This past Monday (April 28) night the City of Park Ridge Planning & Zoning Commission overcame its confusion and indecision long enough to approve – by a 6-2 vote – an expansion of R-5 Multi-Family Residential zoning from the “core” of Uptown to the entire “Central Business District”[pdf].  The Commission did thrown a bone to the many residents who showed up to object to the expansion of  R-5 zoning: It voted to eliminate the “adjacent to” language, which could have expanded R-5 zoning even further.

For a City that seems to be trying to generate a “growth spurt” under Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, expansion of R-5 is the tool of choice for developers looking to pick the low-hanging development fruit that is multi-family residential.  That’s because despite the hot air billowing out of the likes of the City’s Economic Development Director Kim Uhlig, the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce and other “retail” cheerleaders, Park Ridge is a retail backwater for a variety of reasons, making retail space a tough sell. 

So multi-family residential is the developer’s dream, and P&Z made sure that dream stayed alive Monday night. By expanding R-5 to the entire “Central Business District,” the P&Z Commission – whose members are all Frimark appointees or re-appointees – kept that dream alive for Napleton/PRC (including not only the former Napleton Cadillac site but also the current Napleton Lincoln-Mercury site), the owner of the site of the former D Bob’s, the owner of the former Hill’s Hobby, and whoever else had the good fortune to speculate on the redevelopment possibilities of the now R-5 suitable properties on the west end of Uptown.

Rumor has it that among those lucky speculators is an individual or group that has obtained options to purchase one or more of the properties along Third Street just south of Touhy, although we have been unable to confirm that rumor and, therefore, invite confirmation or correction by the owners of those parcels or anyone else with credible evidence on the topic.   

Once again leading the “ordinary citizens” in this latest battle against higher-density residential – as they did in the Battle of Executive Office Plaza – were 5th Ward residents Judy Barclay and Carla Owen, the latter who likened this continuing effort to the movie “Groundhog Day.”  In the opposite corner, at least symbolically, was Carrie Davis, the City’s “acting” Director of Preservation and Community Development – a title that might induce schizophrenia in anybody who truly cares about “preservation” but which is worn as comfortably by the pro-development Davis as it was by her predecessor, the pro-development Randy Derifield.

Voting to hold the line against greater height and density by confining R-5 to the B-4 Uptown “core” were P&Z members Cathy Piche and Milda Roszkiewicz, while rolling over for the developers were members Anita Rifkind, Aurora Abella-Austriaco (who is challenging Rosemary Mulligan for her state representative seat in November, presumably not on a “preservationist” platform), Tom Provencher, Chairman Alfredo Marr, Joseph A. Baldi and Louis Arrigoni. 

Piche and Roszkiewicz deserve a “well done!” from those of us who don’t want more height and density destroying the character and feel of our community.  The others?  They’ll have to be content with a pat on the back from the mayor. 

Where will it all end?  Can you say “Des Plaines”?