After this month, Forest Park will have to find a new planning consultant. Muse — which has provided guidance to village officials on zoning, land use, and best practices in community and economic development for 8 years — announced it would no longer work with the village after March 31, citing the stall in Forest Park moving forward several projects.
“Efforts including the comprehensive plan, zoning ordinance amendments, and the Altenheim redevelopment all stalled out, so there isn’t planning for us to do,” Courtney Kashima, founding principal at Muse, told the Review. “We are an urban planning firm and therefore want to help communities plan.”
The village last updated its comprehensive plan in 2014 and has recently discussed hiring a consultant to help update Forest Park’s goals for its budget, facilities, land use, policy changes and transportation. The village had a special meeting to talk about potential land use at the Altenheim last May, when officials discussed installing a submerged water reservoir and pump station at the village-owned Altenheim property.
Most recently, the village has been updating its code in chunks. Concerns over changes to the residential zoning portion of the code have divided the village council and are not currently on a path to a certain resolution. Steve Glinke, director of the village’s building, planning and zoning efforts, said this stagnation is stalling the rest of the code updates.
“I can’t really, in good conscience, begin to make recommendations for a map amendment or the business districts when the single most-important part of the update, with the most immediate and sweeping impacts on our residents, was the residential district,” Glinke said. “I’ve got my fingers crossed we get the residential portion across the line, but until we do, it seems pointless to engage a planning firm for further changes.”
Glinke has said at multiple council meetings that not passing the residential zoning code updates has halted planning and development in town. Now, Forest Park is losing its professional guidance in those areas and Glinke said he’s “crestfallen.”
“Courtney [Kashima] and her staff have guided us through some rough waters. The really unfortunate part moving forward is finding a planner that gets Forest Park and all of its tricky twists and turns,” Glinke said.
Many properties in Forest Park have been grandfathered into the village code, but because they don’t technically conform to the code, several homeowners have struggled to renovate their properties. Glinke cites the example of when Muse helped guide the Altenheim Advisory Board in 2022, which recommended building multi-family housing on the property. But that isn’t currently permitted under the code.
“We’re at a very serious crossroads from both a community and economic development standpoint, and I think Muse was poised to help us navigate and pivot,” Glinke said.
Glinke said that, before Muse quit, the village was planning to bring in one of its economic development staffers to look at underdeveloped areas of Roosevelt and Harlem, which he said “have been historically tricky to develop, but Muse felt there was real potential there.”
“Forest Park has a lot of exciting potential should it choose to pursue strategic planning and development,” Kashima said, citing Roosevelt Road, Harlem Avenue, Des Plaines Avenue, transit-oriented development around CTA stations, better connection to the river, and the potential for a trail along the old railroad tracks. “That’s the power of planning: bringing people together to decide what they want for their community and memorializing that vision in a plan so the work can happen.”
Glinke said he’s hopeful that the village will be able to find another qualified planning consultant.
“Fingers crossed that they have the insight to recognize that this is not a place where sweeping change can occur, but make recommendations on the necessary pivots that we need to determine new sources of revenue, improve housing diversity and make Forest Park a better place to live.”
Zoning code changes
The residential zoning updates were officially struck down last May, when Commissioners Maria Maxham and Ryan Nero voted to pass them, while Mayor Rory Hoskins and Commissioner Jessica Voogd voted against it, and Commissioner Michelle Melin-Rogovin abstained from the vote. Hoskins previously told the Review that he would vote to pass the code changes if more commissioners wanted to.
Now, Nero is working with other commissioners to get them re-engaged in passing the updates to the village’s residential zoning code. At the last council meeting in February, Nero thanked Commissioner Melin-Rogovin for meeting with him to discuss the residential zoning impasse that’s unfolded over the last year.
“We’re continuing to refine the language and provide clarification where needed, and I’m hopeful this work will help council members make an informed decision,” Nero told the Review.
At past council meetings, Nero suggested that the village council meet with the Planning and Zoning Commission in a public meeting to move the residential zoning updates along. He later told the Review he wants to work toward a consensus with council members before bringing the updates back to the PZC.
After three meetings to discuss and amend the residential zoning code updates in 2024, the PZC unanimously approved the changes and recommended that the village council do the same.
“I think it’s incredibly insulting to the people who spent three evenings discussing the residential updates, having thoughtful conversations, voting to support it unanimously, and they’re just rejected. That’s never happened in Forest Park, by the way, certainly not in my time,” said Steve Glinke, who’s led the building department for over 15 years.
“We’re at a critical time, and I don’t think most of the residents understand that,” Glinke said. “In order to make our pensions whole, we would need $80 million dollars. We’re borrowing from TIF funds to pay our general obligations. That’s got to be paid back, and we don’t have a mechanism to do it. I’m trying to do my part.”
