HomeMy Public PortalAbout2001-12-11 PC Minutes 1st part WalmartD -6396 STATE OF ILLINOIS ) ) SS. COUNTY OF W I L L ) BEFORE THE PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS had and testimony taken at the hearing of the above -entitled cause before Amy K. Bateman, CSR No. 84 -003803, RPR, on December 11, 2001, at 7:00 p.m., at 530 West Lockport, Second Floor, Plainfield, Illinois. PRESENT: MR. JAMES SOBKOVIAK, Chairman; MR. ALAN ANDERSON, Commissioner; 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) MC KEOWN, FITZGERALD, ZOLLNER, BUCK, HUTCHINSON & RUTTLE, by MR. JAMES B. HARVEY, 2455 Glenwood Avenue Joliet, Illinois 60435 Appeared on behalf of the Village; DOMMERMUTH, BRESTAL, COBINE & WEST, LTD., by MR. JOHN F. PHILIPCHUCK, 123 Water Street Naperville, Illinois 60566 Ap peared on behalf of Wal -Mart; and RATHJE, WOODWARD, DYER & BURT, by MR. MARK W. DANIEL, 300 East Roosevelt Road, Suite 300
Wheaton, Illinois 60187 Appeared on behalf of Pasquinelli's Heritage Meadows Community Association. ALSO PRESENT: MR. JOSEPH ABEL; MR. JACK WEBER, Pulte Home Corporation. - - - CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: The Tuesday, December 11, 2001 special meeting of the Pla infield Plan Commission is in session. All rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Thank you. Mr. Carroll, would you call the roll, please. MR. C ARROLL: Certainly. Kachel. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Here. MR. CARROLL: Gehrke. COMMISSIONER GEHRKE: Here. MR. CARROLL: Manning. COMMISSIONER MANNING: Here. MR. CARROLL: Schinderle. COMMISSIO NER SCHINDERLE: Here. MR. CARROLL: Sobkoviak. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Here. MR. CARROLL: Park district. (No response.) MR. CARROLL: School district. (No response.) MR. CARROLL: Fire district. (No response.) MR. CARROLL: Library district. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Thank you. You have from your packets the minutes of two previous meetings; however, wit h the volume being such as that -- such as it is, most of us haven't had enough time to completely read those and digest them, so we will -- we will call for approval or amendment of those minutes at our next scheduled meeting. I received a l etter from a concerned citizen who was in favor of the Wal -Mart development. I wasn't sure if the other Commissioners had gotten
this letter or not. What I'm going to do is, in the interest of brevity, I'm going to pass this around to each of the members, read it, and then pass it on to Mr. Carroll to be added to the public record. Give it to Alan first. Let the record show Mr. Anderson has arrived. I'm going to skip the development report. Is that okay? MR. CARROLL: Yes. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: All right. We're going to go into old business, Case No. 904 -083101.S, Sam, P, Paul, R, Raymond, slash, Z, zebra, slash, S, Sam, U, union. This is a continuation of a public hearing for Wal -Mart where the reque st is for a special -- for a zoning change, special use permit, and site plan review. Mr. Philipchuck, would you care to proceed. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Yes. Thank you. Good evening. Again, John Philipchuck. I'm an attorney with the firm of Dommermuth, Brestal, Cobine & West with offices at 123 Water Street, Naperville, Illinois, here this evening on behalf of Pulte and the Wal -Mart. Mr. Chairman, we have our last witness to present this evening, a Mr. Joseph Ab el. Mr. Abel is a land planner, and he will go through the criteria in your zoning ordinance that you look for as you evaluate these kinds of proposals on a monthly basis; and that is, in this instance, we are seeking a rezoning of the proper ty, a special use, and a planned unit development. And the Commission knows that as part of that you are charged with making findings of fact as to whether or not the applicant presented sufficient evidence so that you felt that in fact they have met those conditions. So at this time, I would like to introduce Mr. Joe Abel who will summarize some of the testimony that you have heard from our experts that have appeared before you these many evenings and then show you the land plan as it relates to your ordinances and those requirements. MR. ABEL: I'll stay in front of the podium so everybody can see me. My name is Joseph H. Abel, A -b -e -l. I'm a planning, zoning, and economic development
consultant. John asked me to give you just a brief summary of my background. I have a degree in city and regional planning with a minor in architecture from the University of Illinois, did graduate work in planning and urban development at the Univer sity of Chicago, and completed my economic development work at the University of Oklahoma. I've been doing this for approximately 45 years. I was with a planning consulting firm for eight -and -a -half years, Carl Gardner & Associates. I was a project planner. I would prepare the first plan for Kendall County including all the municipalities in Kendall County, Grundy County, Kankakee County, Iroquois County, a number of municipalities throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, and I was on the design team with that firm that designed the new town of Oak Brook for Paul Butler. After my eight -and -a -half years with Carl Gardner, I became the director of planning for DuPage County. I was director of planning for the count y for 17 years. After my 17 years with DuPage County, I was recruited by the City of Chicago to head up their economic development program, which I did for five years, and that takes us through 1992. And then from 1992 to the pr esent, I've had my own planning, zoning, and economic development firm located in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. As I've said, I've done a lot of municipal plans -- more than I want to remember -- developed a lot of zoning ordinances to implement thos e plans, subdivision ordinances, long -range planning, short -range planning. Right now I do a lot of the expert testimony in terms of highest and best use for the forest preserve district of DuPage County. I'm with them sometimes and -- when they're right and sometimes I'm against them. I also represent a number of private developers. And at this time, I'm the planning consultant for Grundy County and Livingston County. So my work pretty much takes me throughout th e entire Chicago metropolitan area. And it's about a 60 -40 split: 60 percent private sector, 40 percent public sector. I worked on recently a number of
