In my last post, I argued that the Meadow Plaza debate raised three larger questions Northbrook had not answered: Do we really understand the health of downtown? What happens if this proposal dies and nothing gets built? And what larger financial problems are we actually trying to solve through redevelopment?
Village leadership had spent years talking about downtown revitalization without developing a public vision capable of guiding an entirely foreseeable controversy like this one. That leaves residents to evaluate Meadow Plaza as an isolated fight over a beloved shopping center rather than as part of a broader conversation about downtown’s future, its economic health and the difficult tradeoffs Northbrook faces.
Since then, opponents of the proposal have continued to win hearts and minds. They have humanized the businesses, organized residents, engaged local media and done much of the heavy lifting to fill the narrative vacuum the Village created. A recent poll conducted by Northbrook Focus—an influential local political group that opposed the Caucus slate in the last election—produced 574 votes against the proposal and only 39 in support. Northbrook Focus has a public Facebook group with roughly 785 followers and a private group with about 1,661 members, giving it a substantial local audience.
The poll is neither scientific nor politically neutral, but the result is still striking. More importantly, almost no one is standing up publicly to explain why this redevelopment, or something resembling it, would be good for Northbrook.
Village leadership, by contrast, appears focused on distancing itself from fault, narrowing the scope of its influence and reducing its share of responsibility. Officials insist the process is working, even as they increasingly seem irritated by the residents participating in it.
And the gap continues to widen.
That does not mean the opposition has answered the larger questions either. I remain unclear about what many opponents are actually for. Some argue against demolishing the shopping center, even though neither residents nor the Village can require a private owner to preserve it indefinitely. Some appear open to redevelopment with first-floor retail. Others seem willing to accept four stories but not six. The opposition has been very effective at explaining what it rejects. It has been far less clear about the future it would support.
Leadership Is an Asymmetric Responsibility
Before critiquing the Board’s performance, it is worth acknowledging that its responsibilities are fundamentally different from those of the residents who come to public comment. Residents are under no obligation to study market economics, zoning law, school finance or stormwater engineering before speaking. They can focus on a single concern, advocate passionately for it and then return to their daily lives. Most will quickly fade back into private life.
Trustees do not have that luxury. Their decisions, motives and judgment are continually scrutinized. They are expected to understand competing interests, make difficult tradeoffs, explain those decisions publicly and continue showing up meeting after meeting—even when doing so means spending hours in a fishbowl absorbing criticism—all while serving in what is effectively a part-time role that pays roughly $6,000 a year. It is an extraordinarily difficult and often thankless job.
That asymmetry is inherently unfair. It almost certainly discourages many thoughtful, capable people from seeking public office. And while trustees are clearly undercompensated based on the time commitment alone—never mind the abuse they are often subjected to—paying them substantially more would not solve the larger problem. I do not believe the personal attacks, constant questioning of motives and reputational exposure that often accompany public office can ever be adequately compensated.
Frankly, no one should have to put up with that.
But enduring it does not absolve elected officials of their responsibility to continue taking the high road.
Residents are free to advocate for one issue. Trustees must weigh them all. Residents can oppose a proposal without offering an alternative. Trustees ultimately have to decide what they support. That is the job.
The job is not simply administering a fair process. It is developing a coherent vision for the community, informed by more analysis, more expertise and greater access to data than any individual resident could reasonably assemble on their own. It is making the case for that vision, explaining the difficult tradeoffs it requires and continuing to engage the entire community, even when doing so is uncomfortable, unpopular or personally unfair.
That is the job residents elect them to do.
What Residents Said on July 28
By July 28, the opposition to the Meadow Plaza proposal had become broader and more substantive. Residents were still speaking passionately about the businesses, relationships and sense of community they believe would be lost, but the comments were no longer limited to preserving a beloved shopping center. They raised detailed questions about zoning, building height, traffic, flooding, schools, TIF financing, the loss of commercial space and the accuracy of the Village’s own planning analysis. Several also challenged whether the Village had been sufficiently transparent about its involvement before Pulte’s preliminary concept became public.
