The Roscoe Zoning Board of Appeals recommended approval of a text amendment to create two Main Street zoning districts and related design and parking standards after a public hearing at its meeting. The board voted to forward text amendment 20-25-021 to the village board for final adoption.

The amendment would establish a Main Street Core district intended for a more intensely developed, walkable downtown center and a Main Street Edge district to act as a transition to surrounding neighborhoods. Both districts would allow mixed-use buildings (retail or service on ground floors with housing above), multifamily housing, townhomes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The Core district would require a minimum of two stories and allow up to four stories (with upper-story stepbacks); the Edge district would allow up to three stories.

Planning consultant Jackie Mish, representing Vanderwell and Associates, told the board the proposal grows out of the village's Main Street blueprint and is meant to concentrate investment at key intersections near Main & Hodges Run and Main & Bridge Street. "As, village administrator noted, my name is Jackie Mish. I'm planning consultant for the village, and tonight is the public hearing for our main street zoning districts," Mish said during the presentation.

The draft text includes design standards to avoid blank façades, requires high-quality exterior materials on at least 50% of building faces, and seeks active ground-floor commercial frontage at the Main & Bridge Street intersection (50% ground-level commercial required at that intersection). Setbacks in the Core district generally place buildings within 15 feet of the front lot line to encourage buildings close to the sidewalk; the Edge district requires a minimum five-foot setback while also seeking buildings within 15 feet of the front lot line.

On parking, the draft relaxes typical suburban requirements but proposes one to two off-street parking spaces per residential unit and allows businesses and residences to count on-street parking spaces within 50 feet of a primary entrance toward required parking. The code also adds two new land uses: accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and accessory commercial units (ACUs). Mish said the draft limits eligibility for ADUs and ACUs to lots with single-family or two-family principal buildings; it does not allow an ADU as a residential unit accessory to a principally commercial building in this draft. "The only uses that are eligible for one of these ADUs or ACUs would be residential building," Mish said.

Board members asked how the village expects private investment and redevelopment to happen given the existing mix of building types and conversions along the corridor. Member Smith summarized the concern: "How is this gonna be developed?" Mish and other board members said zoning is only one step, and the village may pursue public investments (parking, small gathering spaces) and use the new districts as a pilot at intersections to encourage reinvestment. The consultant and staff also noted the village could consider preapproved ADU/ACU plans in the future to streamline building review for small accessory structures.

Procedure and next steps: the board approved the text amendment on a motion to recommend approval and will take the zoning map for the new districts at a later ZBA meeting; following both approvals the item will go to the village board for final action. The roll-call vote on the recommendation was recorded as: Spinazzola ' yes; Smith ' yes; Jorgensen ' yes; Butera ' yes. The board chair confirmed no members of the public were present in person or on the Zoom at the time of the vote.

The amendment package, if adopted by the village board, would change development standards along the Main Street corridor but does not itself fund public improvements or require immediate redevelopment of any property. The board described the text amendment as an enabling regulatory change intended to make downtown-style, mixed-use development possible and more straightforward to permit.