HomeMy Public PortalAbout2001-11-28 PC minutes WalmartSTATE OF ILLINOIS ) ) SS: COUNTY OF W I L L ) BEFORE THE PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS taken at the hearing of the above -entitled cause before Gale L. Barma, CSR No. 84 -0 03807, RPR, on November 28, 2001, at 7:00 p.m., at 12450 Van Dyke Road, Plainfield, Illinois. PRESENT: MR. JAMES SOBKOVIAK, Chairman; MS. MARILYN GEHRKE, Commissioner; MR. LARRY A. KACHEL, Commissioner; MR. WALTER O. MANNING, Commissioner; MR. ROBERT SCHINDERLE, Commissioner; MR. DAN SEGGEBRUCH, Commissioner; MR. STEPHEN AMANN, Village Engineer; MR. DOUGLAS CARROLL, Village Planner; MR. DALE DRAYNA, Planner; MR. MICHAEL S. GARRIGAN, Planner. PRESENT: (Continued) McKEOWN, FITZGERALD, ZOLLNER, BU CK, HUTCHINSON & RUTTLE, by MR. JAMES B. HARVEY 2455 Glenwood Avenue Joliet, Illinois 60435 (815) 729 -4800 Appeared on behalf of the Village; DOMMERMUTH, BRESTAL, COBINE & WEST, LTD., By MR. JOHN F. PHILIPCHUCK 123 Water Street Naperville, I llinois 60566 (630) 355 -5800 Appeared on behalf of Wal -Mart; RATHJE, WOODWARD, DYER & BURT, by MR. MARK W. DANIEL 300 East Roosevelt Suite 300 Wheaton, Illinois 60187 (630) 668 -8500 Appeared on behalf of Individuals of Citizens Against Rezon ing.
ALSO PRESENT: MR. BRIAN HOMANS, Shiner & Associates MR. DALE KLESZYNSKI, Associated Property Councilors, Ltd. MR. DONALD O'HARA, Kenig, Lindgren, O'Hara, Aboona, Inc. - - - MR. CHAIRMAN: Good evening. Wedne sday, November 28, 2001 meeting of the -- special meeting of the Plainfield Plan Commission is in session. All rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Carroll, will you call the roll, please. MR. CARROLL: Kachel. MR. KACHEL: Here. MR. CARROLL: Gehrke. MS. GEHRKE: Here. MR. CARROLL: Manning. MR. MANNING: Here. MR. CARROLL: Schinderle. MR. SCHINDERLE: Here. MR. CARROLL: Sobkoviak. MR. CHAI RMAN: Here. Thank you. This is a continuation of Case No. 904 -08310 point S, Sam, P, Paul, R, Raymond, slash, Zebra, slash, Sam Union, also known as Wal -Mart. This is a continued public hearing for special use, zoning, and site plan review. We will be following the same protocol tonight as we have in the past few nights. I would ask anyone who is expecting to give testimony tonight and who has not been sworn in, please stand. If there is any chance whatsoever of you testifying ton ight, please stand, and raise your right hand. (Witnesses and/or audience members sworn.) MR. CHAIRMAN: Those of who have been sworn in before, I remind you that you remain under oath. I'll make this announcement now. If we do not fin ish this evening, the meeting will -- the special meeting will be continued Tuesday night at the Village Hall. We have other business we have to take care of first, but as soon as we get through with that business, which may take an hour, then we will im mediately go into the continuation of this special meeting and handling of this case. To begin, let me pass the microphone to Mr. Philipchuck. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. Again, my na me is John Philipchuck, attorney with the law firm of Dommermuth, Bretal, Cobine & West, 123 Water Street, Naperville, Illinois. I'm here this evening representing the applicant for the rezoning special use PUD.
I'd like to begin this evening, if I may, the Planning Commission had asked that we engage someone with knowledge of noise and the rules and regulations of the State of Illinois so we did. We went out to Shiner & Associates, Inc., acoustical engineers. And Mr. Brian Homans is here this eve ning. He will address some of the issues as far as the anticipated noise levels from the operation of a retail store such as the Wal -Mart at this location. So if I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce Brian Homans at this time. MR. HO MANS: Good evening. My name is Brian Homans from Shiner & Associates. You'll have to excuse me; I have a wicked cold tonight. Our firm has been in business since 1973. I've been with Shiner & Associates since 1982. All we do is note measurements and evaluation of noise and vibration. As such, we have a team of five engineers and two technicians. For us, typical projects would be working on building acoustics such as the McCormick Place. We've also looked at a lot of hotels, a lot of shopping centers and the like. We were requested to look at the proposed Wal -Mart site and render an opinion as to the amount of noise and the type of noise that it would produce. To do this, we conducted measurements both at this site and then als o at a close by Wal -Mart store. This is one in Darien on 75th Street. It's very similar to the one that's being proposed here. It's, I guess, similar for a number of reasons. There are houses in the back of the store. The distances are about the same from the store -- the back of the store to the property line. There is a fence, a privacy fence that separates the back of the store from the homes. It's not a very good fence. And this is a new store such as the one that's being proposed here. A nd also -- this particular one in Darien also has two recessed loading docks. Our measurements were conducted both at the Darien store and at the proposed site. As far as our ambient sound measurements, we did take 24 hours of data at the run -out at Bob White Lane. And I'm sorry, I don't have good graphics to show you tonight. But we did measure sound level, and the sound levels were approximately 55 dBA during the day. This is on Monday. About 60 dBA on Tuesday, falling to a low of maybe 37, 3 8 dBA during the night at about 1:00 o'clock. And this is with the present condition of Route 59. Certainly these sound levels will increase. As a rule of thumb, every time you double the volume of traffic, you increase the sound level by about 3 dB. And to give you some other rules of thumb here, 3 dB is a perceptible increase in sound level. One dB is not perceptible by most people and, in fact, that's hard to measure, a change in 1 dB. A change in sound level of 5 dB is clearly no ticeable. A change in sound level of 10 dB is perceived as a doubling or a halving in sound level. We also conducted sound elevations at the Darien store. There is operations that were going on there. Highest levels that were recorded were from t rucking operations and that's what I'll talk about for the majority of this evening. In order to evaluate our measurements, we had to use a -- some sort of criterion. And we used the sound level standards that are promulgated by the Illinois Pollut ion Control Board. Here's a dog -ear copy of my standards here.
We have found that the Illinois standards are some of the most stringent in use in the United States. Particularly, for power plant noise we're involved in, sites , we have a hard time meeting the Illinois standards for power plants. Certainly for this type of operation, the regulations are much more astringent, that it is lower for a commercial -type operation. Illinois standards require that you measure in each of nine frequ ency bands the sound level in each frequency band. And there are limits associated in each of these bands. Additionally, measurements can be conducted during the day and the night. Nighttime is defined as being 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. the sound l evel limits tend to be lower at night. Your readings have to be taken for at least an hour and all the energy averaged over that hour. You may think that this is a very lenient relaxed standard, but it is not because the levels or the standards are so low. And by the type of averaging that's used, it's energy averaging and it's not arithmetic averaging, so it does weight things toward the louder events. And finally, you must account for ambi conditions on the site. So this is a little bi t about the criterion that we use to evaluate what we perceive as noise coming from the store. This site is somewhat unique, and we do have traffic just on one street right now on Route 59. In the future, 127th will be reopened, and we would anticip ate a greater traffic volume on both streets. The proposed site is also unique in there's both a series of berms and fences on top of the berms that are proposed. This is very unusual as far as what we've seen with shopping centers. And certainly with a ny type of residential developments, the one that comes to mind with me is Conway Farms in Lake Forest where they've implemented high berms with fences on top. This is a very expensive way to abate sound due to the real estate and the amount of land that you have to give up to construct the berms. Berms are very effective in conjunction with fences and reducing sounds. And for this project, I would calculate the barrier insertion loss at various portions around this site as the elevation of the berms change. I did assume a minimum fence height of six feet and, in fact, increase that to eight feet to see how things changed. As far as the sources of noise that are anticipated at the proposed store, there will certainly be truck noise. Wal -Mart h as estimated that there will be two to three deliveries of Wal -Mart semis per day and on the order of six to seven other trucks. These would be bread trucks, chip trucks, delivery of pop and things like that. That would be done at a grade level Doppler located here (indicating). The Wal -Mart trucks, the semitrailers would use the recessed docks on this side of the store (indicating). And the procedure is that the driver brings in a full truck, backs it into the dock, unhooks it, makes several mane uvers, hooks up the new truck, and leaves it in short order. And we have observed this on several occasions over at the Darien store. To give you some results of our study here, we did calculate the sound levels that are anticipated from the store . Oh, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the anticipated noise sources. We do have the trucking operations here for the proposed store. Also, we'll have rooftop air -conditioning equipment. The condensers, however, will be screened by the parapet o f the building. And we'll have an auto center here such as we observed in Darien.
For the future food store portion of the operation, this -- if it will be put in at a later time -- will include a recessed truck dock perhaps on the backside. I jus t heard tonight that even the location of this dock is evolving. We also add grade level condensers, which is used for cooling, which in all likelihood would be surrounded by a fence or a noise wall. In order to, I guess, give -- well, the highest levels we found were from trucking operations. So I considered a scenario for operations per hour. And this would be a delivery and exchange of a Wal -Mart semitrailer. We had a pop truck that I measured which is a Dr. Pepper truck. It backed in. It d id open the overhead doors of the rolling doors on the Dr. Pepper truck. This was audible. Some, you know, clanking of the carts. There was also an ice cream truck delivery also with portable cart noise that we observed as well as a truck passed b y for another store which was pretty loud. I summed the energy for these together and compared them with the Illinois daytime standards. And I know you can't see this, but we did find at the property line there is a significant exceedance in the high fre quencies. Now, this is true for the unmitigated state where you don't have any fence or any berms. This exceedance amounts to 15 dB, in that neighborhood, at a frequency of 1,000 and 2,000 hertz or cycles per second. And with the berms and the six -foot high fence, I did calculate the anticipated sound level booth at the property line and at the rear of the homes which I considered to be about 45 feet back. And in all cases for the daytime condition, I found compliance with the scenario of thes e four operations that I measured. And this was due to the berms and the fence that were involved. Does anyone have any questions at this time? MR. MANNING: Yes, I do. When you say -- how did you make a measurement with a berm, when you're s aying at the Darien store there's no berm there? MR. HOMANS: That's right. The question was how can I make a measurement of a berm condition when there was no berm. I use the calculation procedures of the American Society of Heating, Refrigera ting, and Air -conditioning Engineers. They have a good scenario for calculating sound levels due to barrier insertion laws since the barriers are used quite frequently to attenuate rooftop, air -conditioning noise and solar noise and things like that. So I did calculate the barrier insertion laws. MR. MANNING: So it was calculated, it wasn't observed? MR. HOMANS: That's right. MR. KACHEL: Was this going to be for a 24 -hour period? And were there any trucks at these other stores where the y have the idling trucks where they're idling all the time or were they all drop -offs? Was anything taken into consideration of that? MR. HOMANS: No, there was not. I did measure and factor into this idling of trucks. There was not a great deal of idling of trucks. I should mention that during the nighttime, approximately half of these events, we couldn't have any more than half of these events in order to comply with the Illinois nighttime regulations. MR. KACHEL: The fact that it's a 24 -hour store and it's a superstore, if they put a grocery store on, did you take into consideration -- because there you talk about
refrigerated trucks. And usually they have those things running the whole while, at least I think they do, while they're unloading, it's not for a short period of time. MR. HOMANS: That's right. MR KACHEL: Was there any consideration taken on that? MR. HOMANS: Yes, there was. MR KACHEL: What were the findings on that? MR. HOMANS: The findings on that were that the sound levels when they were observed from refrigerated trucks or reefer trucks are about the same as what we observed from a truck pass -by. MR. KACHEL: The only thing is it was a continued basis rather than a -- MR. HOMANS: That's right. And for our measurements, we took into account both the energy as well as the duration of the events. MR. KACHEL: Any idea roughly of the duration of the refrigerator truck how long they keep those running for unloading purposes? MR. HOMANS: It depends on the situation. I'm sorry. I can't give you the answer. MR. KACHEL: No. I just was curious on it. That does make a difference, especially if you have trucks that idle and idle and idle. Where they drop it off and the y just leave it, it's a totally different scenario for those same people. MR. SHINDERLE: Did I understand you correctly to say that based on your calculations on the north and the west perimeters, that because of the berm and the fence, that the soun d levels at the lot lines of the residents beyond those berms were acceptable under the rules and regulations or under the proposals as set forth in the plan that you used to calculate this? MR. HOMANS: You are correct. MR. MANNING: The only r eal -life scenario that you've given us or presented to us is a Darien situation in which you say the only noise abatement between the store of the neighborhoods is what you referred to as a pretty lousy fence; there was no berm. MR. HOMANS: That's co rrect. MR. MANNING: Do the noise levels at the Darien store satisfy the state regulations? MR. HOMANS: No, they would not. MR. MANNING: How do they get away with it? MR. HOMANS: I presume there have been no complaints. MR. KACH EL: That area was zoned commercial a long time ago, wasn't it, prior to the houses being there at the Darien store? MR. HOMANS: I am not familiar with the area. I'm sorry. MR. KACHEL: I think it may have been. I am not positive. MR. CHA IRMAN: Any additional questions? MR. MANNING: Yes. So what you're saying is with the berm, with the fence, and with the vegetation that they're going to plant there, that the noise would be abated to meet the standards of the State? MR. HOMANS : That's correct. And I should explain that with just a berm or with just a fence, we would have a hard time meeting the State standards. But with both of them together, this effectively increases the height of the noise barrier by putting the nois e barrier on the top of the berm.
