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Lincoln Heights council delays final action on 2021 land use plan, schedules special meeting with planners
Summary
Council members raised concerns about possible land assembly and property impacts in a proposed land use plan (resolution 2026-R5). Mayor Tanya Key agreed to invite the plan consultants and the planning commission to a special committee meeting and said the council can table the measure for further review.
Mayor Tanya Key, Mayor of the Village of Lincoln Heights, introduced old business on Feb. 9, identifying resolution 2026-R5 as "the resolution adopting the land use plan" and noting the document is available in full for public review. "This is the second reading," she said during the Committee of the Whole meeting.
Councilwoman Phyllis Baber said she had only recently read the plan and raised two substantive concerns: that Mayor Key's service on the local land bank board could present a conflict of interest and that several map notations and appendices suggested privately owned houses in specific blocks could be converted to green space. Baber said the plan describes changes on Jackson between Leggett and McGee and on Byrd between Leggett and McGee and asked whether affected property owners had been contacted. "So that's like a conflict of interest right there," Baber said about the mayor's land-bank involvement.
Mayor Key replied that she "was not on the land bank board at the time this was done" and denied a conflict, adding that she "don't gain anything" from land-bank service and that the plan was not intended to force property takings. "This is not a plan to tear people's property down," she said, and offered to bring the consulting team back to answer questions and provide documentation about community outreach.
Another council member read aloud plan language describing a "land assembly strategy" and pointed to example sites and appendix pages in the packet that show existing buildings and recommended future uses. Council members and the mayor disagreed about whether every affected resident had been directly contacted; Mayor Key said she had received residents' questions in prior outreach and will ask the consultants to bring records of their community engagement.
Discussion concluded with multiple council members endorsing a special committee meeting that would include the planning consultants and the planning commission, and with an explicit suggestion to table the resolution so the new council can review outreach records and ask follow-up questions. The transcript does not record a formal roll-call vote adopting the plan on Feb. 9; council members instead agreed to schedule further public meetings to consider revisions and clarifications.
