Three Fights, One Habit, and a Bill That Will Come Due

From the lakefront bluffs to the Centennial dog beach to the new open space district, it keeps reaching for authority over land it does not own. It does this over the objections of the people and the public boards who do own that property, instigating unnecessary battles. Each fight costs taxpayers money in legal bills — Our Town Winnetka is in the process of filing a FOIA request for those figures.

Together they are taking Winnetka in the wrong direction, and the cost will land on every taxpayer in the village.

Look next door

Wilmette has made the opposite bet. Its comprehensive plan encourages mixed-use buildings in its village center, and even encourages combining smaller lots to give developers flexibility.

• Plaza Del Lago's redevelopment more than doubled the sales tax the center generated over six months, adding about $152,000 to village revenue.
• Wilmette issued 36 new business licenses between August 2025 and April 2026, 14 of them restaurants and shops.
• Its commercial vacancy rate has reportedly fallen to about 6 percent, from 9 percent in 2024.

Wilmette now has burgeoning shopping and restaurant districts, and a growing tax base. Winnetka does not. Instead of executing a thoughtful economic growth strategy, our Village Council spends its energy fighting for control of land it does not own. That approach almost ensures that as commercial revenue dwindles, residents will pay more in taxes and fees to balance the budget.

Winnetka has owned the former Post Office site for more than 40 years and is still studying it — and is now trying to block its development through the open space ordinance.

A village that grows its tax base can fund its parks, schools and roads without leaning harder on homeowners. A village that does not eventually runs out of choices but to raise taxes.

The first fight: the bluffs

In 2023, one homeowner's large-scale bluff removal alarmed neighbors. In February 2024 the Council responded by enacting a construction ordinance restricting the property rights of 112 lakefront homeowners.

It was a blanket restriction, with no regard for how Winnetka's bluffs differ in geology north and south of Tower Road, or for the open-ended cost homeowners already carry holding back a lake that rises and falls, destroying beach and bluff. The lakefront of the 20th century was nowhere near the lakefront of the 18th and 19th. Yet we go backwards and narrate preservation without any explanation of what it costs taxpayers west of Sheridan.

The ordinance adds burdens on homeowners with yet another review, when seven approvals are already required. One of those reviews actually did protect this natural jewel — it stopped the Village Council from draining west-side stormwater into Lake Michigan, an effort the Village spent more than $500,000 exploring. It truly is ironic. And by the way, the west-side stormwater solution is not done. Neither is the east.

This isn't a billionaire's problem

This is a problem for all of us. The steep-slope permitting process now requires a Village-approved revegetation plan, down to the plant materials. Really? Protecting the bluffs for safety reasons is a fair goal. Directing landscaping choices is not.

Then the power grab reached past the bluffs and into the village

In December 2023 the Council required a special-use permit for any lot consolidation more than twice the minimum lot size. The reach of the rules suggests something broader: control over how lakefront owners use their land.

This issue matters well west of Sheridan Road. With little commercial growth, Winnetka leans on rising home values to carry its budget, and lakefront homes are among the most valuable in the village. Rules that make those homes harder to improve can slow that growth, and the difference falls on everyone else's bill. The Village Council went ahead without evaluating the economic impact on homeowners.

It went ahead knowing what would follow. “We'll be sued,” then-Trustee Bob Dearborn said. “None of us are ignoring that fact.”

A federal judge has twice dismissed the owners' lawsuit, and the Village says the ordinance's validity has been “once again confirmed.” Not true. The judge ruled that the owners' claims about their own properties came too early, because none had applied under the ordinance, and she did not decide their claims under the Illinois Constitution.

The Village Council set a trap for its own residents. The court says to apply first. Challenging a denial costs years and a fortune, so many owners will not apply at all. The ordinance does its work without ever being tested. The Village has not disclosed what it has spent defending it. It should.

And the rule written for private owners has become one more Village permit for another public board: the Park District's own beach work has had to seek exceptions under it.

The second fight: the dog beach

This year the Park District — an elected board managing land it owns — asked to fence the Centennial dog beach so it could reopen for off-leash use. Village bodies said no four times. In May the Council voted 5–1 to draft a denial. The Park Board then voted to seek an intergovernmental agreement with the Village.

A fence is a small thing. Treating another elected board as an applicant to be refused is not.

The third fight: open space

Now the Council wants to put 44 public properties — including every park and beach, the District 36 schools, New Trier's campus, the library and Village facilities — into a new Open Space Institutional zoning district, with its rules to be written later.

Everyone agrees today's zoning needs fixing. But the three largest landowners on the map — New Trier, District 36 and the Park District — all asked the Council to wait. New Trier said the Village was “asking us to accept the label now and learn the rules later.”

Even the former Post Office site, a commercial parcel the Village is about to market to developers, is on the map.

A motion to pause failed 3–3 on President Dearborn's vote. The ordinances return December 1.

The habit — and its price

President Dearborn says there is “no nefarious intent here.” Maybe. But it doesn't feel like it, and it is for certain a bad philosophy: that the Village Council knows best, and that controlling land is the surest way to protect it and stop development.

Here is how it works. The Village Council regulates land it does not own. The owners object, and the Council proceeds anyway. It decides first and works out the details later. And it treats fellow elected boards and residents as applicants to be managed, not partners to be heard.

We are headed toward no development — no Post Office development, no new ice rink, no new tax base.

That philosophy has a real price. It costs legal fees and the Council's time, and it pushes costs onto residents and onto other governing bodies like the Park District, New Trier and District 36. The Village has more than $600 million in potential capital needs — roads, water and electric, stormwater — waiting on a plan. It discourages the investment that is lifting Wilmette. And it erodes the trust between Winnetka's governments that every hard problem here has needed.

Former Trustee Andy Cripe reminded the Council on October 20 that the stormwater fix that saved Crow Island Woods came only when the schools and the Park District joined in, beneath Crow Island School. “Going it alone,” he said, “is the wrong way to go.”

Put it together: big bills ahead, a tax base that is not growing, and a Council spending its energy on control. The Village has kept its levy flat for years by leaning on fees, as The Record reported in 2021. That cannot cover $600 million. The path ends in higher taxes and fees for every household in Winnetka.

A different way

Zoning is the Council's job. But it should start by sitting down with owners, not by writing rules around them.

1. Grow the tax base. Take the Post Office site and Chestnut Court off the open space map and move the Post Office redevelopment forward.
2. Fold the open space district into the zoning rewrite. Zone by use rather than by owner, and give the land-owning boards a seat and a vote.
3. Work with the lakefront. Publish every bluff application and outcome, and answer the Park District's request for an agreement.
4. Report the cost. Disclose legal fees and staff time for all three fights, and put the Council's energy where the biggest bills are.

December 1

The open space ordinances come back on Tuesday, December 1, at 7 p.m. Write to contactcouncil@winnetka.org and come to Village Hall that night.

Tell the Council what Wilmette already knows: a village grows by working with its partners, not by fencing them in.

Related: Open Space, Yes. Going It Alone, No. · Closed Beaches: The Village Council Is “Big-Footing” the Park District · 44 Years, Six Concepts, and the One Question the Village Never Asked