(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - As Peoria County celebrates its bicentennial, local leaders want your help with a long range planning process.

Peoria County 200 plus is a process to create a comprehensive plan for the future.

Joining us is Andrew Braun.

He is the director of the Peoria County Planning and Zoning Group, and we also have Debbi La Rue.

She's the senior planner of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission.

Thank you both for coming in.

- Thank you.

- Debbi, let's start with you.

Tell us about the Tri-County Planning Commission.

And I know you work with Peoria County, but how does it differ and how do you work together?

- Absolutely.

So Tri-County Regional Planning Commission is our Metropolitan Planning organization that essentially means that we are a federally mandated organization that helps to coordinate transportation projects amongst the urbanized Peoria/Pekin area.

This is not necessarily a transportation project.

We are, as a regional planning organization, we're interestingly situated in that we're also able to help with special projects.

So outside of our transportation and transit portfolio, we also help a lot of communities on comprehensive land use and environmental planning projects.

For the past few years, we've been working with several smaller communities in our region to develop comprehensive plans.

So when Peoria County decided that it wanted to move forward with its comp plan, Andrew contacted us so that we could sort of help as a technical liaison for the process.

- Okay, and Andrew, comprehensive plans are comprehensive and complicated and big.

Tell us a little bit more about what these plans entail and why we do them.

- Sure, so this comprehensive plan is an update from 2009.

Generally every 15 to 20 years, the county is looking at the land use, how things are going to be developed, or frankly, how things are not going to be developed.

We're seeking citizen input on what might be the best use of land.

We're not just talking about development in the sense of single family, residential, or commercial development.

We wanna look at infrastructure, whether it be roads, whether it be broadband.

We wanna look at health and human services.

You know, we wanna just kind of take a gander at everything that comes into play as we decide where resources are allocated and how things are potentially going to be developed in the future.

- So the comprehensive plan was from 2008-ish, the 2009, the last, last one we had.

- Correct.

- Can you tell us a little bit about what was involved in that and, I guess, what we have done, the county has done in terms of getting to some of the goals that were in that plan.

- So in 2009, really we kicked off that process in about 2006 or 2007, and we had kind of a traveling road show.

We went around to different communities and we held meetings with the public and asked, "Hey, what do you think about infrastructure?

"What do you think about environment?

"What are some of the goals that we wanna look at?

"What are some actions that can help us "achieve those goals?"

And so we kind of took those on a year-to-year basis in terms of the overarching themes.

But on a day-to-day basis from the Department of Planning Zoning, we're looking at this plan when anybody and everybody comes in for development opportunities.

So they might say, "Hey, we wanna build this, you know, "big box store at such and such location."

How does that fit in with the current land use and the future land use?

How does that fit in with the current infrastructure, whether it be private or whether it be public?

Is that smart for Peoria County?

Is that smart for our economic development purposes?

And so that's really the basis behind what these comprehensive plans are about.

And as technology changes over the years, you know, you have to think 15, 20 years ago, broadband was available, but it wasn't available to the extent that it's now, and it still is unserved and underserved areas that we have to deal with.

You have to think about renewable energy was really just an afterthought in the state of Illinois 15, 20 years ago.

And so we need to look at that and how that pertains to the land use and the climate of today's environment.

- So back then, when you got public input from people, what are people's, what's on their wishlist?

What do they want for, you know, the land in our area, what do they wanna see built, things like that?

- Yeah, we really were looking at improved rails to trails and kind of pedestrian and bicycles and whatnot.

We were looking at improved technology in terms of cell service, in terms of broadband.

We were looking at improved opportunities or exposure to amenities.

And I think that we have slowly, but surely, been able to accomplish some of that.

It's not every day that the county is leading these projects.

A lot of times this is private development and we're helping steer it towards specific areas.

- And you being with Peoria County, are you representing in terms of, you know, land use and wants and needs, the entire county, even like in the city of Peoria?

- Well, this plan is looking at unincorporated areas of Peoria County.

It is the county's plan, but those subsets do have their own individual plans.

