Key Questions & Concerns

Across several neighborhood meetings, a collection of open questions and concerns with the NWM project have been identified and are maintained in the list below. Many core issues are bolded. If you have additional questions to add to this list, please email advancingOIP@gmail.com.

The developer has yet to adequately address a number of community questions and concerns about the impact of this project, including:

Highlights

Key impacts as proposed will include:

• Adding a full-scale 350+ space parking garage entrance/exit onto residential streets adjacent to housing on Kilbourn and Kenneth

• Adding a new traffic light on Irving Park Road at the south leg of Kilbourn

• Preventing residents of the 4000 block of Kilbourn from turning left onto their block from eastbound Irving Park Road

• Preventing left turns onto Irving Park road from northbound 3900 block of Kenneth

• Converting a residential alley directly adjacent to homes into a street for deliveries/waste and parking flow with extension over a residentially zoned lot

• Elimination of an undisclosed number of nearby parking spaces around the facility

Key Questions include:

• Why is Irving Park Road is not used as the entrance and exit to facility parking, instead of residential side streets? Will reducing scale allow this to be possible?

• How many new trucks for deliveries, pickups, and hazardous waste removal will be added each day?

• Why is this facility demanded to be so much larger than Northwestern’s existing and planned facilities in comparable Chicago locations, such as 1333 W. Belmont and 4732 N. Lincoln?

• How many parking spaces will be lost along Irving Park, and on Kenneth and Kilbourn?

• The traffic study has shown the rush hour egress plan on residential streets to not be sufficient to handle the demand. Why has this been deemed to be acceptable?

• How will the traffic impacts of this project be amplified by the additional developments nearby (the former People’s Gas property, the Point, and the former Sears)?

• How does Northwestern propose to fill the planned ground floor retail space, given the existing vacancies along Irving Park Road and new space planned at the three other developments underway nearby (the former People’s Gas property, the Point, and the old Sears store)?

• How much previous green space will be eliminated in favor of this building?

• How will security and community concerns be handled throughout the lifecycle of the project and into the future?

Detailed Issues and Concerns

Traffic Pattern/Ingress/Egress: NWM has not met the burden of proof as to why Irving Park Road as a primary entrance/exit is not viable. The only true rationale would be that they need to reduce their interior space to accommodate the traffic pattern and lineup inside the building. They do not need to increase size to do this, but rather decrease services.

• • Waste/delivery vehicles: safety, hours, noise

  • Parking garage nuisance noise next to residences (devices, lights)

  • Kilbourn alley just south of IPR too close to light

  • Change of existing alley adjacent to the site into a “street”

  • Loss of parking spaces + patrons using neighborhood parking (being “easier” than a validated garage)

  • Non-feasibility of permit parking on Kilbourn due to homes without a Kilbourn address in developments sharing Kilbourn frontage

  • Confusion from visitors resulting in community safety issues: Kilbourn is not a clear/expected entrance location

  • All residents of 3900 block of Kenneth must fall in with exiting traffic from this facility, will have left turn option cut off

  • An eastbound left turn lane into the 4000 block of Kilbourn will be eliminated

  • Proposed Kilbourn light location is in a backed up location- will be ineffective and create gridlock at evening rush. Does not account for increased traffic at Six Corners with new developments.

Size of Facility/neighborhood fit

• • Even with the reduction of height, this is much taller and bulkier than other buildings on this stretch of IPR

  • Design of the building does not fit existing architecture of neighborhood

  • Bulk of the building is far beyond the intended existing zoning (see OIPA Zoning Statement)

NWM has not shown an ability to be a good neighbor in this process

• • Why has NWM not given us contact info for us to express our concerns?

  • What/who will be accountable when there are neighborhood issues such as with construction issues, hazardous waste ?

  • NWM continues to talk about this project as being about THEIR experience, not the NEIGHBORHOOD experience.

Traffic study

• • Does this account for non-COVID traffic during the school year?

  • Does this account for the ROIP alley on Kilbourn?

  • Does this account for the Irving Park evening rush backup that currently overwhelms these intersections?

  • Does this account for future Six Corners development traffic (including potential U-turners from Peoples Gas site?)?

    • Recommendation: Six Corners Master Traffic Study

  • Does this account for surges, such as Cubs traffic?

Construction

• • Noise/nuisance/dust

  • Spillover of equipment into existing parking or other common space

  • Water/gas/electric service cutoff for neighbors

Misc.

• • Retail space usage/hours/demand is undefined

Detailed Questions By Category

Traffic Impact

• What is the correct number of anticipated vehicles per day? What is this number based on? (conflicting reports)

• Did the traffic study adjust for post-pandemic traffic when schools and commuters are again at full force?