MR. KACHEL: In relationship to the plantings that are going there, there is supposedly large evergreens, pine trees, is there much of a difference that is going to soften the noise also as the trees mature? MR. HOMANS: We don't ever take any credit for vegetation unless we see dense stands of trees on the order of 100 feet. Everybody always refers to the sound attenuation that you get with trees, and I imagine you will get a little bit. MR. KACHEL: I am c urious with pine trees. Because pine trees are full as far as the needles. It's going to be fairly dense, and I was curious if that was taken into consideration. MR. HOMANS: We have not taken that into consideration. Any other questions, plea se? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Daniel. MR. MANNING: I had one other question, Counselor, if you don't mind. Give me a benchmark. You were referring to 55 decibels. What would the decibel level be of the truck unloading at the dock? What would that decibel level be measured at the dock? MR. HOMANS: This depends on the distances that you're away. Sound is attenuated or reduced about four and a half or five dB every time you double the distance. MR. MANNING: Okay. You stand at the t ruck, you take the measurement; you go over to the berm, you measure it; what is the difference? MR. HOMANS: You have a difference in distance of about 100 feet. So I would imagine at the truck, the sound levels would certainly be in the 80's for br ief periods of time. MR. MANNING: And attenuate down to what? MR. HOMANS: On an average basis to about 55 dBA. MR. MANNING: 55 dBA, what would that sound like? Is that a jet engine, is that a car going down, is that what we're hearing i n this room? What's 55? MR. HOMANS: I guess in terms of a residential air -conditioning roof -- a condensing unit outside, you would have to get, oh, 30 to 40 feet away from a residential unit before you'd experience that sort of level. MR. MAN NING: 55? MR. HOMANS: Yes. MR. MANNING: If I was standing next to it, what would I experience? MR. HOMANS: High 80's, perhaps. MR. MANNING: And that would be according to what, a jet engine? MR. HOMANS: A jet engine is like 1 10 dBA -- MR. MANNING: It sounded like it was -- an air conditioner doesn't sound like that. MR. HOMANS: I assume you wouldn't have your head in the fan or anything like that. MR. KACHEL: Two other quick questions. One, in comparison to the noise on 59, the homes that are on 59 to the north where they would be going in in relationship to what we're talking about of the trucks and the comparison to the noise on 59 itself, decibel readings, is there much difference or are they about the same? MR. HOMANS: I don't think I understood the question. MR. KACHEL: The traffic that goes down Route 59, there's noise generated by that area.
MR. HOMANS: Yes. MR. KACHEL: Closer to 59, the north exit we're talking about, there are homes right next to it to the north there. Up in that area closer to 59, in relationship to the noise from 59 in comparison to the store and the homes back to the north, how are we, are we higher or lower or are we about the same? MR. HOMANS: Ag ain, what I got during the daytime here at Bob White Lane, it was about 55 dBA. MR. KACHEL: If you went over to 59, what do you think you would be? MR. HOMANS: You'd be closer to 60 dBA. At the present time, I think you'd be in the range of 65 dBA or probably about 60 dBA. MR. KACHEL: As far as the unloading zone to the west there, there are three lots that are very close to the loading zone. Those decibels have to be higher. Are those totally acceptable, too? MR. HOMANS: Yes, the y are. MR. KACHEL: How many more decibels are we talking compared to the other area approximately? You said 55 to the north. Approximately what would you be looking at to the west? MR. HOMANS: This is a background reading that we obtained; it was about 55 dBA. MR. KACHEL: If you do the same thing over here with those lots where you're going to have unloading going on, it's much closer. What would you be looking at there for decibels? MR. HOMANS: We'd still be in the range of 55 d dBA. MR. KACHEL: It would be the same. MR. HOMANS: I don't mean to say you wouldn't hear it. But it would still measure at about the same decibel level. MR. KACHEL: Thank you. MR. DANIEL: For the record, my name is Mark Daniel. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Rathje, Woodward in Wheaton, Illinois, 300 East Roosevelt Road, Suite 300. Mr. Homans, you mentioned that at nighttime at 1:00 a.m. you had low decibel readings of roughly 37 or 38 dBA. When you say acceptable, an d let's say the north property line under your analysis, what number of dBA is, quote -unquote, an acceptable level? MR. HOMANS: According to the Illinois standards, that's approximately 45 dBA during the nighttime. MR. DANIEL: And at nighttime, you mentioned that there were going to be no truck deliveries or that you hadn't reviewed the frequency of truck deliveries at nighttime for the supermarket operation considering the stocking of shelves during the downtime of the supermarket? MR. HOM ANS: To get compliance with 45 -- 44 to 45 dBA, you would be limited to one to two trucks per hour. MR. DANIEL: And when a truck passes by, let's say, at 1:00 a.m. and you've got a berm that ends right near where the water tower property is, a truc k enters at the northeast entryway, turns right, and begins to accelerate to this point here right where the curve in the road is, about what dBA do you think the noise levels would be for the truck after it accelerates after its turned into the drive ther e?
MR. HOMANS: Well, I couldn't really tell you for sure; however, at the Darien store, I did measure accelerating trucks and this is the loudest one that I used for the study. And as far as sound level, you would still be able to -- you'd be takin g advantage of the berm and the barrier at this point. MR. DANIEL: What level was that that you measured, the high truck level as it was accelerating, what dBA level was that? MR. HOMANS: I just measured averages. But as I recall, it was on th e order of 70 dBA. MR. DANIEL: So if you have an average of 70 dBA and you're taking semitrucks into account, semitrucks are going to be much louder, probably twice as loud as 70 dBA? MR. HOMANS: No. MR. DANIEL: Just so we all understand , I'm not trying to argue with you. We're trying to get a clear picture of what the noise level is going to be here, as the average truck passes and as the noisiest truck passes. So if I'm asleep in this home here on Lot 66 or Lot 65, the two kind of pie -shape lots here, I am wondering how loud that truck is going to be hypothetically. You said 70 dBA was the average for what you studied at the Wal -Mart Darien store. So that means there had to be a number of trucks above the 70. MR. HOMANS: No. Y ou misunderstood me. This was the energy average that I measured for the truck, the loudest truck that I observed. In reality, at least the truck volume that I've observed on Route 59 at this point, even during construction, your average levels over an hour straight would be maybe about the same. The levels from Route 59 may exceed a single truck during an hour's period. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's take a look at that. And I'll get back to the discussion of the noise level here. At the momen t when you have a truck on Route 59 at 1:00 a.m., you're likely not to have a truck stopping, decelerating, accelerating again at that location, are you; it's more likely that going all up and down there's going to be a new stoplight plan down near 127th Street, right? MR. HOMANS: That's right. However, the highest sound levels of trucks increased proportionate with speed. And I'm assuming that you have trucks coming down 59 at a significant rate of speed once the construction is complete, more cap acity is added. But we would have high levels due to the Route 59 traffic. MR. DANIEL: Did anyone provide you an truck, the loudest truck that I observed. In reality, at least the truck volume that I've observed on Route 59 at this point, even during construction, your average levels over an hour straight would be maybe about the same. The levels from Route 59 may exceed a single truck during an hour's period. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's take a look at that. And I'll get back to the discuss ion of the noise level here. At the moment when you have a truck on Route 59 at 1:00 a.m., you're likely not to have a truck stopping, decelerating, accelerating again at that location, are you; it's more likely that going all up and down there's goin g to be a new stoplight plan down near 127th Street, right? MR. HOMANS: That's right. However, the highest sound levels of trucks increased proportionate with speed. And I'm assuming that you have trucks coming down 59 at a significant rate of spe ed once the construction is complete, more capacity is added. But we would have high levels due to the Route 59 traffic.
MR. DANIEL: Did anyone provide you an analysis of the number of trucks on Route 59 at any given time during the day in this regi on of Route 59 so you could draw that analysis that we just went through? MR. HOMANS: No, they haven't. However, my experience in calculating sound levels for IDOT and other agencies would say that we're -- I probably have a fairly good idea what's happening with the truck levels and from what we would anticipate with the increased capacity and better road surface. MR. DANIEL: How is it that sound operates as it leaves the semitruck. It's correct, isn't it, that sound travels in a cone? MR. HOMANS: Yes. Approximately in a cone or actually hemispherically. MR. DANIEL: And when sound travels, it travels until it hits something like this berm. So what the berm is actually doing is either reflecting the sound back to the Wal -Mart are a or absorbing it, right? MR. HOMANS: There would be somewhat of a deflection, yes. MR. DANIEL: So as a truck turns here, decelerates above the berm to the north on this drawing, you're going to have sound traveling outward from that truck esse ntially linearly and expanding outward, correct, as if it were a cone or some kind of a hemisphere so it's expanding it's width of coverage? MR. HOMANS: Yes, it would. MR. DANIEL: When the sound in this unbermed area where the deceleration lane for turns is and where the acceleration lane here is (indicating), there's not necessarily a berm or anything here to catch that sound, there's no fence, there's not a berm. There's a couple of shrubs but you said you discount the greenage shown here in your analysis because it's not going to help with the sound. So that sound is going to expand and affect four homes before it even gets to the berm, correct? MR. HOMANS: Well, that's not correct. It would have distance coming into play here. Sound does attenuate distance. It would be reduced for those four houses. MR. DANIEL: Reduced in comparison to the noise here, here, here, or here (indicating). But what's the level going to be when it reaches these homes from this location? It's going to be in excess of IEPA levels, right, the levels you said were acceptable for the berm area, because I think you testified that without the berm, Wal -Mart violates those levels, correct? MR. HOMANS: That's right. MR. DANIEL: So here you don't have a berm. You have a home here on Lot 66, a home here at Lot 65 at least, this isn't counting reflection of any sound as it attenuates down the back of these yards, correct? MR. HOMANS: Well, I still disagree. I think that we would be taking i nto account distance attenuation at this point. And I guess not to throw another monkey wrench into things, but technically the ingress and egress of trucks is not covered under the IEPA standards. However, because that's sort of a mute point, I've chosen to include the ingress and egress of trucks for the purposes of my analysis. So my answer is with the distances attenuation and with the leading edge of this berm and the fence, that we would -- that we would see attenuation of sound and in a ll likelihood, it would be at or below the sound levels. It would be coming from Route 59 from the traffic on that roadway.
