M. Rockwell

THE CRITICAL LAND SHORTAGE By Matthew L. Rockwell

THE critical shortage of open space in northeastern Illinois affects even downstate park planning in two ways. On summer weekends people from Chicago and suburbs, seeking a place to picnic, boat and golf, impact four states. The experience of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) may help other regions prepare their Regional Open Space Plan and Short-Range Open Space Program to qualify for federal matching grants.

Within northeastern Illinois, NIPC's Open Space Plan and NIPC's Program directly affect 146 park districts, five forest preserve districts, and one conservation district. Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties are asked to utilize three-fourths of their legal borrowing limit for land acquisition in the next five years. Park districts are asked to increase their inventories to meet a standard of 3.6 local park acres per thousand population by 1976, and nine acres per thousand by 1995. The federal contribution (HUD and BOR) is hardly likely to double at most. Matching grants from the state could help make up the difference, according to sources from the Illinois Department of Conservation.

The Program recommends using $250 million of state capital development bond funds for open space development statewide. Later figures show that $900 million in state capital development bond money, if apportioned by population throughout the state as a whole, would meet all the needs of Northeastern Illinois for state help in land acquisition except in the city of Chicago. There the land is simply unavailable. A consortium of conservation groups is working toward this $900 million state effort, but their bill may not be introduced in the General Assembly until later.

Currently northeastern Illinois has approximately 126,000 acres of regional open space plus approximately 20,000 acres of local parks. (Regional open space is defined as sites owned by a county, state, or federal agency, or more than 80 acres, or containing some unique natural feature.) The most significant items in the inventory are three incomplete north-south greenbelts:

• The incomparable Chicago lakefront, 30 miles long, 75 percent owned by the Chicago Park District;

• The wooded flood plain of the North Branch of the Chicago River, its middle reaches largely owned by the Cook County FPD; and

• The similar middle reaches of the Des Plaines River, owned by the Cook County FPD and to a lesser extent by the DuPage County and Lake County FPDs.

Northeastern Illinois contains only seven percent of the total park acreage owned by the State of Illinois, although it has 64 percent of the state's population. Compared to the region's seven million population, the total open space is disgracefully small. The region ranks last among the ten largest U. S. metropolises in this respect. To meet the needs of the year 1995, regional open space alone must be nearly tripled to 340,000 acres. At current rates of participation in outdoor activities, 90,000 new acres of all kinds are needed to eliminate the shortage and meet the short term population growth to 1976. The estimated cost is $800 million for land acquisition alone.

Faced with such staggering cost estimates to play catch-up ball against private developers, NIPC had to sharpen its pencils to find the most value in recreational land for each taxpayer dollar. A multiple-benefit checklist and scoring system were devised. Each surveyors' quarter-section was rated for its potential as open space. From the beginning, NIPC insisted that the bargains would have to be shown in dollars per user rather than in dollars per acre. Cheap inaccessible land would not meet the need and would not be an acceptable compromise. Several of the criteria involved water resources. Of the land in the first priority category, 40 percent is subject to floods. Some of this land also serves to recharge underground water supplies. Some may be needed for flood control reservoirs, such as will be built in forest preserves on Salt Creek. Soil types were considered — open space may be a good use where peat is too unstable for building foundations, or clay is too impervious for septic system drainfields. Sites of historic and scientific interest were noted. Visual aesthetic qualities were rated by staff inspection in the field. Land price zones were mapped.

The final map, after all scoring, shows first and second priority,

Matthew L. Rockwell is Executive Director, Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 28 January/February, 1973

areas for acquisition; a proposed trail linkage between major sites; existing regional open space; existing golf courses; and existing institutional land holdings. Exact boundaries of sites could not be determined. The region is more than 100 miles long. Those details were left to the local governments. The NIPC Open Space Map merely blocks out the rough outlines in grid squares each representing a quarter-section.

Ranking highest in this system are the extension of Lake Michigan shore parks, and river flood plains in rapidly developing suburbs. No golf course should be subdivided, the Plan urges, without a local government decision on whether the recreational use should be preserved by public acquisition.

HUD guidelines called for a final shopping list which would describe site boundaries, and rank sites in numerical order of priority. This might be practical in a much smaller region without rapid urbanization. In northeastern Illinois, a square mile or two of farms is subdivided each average month. The sites would all have been gone before the map was finished. After discussion, HUD agreed to a program which establishes priority categories rather than specific locations; which frees the forest preserve and park commissioners to seize opportunities as they arise. Local officials appreciate this. A rigid list would have put them at the mercy of land speculators.

Another problem of inadvertently encouraging speculation emerged in 1970 while NIPC was simultaneously preparing its Open Space Plan and Regional Waste-water Plan. New sewage treatment plants and interceptor mains were proposed along the suburban rivers, in the obvious low points of each drainage basin. But sewers have become the key to profitable land development—the difference between one lot per acre versus four to six per acre. New sewers attract urban development and drive up land prices. These sewers would cross the vary sites most needed for open space. Thus, single-minded pursuit of the goal of clean water could sabotage the equally important environmental goal of open space. This problem is recognized in both plans. The Waste-water Plan calls for delaying or rerouting any sewer project which could drive the price of open space out of reach of public budgets.

Highways, too, must be kept out of open space. NIPC fought for Thorn Creek Woods in south Cook County with local and state conservation groups, against a major developer and the Division of Highways. This battle appears to be nearly won.

If one lesson can be found in 70 years of open space planning for northeastern Illinois, it is the importance of intergovernmental and citizen collaboration on all levels, to preserve recreational land. The battles will be lost unless each of the forces for open space can do its part and rely on all the others.

Money and policy guidelines of the Federal government is needed. Money and enabling legislation is needed of the state. The regional planners' long range view of population and environment is needed. Sanitary district and highway officials who understand that sewers and roads are not more important than the total public interest are needed. Philanthropists are needed. Citizens who will chain themselves to trees and vote to raise their own taxes are also needed. In all these battles for open space, forest preserve and park officials play the most important roles.

DuPage County Forest Preserve District commissioners sold 98 percent of their legal bond limit. Their limit has since been raised by the legislature, and they are committed to a 100 percent crash program. Wilmette Park District commissioners, won a special referendum for a debt limit of five percent of assessed valuation, in order to save a golf course from development. Of the 50 largest park districts in the region, more than half have referendum bonds outstanding. Many other districts are using most of their non-referendum limit. But open space is just beginning to replace air and water pollution as a popular environmental cause. Many more local referendums can be expected in the next few years.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 29 January/February, 1973