Forest Park Review Editorial - 'Team Blonde Exception' Whitewash

I was very impressed with Helen's Karakoudas' report on March 16, 2010, the day after the first meeting of Zoning Board of Appeals.  Her writing and quotations of the testimony showed both sides of the story.  
However, the 'Team Blonde Exception' editorial shows how things can change at the Forest Park Review.
This blog was created in part due to the whitewash from the Forest Park Review.  The following paragraphs in arial style are from the Forest Park Review Editorial 'Team Blonde exception dated March 23, 2010. 

"It's going to come down to a matter of interpretation, this debate over the product and service mix of Team Blonde. And that's OK. Zoning regulations are intended as guideposts, not absolute markers of right and wrong. Zoning in a commercial district is created to foster a community's vision of its best self.  So let's use that vision of Madison Street to parse out a resolution to the zoning issue at 7442 Madison.

This is the day -  March 23, 2010 when the Forest Park Review has gone soft on zoning.  The zoning issues which have plagued and have been in the headlines for years are now just 'guideposts'.  The Review might as well have said - 'Forget the past.  Forget the the Mike Boyle letter.  Forget the Law.  It is just a matter of interpretation.'


Whatever!

The downtown zoning code was remade in 2006 and amended just months ago, at the close of 2009. The overarching goal of planners and the public officials who ratified the plan was to foster retail uses on the street that's become Forest Park's specialty shopping corridor. That's why new offices are prohibited on Madison Street. That's also why there's a 500-foot-rule that keeps "spas" - establishments that offer haircuts and nail treatments - from proliferating. And that's the rule that Team Blonde's owners Heidi Vance and Jayne Ertel have gradually but actively come to violate."


Although the zoning was recently amended, the zoning code regulating a separation of 500 ft. for personal grooming services has stayed the same...there were items that were amended, but no new law that would effect Team Blondes Spa except for the requirement that businesses which personal grooming services must now also be registered with the state of Illinios.
  

"In the business they started as straight-up retail years ago, these two smart merchants figured out, as shop owners across the country have, that just opening their doors in the morning to sell specialty items off the shelf wasn't going to earn them a living. Occasionally adding in specialty services was a hedge, and a sideline that made all the more sense in a weakening economy and after a move to larger space."


There is a difference between smart and clever.  Smart is following the rules...clever is trying to figure out how to get around them.  Should every retail shop have a spa in the back of their store?  There are plenty of other retail stores that did not need to build a spa in the back of their store these last three years.  This spa didn't just happen.  They had a letter from the village telling them not to expand and they went ahead and not only expanded in their location at Circle and Madison, but built a huge space (over 1500 square ft.) in their current location.  This happened in the boom times along with the current sluggish economy.

"Here's where the interpretation comes in.

Competitors of Team Blonde's sideline - other independent businesses in town that offer the hair, nail and skin care treatments now available all the time at 7442 Madison - want the 500-foot rule enforced because, it seems, the competition for customers opting for these specialty services is a concern. Zoning laws should never be created or enforced to protect a business from competition. It's un-American. Competition is good."

What is un-American is that Team Blonde knowingly violated the zoning laws they did not agree with them.  To top it off, the Village of Forest Park did nothing to correct the situation.  Competition is  good..but the problem is Team Blonde has never had permission to be competition.  
This is not being fought over competition, we are just tired of the preferable treatment given to the few in this village who feel they can do anything they please.

"Our interpretation is that the 500-foot rule was created so that, as you drive down Madison, you don't see a strip of nail salons and haircut places. Remember, the underlying goal of the zoning is to encourage retail. From its facade, Team Blonde is all about retail - a shopping anchor, in fact, on Madison that even its spa competitors don't question."

There was actually an objection at the zoning meeting on March 15, 2010 questioning how during the last 3 years there have been banners in their windows which advertise the same services other spas have.  To top it off their windows are tinted so it is impossible to see in their store from the street any further than around 4 or 5 ft. during the day which only makes the banners even more noticeable.  You won't find those banners in their windows today because the city ordered them to take down any advertising of personal grooming services until the zoning issue is resolved.  It is quite obvious the banners create a look similar to other established spas on the street.  

Whoever wrote the editorial must not have paid attention to the following testimony at the March 15, 2010 zoning board meeting:

"With spa services tucked away at the back of shop space 150 feet deep, their presence isn't the magnet that Team Blonde's clothing and accessories show windows are. The five small backrooms are space no modern retailer is going to use for merchandising stock. In fact, when the zoning was revised in 2009, office use was allowed in spaces 50 feet or more back from the street."

The back half of the building used to have office space before Team Blonde moved their spa into that building.  The 'five small backrooms' used to be independent viable businesses.  Team Blonde decided it would be better to eliminate many of the  business offices and make a spa rather than continue to collect rent from those offices.  Additionally, those 'small rooms' add up to over 1500 sq ft.  

So, we ask the village, get this resolution, too, on a fast track and let a retailer that's drawing people to Forest Park evolve into a hybrid business of mainly goods and a few services. But pay attention and sort through how to draw the lines responsibly so that retail in a 3,000-square-foot space remains primary. Forest Park's chronic inability to enforce its zoning and building codes, or to, at least, interpret them in a timely manner is unreasonable, unfair and exhausting.


Fluff.  Monday's meeting will likely include some type of 'restriction on size'.  The spa square footage will be shrunk.  How long before that restriction gets overlooked by the village.  With Team Blondes expansion record and the village's enforcement record, how will the village enforce anything regarding this spa in the next 3+ years?

Everything in Forest Park can't be decided individually. We need a moratorium on "special case" rulings.

This case shouldn't be decided individually either...we do need a moratorium...starting now.  Don't let this Team Blonde zoning pass!