A summary of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request had begun circulating online shortly before the meeting. Those records appeared to show that Village staff and elected officials had been engaged with Meadow Plaza ownership and prospective developers well before the public review began, including discussions about residential redevelopment, zoning expectations and affordable-housing requirements. The documents did not show that the Village controlled the sale or selected Pulte. They did, however, make the Village’s repeated insistence that it had not participated in the process feel incomplete to many residents.
That distinction further galvanized the opposition. Residents were not only asking whether the Village had hired the broker, established the sale price or reviewed competing bids. They were questioning whether Village officials had encouraged redevelopment, helped define its likely parameters and then publicly described their role too narrowly once the proposal became controversial.
Other speakers challenged the Village’s case for additional downtown density. They questioned the geographic comparisons used by staff, the accuracy of maps and data, and whether broad planning goals were being used to justify a specific proposal before its impacts were understood. Business owners and customers emphasized that Meadow Plaza remains active and valuable to the community, while others asked what would happen to retail, traffic, drainage and surrounding institutions if the property became predominantly residential.
Not every argument was equally persuasive, and some questions cannot be answered until a formal application is filed. But the overall direction was clear. What began as an emotional campaign to save Meadow Plaza had grown into a larger challenge to the Village’s credibility, analysis and handling of the process.
What Are the Opponents Actually For?
For all the success opponents have had defining what they do not want, I am still not clear what outcome they would collectively support.
Some speakers argue against tearing down Meadow Plaza at all. I understand the sentiment, but that is not ultimately a decision residents, or the Village, control. The property is privately owned, and the Village cannot require the owner to continue operating the existing shopping center indefinitely. And yes, for what it is worth, I absolutely want my elected leaders using their influence to attract the development that best advances a broader vision for Northbrook—if only we had articulated such a vision. If these residents want to propose that the Village purchase the property and continue operating it under the same lease terms the current businesses enjoy, I would hope the outcry of opposition from residents would be even stronger.
Others appear open to redevelopment if it includes meaningful first-floor retail. Some focus on preserving the current four-story height limit. Others object primarily to the proposed 150 units, the six-story buildings or the dramatic reduction in commercial space. Those are all legitimate positions, but they do not add up to a shared alternative. Nor do they grapple with the economic reality that someone must ultimately invest tens of millions of dollars to redevelop the property while expecting an acceptable return.
The leader of Save Downtown Northbrook had this to say on CBS News Chicago:
“The paradox is that people move here for what is currently here, only to be destroyed for what will not be here, negating what they moved here for.”
This is a very effective political message because it captures a genuine fear that change will erase the qualities people value about Northbrook. Similar to the dystopian graphic overlaying the Stop Pulte Homes petition, all of us who love Northbrook suddenly see a threat to that which we hold dear. If an elected official had said something this hard to follow, I would probably judge it more harshly. She is a volunteer organizer trying to rally her neighbors, not someone exercising public power, and I do not think those two things call for the same level of scrutiny.
That said, the premise deserves scrutiny.
Communities are not museums. People move to Northbrook because of the schools, neighborhoods, parks, location, safety and overall quality of life—not solely for a 66-year-old shopping center that looks every bit of its age. Meadow Plaza contributes to that experience, but it is one piece of a much larger ecosystem. People move to thriving communities, and thriving communities inevitably evolve. The real question is not whether Northbrook should change but rather how to do so in a way that enhances and strengthens the qualities that attracted people here in the first place.
What really strikes me about this debate is that Meadow Plaza has increasingly become a proxy for the future of downtown itself. The public face of Save Downtown Northbrook, despite its name, has remained centered overwhelmingly on one shopping center. Comparable public participation from businesses elsewhere in downtown has been notably absent.
That silence is understandable. Many of those owners are likely friends, neighbors and fellow members of the local business community. Few people would publicly argue that a redevelopment which may ultimately benefit their own business is justified while fourteen nearby businesses face displacement or relocation. That is an unenviable position.
But their absence also leaves an important gap in the discussion. If the central argument for additional downtown density is that it will strengthen the broader commercial district, then the businesses it is intended to strengthen have largely not been part of the public conversation. Their perspectives—whether supportive, skeptical or somewhere in between—would help residents understand not only the current reality of downtown, but whether additional residential density is actually likely to improve it. This returns to the first question from my last post: do we really understand the health of downtown? I still do not think we do.