MR. DANIEL: Where is it in your analysis that the attenuation afforded by the berm ceases to result from the berm along this roadway here? Is it accurate for me to say -- I'll try to save your voice a little bit -- as you see the berm here, there is attenuation because of the berm all the way along where you see this heightened area and the planned fence, right? MR. HOMANS: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: Now, the attenuation as a result of the berm stops at the edge of the berm if there's a source of noise between the end of the berm and 59, correct? MR. HOMANS: It would stop; yes, I agree. MR. DANIEL: And then the attenuation that you're talking about then for Lots 66, 65, and 64 or whatever may reverberate on the back of the fence line here is a result of distance only, correct? MR. HOMANS: Attenuation due to distance for this one tiny portion which is adjacent to Route 59, yes. MR. DANIEL: When you performed your analysis, you mentioned this Darien store. The Darien store is not a 24 -hour store, is it? MR. HOMANS: That's correct, it's not. MR. DANIEL: And were measurements t aken at any 24 Wal -Mart superstore of similar size and purpose including the expanded area? MR. HOMANS: No, they were not. I did not have a chance to measure that to do the brevity. MR. DANIEL: During your analysis, did you take the opportunit y to speak to residents surrounding the Darien store or residents surrounding the Wal -Mart store in Glen Ellyn? MR. HOMANS: No, I did not. MR. DANIEL: You mentioned complaints before as a way of enforcing noise. What does it take if you're a r esident living on Lot 66 and Lot 65 to enforce a noise restriction once this project goes in? MR. HOMANS: Those people would have to merely call the State of Illinois down in Springfield and register a complaint. MR. DANIEL: And what happens af ter that. There's got to be a complaint and then the complaint is carried out. You've handled some of these matters on noise complaints before, I presume, in your experience? MR. HOMANS: Yes. It's a complicated procedure but it is possible to get enforcement against noise. But, again, I must stress that because of the proximity of these lots to Route 59, the likely the levels are -- from trucks are at or below what you're getting just from the ambient sound level from the traffic on 59. I'm sorry. I don't see your point. MR. DANIEL: Well, my point is this: You mentioned, I think, 37 or 38 dBA, okay, 37 to 38 dBA. And you're already saying you're going to double the noise by bringing it up to roughly whatever is acceptable at the ev ening hours, 45. So that's a doubling, right, or nearly a doubling. You said 10 dBA is a doubling, correct? MR. HOMANS: Well, I merely stated the Illinois regulations permits a sound level of about 44 dBA during the nighttime. MR. DANIEL: A nd for what kind of operations is the 44 dBA sound level appropriate?
MR. HOMANS: That would be a couple of truck deliveries during the night. MR. DANIEL: That's commercial property, right? It's not the EPA saying 44 dBA is the most appropriat e level for residential. They're saying it's acceptable for commercial as well. MR. HOMANS: Oh, no. Oh, no. That's as commercial a source and residential as receiver. MR. DANIEL: So with 44 dBA at this location here, you're still 10 dBA of w here it is now? MR. HOMANS: That's right. However, traffic is going to pick up on 59 and 127th Street. MR. DANIEL: As a result of the Wal -Mart itself? MR. HOMANS: No. Due to the lighting in the roadway, better road conditions, and the opening of 127th Street. MR. DANIEL: Well, I'm going to ask Mr. O'Hara later if the widening of a roadway itself causes increase of traffic. We'll worry about that later. From a sound perspective, did you include in your analysis any noise fr om any jackhammers or gas -powered or other equipment in the auto bays which have doors facing westward onto the residential property planned for the cul -de -sac in the subdivision to the west? MR. HOMANS: Yes, I did. And there were no jackhammers in operation, I should mention. But I did conduct measurements outside at the auto bay at the same distance here which is a little over 100 feet. And what I found was that the bulk of the noise was attenuated once the doors were closed. And of course this auto center would be in use only during the daytime, not during the nighttime. And the highest noise source was from the paging inside this auto bay from the store which went away when the doors were closed. MR. DANIEL: Let me address that poi nt first. Were there any outdoor paging issues within this development? Has Wal -Mart planned on exterior paging systems? MR. HOMANS: I don't know that. I did not observe any at Darien. MR. DANIEL: Are you familiar with any other Wal -Mart sto res other than the Darien store? MR. HOMANS: Yes. I've been to a few, yes. MR. DANIEL: And it's correct that at least a few of them have had outdoor paging systems? MR. HOMANS: None that I've observed, no. MR. DANIEL: None in the g reenhouse area? MR. HOMANS: I haven't been in Wal -Mart's nursery center. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's take a look at the acceleration of the trucks here by the docks. You mentioned you don't have data on how often each truck -- you have three bays here, okay, for the side bays. And you're going to have trucks accelerating out of those as they pull their empty semis or any full semis if there is rubbish involved that is leaving the site from the premises. How often is that supposed to happen durin g the day? MR. HOMANS: That's correct as what you mentioned. Wal -Mart forecasts two to three semitrucks per day. And I did include one of these operations in my study and also a range of six to seven deliveries at the grade dock, and this would inc lude pop and chips and things like that.
MR. DANIEL: Did you consider the number of complaints to Wal -Mart in Darien itself or complaints issued to the City of Darien from residents surrounding that store? MR. HOMANS: No, I did not. MR. DA NIEL: And I'll mention Glen Ellyn. I'll assume the answer is the same for that one? MR. HOMANS: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: What generally is the dBA level as sound is measured, let's say, 1:00 a.m. in a residential area with no commercial? MR. HOMANS: It would greatly depend on the area for which you're talking about. In the range of what we measured here is around 45 or higher in urban areas. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's take a look at this area. First of all, we know that Plainfiel d wouldn't be a high density residential metropolitan area like Chicago. So what I'll do is I'll have you talk a look at this subdivision here with the 1, 2, 3, cul -de -sacs and some of the roadways. I'm going to ask you to imagine this quadrant of reside ntial property as single family, and I'm going to have you imagine that being transplanted over the Wal -Mart and in place of the Wal -Mart. You mentioned sound on 59. Let's say traffic does increase, increase in the dBA levels. Aren't the single -fam ily residential homes going to buffer sound as it leaves 59, this entire length of 59, because it's going to create obstruction between Lots 65, 66, all these lots here (indicating); is that correct? MR. HOMANS: Not really. Your houses would not be continuous as a store such as this. MR. DANIEL: Take a look at this. We have got seven houses along -- six houses to the north of the Wal -Mart store -- MR. HOMANS: West. MR. DANIEL: I'm sorry -- to the west of the Wal -Mart store but t o the north of the planned wall for the first buildout. Do you see that? So it's to the north of this wall to the property line, six homes. Those homes are going to be at least as high as the berm, correct? MR. HOMANS: No. They would be afforded protection by the berm and the fence on top of the berm. MR. DANIEL: Well, there's no berm here. In the hypothetical, we're putting these homes somewhere over here to serve as a sound buffer. Let's take these six homes and move them somewhere a long, let's say, a perimeter maybe in a curving linear type line, imagining, let's say, a roadway that meanders through a subdivision. These six homes are going to be two -story homes. There would be certainly side yards for some sound to get through. Bu t if you take a look at what exists on the other side of the subdivision, you're going to have more homes of a similar height and nature, correct? MR. HOMANS: I can't really judge what you're saying. I guess my point is that you will have gaps betwe en the homes unless you put up town homes, continuous town homes. And these homes will probably serve to be lousy barriers with regard to roadway noise. MR. DANIEL: Why don't you explain to me -- I'm going to get an exhibit that shows what was plan ned for this Wal -Mart. I'll use that and that will be our first exhibit of the evening.
And I want to make sure that you explain why homes are inadequate barriers thinking, you know, during your analysis as you explained this to everybody that there is going to be something quite similar to this right over here to the Wal -Mart plaza. So we're comparing the two. We are comparing an entire single -family residential subdivision and sound buffering impacts in the area to the north and in the area to the west as a result of no Wal -Mart and the addition of 70 or so single -family homes as it's platted out here. Let me get that map for you so you can see it. And let me know why the homes won't buffer the sound. Just so we are clear on the record , I've just been informed it's 70 homes. And I've tendered the witness the Kensington Club site map which shows the 70 homes with the commercial outlots along 59 just north of 127th. And we're going to talk about the buffering from that plan and its adde d benefits in comparison to the Wal -Mart store and its berm. MR. HOMANS: I see a site map with lots on it. I don't see any homes on this map. But I would assume that they're -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to object to this exhi bit being introduced. This is not the way the subdivision was approved by the Village. It did not have -- it had commercial all the way up to the north line up here in the front. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Not originally. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pulte han ded these out so we got them. MR. DANIEL: Just so we are clear, the original approval was for commercial all the way to the north. The red line of that subdivision was the original approval, approval for all single family, and they came back for com mercial on 59. AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's right. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: It was originally approved with the ten acres of commercial all the way through to the property line. AUDIENCE MEMBER: No, it wasn't. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Revised February '01. MR. DANIEL: What we'll do for the record is we will clarify this as the Kensington Club site map that I'll tender the witness. It states in the right -hand corner KC revised 06 -01 and that was the original approval of the cul -de -sac extending t o an open space area just along 59. And to the north, I believe it was estimated to be a ten -acre commercial development beginning at the intersection of 127th and 59. That's what I've been informed. I have just received records of the original Ken sington approvals, and I'll have to take a look at that to verify that. But I am asking the witness now to take a look at this approval and explain how the homes in this subdivision, approximately 70, would buffer the sound from 59 in manners that are or are not more efficient than the proposed Wal -Mart store. This is just talking about 59 traffic. MR. HOMANS: Well, I mean, you certainly would get some attenuation due to the housing. I don't mean to say that you're going to get none. I'd just like to say in Darien that at the rear of the store for a consistent ambient sound level, I measured 47 dBA during the morning rush hour and I've got to think that the continuous store at least would be more effective to homes in the rear than a series of homes with side lots where you have the opportunity for sound to go through.
MR. DANIEL: Let's look at this a little more clearly then. At the back of the store, there is 47 dBA in Darien. That store, first of all, during the ambient measurement period isn't open because it's not a 24 -hour store, right? MR. HOMANS: No. My measurements were in the morning during the daytime. MR. DANIEL: When you speak of rush hour, what time was rush hour for you? MR. HOMANS: Oh, 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.. MR. DANIEL: What time did you take the measurement? MR. HOMANS: 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So you're saying 47 dBA at the back lot line behind the buffer at the Darien store, correct? MR. HOMANS: Around 100 feet back from the rear of the store approximately coincident with the lot line. MR. DANIEL: In your professional experience, if you're measuring the ambient sound at the same time period from 100 feet away from the rear of a single -family residence instead o f from a Wal -Mart, what would the ambient sound then be? MR. HOMANS: I don't understand. MR. DANIEL: I am asking you to imagine the residential subdivision that you see here at the Kensington Club site map revised 6/01. You see the homes right where this stub or roadway is depicted to the west of that quadrant of the subdivision? MR. HOMANS: Yes. MR. DANIEL: If you take a look at where that would be in relation to the Wal -Mart store, wouldn't that still be about right where this stu b is? It's just a continuation of the road, right? Now, this is the original plan so they would make consistency for a road. So let's imagine a home where this Wal -Mart wall is under this plan, the first approval. What is the ambient sound 100 fee t away from the back of that home under this plan? MR. HOMANS: I'd have a hard time giving you an estimate without doing any calculations or measurements. MR. DANIEL: We haven't done any calculations or measurements on this property at all. So the point is what would you expect it to be in your professional experience assuming residential use, residential use, and this trend of development here (indicating). See the subdivision there? MR. HOMANS: Yeah. I can't speak to the shielding you 're going to get from the houses. MR. DANIEL: Would you expect it to be 47 or 44 dBA? MR. HOMANS: It could be, but probably not likely. It will probably be higher due to the sound levels that I recorded at this location. MR. DANIEL: Whic h were at 1:00 a.m. with 37 dBA? MR. HOMANS: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Half as loud? MR. HOMANS: Approximately, yes. MR. DANIEL: Did Wal -Mart tender any information to you before you conducted your study ? MR. HOMANS: Certainly. I re ceived plans of the area as well as the activities that would be taking place. MR. DANIEL: Did they tender any prior noise surveys, analyses, studies?
