Brookfield residents have seen the village’s development planning process up close and personal several times in the past half-decade, enough times to know that it seems to be different for every development. They’ve also seen it enough times to know that the recommendations of the Zoning Board of Appeals and Plan Commission, especially on larger developments, is about a 50-50 proposition in the hands of the village board.
And while the going has sometimes been rocky lately-mainly the result of administrative oversights regarding meeting notices-we feel that Brookfield is headed in the right direction regarding the planning process. As the village gets better at dealing with planned developments in the community, it will also need to tighten up its requirements from developers.
The townhome development on 31st Street is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. It took Brookfield residents, developers and officials two years to finally settle on a compromise plan for that development. It was an arduous, frustrating process for just about everyone involved.
But while the basic layout of the development is what everyone agreed to, the actually “look” of the development certainly is not. The reason for that is the village didn’t demand enough of the developer when the process finally wound down. The village could have written specific mandates into the ordinance detailing the use of building materials, design elements, and the like.
They didn’t do it. As a result, the design changed when it came time for the architect to present final working drawings to the village. The final product is much more utilitarian than originally presented. And although we realize that the perspective drawings shown during the early stages of the planning process were concepts and not final renderings, it feels like a bait and switch. The jumbo brick, the lack of variety in design, the austerity-those are not the kinds of things anyone envisioned when the project was pitched. And those are the kinds of things the village needs to nail down during the planning process.
Currently, the village has two significant multifamily developments on its plate-one on Brookfield Avenue and the other on Eberly Avenue. Both will go through the planned unit development (PUD) process, which means that both preliminary and final plans must pass through the Plan Commission and village board.
It is important that the village very clearly delineates what it expects from developers, not only in terms of basic layout of the projects, but in the details that will make the difference between a development that will be an asset to the neighborhood or one that looks like it was completed on the cheap.