The opponents have been remarkably effective at explaining what Northbrook stands to lose. The harder question—and one that will eventually have to be answered—is what they believe Northbrook should become.
The Meadow Plaza Businesses’ Side of the Story
I have been criticized for not giving enough attention to the experiences of the Meadow Plaza businesses themselves. That criticism is fair.
One Meadow Plaza business owner told me that tenants were attracted to the plaza after being told the Heitman family intended to keep it, improve it and bring in additional high-quality businesses. According to this owner, some businesses invested substantial money in new spaces based on those representations, only to later find themselves locked out before they were able to open.
Separately, the owner of a business elsewhere in Northbrook told me that Meadow Plaza representatives repeatedly tried to recruit the business to the plaza at nearly half its existing rent. That helps explain why current and prospective tenants may have believed the property had a longer-term future.
Public records can establish the chronology of meetings and redevelopment discussions, but they cannot fully capture what this uncertainty has meant for the people whose livelihoods are directly affected. These owners invested money, signed leases, hired employees and planned their futures around what they believed the plaza would become.
If any of the businesses believe promises were broken or contracts violated, they should pursue whatever legal remedies are available.
Whatever happens there, the human cost is real. These businesses have built relationships, created jobs, served families and become part of the fabric of the community. My focus on the documents, economics and process has not done justice to what this uncertainty feels like for the people whose businesses and livelihoods are at risk.
They have earned Northbrook’s support and respect, and their legacies should extend well beyond whatever happens to Meadow Plaza in the short term.
Another Attempt to Make the Case for Downtown Density
With two trustees absent, the July 28 meeting included what I believe was the third staff presentation since shortly before the Meadow Plaza controversy began making the broader case for downtown redevelopment, housing and density.
The argument was familiar: Northbrook has limited land available for development, its population is aging, many residents want smaller housing options, additional downtown residents could support local businesses, and housing near the Metra station has long been part of the Village’s planning vision.
I totally get it.
What is still missing is a clear, broadly understood vision for what downtown could become and why a development like this one, even if imperfect, might benefit Northbrook as a whole. That vision would require leaders to speak honestly about the tradeoffs: some buildings will come down, not every business will survive and more housing may sometimes replace commercial space.
I’ve been fairly consistent about this throughout these articles: I find the basic economic logic behind greater downtown density largely persuasive. Denser commercial districts generally support stronger commercial ecosystems than sparsely populated ones. Businesses gravitate toward concentrations of customers, activity and investment. The logic behind adding more residents to a downtown is not difficult to understand. We can debate exactly how Northbrook compares with neighboring communities, but it seems fairly obvious that our downtown supports fewer residents than many of them.
Much of that is by design. Our parks and open spaces are among the things that make Northbrook special, but they also occupy land that, in other communities, might be devoted to housing and commercial activity. Businesses evaluating downtown Northbrook do not discount a smaller customer base simply because we have good reasons for it. That does not make Northbrook unattractive for investment. It simply means that, all else being equal, downtowns with more nearby customers are generally more attractive. If we want greater downtown vibrancy and a stronger tax base, it stands to reason that we need to give new businesses more reason to invest here and existing businesses more reason to stay.
Treating the issue as a binary choice is exactly where I think the discussion has gone off the rails. One side has argued—albeit with almost tepid conviction and with much of the case outsourced to Village staff—that additional downtown density is necessary to strengthen the broader commercial district. The other has organized around preventing the demolition of an aging shopping center and the displacement or relocation of fourteen businesses that have become part of the community.
The argument for change is almost always more difficult than the argument for preservation because it requires defending both the benefits that might be realized and the costs that must be accepted. Preservation asks only what might be lost.
Leadership requires the courage to say what needs to be said, especially when it is unpopular. That means explaining not only the benefits of change but also the tradeoffs it demands, and making the case with enough clarity and conviction for residents to decide whether those benefits justify the costs.
Instead, Village leadership increasingly focused on defending the process and distancing itself from responsibility.
Cross-Examination
What followed was one of the evening’s more unusual exchanges. Rather than continuing the discussion about downtown redevelopment, the President walked the Development Director through a carefully structured series of leading questions that largely established what the Village had not done, what it did not control and why its interactions with Meadow Plaza ownership and prospective developers were routine.