commercial developments. I worked on the Meijer's PUD down in Will County at Bell and 1 47th recently. I'm working on an Osco Drug Store in Winfield, Illinois. I worked for Home Depot in the Wheaton area. So I've -- I've done a lot of work representing large plan developments that include large commercial components. In my 17 years with DuPage County, I was actually hired to -- as you know, DuPage County, up until recently, has always been the fastest growing county in the State of Illinois. And when I came in in '70, the county did not have a land u se plan; so my responsibility was to prepare the first plan for the entire county, including all the municipalities. In doing that, we probably were very progressive and ahead of the game in terms of -- from a professional standpoint of doing a lot of work on land use relationships. In fact, we -- we prepared the first land use optimization model to look at how do land uses make their transition and their changes and things of that nature. And I'll be bringing some of that to pl ay in what I will be talking about this evening. But in terms of where you do make the zoning change and the land use change, most planners will agree that the most obvious place to make the land use change is at rear lot lines. And in addition, when you have those rear lot line situations, the best way to make the transition is also through distance and landscaping. So you'll -- most ordinances will have generous buffer yards for the commercial component when it's adjacent to a residential area. Lately, probably through a lot of work of a planner by the name of Lane Kendig who prepared a whole plan and a zoning ordinance based on performance zoning, his philosophy was basically that you can almost put any land use a gainst another as long as you have the proper transition. And he has a scale in terms of distance and landscaping features and things of that nature that are necessary between various land uses. Most zoning ordinances that I have run across are similar to yours in that they use a 40 -foot yard requirement. When commercial is adjacent to residential, the norm seems to be 40 foot. After that, most of the communities do require a landscape buffer. In DuPage County just before I le ft, we
actually developed a landscaping model whereby if residential was adjacent to commercial, you had to have what is called a full landscape screen and it's based on a point system. And if you're adjacent to another commercial use, you ha ve to have a partial screen; and, again, it has to meet a particular number which is generated by the types of plant material, fences, solid walls, things of that nature. So through the years, we have pretty much come to the conclusion that a rear lot line is the logical place to make the change. Distance is important, landscaping is important, and control of the height of the structure. Most communities use a one -to -one ratio. So if a building is 40 feet high, it should be 40 f eet away from the property line. So that just gives you a little bit of a general idea of where we are going in that particular area. John Philipchuck asked me to go through the standards in the ordinance with you tonight. But before I do that, I want to take you through -- take you through two things because as I looked at your zoning ordinance -- again, when you come to that standards section, I thought that you had an excellent set of standards that have -- or standards that have to be met for a zoning amendment, which we are doing here in terms of the rezoning. You have standards for a special use, and we're requesting a special use for a PUD and also a special use for the automotive use for a portion of the sit e. And then you also have standards for a planned unit development. As I read that -- and as I said, I do a tremendous amount of condemnation work where my role in the condemnation is to determine what is the highest and best us e so the appraisers can set a value and then the jury can come in with an award. So I'm almost exclusively in that area of determining the highest and best use of property. I spend a lot of time, obviously then, looking at the L aSalle factors which are used in determining highest and best use. Then through the years, as I said, 45 years, I have probably testified in every court in the Chicago metropolitan area and beyond in highest and best use. I've been before ju st about every planning
