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Preservation Commission asks that implementation, demolition‑delay, reinterment and deconstruction policies be added to comp plan
Summary
The Preservation Commission presented Preserve 2040 and asked the Land Use Commission to incorporate an implementation chapter, a community‑systems chapter, neighborhood conservation districts, a demolition‑delay process, an advisory review for projects adjacent to landmarks, and a deconstruction ordinance into the comp plan.
Dr. Sarah Dreller, chair of the Preservation Commission, told the Land Use Commission the preservation commission reviewed Envision Evanston and submitted a detailed letter and an attachment called Preserve 2040, the commission’s strategic plan adopted in December 2022.
Dreller asked that the comp plan include an implementation chapter that prioritizes actions, assigns likely partners and funding sources, and sets a timeline. "Imagine if our comp plan had something like this, where each of the action items were prioritized and we knew who was supposed to be paying attention to what," she said, showing the commission a sample implementation matrix from Preserve 2040.
Other prescriptional requests from the Preservation Commission included: - Add a community systems chapter addressing public‑private partnerships (for example, collaboration with school districts and tribal representatives). - Recognize and support Preserve 2040 explicitly in the comp plan so prior preservation work is not lost. - Explore neighborhood conservation districts (a ground‑up preservation tool) and expand the draft’s historic resources map; Dreller said the current map omits certain 20th‑century resources that matter to the city’s character. - Establish a demolition‑delay procedure for non‑landmarked but potentially significant properties to provide a short pause for review and outreach when demolition is proposed. - Collaborate with tribal representatives to establish a reinterment site and procedures for inadvertent discovery of indigenous ancestral remains. - Pursue a deconstruction ordinance to preserve embodied carbon and material reuse when buildings are removed.
Why it matters: Preservation commissioners said incorporating elements of Preserve 2040 and a clear implementation chapter would help the city translate policy into action. Dreller stressed preservation’s intersection with housing, environment and transportation policies and argued that an urban‑design commission and clarified policies on historic landscapes are needed to retain Evanston’s diverse built character.
Ending: The Land Use Commission thanked Dreller and preservation staff for the detailed submission; commissioners asked staff to include the preservation letter and its attachments in the comp plan record and to consider the implementation matrix that the commission provided.
