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HomeMy Public PortalAbout2001-03-20 PC minutesMINUTES PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISISON DATE: March 20, 2001 AT: Village Meeting Hall Chairman Sobkoviak called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. and led the pledge to the flag. Roll Call: PRESENT: Commissioners Kachel, Gehrke, and Sobkoviak ABSENT: Commissioners Seggebruch, Manning, Schinderle and Anderson, Park, School, Fire and Library Districts Chairman Sobkoviak said we do not have a quorum and therefore we cannot conduct any business. He said he was sorry you had to come out this evening. He said this was a situation beyond our control. He said we need at least 4 people to conduct people. He said the petitioners could make their presentation, however, it could be deemed a waste of time because it would have to be done over again. He said there was insufficient time to notify the public. He said all the cases would be continued. Commissioner Kachel asked if there was anybody in the public that would not be able to attend the new meeting, could they speak. Chairman Sobkoviak said we do not have a quorum. He said it would be up to the Board and the Commissioners is you want to sit and listen but we can take no action. He said the public meeting will remain open until I adjourn. He said we will have a meeting on April 3 rd but we possi bly will not have a quorum. Tim Lowery asked if the items on the agenda tonight would be carried over to April 3 rd . Chairman Sobkoviak said they will be carried over but keep in mind that the April 3 rd meeting may not take place for the same reason as tonight. He suggested they call the Village in the afternoon to see if the meeting would be going. He said by close of business Tuesday, Merrilee should know if we have 4 people or not. Tim Lowery asked if we knew why these other people were not here tonight. He said all of us are here so why couldn’t somebody make an effort to be here. Chairman Sobkoviak said 2 of the gentlemen are on personal business. He said that is a valid question and I do not have an answer. Commissioner Kachel said this doe sn’t not happen very often. Someone said you have four members present. Chairman Sobkoviak said Madame Secretary is not a voting member of the commission. He said he has been on the board 14 years and this is only the third time this has happened. He s aid we are all basically volunteers and we all have lives just as you do. He said there are times when it just is not possible to attend. Chairman Sobkoviak said we are in receipt of a letter from Terry Tennant regarding the Tuttle property. He said thi s has been given to our engineer for review. He said most of your comments PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION MINUTES March 20, 2001 Page 2 revolve around the ponds and these are engineering issues. He asked if Walkers Grove had a detention pond. Mr. Tennant said yes they do. Chairman Sobkoviak asked if there was a reason adjacent properties should be held to a higher standard. He asked if they were experiencing difficulty with the detention pond in Walkers Grove. Mr. Tennant said he is a board member on the Walkers Grove Subdivision. He said some of the issues they have are the ponds are sited significantly closer to Walkers Grove property than it is to the developer’s property. He said geese are quite a problem. He said they were not against the ponds they would just like to see certain standards met in regar d to how it is put on the property. Chairman Sobkoviak said he thought they would find that these are not migratory geese you are concerned about. He said migratory geese come, stay for a couple of days and then they are gone. He said these are year r ounders. He said these will plague you all year round. He said we have given your comments to our engineer and he will review those. Someone asked who was our engineer. He asked if it was the same engineering firm that took part in the layout of Walk ers Grove with the elevations as compared to Tuttle Farm. Chairman Sobkoviak said Howard Hamilton Engineering and they are represented by Joe Regis tonight. Chairman Sobkoviak said the village engineer does not layout the subdivisions. He reviews them. Someone asked if we were aware of the problems we have with the elevation of Tuttle Farm and our elevation in Walkers Grove and the runoff from that field. Chairman Sobkoviak said our engineer could make us aware of it. Someone said why don’t you guys come out to our houses and look at what we are talking about and then we can talk about the farm. He said then you can see where our concerns come from. He said the Village spent a lot of money last year cleaning streets because of the Tuttle Farm. Someone said he thought the Village was aware of it because they put berms in the middle of their back yards. He said they just want a back yard. Commissioner Kachel said since we do not have a quorum these are issues that when it does come up to tak e a look at and maybe have better answers. Terry Tennant said the majority of the items in there with the exception of funding mechanism for long term maintenance will put significant or undue burden on the developers to 5 of those issues. John Philipc huck, attorney for Wiseman Hughes, said they are contract purchasers of the Tuttle Farm. He said they had nothing to do with the problems you people are experiencing. He said we may not be the answer to all of your problems. He said he was not familiar with what was done in their rear yards. He said their engineers were aware of the fact that you had some PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION MINUTES March 20, 2001 Page 3 problems out there. He said they indicated when the approvals were finally gotten for Tuttle Farm and we could get in there and do the proper grading , that problems can be solved. He said we will be providing detention facilities at the south end of our subdivision. He said as a result right now you are getting the sheet flow off the farm and it is coming right into your subdivision. He said the stor m sewer