Village President: Two more questions from the public comments. Did the Village of Northbrook have any participation in Meadow Plaza engaging with a real estate broker and going out to market and asking for people to bid on their property? Development Director: No, with the clarification that I think is important to help people understand, which is we get questions every day. At the beginning of the spring season this year, I was talking to six different entities that wanted to build a golf practice facility, and by the time we got down to construction season, one was left. So it’s very common for the department. Anyone who’s going to develop land—if you are a developer or an investor, you want to know what’s allowed on that property. You’re going to call my department, and you’re going to say, “What is the zoning? What’s allowed? What’s in your plan? What’s your downtown plan? What’s expected on this site?” And those are the emails that you saw and the communication that you saw.
Village President: Right. And did anyone at the Village of Northbrook, including me, consult with Mr. Heitman about how much he was going to sell his property for or review the proposals that he got or anything like that? Development Director: I was not involved. Village President: Nor was I, right? Development Director: Right. Village President: That was his business.
Village President: But any developer—you talk to developers, I talk to developers. That’s what makes a development-friendly community, correct? Development Director: Right. They need to know what’s allowed.
Village President: Right. And then, with respect to the preliminary application, somebody asked questions about, “Where’s the beef?” In a preliminary application, there is no meat, right? You could almost draw it on the back of a cocktail napkin, is what I said at the last meeting. The purpose of that is so developers don’t have to spend a lot of money if a community is going to reject their proposal. Correct? Development Director: Correct. Village President: So, if a developer decides to submit a plan, that is when that developer will come up with the specifics of the renderings, what something would look like, the detail, all of that. Correct? Development Director: Correct. Village President: And since no application has been submitted— Development Director: Correct. Village President: Right. We don’t have that.
Village President: And one gentleman asked if the submissions—he wanted the submissions to be on the website. Is everything the developer—a potential developer—has submitted to us, is that on our website? Development Director: If you go to our website and you click the development button, you’ll see applications that have been submitted. And specifically on the Meadow Plaza landing page, you’ll see the questions that have been asked, as well as—I think it’s three pages—was their application. Village President: The substance is 100 percent there for folks to look at. That’s all we looked at. Development Director: It’s just an opportunity for the Board to have a concept of what the seller is proposing and to provide nonbinding feedback. It’s very intentional to be a very light list. It also serves as a notification to the public that we have received interest in a site. And so I would look at this—while it’s been frustrating for some people, it worked. People found out. They heard. They were able to get involved, that there’s interest in redeveloping this site. And all of the future meetings that occur, they’ll have an opportunity to participate and provide their feedback and input.
Village President: Okay. And with respect to the workshops, I’ve mentioned—maybe I didn’t mention at this meeting—we have said that when we receive a development application, we will schedule a workshop. At our last meeting, we talked about inviting developers, including those who sat on the Economic Strategy Commission, to come in and provide information to the public. These are folks who live in our community, who can talk about what the market bears because this is what they do for a living. So that will be available to folks as we move forward, if somebody files something. Correct? Development Director: Correct. Village President: Okay. I have nothing—no questions more than that. Thank you.
Careful, narrow answers about a pending private transaction are also what any competent official advised by counsel would give, regardless of what actually happened. Given the FOIA documents circulating in the community, it was understandable that Village leadership wanted to clarify its role. But the exchange largely advanced a different narrative than the one residents most needed to hear. Rather than making the case for how redevelopment could strengthen downtown and why the tradeoffs might ultimately be justified, it focused on establishing what the Village had not done and why it should not bear responsibility for the controversy.
It is also worth recognizing that the preliminary review process exists in part to give a developer enough direction to avoid spending heavily on a concept the Board is unlikely to support. In that context, the absence of meaningful public concern from trustees about the proposed height, density or reduction in retail was itself a form of feedback. Whatever individual reservations may have existed, Pulte had little reason to conclude that the concept’s basic parameters were outside the range the Board might ultimately consider.
That makes the Development Director’s assertion that the process “worked” more difficult to accept. She pointed to the fact that “People found out. They heard. They were able to get involved.” Perhaps that is technically defensible. Residents did learn about the preliminary concept, organize and participate before a formal application was filed. But that is an exceptionally narrow definition of success.
