The city of Dixon has unveiled the draft of its comprehensive plan, which will guide city leaders’ decisions for the next two decades.

It’s a comprehensive plan that outlines the city’s long-term goals for the area and how to achieve them. Dixon’s plan focuses on five major areas aimed at increasing available housing, improving transportation, growing the city’s economy through commercial and industrial developments and investing in community services and public infrastructure. Community members were presented a draft of the plan at an open house on Aug. 28 at city hall.

“Some of this transition may easily take 20 years,” but the plan is “definitely not boilerplate,” Mayor Glen Hughes told Shaw Local. “I like it.”

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Dixon Mayor Glen Hughes speaks about the unveiling of comprehensive plan results Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, at Dixon City Hall. (Alex T. Paschal)

Overall, by 2045, the city of Dixon “will be synonymous with great neighborhoods, a thriving downtown, healthy industry, and small-town character with ‘big city’ amenities,” according to the drafted plan.

“This has been a process that’s allowed for a lot of input” from city officials, staff and the community, Hughes said.

To develop the plan, the city has been working for over a year with Houseal Lavigne, a Chicago-based urban planning firm, and Fehr Graham, a Freeport-based civil engineering firm. Community members were invited to participate in the process through an online survey, an interactive online map and at a workshop held at the Loveland Community House in August 2024.

Here are the highlights of the drafted plan:

Increasing housing options

One of the top priorities is increasing housing availability with options that meet the needs of people at different ages and income levels. To achieve that, city officials are focusing on how to better utilize the space that’s available, Hughes said.

The plan outlines one solution referred to as the “missing middle” which would mix small apartment buildings into existing neighborhoods made up of largely single family homes. Currently, this type of housing makes up only 11% of Dixon’s total housing stock, according to the plan.

One suggested area for this type of development is Dement Town, which is southwest of the Rock River. The neighborhood already includes a mix of housing types and a range of land uses like commercial and manufacturing, according to the plan.

Implementing zoning to support the plan

In order to implement those new housing ideas, the city needs the zoning to support it. Zoning specifies how land can be used for things like shopping centers or industrial plants.

Within the comprehensive plan, officials developed a future land use map. The map aligns the city’s zoning with the goals of the plan and identifies areas for potential expansion beyond the current city limits, Hughes said.

For housing, the plan aims to keep low-density residential, like single-family homes, as Dixon’s predominant form of housing and reserves a large area south of the Rock River near downtown for those types of properties. On the north side of the river, the map zones a large area as mixed residential, which includes those “missing middle” type properties like townhomes and multi-family buildings, according to the plan.

Bike paths, public bus system

Another area the city’s plan looks at is transportation with the goals of enhancing regional access, reducing congestion and promoting alternative methods of travel like biking and public transit, according to the plan.

Already, the city has developed two multi-use pathways that run east and west of Heritage Crossing and is planning to extend the west path to reach Bloody Gulch Road. The first part of that extension is underway now with the construction of a pedestrian bridge over the Rock River known as Project Rock. The over $12 million development is planned to be completed in June 2026.

City officials are also looking into the possibility of expanding public transportation options by introducing two fixed-bus routes provided by the Reagan Mass Transit District. The proposed Dixon West and Dixon East routes would provide daily service with several stops at the commercial areas on the north and south sides of Galena Avenue, in the downtown area, near Dixon High School, the Lee County Business Park off Interstate 88, the Dixon Park District facilities off Washington Avenue and within residential areas, according to the plan.

Other areas of focus in the plan

The plan outlines ways that city officials can continue to grow Dixon’s economy by balancing locally owned businesses with chain restaurants and “big box” stores like Walmart, for example. It also goes over how the city can improve the quality of life for its residents, while attracting new ones, by investing in its community and public safety services like the police and fire departments, parks and schools along with infrastructure like its water and sewer facilities, according to the plan.

What’s next?

On Aug. 28, after the open house, a public hearing was held at the city’s planning commission meeting where members were given a presentation of the 121-page proposed plan. At a future meeting, the commission will vote on a recommendation for the Dixon City Council to either approve or deny the plan.

The full plan draft can be viewed online at dixon-il-comprehensive-plan-hlplanning.hub.arcgis.com/.