"I did it my way," Frank Sinatra used to sing. The City of McHenry recently completed an update of its 1981 Comprehensive Plan. And like old blue eyes, we did it our way.

Our experience may offer some ideas to other Illinois municipalities who need to update their planning but want a plan that responds to local needs rather than to rigid formulas.

McHenry is a former vacation home destination rapidly becoming a popular residential location for suburbanites. Over the past few years we have seen residential and business growth at a rate unprecedented in our history. The rapid pace of change prompted us in 1987 to make preparation of anew development plan a priority.

After receiving proposals from a number of Chicago-area consulting firms, the City Council selected Glen Ellen-based Gann Associates as the firm to assist us with our planning.

Our McHenry Development Plan, officially adopted late last year by the City Council, departs from conventional comprehensive plans in a number of ways. Six are especially noteworthy.

1. Council-Commission Cooperation
Unlike many communities, our entire City Council takes an active interest in planning policy. The full Council participated together with the Plan Commission and Gann Associates in every stage of the plan development process.

The plan that resulted thus reflects not just the

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viewpoints of appointed Commission members but also the sometimes different perspectives of our elected officials. Another benefit of cooperation between the Plan Commission and the Council was that there were relatively few issues remaining to be ironed out when we finally got to the public hearing stage.

2. Minimal Miscellaneous Data Gathering
Our 1981 Plan was a comprehensive plan based on the traditional formula. It included pages of data compilation and analysis on our existing land use, population, transportation, and community facilities. As with many traditional plans, much of this data had very little bearing on the policy content of the plan.

We dispensed with the miscellaneous fact-finding and focused on data and analysis related to the most important issues and development factors affecting the future of the City. This saved us time, a critical concern in a community faced with new development proposals every month without up-to-date policy against which to evaluate them. And as a happy by-product, it also saved us some money.

3. Review of Policy Alternatives
The situation of a city does not dictate any particular plan. You can't derive the "right" plan for a community simply by mixing together data on population, economic trends, topography, land use, and soil types. Every plan that has any meaning is an expression of local policy, and there are always different choices in matters of policy. So before developing any plan, Gann Associates gave us some choices.

The Plan Commission and City Council reviewed a report on Development Options that presented 12 key policy issues that would affect the nature of the Plan. For each issue, two or three alternative policies were presented with a brief analysis of the advantages of each. The consultant made no recommendation on which policy he thought we should choose but simply presented relevant considerations on all sides of each question and allowed us to make the decisions.

4. Focus on Critical Neighborhoods
Unlike some traditional plans, our program dealt

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both with the broadscale planning we needed for the City as a whole and with more detailed planning for portions of McHenry that were of particular concern. In response to the consultant's inquiry, we chose two of the latter: the newly-developing corridor along Bull Valley Road at the fringe of the City and the City's older Downtown area.

Major development in the City had historically followed our two major highways — Routes 120 and 31. But in recent years a third growth corridor was emerging along sparsely developed Bull Valley Road at the edge of the City. A major medical center had been built there, and a new bridge over the Fox River promised increased accessibility for the area.

McHenry's Downtown is unique, consisting of not one but three small separate commercial areas. In comparison with many downtowns, ours was still healthy, with few vacancies and little physical deterioration. Yet important Downtown traffic generators were increasingly relocating to outlying sites.

Gann Associates prepared detailed plans for each of these areas. The Bull Valley Corridor Plan was based on the development policies already chosen. But here again, the consultant prepared three alternative plans for us to choose from. The Downtown Plan similarly presented six strategy options for the future of our central business districts.

5. Flexible Two-Part Format
Our previous Comprehensive Plan had become outdated and was no longer used after less than ten years. The City's growth was partly to blame, but so was the Plan's traditional rigid format. The new Plan is designed to be more flexible to allow it to remain useful as conditions change.

The status of a proposed expressway to the north of the City perhaps best illustrates our need for flexibility. On the drawing board for many years, it had never been built. With the recent relocation of the Sears Merchandising Group from Chicago to the northwest suburbs and the successful completion of a toll road through DuPage County, there was renewed interest in the need for new highways in the area. One proposal would have given us our highway but routed it west of the City instead of the previously planned alignment north and east.

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We knew such a road would have great effect on the development of McHenry, but there was no way of determining where it would have this effect.

Our Plan was accordingly presented in two parts. Part one was the Development Policies — a verbal statement of flexible policies for residential, retail, industrial, open space, downtown development, streets, and interchange area development. The second part was the Plan Map — a location-specific map indicating future land use.

The Development Policies were designed to serve as a policy guide that would not have to change even as the City changed. The Plan Map, on the other hand, was specifically designed to be amended with a changing development situation. In this way the Plan recognized, as many plans do not, that things will happen that the planners never anticipated. But it also recognized our need to have some consistent policy over the years despite changing conditions.

The Plan Map accordingly shows the planned expressway in the traditional alignment north of the City. But the Development Policies on expressway interchange development can apply even if the western alignment is finally selected.

Our Plan Commission and City Council members represent a variety of perspectives and interests. While this is necessary and even healthy, it is not always easy to reach agreement. The flexible nature of our plan allowed its adoption by both the Commission and the Council. While the Plan is in some respects very general, a more specific plan might not have achieved the acceptance and comfort level that even our elected officials appear to have with this Plan.

6. An Amendable Plan
McHenry has for years periodically amended its plan to reflect land use decisions made from time to time as a result of changing circumstances. While these amendments were done by ordinance, they never appeared on the plan map or in the plan document, since neither was designed to accommodate changes.

Our new Plan is designed to be amendable. The presentation-scale Plan Map consists of film colors and tapes on acetate overlays super-imposed over a base map. The designations for land uses, facilities, and highways can easily be replaced with updated information. And the Development Policies are on a computer file that allows easy update of their verbal provisions should that become necessary.

Conclusion
We did our plan update our way. It was not the traditional way to do a comprehensive plan, and it is not necessarily the way other Illinois municipalities should approach their planning. While we used professional help, we remained in control of the policy decisions.

But as a result of our active participation and our consultant's willingness to be flexible and tailor a plan to our needs, we achieved a plan our City Council can live with. Given the history around the state of plans prepared to reflect only the priorities of planners or plan commission members that as a result never see implementation, this may be more of an accomplishment than it appears. •

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