And so they target within the municipality or within the village as well as their extraterritorial jurisdiction.

That's the mile and a half area outside of that city or village where perhaps they intend or hope to grow and expand their services.

So we do have some kind of crossover areas, but for the most part, we're looking at the unincorporated areas of Peoria County.

- Gotcha.

And Debbi, looking at transportation, you know, it's been not yet 20 years since this last plan, but we've seen a lot of changes.

- Absolutely.

- The I-74 upgrade was a huge project.

You know, we look at our public transportation system, now they're thinking about what if we have Amtrak coming to Peoria, what do you see as the future of maybe some transit improvements or changes in our area?

- So passenger rail would be very interesting and it would certainly be traveling north through Peoria County.

So I'm excited that our executive director continues to work on that project and they're continuing to move it forward.

We do have an interesting planning project that almost blacked as a supplement to the comprehensive plan that should be kicking off soon.

We received some money from the Illinois Department of Transportation to do a large corridor study for all of Illinois 29 corridor, extending from downtown Peoria up through South Rome, Rome, Mossville, Chillicothe, to the county line.

So we sort of see that as a supplement to the comprehensive plan.

It will include, obviously a study of, to identify safety improvements, to identify biking and walking trails to see how passenger rail would be incorporated, and also to look at transit.

So buses.

But it will include some sub area planning.

That's sort of a term that professionally we use to say that we'll be looking at some specific areas along the trail or along that corridor where we can identify, okay, well do we need more commercial development here?

What should it look like?

What services are missing?

So I think that will be a really interesting project that should follow closely on the heels of the comprehensive plan.

- How important is, are some of these travel options when it comes to creating a comprehensive plan?

And I guess the overall with creating a comprehensive plan, you want people to move here, you want people who live here to stay here, have a good quality of life.

What does transportation mean for that?

- Well, I think the, the theme behind our plan or the title is together we plan, together we grow.

And so we wanna make sure that folks do have options.

You know, bus is not available everywhere in Peoria County.

Frankly, transportation for senior citizens to get to doctor's appointments and such, rural transportation is not available everywhere in Peoria County.

So those are some of the things that we have to kind of think about.

We have to identify what our goals and some actions to achieve those goals might be, because ultimately, if it's included in our plan, it gives us at least potential to include it in a future grant submission.

Many times grants are looking for, does this have the buy-in or the support of either the public and/or your elected officials.

So by saying, yes, we've included this as a strategy, yes, our elected officials are behind it, it's something that we can then potentially solicit those dollars from the Illinois Department of Transportation to get sub area plans for multimodal corridor planning.

- Sure.

What are some of the success stories from the current strategic plan?

I mean, have there been things where, you know, back in 2009 it was a dream to have fill in the blank and now we have it and it's been something big for the community?

Can you give us some examples of that?

- Yeah, I think there's kind of several examples.

One, we look at maybe South Laramie.

And so Laramie is generally the dividing line between the city and the county.

So southwest Laramie we were able to identify that as an area that maybe needed a little bit of help in terms of revitalization.

Through that, we then developed the West Laramie neighborhood plan.

That West Laramie neighborhood plan has been used to apply for grant funding.

We've been able to do some rehabilitation, we've been able to do some roof replacements.

We've been able to demolish some houses that were maybe unsafe or unfit for human occupancy.

So really just investing into the community in that particular area has been a result.

Other areas maybe not reflecting residential development are then going to be down near Route 24 in Mapleton on Wheeler Road.

We were able to kind of look at some stormwater and wastewater needs and wants and identify how some of those businesses may be able to further grow or are they at capacity.

And so it's things like that that you maybe don't think of on a daily basis, but how are we making our businesses or helping our businesses retain employees, attract employees?

Do they want to retain and attract employees and move forward with the location that they're in?

- Can you tell us a little bit about the process of coming up with a comprehensive plan?

I know it's not easy, but it involves a lot.

And we're gonna tell people in a little bit how you can make your wants and needs known.

But where do you start?

Who do you consult with?

Kind of give us an overview of how all this works.

