Arguments about the city’s involvement with the university, complaints about substandard housing and concerns about job shortages dominated a Wednesday meeting of the committee designated to make recommendations for the city’s new comprehensive plan.

The 15-person review committee, which includes school board members and representatives from the university, community, city and the NAACP, plans to have a complete list of recommendations ready by March 25 when it meets with Kendig-Keast Collaborative, said Robert Harper, chair of the committee. Kendig-Keast Collaborative, the group hired to create the plan, scheduled its first community symposium March 26 at 7 p.m. at Carbondale Middle School.

The city hired the collaborative in November to develop a comprehensive community plan in roughly 16 to 18 months to determine the city’s directives for the next 10 to 15 years, said Mike Pierceall, development services director.

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Harper said top concerns included the large amount of substandard housing throughout the city and the shortage of single-family duplex housing in the range of $100,000 to $125,000. He said houses in that range would accommodate working-class families.

‘We desperately need an expansion of housing where we have working people,’ committee member Liz Gersbacher said. ‘There would be developers tomorrow who would build homes that would suit needs of people so that they would live here rather than move to Carterville, Marion or Murphy.’

Member Robert Bauman said the city has trailer parks that are more like ghettos and attract crime.

‘Substandard housing in this town is the direct result of a handful of landlords in this town who have been able to get away with murder,’ Bauman said.

Bauman said the committee is focusing too much on the university at the expense of potentially helpful plans for the city, specifically commerce and jobs.

‘I didn’t see anybody sit down with the citizens and the planning group in Carbondale to talk over this $20 million dollars they are going to pull out of the city for this Saluki Way program, which is very unpopular both on campus and in the city,’ Bauman said. ‘The university will look out for itself first. If we don’t get some kind of commerce, manufacturing into this city, it doesn’t matter what our relationship with the university is.’

Harper said substandard housing is, to a large extent, the result of university activities, so the problem cannot be solved without involving the university.

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The list of recommendations includes pushing the university to address off-campus student housing and eliminating all single-wide trailers and trailer parks.

Committee members debated about expanding the city and developing on untouched land or knocking down or renovating old structures to infill the city.

The committee has been charged with looking at changes the community has undergone since the last plan was adopted in 1997, Pierceall said.

Other recommendations include: revamping the strip and East Grand commercial and downtown areas; creating community recreation areas such as a swimming pool; improving city appearance; pushing greener initiatives to minimize Ameren power usage; expansion of public transport services; and addressing road, intersection and walkway issues.

The final plan will be a six-chapter combination of vision and action for community development, said Jonathan Grosshans, planning associate with Kendig-Keast.

‘It’s a policy document, so it does not have the force of law like an ordinance does,’ Grosshans said. ‘It touches all areas of city, not only city government, but other folks in the city, the university, different organizations that exist in the city.’

Subsequent community meetings with Kendig-Keast, in addition to meetings of the committee, will be posted on the city’s Web site, Pierceall said.