Envision Evanston plan overcomes critics, who decry density, to win City Council approval

After months of delays and discord, the battle lines had already hardened before the Evanston City Council narrowly adopted the Envision Evanston 2045 Comprehensive Plan by a vote of 5-4 at its regular meeting on Monday, January 26.

The division around the comprehensive plan, a document that cities use to guide their policies in the years to come, emerged more than a year ago.

During public comments, opinions continued along the same lines as in the past. Supporters praised the sweeping plan’s focus on affordable housing, and opponents denounced the changes to residential neighborhoods as destructive. Envision Evanston’s adoption process has also been criticized as bumpy.

Yet when the time came for the Council to discuss Evanston’s controversial vision for the next two decades, the conversation rarely ventured beyond correcting typos and contemplating the arduous path to a final vote.

“The process by which we got here is a complicated process,” said Ald. Matt Rodgers, 8th. “I don’t think anyone can argue that this went as smoothly as possible and that we would probably do this again the same way.”

The deep debate over the development, and even how Envision Evanston came to be, has yet to be settled. Although the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan provides guidelines for Evanston’s policy, the city will now embark on overhauling its zoning code based on the principles outlined in Envision Evanston.

Rodgers said he hopes the next zoning rewrite will reflect lessons the city has learned through the comprehensive plan process. He called for providing materials to residents sooner and promoting conversation between residents and Council.

These concerns represent only a fraction of those expressed by opponents, who organized against the project in January 2025 after the city released its initial plans and Mayor Daniel Biss called it “immoral” not to proceed quickly. (He later said he regretted using that expression.)

Biss had inaugurated the public process in February 2024 to develop a new comprehensive plan and revise the zoning code. In a May 2024 opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune, he assessed Envision Evanston as “an opportunity to move beyond the nerve-wracking balancing act” of local government debates and a “set of ‘yes in my backyard’ rules.”

Yet when the city unveiled parts of the plan, including a call to eliminate single-family home zoning, a public outcry erupted over Envision Evanston. That only increased with Biss’ comments and a timeline that would have allowed the city to adopt the comprehensive plan and zoning code before the April 2025 municipal elections.

As derision grew, the City Council delayed the timeline to January 2025 and decoupled adoption of the comprehensive plan from the zoning overhaul.

That timetable grew longer, eventually extending to 2026, after a series of Council meetings in mid-to-late 2025 refined the language of the overall plan.

Now, the plan, whose vision ranges from improving bicycle parking to revitalizing art incubators, extends over nearly 200 pages without counting its annexes. Importantly, instead of abolishing single-family zoning, Envision Evanston calls for automatically allowing people to transform residential land into small multi-unit developments.

Housing policy has drawn praise and condemnation from both supporters and opponents. Sue Loellbach, director of public policy at Connections for the Homeless, praised the plan and recounted the many efforts Evanston residents have made to create more affordable housing. A group wearing “Yes to Housing” T-shirts watched her speak during the public comment session.

Jeff Smith of the Central Street Neighbors Association likened Envision Evanston’s impending passage to a “Devon Horton moment,” referring to the former Evanston/Skokie School District 65 superintendent who faces federal charges for an alleged kickback scheme, and who was also recently charged with a crime in Georgia.

Echoing opponents’ complaints about the process and transparency, he blasted the plan as a “political steamroller” and riddled with red flags.

However, much of the speech during the Council’s discussions focused on small corrections to the draft overall plan, amounting to what Biss called Scrivener errors. Some members of the Council nevertheless gave their opinion on the overall plan.

“I’m comfortable with the general direction the overall plan is telling us, with a lot of work to do on the details,” said Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th. “And I really, truly believe that when we get to the end of these details in the zoning process, we will end up with something that, overall, most people in Evanston will find acceptable and can live with.”

Supporters in the audience applauded after the council voted 5-4 to adopt the comprehensive plan. Rodgers dissented, as did his fellow Alds. Clare Kelly, 1st, Thomas Suffredin, 6th and Parielle Davis, 7th.

The Comprehensive Plan’s approach to housing will become more concrete with the upcoming rezoning process. The City Council directed staff to create a request for proposals from potential consultants within 30 days; the consultant would help rewrite the zoning.