It is also difficult to reconcile with the Village’s repeated insistence that Pulte’s preliminary concept is little more than a sketch and that there is nothing meaningful to evaluate until a formal application is submitted. If the concept is too preliminary to warrant substantive engagement, it is hard to simultaneously point to the resulting controversy as evidence that the process succeeded. More importantly, if preliminary review is intended to provide useful direction before substantial money is spent, the Board’s lack of meaningful objection necessarily conveyed that Pulte was not obviously headed down the wrong path.
The Opposition Is Owning the Narrative
This controversy has generated an unusual amount of media attention for Northbrook, and that coverage has disproportionately favored the opposition.
Save Downtown Northbrook has all the elements of a compelling story: beloved local businesses and their customers as protagonists, Meadow Plaza as a familiar symbol of community life and an immediate threat outraged residents can rally around. Pulte serves as the antagonist—the greedy, uncaring developer willing to destroy our little village in the name of the almighty dollar—while the Village Board serves as its institutional partner and willing minion, committed to greater density and willing to sacrifice Northbrook’s existing character to achieve it.
In that telling, Meadow Plaza is not an isolated redevelopment. It is the opening battle in a broader campaign to transform Northbrook into a more urban community, with density pursued regardless of the effects on existing businesses, traffic, schools or neighborhood character. The Village may reject that description, but it has not supplied a sufficiently clear competing vision to displace it. Every time a resident gets up to speak and faces a Board perceived as uncaring or inattentive, it only deepens the rebellion.
The Village Board’s actual position is certainly more complicated. It must remain neutral toward a developer that has not submitted a formal application while explaining private-property rights, changing retail economics, housing needs, infrastructure and the possible long-term benefits of greater density. The opposition can point to tangible losses and a recognizable threat. The Village must make an affirmative case for a future that does not yet exist while acknowledging the costs required to create it.
That is unquestionably the harder narrative. But legal neutrality does not require strategic silence. The Board does not need to endorse Pulte or vilify opponents to explain what it believes downtown could become, why that future might be worth pursuing and what limits should prevent density from becoming an end in itself. By failing to provide any vision of a brighter tomorrow, Village leadership has allowed the opposition to define its agenda for it: an urban Northbrook pursued at any cost, indifferent to what residents actually value.
Case in point: in one television interview, a trustee said:
“This is a private sale, so it is not something that we have jurisdiction over. What I do know is that it cannot be sold as is—that is not a possibility. If and when there is a formal application, I hope all of these people come out to compromise and make this space something that Northbrook can be proud of.”
Come out to compromise?
Compromise about what?
Residents oppose the concept for a variety of reasons, and the Village has offered no competing vision against which those concerns can be weighed. Instead, officials throw up their hands, emphasize what they do not control and debate the mechanics of the process.
Without a broader framework that has been properly developed and socialized throughout the Village, every redevelopment proposal becomes an isolated fight. A developer presents a concept. Residents organize around what they fear losing. Village officials explain the limits of their authority and the mechanics of the process. Then everyone is told to compromise without any shared understanding of the destination.
It would be hard to define a more dysfunctional approach.
A Less Accommodating Choice
More than a few times during the July 28 meeting, residents commented on how ridiculous they find the Village’s practice of limiting the initial public-comment period to 30 minutes and moving everyone else to the end of the agenda.
I had previously assumed the restriction existed to prevent an organized group from effectively filibustering every meeting and keeping the Board from conducting the rest of its business. That is a sensible concern, and I assumed the 30-minute limit was rigid, with no meaningful exception.
I was wrong.
The Village’s public-comment rules are remarkably flexible.
Section 2-785(d)(4) of the Village Code provides:
“The total time allotted for public comment during any meeting shall not exceed 30 minutes, unless the presiding officer determines otherwise prior to the commencement of public comment.” “If all persons who have registered to speak are unable to do so within the allotted time, the presiding officer may extend the public-comment period or continue it until after the completion of the remaining items on the agenda.” “A majority of the members present may overrule the presiding officer’s decision.”
Given the clear option to extend the initial public-comment period—and knowing the remaining agenda included lengthy staff presentations and other Village business—it would have been reasonable to offer a modest olive branch to the people who had organized around this issue: let them have their say and then, in all likelihood, leave.