• Did the traffic study adjust for what will happen when the three new developments are built at six corners?

• There used to be a few hundred cars going in/out of Sabatinos a day and those cars entered and exited onto Irving. Why is it okay to divert over 1,300 cars a day off of an arterial road?

• What roads were studied in the traffic study? Was the impact on local roads modeled to account for all the people who will now cut through onto various roads to the west, east, north and south of the development to avoid the lights and back ups?

• Does the alderman have a master plan that looks at the impact of the multiple developments on traffic and livability in the neighborhood. Many believe this is needed before any individual development is granted zoning and CDOT approval.

• Have you modeled how long cars will typically need to wait as they exit on Kenneth and Kilbourn and how that will impact residents' ability to get out of their own blocks of Kenneth, Kilbourn, Dakin, Condos that have parking on the alley and others.

• Have you looked at the impact on traffic during Cubs traffic which will overlap with the facilities business hours?

• Will existing parking spaces/ability to park on Kenneth, Kilbourn and Irving be eliminated?

• How will a long enough turn lane be accomodated for eastbound and westbound traffic from Irving onto Kilbourn with the nearby viaduct and current parking alongside Irving?

• How will this development keep kids safe on Kenneth and Kibourn when it is putting 1300+ cars onto these side streets each day?

• Will there need to be a "no left turn" from Kenneth onto Irving if this plan goes through?

• How will patrons be deterred from just parking on local roads and taking up residential spots?

• Does the traffic study account for the Irving Park evening rush backup that currently overwhelms these intersections?

• Why was this site chosen since it is more than walking distance from the Blue Line and Cicero + Milwaukee buses that could have minimized car traffic coming into the building?

• What are the details on the recessing/widening of Kilbourn? Does that go to the alley?

• Are Kilbourn, Kenneth and other adjacent side streets guaranteed to get permit parking if applied for?

• Will personnel be on site to direct traffic in peak hours?

• How will the frontage on Irving Park Road be designated? (Free parking? Loading Zone? Paid Parking?)

• What department is “not allowing you” to either have curb cuts on Irving Park or put the light at northbound Kilbourn?

• What other traffic patterns were considered and why were they rejected?

• Why was the private alley servicing 40+ homes on Kilbourn not modeled into the traffic plan?

Waste Hauling

• Has the development been approved by the Illinois Dept of Public Health with medical waste being directly adjacent to residential homes? Many in the community know that this is a necessary step for medical facilities.

• Will times for deliveries be limited to within 8 am to 6pm so as to minimize noise for neighbors?

• How many delivery trucks and waste hauling trucks are expected per day at the facility?

• How safe is it to have medical waste so close to homes?

• What mitigations will there be if there is spilled medical waste? How will this be monitored?

• Are delivery, waste and other trucks/vehicles included in the 1,330 vehicles per day?

• How are delivery vehicles expected to manuver in and out of the loading zone?

Construction

• How long will construction take?

• Will construction vehicles be allowed in the new "alley" to the south of the building?

• How will construction vehicles enter and exit the property?

• Have you checked the site for toxins from the former funeral home that was on the property?

• What will you do to replace the trees that are being lost on the property ( 4 - 5 mature trees)?

• Will NWM have a community liason for residents to call with problems both during construction and after the facility is up and running?

• How will dust/dirt/debris from construction be minimized?

Scope/Other

• How will retail within this facility impact existing businesses and the community's ability to fill empty storefronts along Irving and at six corners?

• What benefits do you see for local businesses with all these people coming into the neighborhood? Would patrons and employees likely just come to facility and leave without providing any community benefit?

• Why should neighbors accept a building of this size that is much taller and bulkier than other buildings on this stretch of IPR?

• Why is a building planned that goes so far out of the existing zoning on this property?

• What medical services are being put into the building?

• Will there be 24/7 security at the building site?

• What/who will be accountable when there are neighborhood issues such as with construction issues, hazardous waste

• How long will it take for the building to be fully occupied by all the planned medical offices and specialties?

• How will the building drain now that all green space on the lot will be removed?

• How can adjacent neighbors be certain that the building will not now cause our properties to flood since this lot will no longer have any permeable green surfaces?

• Will the building cause reflections during early morning and late evening that will prevent drivers from not being blinded while driving?

• Why aren't green space, setbacks or other liveability details built into the property design?

• Is a rooftop garden planned and will it be required to follow through on this intent if it is promised to the neighbors?

• The building will "break the plane" of existing home setbacks by a very large margin. These don't seem in keeping with zoning intent or other building in the neighborhood. How will this issue be addressed?

• Is it common for the city to allow this level of upzoning including the creation of a new alley over a residential property?