Downers Grove Homes
Through The Years
Downers Grove is a
community of residential neighborhoods
consisting of homes that have been
built over a period of some 180
years. Currently, more than half
of the single-family, detached homes
in our Village are more than 50 years
old.
The York,
Downers Grove and Lisle Township
Assessors have assigned a Year Built
number to each home in the Village.
These Year Built numbers can now be
used to plot the total
number of single-family, detached
homes which were located in the
Village in each year over the
years 1839 through 2021. The
blue line in the
accompanying figure shows
that the total number of homes in Village increased rather
slowly during
the 19th Century and the first half
of the 20th Century.
Then, starting
in the 1950s, following
the World War, the
Village experienced a boom in home
building.
Now in the 21st Century, those homes
built in the 19th and 20th Centuries are
beginning to show their age. The number of homes
that were less than 50 years old each year
in the past is shown by the green line
above. It rose steadily until just before
the year 2000 when it began to fall. The
number of homes that were 50 years old or
older in a given year is shown by the
yellow line. This yellow line has risen
steadily and, since the year 2000,
has risen rather rapidly. The red
line that shows the number of 100-years-old
homes may be following a similar
trajectory - just displaced 50 years into
the future!
Around the year 2015, the yellow line
crossed the green line. That year - 2015 -
should now be recognized as the time when more than
half of the single-family, detached homes
in the Village of Downers Grove became at
least 50 years old. For the
foreseeable future, we must
expect the number of our
older homes, more than 50 years old, to
exceed the number of our newer homes, less
than 50 years old.
In 2011 our community adopted a
Comprehensive Plan to help guide us.
Village officials are now in the
process of updating that Plan.
Please click here to view the Village
Council's October 22nd discussion of the
Goals and Key Recommendations in the
draft Plan update. Let's hope that
the current Plan update can to help us
understand the impact of the aging of
single-family, detached homes on the future of our community's
residential neighborhoods.
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Environmental
Sustainability Plan
Initial Conditions Report
* * * * *
Morton
Arboretum Updated Chicagoland
Tree Census
In 2020, The
Morton Arboretum partnered with
Davey Resource Group Inc. and the
Student Conservation Association to
conduct its second tree census,
remeasuring 1,576 plots in the city
of Chicago and the seven surrounding
counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane,
Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will to
gain a comparative snapshot of the
regional forest and the benefits it
provides.
The first
census was in 2010. For the whole
seven-county area, the number of
trees and shrubs increased from
157,142,000 in 2010 to 172,297,000
in 2020, representing more than 194
species. In 2020, the regional
forest tree and shrub canopy cover
was assessed to be 23%, an increase
from 21% in 2010. In DuPage County,
the canopy cover increased from 26%
in 2010 to 31% in 2020.
Although the
number of trees and shrubs and the
canopy coverage did increase, the
study notes that a large percentage
of the canopy is composed of species
considered invasive, such as
European buckthorn and tree of
heaven. Detailed discussion of the
tree census findings may be found
at: https://mortonarb.org/science/tree-census/
In addition,
based on earlier data, the Chicago
Region Trees Initiative (CRTI) has
developed community-specific tree
canopy summaries, including Downers
Grove and many other
Chicago area towns.
The above
images and corresponding ones for
other communities may be found at: http://chicagorti.org/CanopySummaries/
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Historic
Preservation Activities
The Village's
historic preservation program was
revised in 2015, contributing to an
increased interest in landmarking
homes and other structures. Since
then twenty-nine historic features
have been granted local landmark
status in Downers Grove –– nine
structures in 2016, another nine in
2017, four more in 2018, four
historic features in 2019 and one
each year in 2021, 2022, 2023 and
2024.
Landmark
status was
unanimously approved
on August 20, 2024 for
the Herbert E.
Ehninger House, 4812
Northcott Avenue, at
the request of Daniel
Apel
and Sharon Andersen. Please click here to learn about this
English Country
Revival style home
constructed circa
1942.
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