Zoning board votes against permit for Winnetka beachfront plans

The Winnetka Park District’s long-standing plans to revamp Centennial Park Beach have hit a significant speedbump in the public review process.

The Village of Winnetka Zoning Board of Appeals on Monday night unanimously voted against approving a special use permit for the project. The vote does not stop the project, but the plans will now move forward with a negative recommendation from the board.

Park District Executive Director Shannon Nazzal and Park Board President Christina Codo both declined to comment to The Record following the ZBA’s vote.

The ZBA’s regular meeting on Monday, Dec. 9, which lasted for nearly four hours, marked the third time the Centennial plans appeared in front of the commissioners, who continued the hearing after meetings in October and November left board members with questions.

Park district staff, their consultants and other experts answered questions and addressed concerns that commissioners brought up at the board’s previous meeting in November.

Pier, parking and dog-human interactions

Ultimately, though, the park district’s answers to the board’s questions still didn’t satisfy ZBA members.

Commissioner Mark Haller began deliberations by saying he didn’t feel the park district addressed safety concerns related to pier. Specifically, he said that none of the district’s representatives spoke about the rock base of the pier and what will be done to prevent beachgoers and swimmers from coming into contact with it.

“I also didn’t hear anything more about the danger from those on the pier walking onto the rocks, so I really don’t have a good feel that they’ve shown that these rock piers will be safe for our public,” Haller said, later adding, “I didn’t see, other than a suggestion of signage last time, that there would be an intention or a willingness to protect the public with anything special, that I heard, from the dangers that come from one of those piers.”

Commissioner Lynn Hanley said that while she appreciated the park district’s response to the board’s concerns and that some of her questions were addressed, she couldn’t get behind the pier. She took particular issue with placing the swimming beach just north of the proposed pier.

“I do like the idea of a swimming zone, but I don’t feel like they’ve done enough to say those swimmers will be kept from those rocks,” she said, adding that she has gone paddleboarding at Lloyd Beach and nearly hit the rocks there, which she called a “scary” experience.

“I don’t know that swimming and rocks go together,” she said. “So either they need to do something to really delineate the swimmers from the rocks somehow … or don’t put a pier next to the swimming beach.”

Other commissioners were hesitant to support a plan that would place the dog beach so close to where swimmers were allowed, with some suggesting that the park district look for another location for dogs.

Haller, in particular, called the proposed ADA-accessible path, which is meant to bring guests from the parking lot to the beach itself, “an accident waiting to happen” with children, people with leashed dogs and less-mobile individuals all using it at once.

“It’s a long stretch that those three different groups are going to be navigating at the same time,” he said. “Yes, there’s a confluence down at the bottom where they’re going in different directions, but there’s also the entire walk down, and I just think that, whether it’s a dog excited that takes the legs out from under somebody or whether it’s just a dog that becomes nervous with so much around, I just think it’s not a safe environment to be designed in.”

Some commissioners shared concerns with the park district’s plans to install only portable bathrooms at Centennial instead of a permanent structure.

Costa Kutulas, director of parks and maintenance for the Winnetka Park District, said the justification for that was residents getting upset over the installation of permanent bathrooms, but when asked for further clarification from commissioners, he said that outcry was from the 1980s when a previous incarnation of the park board wanted to install them.

Commissioner Mike Nielsen said the portable bathrooms are a “band-aid.”

“I don’t want to go back to the ‘80s to what wasn’t allowed then,” he said. “I think there should be more thought, but I do like the bathroom at the top as opposed to the beach level.”

Parking was another issue brought up by commissioners, both at the November meeting and Monday.

To respond to those concerns, the park district hired engineering and design firm Kimley-Horn to conduct a parking study between the two meetings. Peter Lemmon, with Kimley-Horn, said the results of that study determined that the current parking lot at Centennial Park, which has 11 parking spaces, including one accessible spot, will be sufficient to handle the demand.

He and park district officials also said that, should the lot fill, guests can use the neighboring parking lot for Elder Beach, which is currently closed and has 80 parking spaces, for overflow. Nazzal also said the park district would consider seeking an agreement with nearby New Trier High School to allow beachgoers to use some of their spaces and potentially use a shuttle service.

While some ZBA commissioners weren’t as concerned about parking, others, including ZBA Chair Matthew Bradley, expressed doubt in the study’s findings that beach improvements would not lead to an increased parking demand at Centennial.

“Eleven spots is certainly outrageous for the usage that will be contemplated there when you’re inviting this beautiful new space and then asking people to park away from it in order to get access to it,” he said. “I think we’ll have a lot of frustrated residents if we did that.”

Bradley added that he believes there is a plan for Centennial that the ZBA could get behind.

“I just find and believe that there are alternatives that exist that would mitigate, if not completely eliminate, those concerns that are called in by this current proposal,” he said.

Some commissioners also expressed frustration that the Centennial plans were not being presented alongside the plans for Elder Beach, which are also currently making their way through the Village’s formal review process.

The park district initially intended to submit them both together, but ultimately decided to split them, with Centennial going first and Elder following.

While the board was unanimous in its rejection of the special use permit request, a narrow 4-3 majority recommended the proposed zoning variation, which includes proposed height increases on fences and walls, and the steep slope exceptions. Bradley, Hanley, Nielsen and Todd Vender voted to recommend, while Haller, Kathryn Leister and Kate Casale MacNally voted against recommending.

Next steps

The park district still must appear in front of two more recommending bodies — the Plan Commission and the Design Review Board — before the Centennial Beach plans make their way to the Winnetka Village Council.

The Village Council will have the final say on whether to approve the plans.

Even with the negative recommendation, Bradley shared some words of encouragement toward the park district.

“I hope that the takeaway from tonight’s meeting and the conclusion of the work provided is that the Zoning Board here does believe there is a future project to be developed at the Centennial site,” he said. “This proposal, for the reasons stated, does not satisfy the standards as we see it.”

He continued, “But this is, by no means, the end of the journey for the park district, and (we) really do hope and wish the project moves swiftly towards some version of development, because that beach, which is a key asset of our village, deserves some attention.”

How we got here

The plans to refurbish Centennial and Elder beaches have been in the works for years.

In 2020, the park district announced that the project would include a property exchange agreement with the Ishbia family, who own 261 Sheridan Road, separating the two beaches. The purpose, according to the park district, was to connect the two beaches.

But the proposed plans generated a public outcry, including opposition from the Winnetka Village Council, and a short-handed Park Board ended up pulling the original permit applications in 2022.

Throughout 2022 and 2023, the Park Board worked to revise the Elder-Centennial plans, which it decided to submit separately.

Additionally, by 2023, the property exchange agreement was declared “dormant” by both the park district and Justin Ishbia.

At Monday’s meeting, however, Kutulas told the ZBA that connecting Elder and Centennial is still the ultimate goal for the park district.

The Centennial plans mark the first time the Village’s new steep slope regulations, which were adopted earlier this year, have been applied to a proposed project.

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