On Wednesday night, the DeKalb Desired Development Direction board discussed several ideas it would like to see included in DeKalb’s new comprehensive development plan.

Major topics included a west side arterial road study, the adverse effects to pedestrian traffic of large trucks on Lincoln Highway and what kinds of businesses should be encouraged to open downtown.

DeKalb City Planner Ray Keller began the meeting by saying the plan would provide a policy backdrop for property development decisions made by the city.

Keller asked two rhetorical questions he believed a development plan should answer.

Keller wondered, should DeKalb remain an agricultural community or become part of Chicago’s next ring of suburbs, and will DeKalb remain a college town or expand its focus?

Keller was concerned about the two possibilities involved in DeKalb’s growth.

“People have been complaining that DeKalb was growing either too quickly or too slowly,” he said. “By the end of April we hope to be able to cross-reference technical information and community input and come up with some development scenarios for the next 10 years.”

While reviewing the community’s changes since the last update of the development plan in 1996, Keller said he was primarily concerned about traffic, especially at DeKalb’s entry points.

“Probably the 800 pound gorilla for the community is the Convocation Center and the development of the west campus,” he said. “The city has jurisdiction over adjacent property.”

Keller added the university had concerns that needed to be addressed.

“The university does not want another Annie Glidden, another arterial road cutting through the west campus, so we have to be sensitive to that. The bypass will have to run west of the west campus.”

Keller also said he believed many city officials are concerned about several issues facing downtown DeKalb, including economic development and traffic.

Several committee members complained about 18-wheelers passing through downtown on Lincoln Highway.

Carol Zar, President of Mainstreet DeKalb and a research associate at NIU’s Center for Governmental Studies, said it was important to create safer paths for pedestrians.

“Foot traffic won’t rise back up as long as people feel uncomfortable on Lincoln with big trucks blowing by,” Zar said.

Heather Fosburgh, Mainstreet DeKalb executive director, agreed the downtown should be heterogeneous, not homogeneous, and added she would like to see downtown as a mosaic.

“Should the focus of the town be on appearances or on fostering positive interactions?” Keller asked.

The board agreed that the two were intertwined.

Zar revealed that many Illinois college towns want to create trolly car systems that connect their downtowns and college campuses, and believed if DeKalb followed suit more students could be drawn downtown to eat and be entertained.

Smith said the focus for downtown DeKalb a few years ago was supposed to be service-oriented.

“That was why the law firm set up shop in the mansion at Lincoln and First,” he said.

Zar responded that service businesses were an asset, but DeKalb should not emulate Peoria, which has a downtown so dominated by government and service industries that there was only one shop of consequence there.

Mike Groark, Mainstreet DeKalb Vice President, said communities need to plan decades in advance.

Groark was concerned businessmen looking at purchasing buildings downtown are thinking 10 to 15 years down the road.

“We already know what downtown is going to look like six years from now and it’s out of our hands,” he said. “It took 35 years for downtown DeKalb to become blighted.”

He added he was worried the board was only thinking five to seven years ahead, and he believes that isn’t enough to turn downtown DeKalb around.