City of Urbana hosts open house for 20-year development plan
URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — The City of Urbana is asking for feedback on a plan five years in the making. On Wednesday, staff hosted an open house to answer questions about the latest Imagine Urbana draft.
Planners are trying to give direction to the city's future, and there's a lot of ways they plan on developing the vision. Wednesday was an opportunity to hear from the community through one-on-one conversations and written notes. Many people took advantage of the opportunity.
'It's a 20-year plan for sort of the future of the city,' said Principal Planner Kevin Garcia.
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Garcia has been working on the plan for the last five years. The city released a draft of the Imagine Urbana plan in August of last year but has continued to tweak it since.
'I'd say that what it boils down to is just quality of life,' said Garcia. 'It's trying to make the city better in the future than it is today.'
Now they have four big ideas to guide future decisions, and a bunch of steps to make that happen.
'Some of those big moves are to expand our arts and culture program,' Garcia said. 'We would certainly use this plan to sort of guide us for future changes to the zoning ordinance.'
That's where some people had questions, like Joanne Budde.
'They keep talking about rewriting the zoning ordinance, and we don't know what that means and they won't elaborate on it,' Budde said. 'They go 'We'll get to that when we get to it.''
Budde is worried apartments, duplexes, and some small businesses may get built in and around her neighborhood Beringer Commons.
'I understand those concerns,' said Garcia, 'A lot of the types of development that have historically occurred in, especially some of our older neighborhoods, has not been great.'
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He said Imagine Urbana doesn't change very much from what's already on the books, but can be changed later on if new information comes through.
'But also, if you don't allow some level of change over time, the neighborhoods will just stagnate and then they sort of fall on hard times,' Garcia said.
Budde said she appreciates the city hosting something like this but isn't very confident.
'I think what's going to happen is it's going to get passed, and then people are going to go, 'How did that happen? I don't remember approving that,'' she said. 'They just build a big house next to me or apartment building next to me and they're going to go, 'When did that happen?''
Garcia said the plan is being discussed by the city council and he isn't sure when it will be passed. The next time it will be discussed is June 2 at City Hall.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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