Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/02/1999

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Seven industrial parks currently share the corridor. Aesthetic standards help to create cohesiveness while retaining individual park identity. Thc parks have comparable ingress and egress design, access points, a three-story height limit, building material restrictions, and centralized parking and park-and-ride features. According to Michael Cade of the Economic Development Council, open communication between the public and private entities, especially zoning and planning officials, has been the biggest asset in ensuring the corridor's success. Chicago's 22 industrial corridors are part ora comprehensive economic development initiative to link predefined industrial areas. Retaining Chicago's ability to meet the needs of industrial interests while allowing for neighborhood growth and development was considered essential in the corridor development plans. Industrial corridors are a zoning overlay that allows for greater flexibility to meet industry's changing needs. To assure stable land use within the corridors, proposals for nonindustrial development in the corridors are required to undergo full review through the planned development process. City planners are given full consideration of the operational needs of existing industries when reviewing propOsals to rezone property near industrial corridors and when updating the existing zoning standards for manufacturing districts. According to Donna Ducharme, former deputy commissioner for the city's Department of Planning and Development, each industrial corridor plan has five objectives: to ensure safety, accessibility and function, competitiveness and marketability, manageability, and attractiveness. Designated improvements to the Ravenswood Model Corridor project improvements include viaduct enhancements, park-and-ride facilities, decorative lighting, an external building improvements program, landscaping, security initiatives, and traffic md public transit studies. A preliminary budget of $1.25 million wag proposed for the project. Species, Environment, and River Conservation Corridors Conservation-related corridors are defined by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (1990) as "avenues along which wide- ranging animals can travel, plants can propagate, genetic interchange can occur, populations can move in response to environmental changes and natural disasters, and threatened species can be replenished from other areas." Protecting core reserves and landscape connectivity for species conservation is the goal of the Sky Island/Greater Gila environmental corridor, spanning from Arizona and New Mexico south to Mexico. An acknowledgment of mating needs and migration patterns of area species prompted a coalition of environmental organizations to support a corridor preservation plan. Plan proponent Andy Holdsworth, Sky Island Alliance's Arizona field coordinator, recognizes the importance of working cooperatively with other stakeholders, including county planning departments in both states and Mexico. Holdsworth says a critical element in biological corridor development is the need to maintain or restore functional connectivity, or provide flexible corridor boundaries to accommodate species' changing needs. If adopted into actual corridor planning efforts, the concept will require zoning solutions such as overlays and interim uses. Historic and Heritage Corridors Also evolving out of corridor planning are historic or heritage linkages. The Royal Missionary Road of the Californias corridor stretches from the Los Cabos region in Mexico north to Sonoma, California. The historical significance of the corridor dates back to the establishment of the Mission Nuestra Senorade Loreto in 1697. Mission and archaeological sites, ancient structures, and important ecological zones add to the corridor's unique heritage. Preservation efforts are being led by a diverse team of stakeholders in Mexico together with a group EXHIBIT C Corridor sigwage placement map taken Jgom Chicago's Ravenswood Industrial Corridor Strategic Development Plan for Ind, strial Rete'ntion and F~pansion. Efforts are underway to improve the accessibility and. function of the city's corridors, that represents wide-ranging American interests, including California's parks and recreation department. In the East, corridor planning was presented in numerous bills to link historic locations such as revolutionary war sites so tourists can more easily follow the history of the region. American heritage corridors would be a "museum without wails," says Connecticut State Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-New Hartford). The legislation recommended a partnership between the federal and local governments to coordinate corridor improvements such as road signs and better preservation of historic sites. ~: Corridor Planning Challenges Achieving broad participation and s~akeholder cooperation is a major challenge ofcorrldor planning. In 1992, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) adopted the Oregon Transportation Plan to address corridor planning. A case study tracked the experience of ODOT in its efforts to develop a corridor plan, parts of which would have to be adopted and/or implemented by 34 local jurisdictions and four other state and federal agencies. A key element of the process was the creation