It took two months, but Evanston’s Environment Board finally got a chance to weigh in on the city’s proposed Lakefront Protection Ordinance during its last meeting of the year.
Discussion of the ordinance dominated the Dec. 18 meeting. The ordinance would, as the name implies, create a unified policy around development along the lakeshore, protect lakeshore ecosystems and make sure historically significant properties are preserved.
Climate Action and Resilience Plan Implementation Task Force member Jerri Garl, who joined the Environment Board as of the December meeting, has been working on the plan with three council members and city officials. The task force wants several Evanston bodies, including the task force and the Environment Board, to weigh in before it goes to the City Council for consideration sometime in 2026.
The CARP task force reviewed the ordinance last month other important items
Councilmembers Clare Kelly (1st) and Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) attended most of the meeting to help explain some of the ordinance’s legal nuances and answer questions about the process. Nieuwsma previously served on the Environment Board.
What’s in the ordinance The current draft ordinance would apply to what it calls the “Lakefront Protection Zone,” which would encompass “all publicly owned structures, beach and green space, east of Sheridan Road” (except Lighthouse Park District, the Evanston Water Plant and a few other properties), all publicly owned property and green spaces around Sheridan Road, all properties zoned U3 (or any future equivalent) within 200 feet of Lake Michigan, all existing lagoons and “land below the ordinary high water mark subject to the City of Evanston’s authority to protect public health, safety and welfare.”
U3 properties are centered on Northwestern’s lakefront campus near Sheridan Road and integrate university operations within the community.
The city would be required to survey the zone within a year of the ordinance’s adoption to get a sense of conditions. This survey would be used as a baseline to track how well the city protects the lakeshore.
The ordinance would require the city to work with Northwestern and lakefront stewards to generally make the protected zone more hospitable to plants and animals and more environmentally sustainable.
Any public land could only be sold if approved by a voter referendum, and at least two-thirds of the City Council must vote to place it on the ballot. The same referendum requirement would apply for “any lease of public property within the Lakefront Protection Zone that may restrict public access, diminish public amenities or fail to preserve or protect green space.”
The ordinance describes steps the city could take to protect the shoreline against erosion, creates protections for properties held in public trust and requires the Environment Board to sign off on any long-term temporary structures along the lakeshore.
Environment Board feedback
Environment Board member Jim Cahan, who also sits on the CARP Implementation Task Force (and serves as its chair), argued that the language around baseline assessment was too vague.
“It’s really unclear what this baseline is supposed to be comparing to,” he said.
Garl pointed out that the purpose of the baseline is precisely that — to measure the conditions as they currently are so that future surveys would have something to compare future conditions against. But after some further discussion, the board agreed to recommend adding language saying that the assessment should be done by a qualified shoreline ecologist or a civil engineer. The board members also recommended more explicitly describing exactly what the survey would entail.
Board member Libby Shafer said that she was worried that the ordinance language requiring the city to protect dunes and other beach features that help reduce erosion would make beachfront trails through the dunes off-limits. Kelly responded that she believed that protections would be there “so long as it doesn’t interfere with what we currently have.”
Shafer said that, ideally, she would like to see people use the beach area while also having protections in place for the dunes themselves.
The board also discussed the referendum requirement. While some members wanted to expand the referendum requirement to all leases, others worried that it would mean requiring a referendum for short-term leases. They agreed to recommend the referendum for all long-term leases while requiring the council to approve short-term leases by a two-thirds majority.
The board also recommended requiring the installation of bird-friendly windows in any new buildings or when replacing windows in an existing building.
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