Northfield trustees hope new zoning district is ‘generational change’ to downtown vitality

In a bid to make Northfield’s Central Street business corridor more vibrant, the Village Board at its June 17 meeting created a new zoning category trustees hope can attract more retail and multi-family residential development in much of downtown.

To do so, they agreed to hike the number of stories developers can erect in different areas covered by the new B3 designation, all of which had previously been zoned office research, which prevented residential and some kinds of commercial development. 

Trustees agreed with Northfield’s Plan and Zoning commission in doing so. However, most of them also concurred with Community Development Director Steve Gutierrez’s recommendation to increase the building height minimum for construction west of Central Avenue to four stories. 

Gutierrez said maintaining the commission’s three-story recommendation would probably limit new residential construction to townhouses rather than denser multi-family construction. That would blunt the kind of positive effects the zoning change is aimed at, which include bringing more residents to an area within a five minute walk of the downtown area, he said.  

Board President Tracey Mendrek called the new zoning “an opportunity to make generational change in Northfield. This gives us guidance for two, three, five, 10 years from now.” 

The zoning change process began last year as a request from Northfield’s board to the plan and zoning commission, based on what village staff reported as business changes that took place after 2019, particularly the work-from-home shift that started during the COVID-19 pandemic. That almost completely cut demand for office space, according to village staff. 

The commission held five public meetings between February and June 2, when the commission unanimously completed their recommendation. 

Trustee Todd Fowler, who is the board’s liaison with the plan and zoning commission, said he attended its meetings about the corridor and supported its findings. But he also supported Gutierrez’s four-story recommendation. 

Commission member Kathy Estabrooke told trustees the commission’s 3-story limitation on Central’s west side was to help prevent what she called the feeling of “going through a tunnel” of tall buildings on both sides of the street. 

The new height limitations aren’t uniform within the district. New development is now limited to four stories west of Central, five stories east of the street and six stories along the expressway. 

Trustee Ed Elfmann said the new zoning doesn’t mean developers would have to build four-story projects in the B3 district. Mendrek echoed Elfmann and other trustees, who said the village could control how developers make use of B3 guidelines because projects will have to be reviewed by its architectural commission. 

Only Trustee Charles Orth voted against the final decision. Orth backed the commission’s lower three-story guideline, saying “no matter how you shape it, height is height.” He suggested adopting the commission’s recommendations and said the board could consider amendments in the future. 

As ultimately approved, the B3 category will allow residential development as a permitted use in the section of downtown Northfield largely bounded by the Edens Expressway to the east, the ComEd right-of-way to the west, Oak Street to the north and south to Maple Street. 

It also sets up special uses — which require approval by the board — such as boutique hotels, performing arts and live music venues, and cannabis dispensaries. One part of the zoning change will affect outdoor dining in commercial areas outside the B3 district.

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