According to David Emanuelson of Strategic Management Alliance, Sycamore is ahead of its time.

Monday night, Emanuelson presented the city council with a report estimating the ultimate population per dwelling unit within Sycamore based on city-conducted studies.

“Sycamore is ahead of the time because they’re collecting data,” he said. “Other communities are just considering collecting it.”

The report included an analysis of the number of children produced by the existing and new homes and townhouses, saying 67.6 percent of Sycamore units produced no children. The adult population remained consistent. In addition, 92.4 percent of attached multi-family complexes had no children. Of detached housing, 50.1 percent had no children.

What does this mean? Comparatively, Sycamore doesn’t have a lot of children to educate, Emanuelson said.

With the help of Emanuelson, Sycamore composed a new survey, or algorithm for understanding growth trends within the community. The previous standard of measurement for community growth — the Naperville Table, issued by the Illinois School Consulting Service — was 10 years old. Sycamore retrieved its own data, comprised of information surveying the entire population, bucking the norm of polling only a fraction of a city’s people.

Regarding what will become of the data, 4th Ward Alderman Darren Knuth suggested the city consider quick changes usually associated with demographic studies.

“The numbers of occupants can change very quickly and with very little warning,” he said.

City Manager Bill Nicklas agreed.

“We don’t have the census results back yet, but we will soon be able to sift that in,” he said.

Consensus among some of the council members was to conduct a follow-up study one decade from now to survey more comparatively the results.

Earlier in the meeting, Nicklas’ proposed amendment to the future plan for the general vicinity of Airport Road and Illinois Route 64 failed Monday with a 5-3 vote. Concerns among the council members over the plan covered the legal language used in the proposal, possibilities of extensive traffic on roads not equipped for such high-density transport, and lack of funds from development.

Also, the council was set to hold a public hearing on the 2007 Fiscal Budget, but discussion was postponed until April 17 at 5:30 p.m.