After researching the history of growth and development of Kane County, Elgin, St. Charles, and Batavia, it is apparent that all three cities are experiencing large amounts of growth and will need to manage this growth. Proper and wise management of this growth will prevent undesirable urban sprawl and maintain their history as cities that developed independently from Chicago, not as a result of the city’s suburbs growing westward. According to the Openlands Project’s report, Under Pressure: Land Consumption in the Chicago Region, 1998-2028, of a thirteen county Chicago region, Kane County is experiencing the greatest development pressures (4). The study also cited Kane County, along with Kenosha and Walworth Counties, as "successfully combating sprawl while meeting development needs" (5). The study also states, "Kane County has experienced rapid population growth in recent years, and forecasts suggest growth will continue to accelerate. Although Kane County’s comprehensive plan establishes a rural protection zone west of route 47, land near the Fox River remains under development pressure" (4). All three cities in the study are located along the Fox River, and all are dealing with this development pressure.

A brief discussion of the annexation policies for Illinois, the growing mechanism of these cities, is necessary to understand how these cities are capable of growing in area. According to Santell, "Illinois is blessed and cursed with the fact that there has been planning, zoning, and annexation occurring for a very long time. Kane County’s ordinance has been in effect since 1837. The blessing is that we have been doing these things for many years. The curse is that it has been a patch quilt of legislation over the past 50 to 75 years" (12/26/00). Many new amendments have been added, along with new legislation, but the old legislation never goes away, resulting in much legislative debris. A primary annexation consists of an agreement between a willing property owner and a municipality. This agreement is essentially like a contract, and anything can be written on it. Municipalities can ask the developer to pay for improvements such as schools, stoplights, and fire departments. However, many municipalities choose not to do this because they are so anxious to annex the land they are afraid someone else will annex it if they do not (Santell 12/26/00). This refers to cities looking for as many tax dollars as they can, "feeding the old concept of municipalities chasing tax dollars" (Santell 12/26/00). This explanation of the annexation policies for Illinois may help to explain why certain municipalities, particularly Elgin, choose to expand their borders, while others opt for slower growth, or no growth at all.

The comprehensive plan is the main document all three cities follow as their plan for current and long-term growth is the comprehensive plan. Such plans are mandated by the state of Illinois; thus all three cities have one (Spak 4-1). While these plans cover future growth for the municipality, they should be updated every 5-10 years in order to include changes in the population, urban area, or any other factors that may influence the growth of the municipality (Levy 100). Such a plan emphasizes goals, policies, and actions that range from broad discussions to specific solutions (Greater Portland 2). The planning process for developing or updating a comprehensive plan can take over two years to complete, and may be drawn up by either the planning board or an outside consulting firm. Data is collected, key officials and residents are surveyed, and a plan is developed which includes goals, policies, and recommendations for implementation of certain actions and approaches within a set time period. The plan then goes through several review and revision stages, and is then adopted by a legislative body (Greater Portland 2).

Elgin, St. Charles, and Batavia all have comprehensive plans that vary in age and updates. Elgin’s comprehensive plan was first drafted in 1983 with an amendment, the Far West Area Plan, added in 1996. The city recently added an additional plan in January of 2000, the Far West Planning Area: Development and Design Guidelines, to further the objectives and policies of the original Far West Area Plan. This document was prepared in response to a need to guide development on the far western edge, beyond Randall Road (1). The plan provides guidelines for development constraints/opportunities such as natural and historic areas or sites, open spaces, a thoroughfare system to accommodate increased traffic that accompanies increased growth, and design guidelines for subdivisions and planned developments, single family dwellings, multiple family dwellings, commercial/industrial buildings, and public/civic buildings. The plan also provides a Land Use and Thoroughfare Plan that "identifies the proposed open space system; designates developable land as residential, community facility, commercial, or industrial; and identifies the existing and planned thoroughfare system" (5). In addition to the creation of this addition plan guiding new development to the west, Elgin is currently updating the original comprehensive plan from 1983. According to the Planning and Development Committee of Elgin,

A Comprehensive Plan establishes a citywide policy that assists the city council in the management of the physical growth and development of the community. Having such a policy in place is critical during these times of high growth pressure within and adjacent to our City. This effort was last done in 1983. It is clear that this nearly 20-year- old document no longer reflects the current thinking on how to manage and regulate today’s development. (10)

Elgin is currently still in the process of updating this plan, which is expected to take 24 to 28 months to complete (Planning and Development Committee 12). The city recently completed a set of neighborhood workshops, including visual preference surveys and community issues input sessions, to get the community’s ideas on how to develop the new comprehensive plan (Planning and Development Committee 13).

