After two years of work, meetings, public engagement, discourse and many, many amendments, Evanston’s City Council voted 5-4 Monday night to adopt a new comprehensive plan for the city created through Envision Evanston 2045.
The vote fell along expected bloc lines that have been present since the current term began — voting yes were Councilmembers Krissie Harris (2nd Ward), Shawn Iles (3rd), Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th), Bobby Burns (5th) and Juan Geracaris (9th), and voting no were Clare Kelly (1st), Tom Suffredin (6th), Parielle Davis (7th) and Matt Rodgers (8th).
The plan’s adoption doesn’t change any of the city’s laws or rules around land use, as the Envision project now turns back to the development of a new zoning code to do just that. Councilmembers voted unanimously to request staff to bring back a new request for proposals for a zoning consultant for their approval in the next 30 days before it’s sent out for bid, trying to avoid mistakes made by the prior consulting team hired for the project more than two years ago.
This is a breaking news story. The RoundTable will publish a story with more details on Tuesday morning.