Perhaps Sycamore was envious of spring, or maybe it just wanted a piece of the growing season. Either way, the town’s economy is booming with interested developers.

Council members passed an ordinance Monday to define more clearly the sub-area plan for the general vicinity of Airport Road and Route 64.

The city wants to make sure its employees and residents have an equal understanding of Sycamore’s future, City Manager Bill Nicklas said.

“There’s been some development interests along the Route 64 corridor,” he said. “We wanted to take a tighter view of what type of land uses we wanted to see there and what kind of road configurations we wanted to see there.”

Nicklas said the increased number of interested parties is what motivated the city to create a separate plan to determine what the city is looking to develop. While the proposed amendment failed passage Monday, Nicklas is still enthusiastic toward Sycamore’s future commercial expansions.

“The [ordinance] was approved last night,” he said. “The next thing is we’ll come back with some notes to be incorporated with the map in our comprehensive plan.”

First Ward Alderman Alan Bauer said in planning ahead, Sycamore aims to stay ahead of the curve.

“Sub-area planning is a good way of being more specific in certain areas to better plan how that area will develop,” he said. “It’s best to do that before any serious development plans come forward so the city has documented what they would like to see there before another developer comes in or demonstrates they have a different idea for what should be there.”

Sycamore Mayor Ken Mundy agreed with Bauer that pre-planning helps both the city as well as interested parties better understand intended land uses for a proposed area.

“We’re particularly interested in the ORI and the highway commercial uses that are being planned for that area,” Mundy said. “When prospective developers or folks who might be interested in petitioning for annexation into the city — since 2003 we’ve had a future land use map where people can come see what we expect to be in any particular area. This 675-acre area didn’t have a definite plan. We’re fine-tuning that now, bringing that more into focus because we expect as Airport Road develops up toward Plank Road there will be more interest in developing on the east side of Sycamore.”

Regarding the increased commercial interest, Sycamore residents expressed mixed feelings about development.

“I do not like this at all,” Joani Lefelman said. “I have lived here for 45 years and I like how things are. I think there’s too much new development, and they can just go somewhere else.”

Joan Hoecherl, 71, expressed more apathy toward the growth.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect us too much from looking at the map,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to bother too much. We don’t really have that much business here and I don’t know where it will be in the future.”