St. Charles has the most recent comprehensive plan, updated in May 1996 (St. Charles Comp Plan 1-1). Their plan is also the largest and most in-depth of the three cities, including several chapters dedicated to individual growth factors, including housing, commerce, education, and open space and recreation (1-1). The first chapter, consisting of community profile information and statistics, serves to present an understanding of whom the plan is about (1-16). This chapter also states three main goals and objectives of this portion of the plan: maintain and enhance the economic well being of St. Charles, annex property in a logical manner, and adequately control and provide for a population increase of 6,900 and 2,600 additional dwelling units expected to be reached between 1995 and 2015 (1-15). Each chapter follows the same format that consists of a chapter focus, findings (which is the "meat" of the chapter), goals and objectives, and, most importantly, an implementation statement (1-1). This last section is what helps put the goals and objectives into action, and is what the plans from Elgin and Batavia are lacking. The presence of this one section sets St. Charles’ plan apart from the other two in that it at least appears to be more actively pursuing the implementation of the goals the city has set for itself. Chapter 13, Land Use, is the most relevant to the study, focusing on a 20-year land use policy for the City of St. Charles through the use of a Future Land Use Map (13-1). This map seeks to preserve and enhance residential area, establish identifiable boundaries for commercial areas, provide logical locations to expand industrial uses, and identify open space areas to be preserved (13-28). St. Charles recently developed a Downtown St. Charles Strategy Plan to "establish effective strategies and guidelines for quality design, development and redevelopment; and to promote a creative mix of activities and environments that will enhance and maintain the historic downtown St. Charles as an economically vibrant and competitive central business district" (Downtown St. Charles 1). The need for this plan was developed by community leaders and downtown advocates who felt that better guidance would be needed to manage future growth and development of both public and private entities in the downtown (Downtown St. Charles 1).

The current Comprehensive Plan for the City of Batavia was fully updated in 1987, and amended in 1993 (Comp Plan 9). This plan represents "a guideline for future development of the city and its contiguous unincorporated areas within one and one-half miles’ (9). The plan is a declaration of intent by the city; it is only advisory and is not a regulation. The document begins by establishing goals and objectives for eight categories including community form and character; housing and residential area; commercial development; industrial development; community facilities and services; transportation; public utilities; open space and recreation (11). For the land use plan, the city was divided into twelve separate planning units since "certain portions of the community share characteristics which make them unique and distinguish them from other portions" (21). Planning Unit 12 was added as part of the update of 1993 and is defined by Randall Road to the east, Fabyan Parkway on the north, Mooseheart Road on the south and generally Nelson Lake Road and Wenmoth Road on the west (37). This area, located west of Randall Road, is where significant growth is occurring and will continue to occur in the future, making this addition to the plan necessary for managing the city’s future growth.

In an article entitled, "Are We Planning For Sustainable Development? An Evaluation of 30 Comprehensive Plans," Philip Berke and Maria Conroy compared 30 comprehensive plans to determine how well their policies support sustainable development (21). To do so, they developed a set of six principles that they felt "define and operationalize" sustainable development (21). The article defines sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (22). A sustainable community may be defined as one that uses an ethical frame of mind to develop and consume land, and also keeps the interests of the future of the community in mind (Beatley and Manning 34). This is also relevant in growth management. If the community and planners know what they want for the future of the community, then that will help guide how they manage the growth and development that is occurring now. The six principles used by the researchers to evaluate the plans consisted of the following: harmony with nature, livable built environments, place-based economy, equity, polluters pay, and responsible regionalism (23). The plans chosen for the study fell into two groups, those which used sustainable development as an organizing concept for plan preparation; and those which did not use the concept but have been noted as high-quality plans (24). Berke and Conroy were ultimately determining whether or not plans that use sustainable development as an organizing concept are more likely to promote sustainability principles than plans that do not (21). The study concluded that the explicit inclusion of the concept has no affect on how well plans actually promote sustainability principles (30).