MR. HOMANS: No. MR. DANIEL: Did they discuss with you about how many Wal -Mart stores th ey have nationwide, whether they've performed these studies before so they could help you in the crunch of time to do a complete report? MR. HOMANS: No. MR. DANIEL: I don't have any further questions. Thank you. MR. KACHEL: Could I ask one question? MR. CHAIRMAN: Just wait. I just wanted to add at our continued meeting Tuesday night, I would like both legal parties to have your summations or any closing arguments prepared. I don't know that we'll get to them. I can't p romise that. It depends on how the night goes. But please be prepared to deliver those on next Tuesday night. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Before I let Mr. Homans go, I just had one -- a couple quick points. When you do your measurements, are you lookin g at it from a standpoint of the source, is that how the regulations are set up? MR. HOMANS: Basically, yes. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: And Mr. Daniels asked questions about the trucks that would be entering this area and had some concern about trucks t hat would be coming into the commercial site where the Wal -Mart was built. Are you familiar with the status of the property along the existing frontage of Route 59? MR. HOMANS: As I understand, these are outlots that can be developed in other uses. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Okay. So if the Wal -Mart weren't here, this property being existing commercial and zoned B3, there would be the ability to have truck traffic coming in and coming around the back to serve any of those uses there, is that correct? MR. HOMANS: That's my understanding. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: That's all the questions I have. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The past few nights that we've had these meetings, we've had quite a few concerned citizens come up and speak in opposition to the development of the Wal -Mart. However, there is one citizen who is in favor of the Wal -Mart development. And at this time, I'll allow that person to come up. Following that person, if there's anyone in the audience who has a question for the wi tness who has just testified on sound levels, you may question him at that time. Please state your name for the record. MS. HALLEN: My name is Catherine Hallen, 24125 Pear Tree Circle in Plainfield. I'd just like to explain that I've under gone extensive surgery on the throat and the vocal cords so I'd appreciate if you can bear with me. And if you can't hear me, I'll try to speak a little louder. After my surgery at the end of August , I decided to go to the Mayor's coffee on Septemb er 5th; and in the conversation, the Wal -Mart issue was brought up. I had no idea who the people were involved at the time. And in the conversation with these people and at the table, we kept hearing about crime and trash that would be brought into our community if a Wal -Mart was built on Route 59 and 127th.
A statement was made by one of the opposition that they didn't want anybody earning $30,000 or less coming into our community and they were questioned by a citizen what was wrong with earn ing $30,000. And then a statement was made, well, these people who earn less will bring the crime and trash into Plainfield. And then another citizen berated the people because of an article that was written in a newspaper that Wal -Mart was a dirty, disgusting store with low -class people working there. And a retort was made by the opposition that knew about the crime that these people would bring in because she was a former dispatcher with the Naperville police. And at that time, Mr. Burghard interrupted and stated that before you make statements like this, you better have the facts to support the issue. Well, I let it go. I went home and I am thinking about it and thinking about it. And I received a phone call from a newspaper re porter about an article which she wrote from the Sun, and the title of the article is Some Heritage Meadows Support Wal -Mart. And it was me. I didn't -- at first, I didn't have any -- I could have cared less at first. My concern at the time was I was receiving all kinds of literature on my door telling me how I should submit these letters in opposition to the Board and the Plan Commissioners and everything else because for four years they were told this area that's planned for a Wal -Mart was zoned residential. So I went to the Village Hall to find out if for four years, and it was stated four to four and a half years, this was zoned. I found out that this was farmland up to May of 2000. So how could they be putting out in the literature to the community that they've been told for four years, four and a half years this is zoned for residential? I then found out later Pulte bought the land. A proposal was being made by Wal -Mart for rezoning. Yet in these letters, it's misleading the peo ple. That was fine. At the very same coffee on September 5th, it was brought up by the opposition they wanted to bring people to the Plan Commission meeting that night. Again, Mr. Burghard reiterated that there would be a public hearing for t he rezoning and they could present the facts at that time. On the very same day -- I submitted these to you for review -- here's Village Trustees Meeting Tonight, Monday 9/10. Wal -Mart is not on the agenda but we need to let the Village of Plainfi eld and our elected trustees know how adamant we are in opposition to commercial development at the northwest corner of Route 59 and 127th. Now is the time to do this. To me -- to me, this is inviting civil disobedience by the residents of Plainfi eld to interrupt your meeting. (Laughter heard.) MS. HALLEN: Don't laugh. I had phone calls. And this is what it is. But best yet is the second page stating that this individual's had training how to speak with the media, and there's ei ght points. No. 6 point ends after you talk with the media, shut up. No. 7 point is a reference to the President of the United States. I sent a copy of this to the President of the United States for him to read this. And I said I'm sending i t hoping that you'll have a chuckle out of this. I didn't identify the people, but I sent it to him
anyway because it refers to him as the President of the United States, that he's only allowed one quote per article. But point No. 8 is what's imper ative to me. It states: You represent the entire subdivision every time you speak publicly on this issue. They do not represent the entire subdivision. They represent their group only, and you can see by the numbers here the size of their group. There 's up to 600 residents in this community. This is the size of the group. They are not in the majority representing the residents of this community and I resent them to continuously put this in the press saying they represent us. They do not. Absolutely not. Well, along comes September 19th. There is an article in the paper which it just said 5 to 600 residents were at the meeting, and they never identified themselves. And in these publications they put on our doors, they never identify themselv es. That was my main beef. The paper came out in the morning. Later in the afternoon, my doorbell rings. I answer the door and there's Mr. Franken standing them your address and your telephone number and the report is on file. But yet that wasn't enough. He didn't do his job. He did not do his job because the next day, here comes Mrs. Franken ringing my doorbell. I answered the door. She shoves a picture in front of me and starts yelling and screaming so I called the police. Again , the painter was out there and he said what is this woman talking about; she doesn't want my people in this community. Sean is black. That's the message he got. And every article we have in here is crime and trash and making threats on people that don't agree with them about the rezoning. And I thought oh, my, oh, my, where do I go from here. So I didn't do anything for a while. I sat around for a week thinking about it. So I decided to write a letter to the chief of police of Napervi lle, Chief Dial. I first called over there and asked if I had to go through the Freedom of Information Act. And I received from their crime analyst, Robert Hamilton, a report. Because at the September 5th meeting, a dispatcher, Mrs. Franken, said she knows all about the crime that was reported at Wal -Mart because she took the calls. This report was submitted to you. It goes from January 1, 2000 to October 12, 2000, of January 1 of 2001 to October 12, 2001. The largest number of calls for assistance from the Naperville police was for lockout of cars. The others are minimal. So then Target was mentioned. They provided Target statistics, nothing of any consequence. And most interesting, and I'd like to find out, when Chili's was mentioned, the only thing here of any consequence is seven calls for burglar alarm and one call for theft under $300. Somebody must want a lot of tacos at that time. So I presented this to the Commission to show you there is no major crime taking pl ace at the Wal -Mart store on Route 59 and approximately Ogden Avenue. I don't have the number. And I don't know why it's a resounding issue with these people. And, again, their last article, I printed it in the colored paper, that they presented t o us that books have been written on Wal -Mart muscling into small towns and its negative impact on small businesses and local communities.
Ladies and gentlemen, I haven't seen one businessman up here from the Village of Plainfield objecting to Wal -Ma rt. I've not seen one businessman. I have not seen one businessman attending the Mayor's coffee objecting to Wal -Mart. If you have approximately 13 to 15,000 people in this community and you have a small group of approximately 30 objecting, I think the majority rules here that we're in favor of a Wal -Mart at Route 59. And one other issue I think that should be brought up. These are supposed to be intelligent adults. They put together a program for objection to Wal -Mart but on the very first public hearing, the group of Wal -Mart people came in from Joliet, Bolingbrook, and Naperville, the first group, that was about 25 to 30 people. As they walked in, these people start jeering, hissing, making remarks, and making remarks about their clothin g. And I think you owe these people an apology. I don't think it's funny whatsoever. These are hard -working people. MR. CHAIRMAN: Please direct your comments to me. MS. HALLEN: I was looking to see if the Wal -Mart people were still here, s ir. I extended an apology and went to each one of the stores and met with the managers to apologize as a citizen of Heritage Meadows. I also have asked for an application so I can file it when the new Wal -Mart comes in. If I've lost my voice by then, I'll greet every citizen by sign language. I'm sincere about this because when you become a thug and when you come into my home to threaten me because I'm in opposition, it's too much. Mr. Daniel, I'd like to direct a remark to you last nigh t. You made a comment about the berm. MR. CHAIRMAN: Please, do not speak to him. Speak to me. MS. HALLEN: Mr. Daniels made a comment about the berm and the fir trees that would be planted on top of the berm. He was concerned about what kind of birds would be in there and what kind of wildlife would be in there. So I sat down and made a list. The wildlife in Plainfield in Heritage Meadows are gophers, squirrels. We have some beavers. We have some skunks. And once a while we'll see a coyote walking through or a deer coming through. That's our wildlife here. Most assuredly, they will not be habitating in the evergreens which look like pretty good aesthetic affect for the berm. And I thought he would make a good stand -up co mic in presenting this. He should take this material and utilize it. I'm not saying it facetiously. I think he'd be good at it. As far as the store goes, I haven't met anyone in my community walking around talking to them. I went door to door to every town house on Pear Tree Circle and talked to the residents. I met with only one individual who objected and he wouldn't tell me why. But there's approximately 198 people living in the town houses right now. And the majority of all those who I spoke to were in favor of a Wal -Mart. It did not disrupt their life whatsoever. In fact, they asked if there's going to be some kind of a walkway along 59 where they can walk from Heritage Meadows into the store. Wal -Mart is the No. 1 retail er in the United States at the present time. They had an excessive profit over the Thanksgiving holiday. People are flocking to Wal -Mart.
