ability within the structure to at least say okay we'll we'll green light it on a limited basis or you know just try it out one of the things that now I I can't guarantee that we're going to get into 3D printing no I'm excuse I will say that I'll say that as an example.

Right I'll I'll say that the the the best the the best kind of collaborative effort is one that relies on the sort of the trial and error of others that have preceded it.

And one of the great benefits of us engaging in this regional initiative at this moment is that we're not the first there are other regions throughout the entire country that have undertaken very similar types of exercises in the past several years to varying degrees of success and they have attempted certain alternative approaches with varying degrees of success and so I think we have a a really great learning laboratory in front of us in in in the sense that a lot of others have already sort of you know dip their toe in the water in in sort of innovative designs and so forth uh by that same token I'd like to recognize as part of this next phase I'd like to start recognizing those early adopters that have already within our region that have already gone in a new direction with their approach to housing.

And so there are a number of communities that have already started to do things that the rest of us haven't and so kind of drawing from their experiences we could maybe provide some opportunities for others to follow their their lead.

And so I think looking at the sort of the local you know the local champions that have already undertaken certain types of innovations, we can really learn from them.

Yeah.

And if I can make just one last suggestion have we reached out to um engineering schools I know we have a few really good ones in the state that could help us in looking at some of these ideas and maybe trying out some different um building technologies.

So we're aware of different like um design competitions and so forth that are happening all over the country in terms of developing innovative approaches to construction and um and I think that that's something that we can continue to look at as we go forward to see like you know what's out there what could be sort of you know what could be blueprinted for for our our our region we already have you know in our shop for example we have templates that we provide to prospective applicants for some kind of development and you know if you use this this particular sort of template for designing your product you can get it approved fast.

Well the idea you know I think could could be expanded to you know other you know types of design sort of pre-designs that could be used in the housing pipeline um especially if we have some of those prototypes that have already been sort of uh put together and vetted in these sort of engineering and architectural types of of forums any other questions from committee members okay thank you so much and we are very excited to see the next round of uh roll outs and um we're excited to work with our municipal partners and I you know I look forward to talking to you about how we can brand this and and keep keep people engaged.

members okay thank you so much and we are very excited to see the next round of uh roll outs and um we're excited to work with our municipal partners and i you know i look forward to talking to you about how we can brand this and and keep keep people engaged my my uh my final thought is or my final comment is that um this is going to continue to need to be a sort of partnership between staff and our elected officials and we're gonna need lean on our board members yet again to continue to solicit support and participation in this next phase and so look forward in the coming weeks and months to a series of requests to you to like get the word out on you know um this you know initiative this event this program this workshop uh so that we can continue to keep the really great momentum that we've started to build in in phase one so thank you very much for how how much you've helped so far to achieve those numbers it's our pleasure takes a village right okay uh county administrators report and have Dominic Remain there he's going to give a pitch for the healthy home houses right a quick update um uh at the last I think county board meeting was an appropriation of two million dollars that we received from the state to do the healthy houses program that's for HVAC improvements at eligible rental properties across the county that application window opened up on Monday um it'll be open the initial application window will be open until April 2nd um eligibility really is is pretty simple six units or less on a property and the uh tenant household has to earn less than 80% of the area median income which is roughly like 96 thousand dollars per family of four um but outside of that the landlords can apply and um yeah we want to get as many as when we only we have two million dollars we have to spend by July 2027 um so we are anxious to get that out okay thank you very much any questions on that yep member frank it'll depend it can we can do complete replacement or or minor repairs uh I think for the application we estimated anywhere from 20 to 4000 dollars but uh it can be it can be there's no cap on it it's basically site dependent so and even though it's for rental units the HVAC replacement grants go to the renter to the occupant now to the landlord the landlord has to apply but the qu eligibility is based on the occupant so there's kind of a partnership there yeah thank you thank you and I'm assuming you've sent that to two targeted people who landlords who do this we've been working with our our landlord network uh there's a couple different groups we've already engaged um there's a formal email that went out on Monday as well we already uh applications are starting to flow in but we want to get as many as we can okay any other questions okay thank you dominic any other report no no okay no need for executive session okay any members remarks we've all made a lot of remarks okay we will adjourn until April 1st 2026 thank you everybody