pipes put into Walkers Grove were oversized to accept the drainage coming off the Tuttle farm but not unrestricted like it is now. He said the sooner we can get that land under construction, the better it is going to be for Walkers Grove Subdivisi on. He said we will be putting the detention ponds, the water comes into our detention ponds, it is held there and it is released at a controlled rate into the storm sewer pipe in Walkers Grove. Mr. Tennant said if the main pond that runs between Meado w and the natural gas pipeline was detention or retention. Mr. Philipchuck said he did not know as they were in preliminary plat stages. Mr. Tennant asked about the remote ponds, the one on the east side of Meadow and the one on the other side of the nat ural gas pipeline. Mr. Philipchuck said he thought they were going to be set as the same level. Mr. Tennant said they are not against the development. He said all they are asking is that their issues be addressed. He said they are asking that the gradi ng and the siding of the ponds, that their properties be taken into consideration. He said in the siting of the main retention basin, which runs from the natural gas pipeline to Meadow there is not equal distance between the lot lines. He said it is push ed towards Walkers Grove Subdivision significantly more so than to the backs of the lots of the Tuttle Farm. Mr. Philipchuck said it will be on the Tuttle property. Mr. Tennant said it appears to be somewhere between 20 to 30 feet off the north lot lin e of Walkers Grove and from the back of the lot lines of Wiseman Hughes development it appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood between 75 to 80 feet. He asked for consideration to get it further from their lot lines because of the geese. Mr. Philipch uck said there are certain grasses that can be planted. He said the problem they run into is when they put those grasses around the lake, you do not have that nice finished look. He said it tends to keep the geese off and makes it less friendly for them. He said he did not know if that was planned here. He said we are just in the process of getting annexed. He said we are not obligated and they cannot solve every issue you may have with your subdivision but we are cognizant of what has happened. Mr. T ennant said they are not asking them to solve problems in Walkers Grove, but are asking you to consider in siting and grading of the detention pond. Mr. Philipchuck said it is the value of our homes and lots that could be affected. He said they would l ook at all the issues. He said they talked about some park access down there. He said the Plainfield Township Park District is looking at bike trails and things. He said they are having a major regional park up in the north end of our property in conjun ction with the Sohol property and the gas pipeline easement will be the access way. He said there could be a future bike path in there. He said there a lot of issues we have to look at. PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION MINUTES March 20, 2001 Page 4 Chairman Sobkoviak said since we know there is a good deal of inte rest in this we will ask Joe if he was going to be here on the 3 rd and you could have some comments prepared to address these issues. Joe Regis asked how far west of Meadow were these berms built and when where they built. Answer was the first 5 houses west of Meadow and on the north side of Sunderlin. They said it was done the first week of August last year. Someone from Nature’s Crossing said they have just as many problems as Walkers Grove and we have not gotten anything. She said she felt they ar e not being heard. Joe Regis asked if they were at the north end of the subdivision adjacent to the Tuttle Farm. Response was yes. Someone from Nature’s Crossing said they flooded up to about 4 weeks ago when the snow all melted. She said their sod was replaced 3 times. She said they had water in their basement, up to their back door. She said their 6 -foot privacy fence has been ruined from the water. Lot 294 – someone said a berm was built there also. He said whenever it rains they have a river comi ng right at their house. Bill Vanoskey said the drains are too high and nothing runs off into them. David King asked if the water was going to go north of was all of it going to go south. He asked if there were detention ponds on the north. He aske d if there were any going north and east on the Culver property. Joe Regis said there is one in the far northwest corner. He said there is nothing north and east. He said it looks like all the stormwater is routed to the southern stormwater detention fa cilities. David King asked if those were the stormwater detention that was going to be underground in the streets that take the surface water. Mr. Philipchuck said they take the water and it is released to a controlled location and the storm sewers i n Walkers Grove were oversized to accommodate that flow. David King asked if it was going north and east. He said there are drain tiles and there is drainage that goes northeast. Chairman Sobkoviak said if they are there we cannot change them. Joe Regis said it looks like some of the development (20 lots) in the northwest corner drain to the park stormwater management facility. He said it appears that the rest of the development, the northeast corner, the center portion, southern portion all the wa y to Walkers Grove and Natures Crossing goes south. He said there was a connection to 27 inch pipe, in your general area, said the southern southeastern part of this, the southern central part of this, you have seen the plans so you know the two facilitie s. He said there is another area but there is not enough information on PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION MINUTES March 20, 2001 Page 5 this plan to know if it goes complete around Nature’s Crossing or not, but that apparently drains the western half of the development west of the pipelines. Commissioner Kachel said at the next meeting we have, we can have that available so we can see where that is going, north, south and we can review it all