NIPCs secret: Find out what people want and plan for that

SOME YEARS AGO when Matthew Rockwell was a consultant to Deerfield, a community in northeast Illinois, an indignant resident shook her finger under his nose.

"There's never going to be an expressway around Deerfield," she said. "You are just wasting your time."

Others were equally convinced there would be no industry in the area. Both predictions proved false. Rockwell's job is to see that the area around Chicago avoids such errors.

He is executive director of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) created in 1957 under Chapter 85 of state statutes by a law introduced by a commission headed by State Rep. Paul J. Randolph (R., Chicago).

Its assignment: conduct research, prepare comprehensive general plans and advise units and agencies of government within a six-county area (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will).

NIPC's broad goala are to foster economic growth, preserve the environment and promote the well being of its residents. In today's world, that translates into efforts to meet water pollution, garbage disposal, transportation, housing, health; the myriad problems of modern urban life.

NIPC began as a planning agency, and that still is its prime function. Heavy emphasis is placed on cooperative planning to avoid the problem of solving one problem but creating new ones. So interdisciplinary skills are stressed; men planning sewer projects are in daily contact with those planning forest preserves, in turn, with those concerned about falling water levels, air quality, transportation and so on through the major urban problems of the day. Object: a balanced, planned approach.

In the past several years increased attention has been focused on making these plans work. One staffer puts NIPC's approach this way: "Damn near anybody can draw pretty maps in color and then go out and try to sell them. Most wind up collecting dust. If you want planning to work, you've got to find out what people want and then try to draw a plan which meets those needs." In one early effort it borrowed two commuter railroad cars to visit many of the 258 cities and villages in its region. Aboard were exhibits of several alternative general plans for the area. The most popular plan was adopted. It envisages the area growing by two million persons by 1995 with most of the growth channeled along the "fingers" of the commuter rail corridors where much of the suburban population and services already exist.

Last fall when a regional transportation plan was up for adoption, NIPC held its legal public hearing on television. WTTW, Chicago's educational station, provided two hours prime time. 60 phones and 60 tape recorders were used to channel comments and questions to a panel of experts. A dozen changes in the plan resulted.

Four staff members are assigned to Waukegan, Hoffman Estates, Wheaton and Homewood to travel the circuit trying to identify local problems and ways in which their planners could help.

One example. A NIPC official set the stage for mayors of two western suburbs to sit down for the first time to discuss their mutual problem—a projected shopping center midway between the two towns. It developed into a full-scale plan, not only for the shopping center, but for all their common border problems.

Using the new state Constitution which fosters intergovernmental operations, NIPC has helped a dozen communities in northwest Cook County to enter a common contract to develop plans for their combined area with costs prorated to benefits. Another group is jointly studying some cooperative form of waste disposal. Fourteen shore communities are combining to meet problems of lake erosion.

NIPC currently has 80 employees, down from 100 because of the economy. Its $2.5 million budget this fiscal year comes from local governments (about 25 per cent), a bit more from the state, just under half from federal grants. Sen. Howard W. Carroll, (D., Chicago) head of a 12-member advisory committee, has introduced legislation to put more stress on state financing in the future.

NIPC's heavy dependence on public support stems from necessity. It has no powers of its own; it is purely advisory. Its 25-member board, however, does give it a significant power base. Each serves a four-year term. The governor appoints five, Chicago's mayor five, Cook County three, one from each of the other five counties, five are elected by an assembly of the mayors and village presidents outside of Chicago, one from the Metropolitan Sanitary District, one from the Chicago Transit Authority. Three of every four are elected officials in their own right.

But NIPC's real muscle stems from Washington. The federal budget people insist NIPC pass judgment on all major projects and with one exception (a dispute with the Chicago Sanitary District) NIPC has never been overruled. With a possible half billion federal dollars coming into NIPC territory in the next six years, NIPC's recommendations have high priorities.

190/Illinois Issues/June 1975