Planning

Zion is "Heralding a New Future" and aggressively pursuing retail, commercial and light-industrial development that is compatible with the City of Zion Master Plan. Below is a summary of the vision that the City of Zion has created for its future, as stated in the city's Master Comprehensive Plan adopted in 1992.

The overall comprehensive plan promotes a balanced and orderly future development pattern to enhance the local living environment and build upon the city's strengths. The objectives of the Master Plan are not unlike what most communities would want toinclude in an overall development design. The uniqueness of Zion is that we have directly implemented our objectives through ordinances, land acquisition, re-zoning, property maintenance, sign restrictions, TIF districts and grant programs to encourage desired growth and maintenance.

Zion recently annexed nearly 1,000 acres along Illinois state highway Green Bay Road for the purpose of developing a light industrial and business park complex. And, true to our history of beautiful parklands and community focus, we have allotted nearly one-third of this property for a golf course, fine arts theater and hotel.

We have carefully integrated new landscaping, zoning and signage requirements to ensure that new developments are well received by the community. To improve existing commercial sites and our housing stock we have adopted a property maintenance program to assist owner to update older buildings and see that they are well maintained for the future. New housing development proposals are expected to include Smart Growth concepts, specifically reserving significant percentages of the project for open or community use space. We encourage wide entry boulevards; gathering areas with either a gazebo or band shell structure, garage entries to the side or rear of the home, larger setbacks and numerous trees. We are creating new neighborhoods and they should feel like a neighborhood with adequate parkland and opportunity for personal space, not just another subdivision.

The city has invested nearly $11 million dollars in a new streetscape and facade program to revitalize our historic downtown business corridor. New lighting, sidewalks and seating make for a lovely walk through the shopping district and the facade grant program gives store owners up to $150,000 to restore their building appearance in an unprecedented 75/25 matching grant offering. The funds can also be used to address any code or safety concerns in the process. The revenue for these projects has been through a $5 million economic development grant from ComEd and our own TIF district resources. Not one cent has been derived through property taxes or increased burdens on our business community.

The city has also created a downtown maintenance program to provide our business corridor with daily city personnel dedicated to keeping the area attractive and well ordered. This also gives the city a direct liaison with the business community to ensure their concerns are immediately heard and addressed by the city.

We offer three TIF districts in Zion to encourage new development. The first in our historic downtown business district, the second is a proposed light industrial park, currently open farmland and the third is our main new shopping district including the K-Mart plaza. Through our TIF authority we have agreed to offset construction costs, help with land acquisition, granted sales tax reimbursements and generally worked with investors to see that their interest in Zion is encouraged and profitable.

Our goal is to allow development throughout Zion in a managed, acceptable manner that improves our tax base while preserving our quality of community life. We feel our comprehensive plan supports this objective and is a marvelous tool supported by community input and a distinct vision of the future without disrespecting our past.

For more information please contact our Department of Economic Development
at (847) 746-4056.

Sonolito Bronson

Coordinator

Planning and Economic Development
The City of Zion
2828 Sheridan Road
Zion, IL 60099

Phone: (847) 746-4056
Fax: (847) 746-4017

sonolitob@zion.il.us

Office Hours :

Monday - Friday
8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.