at the same time. Joe Regis said in summary of the residents, there were berms built last year, east and west of Meadow and Nature’s Crossing. Someone from Nature’s Crossing said she spoke with Terry and Ray has been out there numerous times. Joe Regis said you are saying the same thing occurred there. Someone from Nature’s Crossing said all they got was hay bales. She sai d water was pouring down the window wells, up to the house with the ditch water was about 3 -1/2 feet. Tammy Daugherty said she wanted to share a letter she had from Allen Persons. Chairman Sobkovaik said we have that letter in our packet. Steve Pherson said these berms are not at the edge of their rear property line. He said they are in the middle of their property. Someone said they are not adverse to this, hopefully this will cure the problem. He said some of the things they want to accomplish are the location of the detention ponds and the grading. He hope this will solve the problem and then we will be left these these big berms. He said they want to get a flat backyard and have grass that goes without puddles in it, without mud flowing down bet ween the houses and let Mr. Philipchuck build his houses. Chairman Sobkoviak asked the engineer work on this to have comments at the next hearing. Commissioner Kachel said we do not have a quorum but with the questions you have and with what you are ad dressing it would probably have been continued. Chairman Sobkoviak asked if anyone had a comment on anything other than stormwater drainage. No response. Chairman Sobkoviak asked if anyone has a comment on the Weinhold property. No response. Someon e asked if when we reconvene on the 3 rd or 17 th would we have a jump start on this issue or will you expect that it will be taken under advisement and pushed off for another month. Chairman Sobkoviak said it depends on what our engineers tell us. He expl ained that Howard Hamilton is a member of the county wide stormwater management committee and that he is extremely knowledgeable in the handling of stormwater and has brought that knowledge into his PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION MINUTES March 20, 2001 Page 6 firm so that everyone is equally knowledgeable in this ty pe of situation. He indicated Hamilton Engineering represents other villages also not just Plainfield. Commissioner Kachel asked about the ditches along Rt. 30 and if there was any maintenance along there. Joe Regis asked if Walkers Grove people wanted the berms removed from their yards. Response was yes. Joe Regis said water seeks its own level but said it appears the water in this area would be below the rim elevations of all the structures in your backyards. He asked if where the structures are now if it drops down to the property line. Response was no. Someone said the original catch basin that were put in at the back of the property set on average 1to1 -1/2 feet or higher above the top of foundation walls. He said their yards are sloped toward s their house. Joe Regis said we need to talk with the Tuttle Farm people grading in detail with the south edge of the stormwater detention area. They said everyone is pointing to someone else. Joe Regis asked what was the closure of removing the berm s. He said he likes to ask just to get your impression. Someone said he thought there was an option too of bringing a bobcat or bulldozer out, throw in some dirt and have an engineer grade this thing properly, get us some grass and let us use some water for three weeks. Joe Regis said he would try to report at the next meeting the grading from your north property line down hopefully down to the stormwater management facility from Tuttle. He said he is not too familiar with what is going on in Nature’s Crossing. He said there is some history with Walkers Grove area and confer with Ken Blaauw about the berm, talk with Howard Hamilton and see what the closure is on this. Commissioner Kachel asked if there was a liability thing. He said detention pond s were to hold water. He asked if the ponds could be made deeper, if it could be worked out to help carry some of the water away. Chairman Sobkoviak said it sounds like more a matter of grading. He said every subdivision uses a different method, one use s the curtain drain, there are various ways of accommodating this. Mr. Philipchuck asked if their lots came with sodded or seeded rear yards. Response was they did it themselves. Someone said she did her backyard 3 times. She said she had a verbal ag reement that when the property behind them was developed, the Village begin to PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION MINUTES March 20, 2001 Page 7 even out the yards. She said when they remove the berms they could give them some of that dirt and they have ditches. Someone mentioned Lot 294 on the east side has eroded so bad, there is an area approximately 3 feet by 3 feet so the ditch is about 3 feet deep as well. He said it was right in back. Chairman Sobkoviak said perhaps Doug can give a heads up to Allen Persons. He said maybe a visit to the site to check it out. He said you will need to review with him what kind of agreements were made and maybe invite him to our next meeting. He said if he doesn’t have time to attend the meeting, perhaps you could convey his comments. Someone asked if the detention pond would b e addressed at the early stages of development of the project. Mr. Philipchuck said detention would be provided right up front. He said it would depend on what the market conditions will be as to whether they do it in one phase or several phases. Chai rman Sobkoviak asked the petitioner of the Weinhold property if he had anything we could help with. Mr. Welch said they have the landscape plan. He said it is for illustration only and is not required. Chairman Sobkoviak thanked everyone for coming and said with the comments that we received tonight we probably would not have moved forward anyway. Planner Carroll suggested they call late in the day to see if it is on the next agenda. Chairman Sobkoviak adjourned the meeting. Meeting Adjourned: 7:50 p .m. Merrilee Eighner