The year ends with the same frustrations over local zoning and code issues that have played out across 2025. Forest Park Village Council members have now tabled two notable initiatives to both update and untangle the mess of zoning and code regs that have bedeviled this village over decades.
There had been progress on zoning in recent years. But this year, with a hard-to-explain failure of leadership from Mayor Rory Hoskins, it has all ground to a halt.
Seemingly stuck in limbo are the Planning and Zoning commission-recommended, consultant-vetted recommendations on residential zoning changes. Two commissioners are stuck over concerns about building density and stormwater management. They also have questions about how the recommendations were informed and want more public outreach. The matter got tabled months ago and has now disappeared from view.
Where is the mayor in working to resolve these issues? He never speaks at the village council table when this issue comes up. What is he doing in one-on-one discussions with commissioners and staff to get this done? When will this issue be raised again and put to a final vote? We just don’t know.
Now there are the building code updates. This is more straightforward. Consultants have again made recommendations to match Forest Park’s building codes to current standards. Routine.
But when the proposal reached the council table on Dec. 15 the same two commissioners said they hadn’t yet had time to fully review the proposal. So it was tabled.
That issue supposedly will come back to the council in January for a vote. We will believe it when we see it.
Meanwhile, our question remains. Where is Mayor Hoskins in all this?
New soccer turf coming
The Park District of Forest Park has now committed to replacing the turf of the soccer field on Harrison Street in the next year or two, acknowledging the field has reached the end of its unnatural, rubberized life.
This is no inexpensive project. The district estimates it will cost upward of $750,000 to replace this intensely used field. The news out of the park district this month is its commitment to make the upgrade, whether or not it manages to win a $600,000 grant from the state’s OSLAD fund. While the Forest Park parks have done exceptionally well in earning this state support in the past, it is not yet certain that this funding will come through.
That’s why the promise that it will find the funding and undertake the project in short order is notable. The park board, at its last meeting, agreed to spend $137,000 on data gathering, design development and construction documentation to advance the project.
There has been some public pressure from parents and other users of the field to make this upgrade happen. Good for the park district in hearing those concerns.