- Well, we started with Tri-County Regional Planning Commission because they do have a background in developing plans.

They've been able to assist us on numerous plans in the past, whether that be Hazard Mitigation Planning or now Comprehensive Land Use Planning.

They were a partner in 2009.

They have a wider range.

And so they were able to then kind of reach out to more of a global network through the request for proposal process, help conduct interviews, and then ultimately select a firm named Planning Next out of Ohio.

They have extensive experience globally for comprehensive land use planning.

And so that was really the first step in this process.

We knew it was necessary because it had been 15 to 20 years, 2009, since the last time we updated.

Prior to that it was 1992.

Prior to that it was in the 70s.

Prior to that it was in the 50s.

So this is a theme.

We knew it was coming.

Tri-County helped us identify some funding and we were able to move forward that way.

- Tell us a little bit more about your involvement.

He mentioned some of the things, but where do you go from here on out in helping with this?

- So we selected the consultant and then formed a plan commission.

Andrew could speak more to the composition of the plan commission, but essentially we looked to get a representative sampling from the county.

We wanted folks that were involved in various sectors because they're really helping us to sort of steer the development of the plan.

And they also help us sort of interpret some of the local data and knowledge that we're gathering.

After we had our first couple meetings with the planning commission, walked through the, you know, what is a comp plan, what your roles will be.

We've now kicked off the engagement, the first phase of the engagement process.

So our first sort of pop-up event was at the Peoria County's bicentennial event on October 4th.

We currently have a survey that's up in, that's up and live.

I don't have a curtain number for you, but I think that we're getting some good participation.

We're also offering future talks or pop-up events for small groups.

These are really nice ways to sort of facilitate conversations within your neighborhood, within your affinity group.

Typically those conversations, it's best if it's 10 or fewer, just so that everybody can participate.

But we are actively seeking input there.

We hope to wrap up this first round of engagement, which is really more of a blank slate engagement.

We're not asking people to respond to, you know, ideas and proposals.

We're just saying, "Hey, you live in Peoria County.

"How is your life right now?

"What would you like to be different?

"What do you love that you'd like to retain?"

Right, I think maintaining prime agricultural lands was a key theme of 2009, which I'd say was also a success.

And, you know, give us some ideas of where you want us to prioritize our time.

So we'll be doing that through the very beginning of December, perhaps through the first weekend of December.

- [Andrew] Right.

- And then we're gonna bring all that information together and begin doing our analysis and start developing some of our preliminary ideas or drafts of where we think Peoria County wants to go.

We'll have a second phase of engagement in the spring.

To be announced.

- To be determined.

- To be determined likely in the spring in which we'll sort of say, "Hey, community, "here's our draft of the comprehensive plan.

"Tell us what we got right, tell us what we got wrong.

"We wanna hear from you."

It gives everybody an opportunity.

Some folks need something concrete to respond to before they can really give input so they'll have a second opportunity for folks to do that before we move forward and to finalizing a draft.

- Andrew, can you give us any idea of what people have said so far, things that they want, don't want, things they wanna see in the future?

- Sure, sure.

Well, the public engagement is really just a blank slate right now.

So if you have any ideas as someone who works in Peoria County, we want to hear them.

If you have any ideas, as someone who lives in Peoria County, we want to hear them.

Really, we started off with what are the, I don't wanna say pros and cons, but what is it that you like and what is it that you like to see different?

Then we move into a more of a mapping function, place a green dot on an area of the county that you're really proud of.

Place a red dot on an area of the county that maybe you feel needs a little bit more attention.

And then finally, what is it that you hope to gain as a participant in this plan?

And so I think what we're hearing is that Peoria County does have a lot to offer.

Anything and everything is within 20 minutes of where you are given, you know, your current position.

We're hearing fantastic things about the recreational amenities that we have available in Peoria County and how, you know, really some of those are unheralded.

We have, you know, parks, we have trails.

We're hearing things along the lines of the affordability to live in Peoria County.

We have transportation networks, whether it be the Interstate 474, whether it be 74, whether it be, you know, 116 or 150 that are connecting us to our neighbors on a either side.