commission and zoning board during that time frame, and I have always used a definition of -- my definition of highest and best use and it's been accepted by all the courts and most ZBA's and things of that nature. So as I looked at your standards, it seemed to me that a lot of them fall within that and so I thought I would -- I would start with that. One of the first things I did -- like I said, I'm familiar with Plainfield. Well, when I was director of planning with DuPage County, we actually assisted your first planning director in some work that they were doing; and so I've probably followed the development of Plainfield since approximately 1972. But what I did is I had a -- took an aeria l photograph that we have on our computer for the entire six -county metropolitan area and took out the portion of Route 59 from 111th on the north and then coming down to just before you enter into the downtown area. And I will get into a little more deta il on that. And so as we progressed, I wanted to get an idea of the trend of development and the character of the area because those are important to coming up with both the LaSalle factors and the highest and best use for the subject propert y. I took your zoning district map, the latest one, and the first thing I did is I plotted coming down to the subject site, which is this area with the red around it is the SP at 127th, and then continued down and looked at the land use aroun d each one of the traffic light nodes. Having looked in your comprehensive plan, there's a lot of emphasis on developing commercial at nodes. And I think most of you are familiar that starting up at 111th, which is partially in the -- or mainly in the City of Naperville area, I looked at their comprehensive plan; and that intersection around the light is totally set up for commercial development. As you come down to the next light, 119th, again, you have office and industrial and things of that nature at this corner; but then looking at your comprehensive plan, you're showing the three corners plus the fourth corner for nonresidential use. As you come down to 127th, your present comprehensive plan does not show anything in terms of development there. But obviously getting back to trend of development and character of the area and what you have seen fit to do in this particular area, obviously
we have the present business zoning that strips along the ent ire east side of 59 between the office work and 59. And then you come over to the subject site part, as you've heard from the testimony over and over again, the entire frontage from 127th up to the Heritage subdivision is already zoned commer cial. Then you have rezoned the Target property at the southwest corner also for B -3. I happened to have discussion with your staff; and in terms of how the plan is in the process of being updated, it seems like the northeast and the -- and the southeast corner are being thought of as possible B -3 areas also, but those are for future planning. That determination has not been made yet, but it's obvious there's all -- at the northeast corner there's already a use there. There is a landscaping business and things of that nature. So it's sort of a continuation of this large office, industrial park area that is just to the east of 59. So that's a continuation. So when you look at the trend and character of the develop ment of that intersection, again, you see commercial under construction, vacant commercial, the landscape business, and then a vacant area. Then you come down to 135th Street; and, again, the comprehensive plan that is in effect right now doe s show the Jewel site but it did not show the southwest or the northeast -- southeast corners. And as you can see, all of those have been rezoned to B -3. So the red outline represents existing commercial, B -3; where there is a pink overlay, it also indicates that a portion of it is in conformance with your present comprehensive plan, which is true here, then here, here, and these locations. And then when you come down to the -- the last intersection that has an impact, 143rd, ag ain, as you know, it's all utility or industrial or things of that nature -- certainly not residential. And staff indicated that there might be an opportunity to get some redevelopment of that industrial area for commercial. So basically eve ry one of the traffic interchanges in this entire area is used for nonresidential development or doing what your comprehensive -- or what the plan states in its policy portion which is to develop the traffic nodes at these major intersections and not do wh at some of us get a
little bit upset with when you go into the Aurora -Naperville area where commercial is just stripped for miles and miles and miles and just continuous curb cut and commercial development. So this is the way it should be don e, and this is the way you happen to be developing at this time. So in terms of zoning, comprehensive plan, the trend of development, and the character of every one of these interchanges, those all fall into what I look into, from the LaSalle factors, of existing zoning in the area of the subject property, the zoning in the subject -- in the vicinity of the subject property, trend of development, and the character of the area all lend themselves to the subject property being rezoned for commer cial use. It's interesting that commercial will wind up being about now the same depth as the Target and others. That is the trend today, is to get deeper lots at corners where you can properly site the buildings, have circulation, on -site d etention, adequate parking, things of that nature, as opposed to the strip -type development which really doesn't lend itself to the newer design techniques that we see today. The -- just quickly going to the definition that I have used throug hout the years and then I will hit each one of them and tell you why it's important. In my opinion, from a planning and zoning standpoint, the highest and best use is that use which effectively utilizes a parcel of land and at the same time i s in harmony with the growth goals and planning policies of the community. First, the use should, from a physical standpoint, be adaptable to the subject property in terms of size, shape, topography, soil bearing, accessibility, relationship to the local street system. Second, the use should constitute one which contributes to a balanced land use pattern on a community -wide basis. And third, and most important to a planner, the use should be compatible with the land uses in its immediate surroundings. I then -- looking at the very first area there, which is the use should from a physical standpoint be adaptable, I had obviously analyzed the plan that was being proposed for the property. I looked at, number one, that we will
