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Plan of Evanston
IX
IT must be borne in mind that it is not proposed to carry out all the suggestions made in this report at one time or even in the immediate future. The City Plan is intended as a guide for gradual development over an extended period of years.
We urge as far as possible that the development of the plan rest in the hands of the City Council. Let us consider what the Council is able to do toward developing the suggestions of the plan.
The Constitution of Illinois requires provision to be made for paying all municipal bonds within twenty years and limits the amount of indebtedness which any municipal body may incur to five per cent of the assessed value of taxable property therein. Extensive park development in Evanston if accomplished quickly must be accomplished by bond issues. I t is perhaps not good policy to try to pay by a single tax levy for any large improvement that could be financed by bonds and the burden distributed over a period of twenty years. The benefits derived from park improvements will be shared in by the children and grandchildren of the present generation. It is right, therefore, that they should share in the payment of these benefits. Property purchased now will so greatly enchance in value during the next twenty years that the prices we pay at the present time will seem ridiculously small by comparison at the time these bonds mature. The limitations encountered under the State Constitution prevent Evanston from extensive bonding for park purposes, as the City for other purposes is already bonded practically up to its constitutional limit. Also the limitations of the Juul law tend to reduce the revenue that the City is able to raise for park purposes.
The voters of Evanston on the recent election date, November 7th, 1916, authorized the City Council to levy an