Now you have a Target going up across the street. Target is in financial trouble according to the stock marke t. They may not even open up. Who knows. But I feel Wal -Mart will be an asset to us because it's not only drawing from Plainfield, you're going to have the new homes in Naperville, those that are going up in Bolingbrook, and soon 5,800 homes going up in Grande Park. So I think it will be highly utilized. A lot of that tax money that we reap from the business here will embellish not only the Village but our school districts. There should be no problem on that part. I thank you for your time. MR. DANIEL: I have a question. MR. CHAIRMAN: We have not been cross -examining citizens who come up to speak their opinion. MR. FRANKEN: They haven't been publically attacked either. MR. DANIEL: It's not related to the attac k. Mr. Franken will respond separately to the attack. The question that I have relate to the facts that the witness just provided relating to crimes, crime reports. I was asked to submit crime reports. We were going to submit those. She just tes tified to those. I want to make sure she can read a crime report and ask her what she thinks about some of the crimes reported at some of these Wal -Mart stores. And also something about her home and what she's done with her home. So if you could, ma'am, please return to the microphone. MS. HALLEN: I'm not going under cross -examination by you, sir. MR. DANIEL: I'll just tender my questions to the Board. My first question for Mrs. Hallen, given her refusal to testify, I want to run through some crime report statistics. Running across a Bolingbrook crime report that was mentioned previously, some of the crimes mentioned: Hit -and -run, reckless driving, suspicious persons reports, another hit -and -run. MS HALLEN: If you would hav e listened, I mentioned Naperville. MR. CHAIRMAN: Please do not argue amongst yourselves. Direct all comments to me. MR. DANIEL: Hit -and -run. October 7, 2001, one of your non -serious crimes, kidnapping. Is it correct, ma'am, that you li sted your home or at least tried to sell your home for one month -- MR. SHINDERLE: No, no. MR. DANIEL: Sir, pardon me. This is a question for her -- MR. KACHEL: What we've been doing before is everyone speaking their own. I don't con sider this a cross -examination as you would do in court. He directed her that all of her comments be directly to the Board. I think your comments should be directed to the Board, also. He did it three times to her. MR. DANIEL: Under the circumstan ces, Members of the Commission, you have an attorney here. Any witness presenting evidence is to be cross -examined. That's why she took an oath before she stood up and said what she said with what little facts she had. I'm entitled to disclose that.
Those facts were scandalous. Some of the facts were reckless. Some of them may be true, a knock at the door, and I'm entitled to disclose that, particularly for an upstanding member of a community who's taken on the cause that he believes in. An indi vidual as Mr. Franken shouldn't have to stand up to that with the media present. That's all I want to say. (Applause heard.) MR. FRANKEN: I'll make this brief. I am not going to entertain any of the comments. I would like to in an offi cial capacity ask that the Planning Commission not allow anyone else to come up and publicly attack us. If they would like to speak in defense of Wal -Mart, we certainly have no objection to that but, please, don't put me in that position again. As f or the accusations that were made, quite honestly and quite frankly, I will leave the cynicism and sarcasm to speak for itself. Thank you. MS. GEHRKE: Who are you? MR. FRANKEN: I'm sorry, ma'am. My name is Martin Franken, F -r -a -n -k -e -n. Thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN: I think I need to remind everyone at large, when you come up to speak, remember you are still bound by a civil law regarding slander and libel. So if you make statements that could possibly be injurious to someone, you may be called to answer those charges. MR. FRANKEN: I'm sorry. I do have to add one other thing. I was aware that the police were called. I did contact the Plainfield Police Department. I asked them quite pointedly, I talked to the officer; I said, why were you called. He said, I have no idea. That is from the police officer himself. And for the record, I have unfortunately been the target of some of these comments before, and I've already spoken to another attorney about defamation of character. We had already discussed the parameters of that about public statements, and I prefer to just leave the issue alone. But serving as a public servant, I do have to defend my character also. And unfortunately, I've been publicly attacke d by this person before. But, please, don't allow this to be a venue for that. Thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN: At this time, we have citizens who wish to ask questions of the witness who presented testimony regarding sound and noise. MS. MEISINGE R: Laurie Meisinger, M -e -i -s -i -n -g -e -r, 12426 South Bob White. Did you do any testing of the noise from the air conditioner? I'm sure Wal -Mart has a huge air conditioner to cool the huge building. And where is the air conditioner located on the sto re? MR. HOMANS: No. I did not do some abatement work with the rooftop area, in the area, and that sort of business. For the plans I've seen, any units will be screened by the parapet wall surrounding the building and will not be visible from th e ground level. And if this is a solid wall, this will block the line of site and afford it a great deal of sound attenuation. From the measurements at Darien, there was no significant --
MS. MEISINGER: But the air conditioner wasn't on. Did you do it when the air conditioner was on? It was probably during the fall. MR. HOMANS: It was during the week so there certainly was air handling equipment on. MS. MEISINGER: But it's not cooling the whole building. MR. HOMANS: That's right. MS. MEISINGER: So you really haven't run tests on the noise of the air conditioner for a large building for noise level. Like this is during -- MR. HOMANS: I've done lots of study. MS. MEISINGER: But not for Darien. MR. HOM ANS: That's correct. MS. MEISINGER: Thank you. MR. BYRNE: Jim Byrne, 12453 Falcon Drive, Plainfield. Sir, during your testimony, I believe you stated that weekend sound levels, Saturday sound levels were in the neighborhood of 62 to 67 decibels, is that correct? MR. HOMANS: I didn't make any statements to weekend sound levels. MR. BYRNE: So at the highest traffic volume on weekend shopping, you don't have sound measurements? MR. HOMANS: No, I do not. MR. BYRNE: O kay. Let me ask a clarifying question, a separate issue. I was present for this portion of your testimony when you said the sound level traveling from the back of the store hits the berm and the fence. At that point it is probably still at the 1,000 meg ahertz -- it's over the Illinois statute limit. From the time it goes the additional distance to the person's home, it would be at an acceptable level, correct? MR. HOMANS: Yes. That's basically true without the -- well, the berm and the barrier were on top of the attenuation. So it will be in compliance with the lot line which is several feet beyond the fence and then additionally at the home beyond. MR. BYRNE: And if this area where the berm is substantially shorter and the fence height d oesn't provide protection, your testimony is still that the traffic here, particularly a northbound truck turning left at the light where the sound cone does come directly this way versus the Route 59 traffic where the sound goes north and south, there -- in your opinion, there is no issue with sound levels exceeding the required levels using this dotted line as an example as a truck would come from this area and accelerate at one point linearly and adjacent into those properties? MR. HOMANS: Yes. It's still my opinion that the sound level from a truck would be at the same or perhaps lower than the traffic on Route 59 here. MR. BYRNE: Even though you previously testified that sound diminishes as distance doubles where the distance is substant ial, certainly over 45 feet here (indicating), Route 59, where the sound is traveling in an indirect direction versus where at this point the property is less than 45 feet from where the truck would be. MR. HOMANS: Yes. One truck as opposed to many cars along the roadway. MR. BYRNE: Thank you. MR. LATIMER: Daniel Latimer, 12329 Bob White Lane, L -a -t -i -m -e -r. Sir, does rpm have anything to do with noise? MR. HOMANS: Certainly, yes.
MR. LATIMER: And a truck coming out of here at 45, 50 miles an hour, do you have any idea what its rpm would be? MR. HOMANS: I have no idea. MR. LATIMER: Well, it's about 1850. With a truck being here, stopping and going in first gear, do you have any idea what his rpm would be? MR. HOMANS: No, I don't. MR. LATIMER: It can go up to an excess of 350 -- I'm sorry -- 3,500. That's almost twice as much as this truck doing 50 miles an hour on Route 59. Now, you just said it has a lot to do with it. It's double the rpm. Isn't that going to make more noise than the truck going by here at 50 miles an hour? MR. HOMANS: If the truck is going 50 miles an hour, there are other factors that generate the noise such as tire noise. MR. LATIMER: I am just ta lking about -- it's not a hard question. It's just the engine noise here. MR. HOMANS: I am not aware of that. MR. LATIMER: You're an expert and you don't know what rpm would be louder or less than. If I've got two cars sitting next to me idl ing at 850 and you punch one engine -- MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me. If you're going to cross -examine the witness, you need to ask questions. MR. LATIMER: Okay. I'm sorry. Obviously he doesn't know. MR. HOMANS: Sorry. MS. KAMINSKI: Kim Kaminski, 12352 South Heritage Meadow Drive. You stated that sound diminishes over the area of travel. How much does that change on a windy day? MR. HOMANS: Depends on whether you're upwind or downwind. For purposes of our study, we consider things to be calm. MS. KAMINSKI: And how much time have you spent in Plainfield? MR. HOMANS: Not very much. MS. KAMINSKI: It's very windy here. MR. WICHMAN: Hi. Scott Wichman, W -i -c -h -m -a -n, 12454 Bob White Lane. Mr. Homans, earlier you talked about the sound levels and the IEPA levels that were required for nightfall, and how that -- what your measurements were of nighttime truck traffic, is that correct? MR. HOMANS: No. I spoke about the Illinois EPA sound levels and my calculations. MR. WICHMAN: And there was a recommended nighttime sound level for truck traffic and anything like that along the residential areas, is that correct? MR. HOMANS: No. That is not correct. Technically, ingress and eg ress of trucks is exempt from the Illinois standards, but I've chose not to ignore that. What I was referring to was the sound level limit of a residential property line with commercial as a source. MR. WICHMAN: And there was a nighttime limit, and you thought that -- correct me if I am wrong here -- I thought in your testimony you stated that in order to stay
below the minimum sound levels recommended by the State, they would be limited to one truck per hour to maintain that average sound lev el; is that correct? MR. HOMANS: That's correct. One or two trucks. MR. WICHMAN: So we're supposed to expect that the truck servicing Wal -Mart, whether they're ahead or behind schedule during the hours of the night are going to limit themselve s one per hour coming down this road? MR. HOMANS: Well, considering that they're projecting for the store two to three semitrailers to be delivered during the day and six to seven other sorts of trucks, I think that's fair and accurate. MR. WICH MAN: That truck traffic is just for the department store. It does not take into account the grocery store expansion, is that correct? MR. HOMANS: That's correct. MR. WICHMAN: So we can assume that when the grocery expansion is added on, ther e will be significantly more traffic with food deliveries, is that correct? MR. HOMANS: There will be more traffic. I do not think it will approach four trucks per hour. MR. WICHMAN: Not the four trucks. But if we were to maintain the IEPA re commended sound levels, we have to be limited to one truck per hour evenly spaced, which would mean one truck per hour throughout the hours of the night when all the windows are open if you're along the residents, isn't that correct? MR. HOMANS: Tha t is between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. yes. I think that is fair and accurate. We would be limited to one to two trucks per hour. MR. WICHMAN: So residents of this area should expect on average a truck per hour when this store is fully built out a ll hours of the night since we're talking about a 24 -hour operation? MR. HOMANS: I don't see how you can make such an assumption. It's my understanding deliveries don't occur at night. MR. WICHMAN: I was just trying to clarify what I thought I heard you say. I don't have any further questions. Thank you. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Mr. Chairman, if I may, at this time, I know you also requested us to have the property investigated by an Illinois real estate appraiser as to property val ues within the general area and we have done that. At this time, I would like to introduce Mr. Dale Kleszynski who is the president of Associated Property Councilors, Ltd. MR. KLESZYNSKI: For the record, my name is Dale Kleszynski, K -l -e -s -z -y -n -s -k -i. I am the president of Associated Property Councilors. My firm is a small appraisal and consulting firm. We specialize predominantly in eminent domain matters, and we have a very heavy emphasis on estimating damages that occur because of t hings like takings and road widenings and studies that we conduct in this regard. Probably the easiest way is to not only explain what I did but explain my findings to first tell you that how a study of this nature is conducted and what we did or wha t steps we took in order to formulate our opinions.