be -- the location. I mean, that was obviously the most important and it was at the node, at an important intersection where the trend of development and the character has definitely already taken place in terms of nonr esidential use. The location is there. The size of the property, as I said, it's important to be able to get the proper placement of buildings in terms of design, parking, buildings, circulation, detention. And more -- the most important thing about the size of a property is to make sure you can accommodate the use and then have an adequate buffer zone. And I'll go into that a little bit. But you have seen the plans. I'll go over the numbers; but all of the setba cks, whether they are for just the berm itself or to the loading docks or to the buildings, all exceed any of the levels of what you would consider good, sound planning. They all exceed those numbers, especially the height of the berm, the fence on top of it. I, again, looked at it from the standpoint -- I had to -- I was almost sure I was here the night that the sound expert gave his testimony. I've done so many of these. The firm I was with, Carl Gardner, the first firm, we a ctually were the pioneers in developing performance standards for zoning ordinance. We were the first firm to work with the Armour Institute and develop performance standards which are so critical, especially when you have land use up against commercial o r especially industrial. And so I have done a lot of work with sound both on commercial, with county. I also represent another -- a number of companies who are putting in peaker power plants throughout the area, and their sound is very critical in terms of not having an adverse effect on adjoining properties. So I was almost positive that the report that the sound expert was going to come up with was, number one, the height of the berm, putting the fence on top of i t, the distance between the building and the berm, and the distance between the living areas of the surrounding residential area would -- actually the ambient noise level from Route 59 would be higher than what people will experience from the development. It's -- that's just the way it is. And just as the sound expert said, you need the berm and you need the fence.
The landscaping really -- a lot of people think it does do something, but it doesn't do anything for sound. It's totally -- land scaping is totally visual. And so I took all of those things into consideration to make sure that I met that test that the proposed use is adaptable to the site and that there are no negative impacts. The second, the use should constitute one which contributes to a balanced land use pattern in the community, that means that the use has to have a positive fiscal impact on the community. You heard the numbers that were generated by the fiscal impact study developed by Strategy Planning. I went through those very carefully. Those are all very sound numbers. They were good surpluses to the village and more importantly, sound surpluses for the schools. As I went through the comprehensive plan -- I'm not going to go to that page right now and read it to you, but the comprehensive plan really hit the -- the nail on the head when it said that what this plan has to do is protect Plainfield because there's going to be a need -- as I recall the numbe r, it's something like 22 new schools in the area as the area totally develops; and that many, many of these students do not come from Plainfield itself. And therefore it's very important that a community do everything it can to protect its tax base. It used to be, when I first started, we tried to, as planners, capture as much of the sales tax dollars of the community. It became pretty obvious after a while that just capturing the sales tax dollars from your own community, although that's a high priority, isn't going to do the trick from a fiscal impact standpoint. You really have to come up with some traffic -- I mean, with some tax generators that go beyond your own community, industrial base and especially commercial base. And when you start looking at the location, the various uses here, you can see that you're doing an excellent job of doing that. I have to believe that's part of the reason why the Target is there and some of these other commercial uses, that back in the day of the comprehensive plan, which is '95, slowly but surely, the reality is that there had to be more commercial and it was shown on the comprehensive plan. And there are
