By KEVIN NEVERS

The stakeholders committee tasked with proposing the streetscape design for the South Calumet Business District envisions something like this:

A low limestone wall at the intersection of Ind. 49 and C.R. 1100N, reading “Chesterton: Gateway to the Dunes”; limestone monument signage at the intersection of C.R. 1100N and C.R. 100E, promoting the businesses in the district; rows of flowering ornamental deciduous trees along the streets themselves; and lamp posts with banner arms designed to fly flags.

That design DLZ, the town’s contracted project engineer, unveiled at the meeting Monday night of the Redevelopment Commission.

No price tag to the design was floated, and as Craig Hudson of DLZ made clear, at this point the various streetscape features remain tentative.

Two things in which the stakeholders committee showed relatively little interest were the public art park and rain garden suggested by DLZ nearly a year ago when the matter of the streetscape was first raised.

Member Mike Bannon did remark that, based on the drawings furnished by DLZ, the stakeholders committee appeared to be more interested in vegetation than in structure. “That’s a pretty interesting way to go about it,” he said.

The Open House

Meanwhile, Mike Jabo deemed the open house held by DLZ earlier in the evening a success. Roughly 20 citizens took the opportunity to look at the engineering drawings for the project and to offer input. “We had a lot of comments,” he said. “A lot of positive comments.”

In a couple of cases, Jabo added, citizens drew his attention to details in need of further review and those issues will be “followed up on.”

Not everyone, though, who reviewed the engineering and streetscape drawings was pleased. Nancy Hageman, who owns property immediately to the west of C.R. 100E, made an impassioned plea for a time before subdivisions, uniformity, and beautification, and wondered “why are we doing this? Are we courting people from Chicago? What are we doing?”

“I’m not sure I understand why the project is going forward anyway,” Hageman said. “Maybe there’s the safety issue. So deal with safety. But spending that ungodly amount of money to beautify is crazy.”

From the floor Town Council Member Frank Sessa, D-2nd, agreed with Hageman, and noted that he voted against the $5 million project for a cost-benefits reason. “People have been paying taxes for 50 years in this town,” Sessa said. “And they don’t have curbs and sidewalks on their street.”

Posted 12/12/2007