And the -- as a general statement in developments such as this, one of the primary questions that comes up is whether or not there will be a deleterious impact on the value of the homes surrounding the application that's being tested. Now, we've tested -- conducted tests from a resume perspective. We've conducted tests for the construction of the Jewel store in Lemont, the -- and we've additionally completed tests for things like the constr uction of water towers in residential developments. We've conducted tests for the imposition of substations, electric substations for Orland Park and items like this. So that's my way of experience. That's the type of tests we have run in order to deter mine whether or not certain applications cause a deleterious impact on value. The way the test is conducted is essentially this: We try to locate situations that are similar to what the citizens will be facing, and then we examine the sales transact ions that are near the proposed improvement or the existing improvement and then to also compare these transactions with transactions that are away from the particular improvement and we try to keep the homes homogenous and -- so that there's fewer variab les for us to work with. In this particular instance, I asked Mr. Philipchuck to identify a minimum of five locations where a Wal -Mart store was constructed in the neighborhood that already had single -family residential units in it. And we ide ntified five locations and these five locations were 10260 South Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview, 137 West North Avenue in Northlake, 900 Route 83 in Villa Park. MR. KACHEL: Could you read those a little slower, please. MR. KLESZYNSKI: We tested 10 260 South Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview, 137 North Avenue in Northlake, 900 Route 83 in Villa Park, 1455 East Lake -Cook Road in Wheeling, and 6590 Grand Avenue in Gurnee. Because I was unfamiliar with the housing values and housing patterns in Plainfie ld, the study was conducted so as to include homes with pricing of approximately 100,000 on up to homes where the properties were selling for approximately $450,000. In order to impact the value of a piece of real estate or to measure the impact -- or the diminution of a piece of real estate, there are a couple of things that have to happen. The basic four questions that need to be answered are: Do the homes that are near the use that's being tested list more regularly thereby demonstrating a certain level of changing of those particular properties. Another test or another piece of information that we look for in conducting our study is do the homes that are near the application that's being tested actually go down in value, meaning that you trace a pattern of sales where one house will sell by way of example for 175,000, it sells again for 100 -- you know, $10,000 less and $10,000 less until it hits a level that is acceptable. That's the second item we look for. The third item that we look for is do we question whether or not those particular properties experience a greater delay or a longer marketing people for the people who own them. And the last test that we look for is we try to determine whether or not those properties a ctually stay stagnant in value while other properties in the area go up. So in other words, is that a demonstrable stagnation of the property values.
In the five Wal -Mart locations -- the short version of our study is that we've reviewed in these l ocations for a two -to -three -year period of time because we -- and we select that time frame because things are not -- I guess they don't move quickly. I guess the best way to say it is they don't move quickly in real estate. Marketing times take place. People have sales take -- closing dates take longer. There's a number of factors and variables that enter into the transactions associated with moving a house. In the five Wal -Mart locations as well as the Jewel locations on 127th Street as well as one in Munster, Indiana, the results of the review of over 500 sales transactions over a three -to -five -year period of time was that in locations adjacent to commercial applications that are similar to this, is that the homes do not list more regularly t han homes that are located away from that application. They do not go down in value over a period of time and incrementally. They do not experience greater delays, and they have consistent -- they have consistent marketing periods with the uses that ar e -- with the residential units that are away from the applications and they do not stay stagnant. So we find in this particular study that there's no demonstrable deleterious impact on value for the single -family units that exist -- or coexist with commercial applications such as being proposed here. I would also add that in conducting this particular study, we noted that the berming situation and the landscaping situation for this particular store based on the drawings that we reviewed was fa r more superior than any of the ones that we had observed. And I thought that was -- I thought that was interesting, and it would also assist in maintaining residential values in this particular area. And at this point, I'll be glad to take any que stions. MR. KACHEL: Of the five that you had just listed, the Gurnee one, the other ones, weren't they pretty much commercial areas to begin with or established? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. The answer to your question I think is no. For example, Harl em Avenue is a commercial area but not to the intensity that we're discussing here. And my specific request to Mr. Philipchuck when we began taking a look at this particular information was that we find a place or we find places where Wal -Mart store s were constructed where single -family residential units already existed. MR. KACHEL: What I'm saying is most of the streets that you've given, those were commercial areas. Before, this was farmland, then it went the same. For example -- so e ven in older residential communities, there is some appreciation that takes place, albeit not necessarily at the same rate that you find in new residential units. They went up the same near the stores and away from the stores. MR. KACHEL: The only concern I have with this is, like I say, in an older established neighborhood where a Wal -Mart goes in like we have in North Avenue and you get into Villa Park and into Bridgeview, I am somewhat familiar with the areas and they've been commercial for a lon g time. People are used to buying the house so they don't change. I mean, they have been that way. Here the commercial isn't there and that's why I'm saying in relationship to the five that we have here, they're not quite the same as what we have. Mayb e I am reading it the wrong way. I don't know. MR. KLESZYNSKI: I guess I would agree with you to the extent that the areas that were identified as the locations to these stores do have -- have had commercial applications.
The fact of the matt er is that not only in these particular tests but in the tests that we have run for -- when you answer this particular question in many instances, we have just found that there has been no deleterious impact on value. The fact of the matter is that commercial and residential real estate need to coexist with each other. The fact of the matter is that people move into particular areas. They buy homes. They look for conveniences associated with shopping, and a lot of other -- and a lot of other conv eniences. For example, in the tests that we've run, the locations of the Wal -Mart stores in comparison to the residential properties were as close in some instances as under 50 feet and approximately up to as much as 200 feet away from the locations that we tested. The market does not demonstrate that the existence of a commercial property adjacent to a residential property will cause that deleterious -- will cause a deleterious impact on value. MR. KACHEL: Like I say, I'm concerned on ap preciation since they're newer homes more than anything. These other areas are mainly older areas. People bought -- it's like buying along a roadway. Route 59 we are talking about. When you buy along 59, people don't mind it. They will buy there. Th eir houses don't go up in value but they remain the same. They don't necessarily go down because someone will buy it. In this particular area that you have homes that haven't been built on, people were assuming that the values would go up and that's my only concern. MR. KLESZYNSKI: You make a very good point. There is other factors associated with it, and I guess the best way for me to explain it is that realistically speaking, until the neighborhood is absolutely built out and established, yo u're going to see some price increase. But by way of example, if I bought a newer home and put it on the market before the neighborhood is built up, I might experience a loss in value because of the fact that I would still be competing with the build er who is active in that area and the market is different. So you have to go through some period of stabilization and then that's when real value -- that's when real value increases actually take place. MR. MANNING: Have you done studies for other situations other than Wal -Marts? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. Within the last several years we've done -- not with Wal -Mart . If I understood you correctly, other than Wal -Mart? Other than Wal -Mart, yes, we were asked to testify when a Jewel store was be ing put in on 127th Street and actually it sort of escapes me right now but the primary issues have been really much more intensive uses such as the construction of a water tower in an existing residential subdivision or the construction of an electric su bstation in a residential subdivision. Those were more intense applications. We have a tendency to deal with those more regularly than we do at these situations -- this situation. MR. MANNING: Have you ever found a case in which the proposed comme rcial or industrial usage did affect the value of the home? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. MR. MANNING: Can you tell me what that was? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes, I can. We were asked by the Cook County State's Attorneys Office to determine whether or not the -- an adult use that was proposed for a commercial area did, in fact, have a deleterious impact on the value of the surrounding applications. And the answer to that
question was -- and we testified in court on this particular -- in a first a mendment case that there was for example, in this particular instance, it's a peep show was going to be put into a commercial -- existing commercial use. And we found that when that particular application went in, that tenants left the existing center as well as requested lower rates for being relocated in the particular center. So we had a measurable and demonstrable impact on value. MR. MANNING: The commercial value, not the residential? MR. KLESZYNSKI: We weren't asked to identify the resi dential use. MR. MANNING: I am kind of interested in the effect on residential values. Because practically every time citizens come before us to oppose something, they make two arguments, it's going to affect the value of my house and it's going to endanger my kids. This is the first time I've ever heard anybody who has some empirical data to offer us. I am asking you: Have you had any situation that you have studied, can you tell me what the usage was that did adversely affect it. MR. K LESZYNSKI: That adversely affected residential applications, no. Because again, in the uses that we study are commercial as well as highly intensive usage such as an electric substation or a water tower being placed adjacent to an existing single -family residence. And we conducted the study in the precise same manner that I have outlined here. And the fact of the matter is that residential properties are much more resilient than people -- or residential values are much more resilient than most peo ple think. They don't just drop in value for reasons other than things like, for example, a hazardous waste spill will impact the residential values or flooding issues will impact the values. For example, in Calumet City, we did a study of the impa ct of certain flood situations to determine whether or not certain homes should be purchased because they flooded more often than others. Now, when those types of catastrophes take place, then there is an impact on the value. Those homes become stig matized so -to -speak, and for a certain location and for certain homes that are impacted by, for example, in this instance it was a flooding problem, well, those homes didn't sell as quickly as the other homes. They did drop in value. And most of the time the owners couldn't basically get rid of them. So it's more catastrophic issues rather than issues that typically coexist with good zoning and planning that exist for those issues -- or for those items to exist next to one another. MR. MANNIN G: Thank you. MR. KACHEL: Before you were talking about you've done electrical power stations and you've done water towers and you've done a lot of industrial -type applications where you do have the adverse affect. You mentioned the fact that you d id the Jewel on 127th Street. In relationship to the retail studies you've done in the past, how many other studies have been done on that end of it similar to this type of -- MR. KLESZYNSKI: I'm going to say we have probably done four or five stu dies on retail applications. MR. KACHEL: What type of applications? Were they strip malls or large boxes like this one? MR. KLESZYNSKI: They are generally speaking applications like a Jewel food store will be coming into an area or a Wal -Mart.