We just have a lot to offer and as long as we can kind of steer away from some of those negatives and highlight some of those positives, we think that this is gonna be a plan that people are gonna really embrace.

- But as far as the negatives, I mean, are those things that you wanna focus on fixing or are some of them unfixable?

- Well, I think everything is fixable to an extent.

We need to make sure that we don't, you know, harp on that.

Some folks might say, "Hey, as you enter into Peoria County from particular "directions, it's unsightly."

Well what can we do about that?

Can we get signage?

Can we get landscaping?

Can we get lighting?

You know, that might be part of it.

Is it the demolition of a building?

Is it the rehabilitation of an area?

And so those are things that, I'm coming from a different direction than Debbi.

You are coming from a different direction than me.

And so when we can connect with folks of different demographics, whether that be age, whether that be income, whether that be, you know, race or ethnicity, you know, we wanna make sure that we're hearing from everybody because everybody has different ideas.

I plan on being here for 40 to 50 more years.

You know, some folks might say, "Hey, I'm gonna be outta here in five years.

"How does this benefit me?"

They might be looking for more short term projects.

And so we really gotta focus on what is the priority for the next 10, 15, 20 years and how we can allocate those dollars that we do have available either locally or we can chase those dollars that might be available at the state or on the federal level.

- And this is a good opportunity for people who may have gripes or maybe have things that they gush about, that they love about this area, to tell you guys about.

Let's talk a little bit more about public participation and how people can have their voices heard.

You mentioned, you know, some meetings and things like that.

Tell us about your website and the survey that you have on your website.

- Yeah, so Peoria County 200 plus, P-L-U-S, 'cause you can't use symbols, is gonna be our website.

From there you can take a survey, you know, generally online surveys, you maybe aren't inputting as much information or extracting as much information as you might get from a discussion.

And so Debbi mentioned that we do have this opportunity for future talks.

That's the, where we do have, whether it be a staff member, whether it be a member of our planning commission, whether it be maybe some other type of elected or appointed official or just a a special interest group.

We have the opportunity to bring that exercise to you wherever you may be.

And then you can kinda administer that activity.

We'll come collect the data and then we'll get that matched up with everything else that we have going on.

But from the website, you can subscribe to a mailing list that'll keep you abreast of any and all events that we have planned or are planning.

It will get you copies of surveys and then it'll let you know when we're gonna be in your area.

This first round of engagement, we're not necessarily going to be having like large scale events.

The Peoria County bicentennial was our kickoff.

We did have a tent there.

We were trying to attract folks and kind of build on the momentum of the 200 year event.

But moving forward, once we have at least some ideas, as Debbi alluded to, we'll be able to then kind of maybe come to your library or come to your area and share that information with you in a little bit more intimate setting.

- That's great that you are taking people's opinions into consideration because that's, you know, your average Joe voter out there usually says, "Oh man, I would've loved to have told them this "or put my input on that."

And now they can do that.

When you're thinking about things that can make the county better, of course you're listening to the people who live here, but as planners and people who have traveled a lot and seen other places, do you have any ideas of like, "Oh, well, you know, I was up in Rockford the other day "and they had this and I wish we had that here," and things like that.

Do you have any thoughts on things that could make our county even better than it is?

- Well, so I feel like we're being a little bit cagey about some of the feedback that we're getting or some of the ideas we have because we wanna be careful, as we're still getting input from everybody.

So we don't, we don't, we don't wanna give the appearance that we already know what the result will be.

So to continue in general terms, you know, I think that most folks really want a good quality of life and we already have nice commutes, right?

Relatively, relatively safe commutes when I'm working in communities in Peoria, so we're also working in Brimfield and Chillicothe, we recently worked in Bartonville.

Some of the themes that we regularly hear is that, you know, folks want to be able to walk in their neighborhood without feeling, you know, being concerned about a car.

Folks wanna be able to ride their bike, they want recreational opportunities, they want a chance to be outside because it's good for their mental health, right?

So I think that those are often themes.

Folks are often concerned about housing.