Instead, while no one was formally denied the opportunity to address the Board, the practical effect was that residents who were not called during the initial 30 minutes had to remain through the full agenda and wait until after 9:30 p.m., when public comment resumed. Some residents left without speaking—something that had happened on July 14 as well—and the choice seemed to unnecessarily reinforce the perception many have expressed that the Board had little interest in hearing their comments.
You Can’t Make Some of This Stuff Up
There were other moments in the meeting that further underscored the gaps between the Board and residents.
The Board approved another community survey.
Northbrook has developed a reputation for asking residents what they think and then failing to act meaningfully on what it hears. It is hard to imagine doing something to further deepen that perception, yet here the Board was, fresh off deciding how long residents could speak, authorizing another effort to measure trust and public sentiment while engaged residents stood directly in front of it saying they did not feel heard.
Additionally, the Village Manager introduced Northbrook’s new Communications Director, Anna Ables, who was attending after completing only her second day.
The Village Manager highlighted her extensive public-sector communications experience and joked that she was probably learning a lot that evening.
The President closed the introduction:
“Okay, lots of expectation right there.”
Watching the consequences of poor communication unfold in real time—and then hearing that there were already substantial expectations for her to repair a situation largely created by the people on the dais—could not have been especially comforting.
Ultimately, if elected officials do not engage meaningfully with residents earlier, listen more openly and respond less defensively, the problem will continue.
The meeting itself ended with a thud.
After the final public speaker finished, the President asked whether anyone had remarks “for the good of the order.” No one did. She then asked for a motion to adjourn. A motion was made, but no one immediately offered a second.
After prompting the Board again, the President joked:
“Should we stay here longer?”
Where This Leaves Us
Although the current debate appears to be about Meadow Plaza, the reality is that it is about much more than that. It is about how we are going to navigate the decade ahead and beyond as a Village.
At this moment, I believe Northbrook needs three things from its Village leadership.
First, they must genuinely engage the community while also helping shape the conversation. Leadership is not simply waiting for public comment, measuring opinion and reacting to the latest controversy. Our trustees, Village President and Village Manager have chosen roles that require them to spend far more time studying the issues confronting Northbrook than most residents reasonably will. Their responsibility is to turn that understanding into a coherent vision and explain the facts, analysis and tradeoffs behind it in a compelling way.
That also requires humility. Residents care deeply about Northbrook, even when they do not express themselves perfectly. A speaker may become emotional, make an inflammatory assertion or clumsily cross a line during public comment. That does not invalidate the underlying concern, eliminate the resident’s right to be heard or justify treating disagreement with disdain. Residents should not need to become experts in zoning, municipal finance, market economics or stormwater engineering before they can meaningfully engage with their government. Village leadership must listen for the concern beneath the delivery, provide a fuller factual context and make the affirmative case for where Northbrook should go and why.
Second, they must apply disciplined critical thinking grounded in reality. Saving Meadow Plaza is not, by itself, a strategy for downtown. Neither is simply adding density. Perfect is not on the menu. The work is to understand the broader dynamics, assess the outcomes that are realistically available and determine which imperfect path offers the greatest opportunity for progress. More often than not, leadership means choosing among flawed alternatives and doing the heavy lifting of conveying the thought process behind why one path is likely to leave the community better off than another.
Finally, they must consistently rise above. Our community cannot allow national partisan politics, resentments from prior elections, personal grievances or the latest heated exchange to define how we treat one another or make decisions. Those pressures are real, but leadership requires refusing to let them dictate relationships or distract from the larger objective. The focus must remain on Northbrook’s long-term interests rather than winning the latest skirmish.
These expectations must begin with Village leadership, but they cannot end there.
Roughly 30% of the electorate participated in last year’s local election. Most of us do not attend meetings, closely follow Village business or become engaged until something of perceived value appears threatened. We cannot collectively remain largely disengaged and then wonder why things do not go our way. Nor can we become outraged before gathering and considering the available facts, assume elected officials are ignorant or corrupt simply because we disagree with them, or search reflexively for ulterior motives behind every difficult decision.
All of us need to become less interested in being right than in getting it right.
That starts with assuming good intentions, extending one another a little more grace and truly believing that everyone involved ultimately wants the same thing: a stronger Northbrook.
After all, we are all neighbors.