MR. KACHEL: There is only four you've done? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. MR. KACHEL: So it's not like you've done a vast amount to make a comparison? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. All we can do is the comparisons of the locations that we've identif ied. MR. CHAIRMAN: We do have a time constraint again. If you're not finished when our time is up, we will have to continue to next Tuesday. MR. DANIEL: Just let me know if you have to interrupt me. I can start from there again. Sir, ar e you an MAI appraiser? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. MR. DANIEL: So you're familiar with general appraisal techniques and the documents that you review in anticipation of performing an appraisal ? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. MR. DANIEL: You're cer tainly familiar that zoning ordinances make a difference in your appraised valuation of certain properties or your estimation of the impact of the development on certain properties ? MR. KLESZYNSKI: If that is actually a two -part -- that is two ques tions. One relates to the completion of an appraisal of a specific piece of property, and the other relates to consulting the obligations of the appraiser in the area of consulting. MR. DANIEL: Let's answer both parts. MR. KLESZYNSKI: Well, I am not conducting an appraisal of any piece of real estate in this particular instance. So anything that has to do with actually conducting an appraisal or formulating an opinion of value for a specific residence or specific property in this instance is n ot applicable for the questioning I think. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's test that a little bit, sir. You've got to understand that this is the second time in my career I have ever heard that a big box will have no impact, absolutely no impact. Mr. Abel was there for the first time, and that was a Meijer store in Robbins where I heard that testimony. Let's look at that. You stated that there will be no deleterious impact on the surrounding properties, including these residences, right? M R. KLESZYNSKI: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: These residences and these planned residences, is that right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: So you had to look at the value of the residences in this area, right, estimated value; maybe you looked at something from Pulte Homes that was submitted to the Plan Commission, some report? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. What I looked at was information that's published in the multiple listing services of the communities that I identified for th e locations that I just mentioned. MR. DANIEL: What is the average sale price of a Pulte home? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I have no idea what the average sale price of a Pulte home is. MR. DANIEL: So you don't know? MR. KLESZYNSKI: That's corr ect. That's why in conducting this particular study we used homes that ranged from approximately $100,000 up to $450,000 so as to cover
what would be considered to be a reasonably wide range of buyers in marketing -- and markets. MR. DANIEL: Well, what I'm trying to make sure for the Plan Commission is that your range isn't so wide that it hides the mid -range which is the one we're looking at. MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. That's in my range -- MR. DANIEL: Let's look at $100,000. How much is a home of $100,000 in Northlake going to fluctuate in comparison to a home that is $300,000 in Plainfield which is known for its estate zoning which is what this was zoned? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I don't understand the question. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Did y ou look at the zoning ordinance? Let's go through your list here so we can figure out what it is that you know about this project. Did you look at the Plainfield zoning ordinance? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. MR. DANIEL: Did you look at the Plain field comprehensive plan? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. MR. DANIEL: How about the Will County zoning ordinance? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I am familiar with the Will County zoning ordinance. MR. DANIEL: Did you look at it for this particular presentat ion for your analysis today? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. MR. DANIEL: How about any of the prior subdivision submittals, approvals, maps, drawings, architectural renderings of homes, estimations of value, prior roadway plans for the subdivision, anythin g submitted by Pulte Homes prior to your engagement? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I have not looked at anything that was submitted by Pulte Homes. MR. DANIEL: Did you interview anyone like Mr. Carroll, the village planner? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. MR . DANIEL: Did you interview Mr. Drayna who is also a village planner? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No, I did not. MR. DANIEL: How about any brokers from Plainfield? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes, I have. MR. DANIEL: Which brokers did you interview? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Throughout the course of this study, we interviewed -- my office researcher interviewed -- well, I guess actually the best way to put it is that when we reviewed the sales transactions from the MLS, I believe that several phone calls we re made for -- to two different brokerage offices to verify whether or not we were, in fact, including the -- you know, the property data. So I don't know -- I guess the best way to answer that question is I don't know if my researcher actually intervi ewed a specific broker. MR. DANIEL: So tonight you cannot tell the Commission that you or anyone at your firm interviewed brokers so they can contribute data, conclusions about how they might view having a Wal -Mart there as they're trying to sell a home versus not having a Wal -Mart there ? MR. KLESZYNSKI: But that is not the way the study is conducted. The way the study is conducted specifically is to take a look at the actual transactions and trace the history of the transactions for locatio ns that are near the big box or the Wal -Marts in
these particular instances and those that are away from them. So the data actually speaks for itself. MR. DANIEL: Well, I'm not sure about that. We're going to get into that. There's at least o ne homeowner here in the audience who spoke before who listed her home for 30 days for sale as soon as she found out about the Wal -Mart proposal. Would that be relative to your consideration, listings immediately after learning of a planned commercial dev elopment next to your subdivision? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Well, certainly that is a relevant piece of information. MR. DANIEL: How about things like traffic studies? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I don't understand the question, how about things like traffic studies. MR. DANIEL: I am trying to go through the list of things that you reviewed. Did you review any of Mr. O'Hara's traffic analyses, did you review the Illinois Route 59 IDOT surveys that were done for Route 59 to determine the nature o f congestion in the area that might impact your analysis of big box stores and their impact on surrounding values? MR. KLESZYNSKI: That's not an issue that's relevant in terms of determining what the impact of the location near and away from the comm ercial application is. It's just not a relevant issue. MR. DANIEL: Well, we're going to look at that. I mean, you understand there are other appraisers around that use typical analyses. There are treatises that we can investigate. It lo oks like we are not going to make it through the evening with your testimony. I'd like to get into a few other things that you may or may not have relied on. Did you look at any home sales in the subdivision to the north of this proposed Wal -Ma rt? MR. KLESZYNSKI: We did not trace any specific transactions in the location to the north of the Wal -Mart. MR. DANIEL: How about any particular transactions in Plainfield, can you identify any particular transactions in Plainfield? MR. K LESZYNSKI: No. Again, the question was -- that was posed to us is what is the impact on value for residential properties adjacent to existing -- adjacent to stores like Wal -Mart of this particular size. So, again, what we did was we located situa tions that are similar to the subject site and tested the values at those locations to determine whether or not there has been any significant increase in marketing periods, diminution in value, increased activity relative to greater numbers of listings, a nd tried to answer the question as to whether or not the values stayed stagnant while other values away from the specific location increased. MR. DANIEL: What was the average sale price of homes around the address of -- let's see here. Let's start with 10260 South Harlem in Bridgeview. MR. KLESZYNSKI: During what period of time? MR. DANIEL: The period you studied, the five years you mentioned. MR. KLESZYNSKI: In this particular instance, we have -- the average sale price in the be ginning of the analysis was approximately -- for the sales test was approximately $137,000 in the first year with an increase to approximately $193,000 in the last year of the study.
MR. DANIEL: So we're talking about -- actually, you can't compare the difference in price between those in Plainfield so I'll withdraw that question. How about 137 West North Avenue in Northlake. What was the average sales price -- you know, for the sake of organization, let's stick with your 10260 for a little while. You mentioned 137 was the average sale price at the beginning of your study. What was the date of the beginning of your study? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Four years ago. MR. DANIEL: And the number of homes that you studied? MR. KLESZYNS KI: 47 transactions. MR. DANIEL: Over a four -year period? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. For the first year, that's what you're asking? MR. DANIEL: How many transactions all together? MR. KLESZYNSKI: During what period? MR. DANIEL: All four years, all together for your particular address at 10260 South Harlem. MR. KLESZYNSKI: I can only give you an estimate on that and it would be approximately 150, and again that's an estimate. MR. DANIEL: So you had 47 homes during the fir st year and you're saying roughly 150 all together. So things slowed down a little bit, you think? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. We considered that just to be typical marketing periods for those locations that are near and away from the location at 103rd and Harlem Avenue. MR. DANIEL: When was the Wal -Mart at 103rd and Harlem Avenue constructed? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I don't have a specific date. MR. DANIEL: Would that date be relevant for your study? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. Because I know tha t the -- when we requested the specific locations, we wanted stores that were constructed within the last three to five years. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's put it this way: Would the first year of your study be relevant if there was no Wal -Mart there un til four years later? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Certainly. That's just not the case in this particular instance. MR. DANIEL: Next time we get together, can you provide the dates and your data so that we can analyze it in a little more detail without goi ng into the specifics and then finding out that you don't have the construction data at that Wal -Mart of 103rd and Harlem? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Actually, the reason that I didn't prepare a written report in this particular instance is that I was going to submit something in writing to the Commission and I wanted to gather questions from the audience so that specific items could be -- you know, could be addressed as far as the written report was concerned. MR. DANIEL: I think I would have no objectio n to the submission of the report to the Commission as long as we have a right to cross -examine that at a later date. And that is the Commission's decision, mind you, it's not my decision. So let's look at this a little more closely. Harlem Avenue a nd 103rd Street, what's the zoning on Harlem Avenue north/south? Let's say north from 103rd. Let me know what the zoning is, please. MR. KLESZYNSKI: That area would be considered to be generally a mix of commercial and industrial applications.
MR. DANIEL: Are there any residential properties or subdivisions along Harlem Avenue -- I'm using 59 as a hypothetical of Harlem Avenue here, okay -- on either side of Harlem Avenue? MR. KLESZYNSKI: There are single -family residential units th at are located off of Harlem Avenue that would be west of Harlem Avenue along -- on the south side of 103rd Street west of Harlem Avenue. MR. DANIEL: How far from the Wal -Mart store is the closest single -family residential, single -family residential use, not multi -family, not apartments or town homes? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Over several hundred feet in that instance. MR. DANIEL: Over several hundred feet. Are you saying 1,000? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. About 2 to 300 feet to the location of th e Wal -Mart store. MR. DANIEL: And did you have in your hand today any analyses that would give you the sales or the home value of homes located as close to that Wal -Mart store on 103rd and Harlem as you can possibly get? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. Be cause those particular locations may not have sold during that particular -- that period of time. MR. DANIEL: Why don't we take a look at the closest sale that you studied to the Wal -Mart store at 103rd and Harlem and let me know where that is and, if you can, let the Commission know how far from the Wal -Mart store that is. It's not 2 to 300, right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I'd actually have to go back and measure that specific location. We did them by street addresses and by how they were listed with the MLS services in conducting our studies. So I didn't physically measure -- I guess the best way to explain it is by way of example. In this particular instance, if you were going to try and identify the closest location and this were the closes t location, that home may not have sold during that period of time. So it would be impossible to identify the specific closest location that sold. MR. DANIEL: I understand that. What I'm trying to gauge is the distance of the homes that you've stud ied. I know you may have not been able to get a sample of homes adjacent to Wal -Marts because there were no sales. The question is: Of the ones that there were sales, how far away from the Wal -Mart store were they; were they 500 feet, 5,000 feet, h alf a mile? What's the general area that you studied here ? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I think I explained during my initial presentation that the closest location to a commercial application was not to a Wal -Mart store, and that's predominantly because of the fact that the buffers that are in existence for the stores are a little bit different today than they were years ago. The closest location that we found a property adjacent to a commercial application was to a Jewel store in Munster, Indiana, which was approximately 25 feet. MR. DANIEL: Sir, respectfully, I don't want to waste your time, my time, or the Commission's time. I'm addressing your comparables. You said you studied five addresses. And we need to determine the proximity of your samp les, your data to those five addresses. I understand that you didn't study Wal -Marts in more similar communities. There's a Wal -Mart probably within five miles of where we're standing today, probably two of
them; I'm not sure. There's a Wal -Mart in Glen Ellen, you didn't study that. You didn't study a Wal -Mart in a west suburban environment. You didn't study a Meijer store, a competitor of a Wal -Mart in a west suburban environment, correct? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. Again, what I asked was for an identification of five locations where a Wal -Mart store was put in place where existing residential units had been constructed and that particular criteria is what drove the selection. MR. DANIEL: Did you by any chance study the similarity of uses a nd the trends of the development in those five locations? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Yes. MR. DANIEL: You mentioned there was buffering from large steel commercial use to smaller scale commercial use along Harlem Avenue in your one example. Do you see an y of that buffering here? Let's take a look going westbound on 127th Street northbound on 59. I'm going to ask you to go and consider the Kensington Club area as well. MR. KLESZYNSKI: Maybe I just don't understand what you mean by buffering. When I discussed buffering in my initial presentation, what I commented was that in stores that we had looked at, the buffering in this particular rendering and in these plans that I reviewed was superior to the buffering that I had viewed in the com petitive stores and the competitive locations. MR. DANIEL: Just so we are clear, and you can keep the mike, just so we're clear, your last mention of the buffering -- and we have got a court reporter, I am not going to ask her to read anything back -- you probably meant transitional development, right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Maybe I just didn't understand your question. MR. DANIEL: You talked about transitional development north of the Harlem Wal -Mart and transitional development in other direc tions from the Wal -Mart store, correct? MR. KLESZYNSKI: What I said was about the 103rd Street Wal -Mart. You asked a question about zoning and asked me what the zoning was up and down Harlem Avenue. I said there's a mixture of zoning applications up and down Harlem Avenue that include commercial and industrial applications. MR. DANIEL: But you don't see a situation near that Wal -Mart store where you go from a Wal -Mart north on Harlem to a residential lot right next door to a Wal -Mart. You se e Wal -Mart and then smaller commercial uses, then residential, right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. I actually see -- in that particular location I see Wal -Mart, some smaller commercial applications, some larger commercial applications and then some industri al applications. Then I see -- as you go south on Harlem Avenue, I see that there are smaller commercial applications. Then to the west of the smaller commercial applications are single -family units. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So at least north and south, the answer to that question was yes. But I didn't mention the industrial, right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: The answer to the question is that along Harlem Avenue, there are commercial and industrial applications of various size. MR. DANIEL: Do you know what the average annual volume of sales of single -family homes in Plainfield is? MR. KLESZYNSKI: The average pricing, is that what you're asking? MR. DANIEL: Average volume of sales, number of sales during a given year on the average.
