GovLove - A Podcast About Local Government · Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL)

Cohesive Planning and Community Growth in Downers Grove, IL with with Jason Zawila and John Houseal

·57 min·1 clip

GovLove opens from Chicago at the 2025 American Planning Association Illinois State Conference. Dan Bolin introduces the collaboration with Only Planners in the Building and welcomes Andy Cross from the APA Illinois Chapter. The conversation centers on Downers Grove’s Guiding DG comprehensive plan, which had just received the 2025 Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan. The guests walk through how the project was built as four connected plans instead of one large effort. Those plans covered the comprehensive plan, environmental or sustainability work, active transportation, and streetscape design. Each piece had its own recommending body: the planning and zoning commission handled the comp plan, the environmental concerns committee weighed in on the sustainability report, TAP or the transportation and parking commission gave input on the active transportation plan, and HPDRB, the historic preservation and design review board, reviewed the streetscape plan. That setup let the town use the right group for each topic while keeping the process wide open. The episode also spends real time on public engagement. The guests describe pop-up events and other outreach used to gather input on all four plans at once, including a high school environmental class as one touchpoint for younger residents. The conversation notes that the work eventually flipped back to the traditional way of doing things while still leaving each plan room to be reviewed by the board most closely connected to it. The tone stays conversational and collaborative throughout, with live-setting energy and a clear focus on the mechanics of local planning.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how Downers Grove organized planning through four connected plans and broad community input.

Downers Grove's award-winning planning work is handled with care and a practical eye, with the effort framed through four connected plans rather than one oversized document.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a real municipal planning case study, not theory.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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