While we have really affordable housing stock for the national average, we don't perhaps have enough.

Right?

There's a high demand right now for housing and new construction is really expensive.

So that is, housing is still a key theme that comes up.

So I'm not gonna give you an exact, you know, Rockford has a lovely-- - Sure.

- But in general, you know, we do look at our peer communities and a lot of times when we're getting feedback from residents, they'll say, "I was in Rockford, I quite liked--" And we'll include that in our additional research as we're going through the community engagement results.

And we'll include those as precedent studies.

So if you have, I'm thinking if you've got some specific examples of things that you'd like-- - I do.

- You gotta put it, you gotta put 'em in the survey so we'll take a look.

- Everyone knows Peoria is better than Rockford.

I just threw that out there.

- Right.

They might have one thing that's nice, that you prefer.

- [Mark] I'm sure they have one thing.

- They can have one.

- Can't think of what it is.

But anyway.

So, you know, I was looking at some of the documents, on your website because you have other studies on there that kind of give background, and the population of Peoria County kind of peaked in 1980 and it's gone down since then.

Not a lot, but it has gone down and the population of Illinois has gone down.

So how important is a strategic plan like this in not only preventing people from leaving but making them want to stay here in this area?

- Well, I think we need to make sure we have opportunities for growth.

And this year, 2025, we've issued more single family residential dwelling new construction permits than we had since 2021.

So, you know, folks, even though the economy might be questionable at times, even though there are folks leaving, there's a lot of people that wanna stay.

And we wanna make sure that we're kind of advertising or communicating that we do have these great school districts, that we do have so much untapped potential.

You know, we have the Illinois River as our boundary on the eastern side, you know, flood insurance is another one of those giant question marks.

But we need to work with residents, with insurance agents, with whomever it might be to ensure that, you know, there's adequate opportunity if folks wanna live there.

If folks want to, you know, visit there.

474, there's a lot of development opportunity along the interchange.

You know, we're slowly seeing it in certain areas.

You know, Brimfield continues to grow.

The Kickapoo-Edwards interchange is ripe with possibility.

And so that's one of those things that, you know, we need to just make sure we're balancing what the development actually is.

If we get too heavy in one particular industry, then, you know, we're really shoestring ourselves.

But I think one of the things that Peoria County is really, should be advertising or demonstrating, is that we do have medical, we do have industrial, we do have education.

I mean, we do have blue collar jobs, we have the farming community, so we have all of these different industries.

So there's really not a one-size-fits-all where, you know, you, if you wanna do that, you gotta go there.

You know, we've got great union workers and brotherhoods.

So I think it's important to make sure that everyone understands that and not that everybody's gonna pick up a plan, but making sure that when we're reviewing it administratively as a, you know, the local government, we're making sure that those opportunities still exist for everybody.

- Alright, before we go, give us the website one more time and is there kind of a time constraint on when people can fill out the survey and is it gonna shut down at a certain point?

How does that work?

- PeoriaCounty200plus.com or.org, we are really looking for your feedback by the end of November.

I don't think the survey's going to actually shut down, but for us to be able to really collect and analyze all those results and then find what those clusters of development might be, what those themes might be, we really want to get that around the end of November so that we can move forward with the next phase of our project into the winter and spring.

- And the next comprehensive plan.

How, you know, we've said that we've done these roughly every 20 years is so is this looking 20 years into the future?

- I don't know that there's a specific, you know, expiration date to it, but I'd anticipate that 15 to 20 years, pending technological advances.

- Okay.

Well Debbi La Rue with the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, Andrew Braun, director of the Peoria County Planning and Zoning.

We appreciate both coming in.

And again, go to that website, make your feelings known.

It's better than having this complete and then saying, "Oh man, I wish I would've--" - "Shoot."

- "Added that."

We appreciate you both coming on and thanks for all the info.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much.

- All right, and thank you for joining us.

You can share this segment with a friend or family member, throw it up on social media if you want.

wtvp.org is our website and we are on Facebook and Instagram.

Thanks for joining us and have a good night.

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