MR. KLESZYNSKI: I do not know the specific number of sales on average in Plainfield. MR. DANIEL: You see the plan to your left? Have continued into the subdivision that was planned before this Wal -Mart proposal? Right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I have a recollection of a street that intersected in that area. MR. DANIEL: Isn't it accurate to say that homes along streets draw value from each other whether it's good or bad? I could have a beautiful mansion on Lot 60, and on Lot 61 have a one -bedr oom hut with an outhouse. Those two lots have a relationship because they're going to affect each other's purchase price, right? MR. KLESZYNSKI: That can be true. MR. DANIEL: Is it generally true? MR. KLESZYNSKI: I think it's -- MR . DANIEL: I mean, if it's bunk, tell me. If it's true, then we should know and get it out right now. MR. KLESZYNSKI: I'd say it's generally bunk. MR. DANIEL: All right. Well, let's leave that one for a little bit later. So your testimo ny is that homes along Bob White Lane don't draw value from each other, first of all? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. That's not my testimony at all. You're twisting the words. MR. DANIEL: They would be? MR. KLESZYNSKI: What you asked me specifical ly was whether or not a large mansion on this property would impact a one -bedroom home with an outhouse on this property. And the answer to that question is that I don't know. And so I think what's bunk is basically your premise. If you're asking m e if there is an issue of consistent use that's important in the valuation of real estate, well then the answer to that question is yes; that, for example, up and down Bob White Lane, there is a consistent type of home, there is a consistent general price range, and that when people purchase in that particular subdivision, they are looking for that sort of consistency. MR. DANIEL: What if my neighbor has a similar home of a similar make, built within about five years of my home and he just happens to sell his home for $50,000 more than what I bought my home for; do you think that is going to raise my expectation of a purchase price or sale price of my home? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Absolutely. MR. DANIEL: Generally then, correct, generally, maybe no t the specific situation with my outhouse, but generally, homes along one street in a subdivision or in a collection of subdivisions are going to draw a value from one another, correct? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Well, I think maybe what I can't understand in y our particular question was the idea of drawing value from one another. The sales that exist up and down a street are called comparable sales. When an appraiser estimates the value of one home, they search for the pricing trends for homes that are s imilar to that up and down that particular street or in that particular subdivision. So what you're measuring then at that point is the market for that particular type of home or a similar home and what the willing purchaser will pay for that -- for property that is similar to the one that you're discussing is the subject.
MR. DANIEL: So had the subdivision that you reviewed before -- Strike that. You mentioned that plan for the single -family subdivision where the Wal -Mart parcel is locate d now. You said you saw some homes there. It's approximately 70 for the record. You know that Bob White Lane continued into that area of homes. You know that this street continued into that area of homes as well. Is it accurate to say that homes west to the Wal -Mart on this street would fall within the same comparable range of homes to the east of the Wal -Mart property line in the previously proposed single -family subdivision? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. They could have been more or less expensive. MR. DANIEL: Would they bear some relation in your comparable analysis that you just described to the Commission? MR. KLESZYNSKI: No. They would serve -- they could be designed for or service a wide variety of single -family purchasers. MR. CH AIRMAN: I'm going to have to interrupt. Do you need one more question to tie things up here because I'm going to -- MR. DANIEL: I've got to see some of his data. He's got a lot of data that he's presented to the Commission. There is certa inly other Wal -Marts that need to be analyzed, and we are going to have to look more specifically into his data. I'm not sure, Mr. Chairman, if you would prefer having him prepare the report and setting that aside for later. Because if there's a rep ort prepared, that's something that's certainly going to have facts and conclusions in it that are going to have to be rebutted. It's a very significant issue. MR. CHAIRMAN: Will you have a report? MR. KLESZYNSKI: Again, what I wanted to accom plish as far as if there's any general overview of the data was to make the presentation, tell you the conclusions that we have formulated based on the work that we have done. And then because these are usually contentious issues, receive input from you a s well as counsel and then produce the formal report for you. And that included -- as far as I'm concerned, that included the identification of additional Wal -Mart location or locations that would be of particular issue to the Commission. MR. D ANIEL: I'd be happy to give him some input now and then just cut it off. That would be fine. And then we can come back and look at it after he takes my input, anyone else's input from the audience. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: We will defer to the Plan Commis sion. If you feel you need additional information and a hard copy, then we can prepare that report. But you heard the testimony here today. That's up to the Commissioners to how they wish to receive additional information. MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you wis h additional information? MR. KACHEL: One thing I'd like to know is when you study the development, what are the ages of the homes, was one five years or were they 20 or 30 -year -old homes? Two, how long has that area been zoned commercial? How long were those homes around the existing commercial, how long has that property been zoned commercial? In other words, along Harlem Avenue, it's been something that's been zoned for years and years and years. Commercial people bought knowing it was com mercial.
No. 3, how far it is from commercial as far as the houses that you're talking about? Those three issues I'd like to know. MR. CHAIRMAN: Anyone else have any specific desires? MR. KACHEL: Jim, before you close, I've got one othe r quick question and that is to go back to the sound. And I can wait. The noise, the transmission levels, I wanted to bring up -- I start to bring it up before when counsel came up here. MR. CHAIRMAN: What do you need to know about it? MR. KA CHEL: I wanted to ask when you were talking about before as far as decibels and measurements, if we talk about this again, and it seems to be a definite issue at this point, you said there was nothing measured to the north. If you took your equipmen t and you measured to the north of this area in the Heritage Meadows subdivision, approximately where that middle street comes in, you could get a decibel reading because those homes are already in place. We were trying to draw a scenario between houses t here and not there. With those houses there with commercial to the front of them, like you plugged it in before as far as what the sound reduction would be on 59. Then we could come up with somewhat of an accurate measurement of what -- if there were ho mes in that area, what the decibels would be in relationship to what it is existing there right now. If that could be presented at that time, I think it would be a clearer picture. Did you follow me on that or did I lose you? MR. O'HARA: I didn 't lose you. MR. CHAIRMAN: Are we squared away for tonight? MR. DANIEL: Just some additional input for the research. There was some comments that I had asked you about during the question about what you had done in the Plainfield area to analogize to Northlake to Gurnee to the Harlem Avenue site. I'd also like to have you take a look at more west suburban sites, the Wal -Mart in Glen Ellyn, other Wal -Marts that are somehow proximate to single family. And if you can, please give me an idea of the distances of the homes in this pool of data and in your future pool of data from other Wal -Marts. There is a Home Depot located on Butterfield and I -355 that you might want to look at, also, and see if that had any impact. That's a littl e bit smaller than this particular use. I am not sure if you can take a look at the relevant zoning and average sizes of homes being sold. MR. KLESZYNSKI: I guess I am not understanding -- or maybe I didn't explain it well enough to you as far as w hat was actually done here. The question that was posed to us was what is the impact of a commercial property similar to this Wal -Mart on adjacent residential applications. MR. DANIEL: I understand what you did and I know the Commission has hea rd it. I know that your client has heard it. I know what you did. I just have a problem with how you collected some of the data. And that's what I'm trying to disclose, obviously. So I know what you did. Let me just tell you what the commen t is there. And the comment is we'd like to know what the homes in that area were like. I mean, you had questions about age, you know, date of construction of the homes. I asked you one about date of construction of the Wal -Marts and that's very importa nt.
MR. KLESZYNSKI: Sure. MR. DANIEL: The other thing that I'd like you to do is analogize the values of homes in your study to the values of homes projected in this area. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Excuse me. I would like to know what the Planni ng Commission would like the consultant to prepare for them. You're the ones -- we're not going to prepare the case for the objectors here. We're happy to prepare whatever information the Planning Commission would like to have. If you could direct your concerns to our consultant that you would like to see, we'd be happy to get you that information. MR. CHAIRMAN: I think Mr. Kachel has outlined several specific conditions that he would like to see. MR. KLESZYNSKI: Mr. Kachel, do you want me to conduct the study in such a fashion that I by way of example determine what the typical home value is in Plainfield, find a similar demographic where a large box application exists and then measure the impact of that application so that there's a certai n level -- I took a widespread of locations because I wanted to test different levels of the impact of the location. If you want it site -specific relative to the -- by way of example, you can find out that the average home price in Plainfield is $2 80,000, if that's the case, whatever that number is. Do you want me to select locations of that nature only? MR. KACHEL: The problem with that is with the Plainfield area -- Plainfield was farm community up to a few years ago. We don't have a lot of big boxes to make a comparison to. That is why I requested it, for similar type of big boxes, either a Meijer or a Wal -Mart. Something similar to that is what I was looking for. Surrounding areas of similar growth, similar type homes would be adequat e. The western suburbs, you've got Oswego, you've got Naperville. I mean, out in this area, that is where the growth is. That's where I would like to see the comparison. MR. KLESZYNSKI: Okay. That's fine. I don't have any problem with it. It's very difficult in Plainfield. I tried to put a wide breadth of applications to demonstrate that the impact -- or the conclusion demonstrated that the impact doesn't exist either on the lower or the high end. If you want it to be more site -specific and m ore location -specific, I have no problems with that. I just have to identify locations of similar applications and then do the study. MR. KACHEL: Again, pay attention to the zoning that was there before, the building up either in earlier or at the p resent time, after the buildings have been put up. That is where the concern comes up to me on the end of it. MR. KLESZYNSKI: No problem. I understand what you're looking for. MR. SHINDERLE: We're rezoning property all the time. MR. KACH EL: I know we're rezoning. What I am talking about is big box pieces of property located next to single -family homes. We have a lot of businesses coming forth on 59. And because of the size of it and the location of it, the people behind it, that was o ne we had taken a look at that was very recent. But as far as any big boxes, we had Meijer's and different things, we haven't had a situation quite like this before where it was zoned residential. If it had been zoned commercial, it would have been different all the way through. I've got one thing over past this point for the next meeting and I brought it up at the last meeting. When we have our meeting on Tuesday night when we talk about the study
and it was brought up previously in the last meeting that on 127th Street, are you talking maybe 5 percent of the traffic would be coming into the Wal -Mart at that point? MR. CHAIRMAN: We will be going over that whole traffic thing. MR. KACHEL: All I am just saying is so we take a look a t it. I am bringing it up. If we're going to bring things in, I'd like as much as possible. And the fact is, with the growth we have west of here, Oswego, as far as Yorkville, Shorewood, all those people when Wal -Mart made the initial presentations, wha t we were doing was drawing communities from around this area. We talked pretty much to the east. But to the west of it, the growth is where it's coming right now. 127th Street will get a lot. There is concern as far as traffic by the school and d ifferent things. I think we should have somewhat of a projection, the City even has it, as far as what might be coming down in the growth we have coming west here. MR. CHAIRMAN: This meeting is going to be continued on Tuesday night, December 4th, at the Village Hall, if you know where that is. It's on the corner of Lockport and Des Plaines, 530 West Lockport, second floor. Go up the stairs, you'll see the room. To the Plan Commission, the Chair needs a motion to continue the special m eeting for the Wal -Mart case to December the 4th at 7:00 o'clock. MR. KACHEL: Here so moved. MS. GEHRKE: Seconded. MR. MANNING: Seconded. MR. CHAIRMAN: Motion has been made and seconded to continue the special meeting for the Wal -Mart parcel on December 4th at 7:00 p.m. at the Plainfield Village Hall. Vote by voice. All in favor, signify by saying aye. (Chorus of ayes heard.) MR. CHAIRMAN: Opposed, the same. (No response.) MR. CHAIRMAN: Hearing none, the motion is carried and this meeting is adjourned. * * * * * STATE OF ILLINOIS ) ) SS. COUNTY OF W I L L ) I, Gale L. Barma, CSR No. 84 -003807, RPR, do hereby certify that I reported in shorthand the proceedings had in the above -entitled ca use; and that the foregoing Report of Proceedings, Pages 1 through 121 inclusive, is a true and correct transcript of my shorthand notes so taken at the time and place aforesaid. This certification applies only to those transcripts, original and copies, produced under my direction and control; and I assume no responsibility for the accuracy of any copies which are not so produced. IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand this 10th day of December, 2001.
Certified Shorthand Reporter