Elmhurst Eyes Rules For Downtown Projects

ELMHURST, IL — Elmhurst is considering construction standards for downtown, where a number of big projects have taken place in recent years.

On Monday, the City Council approved a proposal for an evaluation of construction site regulations. This comes at the request of Ward 1 alderwomen Marti Deuter and Jennifer Veremis, who submitted a statement to City Manager Jim Grabowski.

"While construction is universally inconvenient and much of the inconvenience is unavoidable, downtown development has unique challenges," the alderwomen said in the statement.

They said a poor managed site generates many complaints and requires time-intensive city involvement, including site visits, code enforcement and traffic enforcement.

The common complaints, they said, are overflowing dumpsters that litter the area, work that takes place outside allowed hours, uncontrolled dust and workers using customers' three-hour parking. Other towns address such issues in their regulations, they said.

Elmhurst's regulations are well-suited to single-family residential development, but not larger commercial projects, especially in downtown, the alderwomen said.

"Enforcement actions must be well documented, applied consistently and sufficient to encourage compliance," they said.

The issue is set to be referred to the council's Development, Planning and Zoning Committee.