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 with a 5-4 vote at its regular meeting Monday, Jan. 26.

The divide over the comprehensive plan, a document that cities use to guide policy for years to come, arose more than a year ago.

During public comment, opinions continued along the same lines as they have in the past. Supporters praised the wide-ranging plan’s eye toward affordable housing, and opponents decried its changes for residential neighborhoods as destructive. The adoption process of Envision Evanston was also criticized as bumpy.

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

“The process by which we got here is a messy process,” said Ald. Matt Rodgers, 8th. “I don’t think anybody is going to argue that this was the smoothest and that we would probably run this again the same way.”

The deep-seated debate over development, and even over how Envision Evanston came about, has yet to subside. Though adopting the comprehensive plan offers guiding points for Evanston policy, the city will now embark on overhauling its zoning code based on the principles spelled out in Envision Evanston.

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

Those concerns represent only a fraction of those voiced by opponents, who had organized against the project by January 2025 after the city had released its initial plans and Mayor Daniel Biss had called it “immoral” not to proceed swiftly. (Later he said he regretted using the phrase.)

Biss had inaugurated the public process in February 2024 to compose a new comprehensive plan and overhaul the zoning code. In a May 2024 op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, he appraised Envision Evanston as “an opportunity to get beyond the agonizing 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 cropped up over Envision Evanston. It only increased with Biss’ comments and a timeline that would have had the city adopting the comprehensive plan and zoning code before the April 2025 municipal election.

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

Mayor Daniel Biss, who has boosted Envision Evanston 2045 since its beginning, speaks as the Evanston City Council discusses the topic on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (Shun Graves/for Pioneer Press)

That calendar lengthened, eventually stretching into 2026 after a series of Council meetings in mid-to-late 2025 ironed out the language of the comprehensive plan.

Now the plan, whose vision ranges from improving bike parking to boosting art incubators, stretches for nearly 200 pages without counting its appendices. Crucially, instead of abolishing single-family zoning, Envision Evanston calls for allowing people to upgrade residential lots to small multi-unit developments by right.

The housing policy drew praise and condemnation from supporters and opponents. Sue Loellbach, the director of public policy at Connections for the Homeless, praised the plan and recounted the many efforts by Evanston residents to create more affordable housing. A group wearing “Yes to Housing” T-shirts looked on while she spoke during the public comment session.

Jeff Smith of the Central Street Neighbors Association likened the looming adoption of Envision Evanston 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 also recently was charged with a felony in Georgia.

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

Much of the discourse during the Council discussion, however, centered on small corrections to the draft comprehensive plan, amounting to what Biss called scrivener’s errors. Still, some Council members gave their takes on the overall plan.

“I am comfortable with the general direction that the comprehensive plan is pointing 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 those details in the zoning process, we will end up with something that, by and large, most people in Evanston will find acceptable and can live with.”

Supporters in the audience applauded after the council voted 5-4 in favor of adopting the comprehensive plan. Rodgers dissented, along with fellow Alds. Clare Kelly, 1st, Thomas Suffredin, 6th, and Parielle Davis, 7th.

The comprehensive plan’s housing approach will become more concrete with the forthcoming rezoning process. The City Council called on staff to create a request for proposals from prospective consultants within 30 days; the consultant would assist with the zoning rewrite.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/27/envision-evanston-win-city-council-approval/