some sections in the plan that refer to that. Third, t he use should be compatible with immediate surroundings. Again, I have analyzed the berm, the noise study, the landscape plan. These are all things that tend to guarantee that there will not be an adverse impact on surrounding properties. T his berm, as I said, as you look at it, is very generous. I didn't see a point system in your ordinance, but I'm sure your staff is going to take an additional look at the landscape plan. I felt that it was adequate. I do feel, though, that from some of the testimony that's been presented in terms of at the northeast portion of the property where the berm becomes a little lower that the landscaping element from a visual standpoint, that the plant material should probably be at l east 25 to 50 percent increased in terms of height, just in that particular portion, because there's already the fence there. But I think there's some additional visual screening there, although those homes, as you know, already back to comme rcial; but I have to assume that even the strip commercial that was proposed or -- and zoned for that property would have had to require a landscape buffer also. So in terms of the placement of the building, the circulation, things of that na ture, I feel that, again, that the -- there will be no adverse impact on the surrounding properties. I did personally call and -- and talk to the real estate agent that testified before you from Wal -Mart just to confirm what he had said. And this had to do with, again, making sure there was no adverse impact in sounds. He indicated to me -- a number of developments that I have worked on -- there's been a lot of testimony about trucks coming in the north entrance and gearing down and things of that nature. There really shouldn't be any trucks coming in that north entrance off of 59. Every development that I have worked with we have been able to control the ingress and egress of trucks coming in. Especially the Wal -M art trucks, which are controlled by Wal -Mart, he said they will be given explicit instructions that they must come down to 127th and enter and not use that northern driveway. They only get two to three deliveries a day, and he indicated to me that they never come in at
night. The latest that they could see any delivery coming -- that would only be if they were delayed somewhere else -- is 9:00 or 10:00 o'clock at night. In terms of the regular deliveries, you know, the chips and the pop and all that sort of stuff, they also insist that those people have everything set up by 10:00 o'clock in the morning so that their store is not inconvenienced by having people working in the aisles. So there is no doubt in my mind t hat from an operational standpoint you could control any adverse late -at -night types of activities in terms of sound generation. I went through all the peak hours with him. I'm familiar with the Wal -Mart in Glen Ellyn at 53 and Butterfield Road because that is in unincorporated DuPage County and I was responsible for zoning that property commercial, and the residential development does back up to that. I have observed that for quite some time. I have lived in Glen Ellyn since I started with the county in 1970, and I have a lot of friends that live in that subdivision and so I'm pretty familiar with it. And I was almost sure that the real estate appraiser's numbers would come out just about the way they are. I think it's important to remember that everybody has a different idea as to why they -- they buy a certain property. Some people enjoy -- I looked -- I'll get into some specifics. But even when you go out to the junior high where we had our meetings, you notice there was an awful lot of night activity, the lights were always on, there's school children coming in the morning, buses coming in the morning; yet when you look at the homes directly to the north of that -- I don't know if an y of you were there when it was that crowded that you had to park in the back, but I specifically observed that. All of those homes back up to the junior high school parking lot, lights, and activity areas, and all there is is a fence. There 's not a 40 -foot setback, there's not a 13 -foot berm, there's not a six -foot fence on top of the berm. These are homes that back up right to a very intensive junior high school, nonresidential use. And I stopped by there tonight and it looks like those are all sold, and it didn't seem to me
like there was any problem and they didn't have any of the -- the opportunities that are being presented in this particular development. So some people like that. I personally w ould not want to back up that grade to a junior high school, but obviously there are people that do. Now I'll talk about the berm that we're putting in as opposed to having a single -family lot backing up to single family. Think about what would you rather have. Would you like to have your backyard back up to a 13 -foot -high berm, beautifully landscaped, maintained by somebody else, or would you want to be in your backyard and look at another single -family lot in back of you. And we all know what happens. No matter how good of neighbors we are -- and I'm guilty of it sometimes myself. When I want the dog out of the house, that's where he goes. When I have my compost pile, it unfortunately is at the back lot line. T he kids' gym set and activity area is as far back away from the house as I can get it. So these are trade -offs. Some people say, oh, I would love to have another single -family lot right up against mine; but you have to take some of these oth er things that go along with it -- the barbecue pit, the play equipment, the dog run, and the compost pile -- as opposed to looking at a beautifully landscaped berm. I venture to say that there are very -- there are a number of people that wo uld prefer those lots that back up to the berm as to another single -family development. This just comes out of my 40 years of experience of looking at land use relationships because, like I say, we had to rezone the entire County of DuPage an d that meant looking at just these kinds of questions: What do you do when you have commercial and residential coming together. How do you mitigate it. How do you make sure they're good neighbors. And, again, the way to do it is the way it's been done here: distance and landscaping and berming. The -- now I want to get quickly into the standards that are in your zoning ordinance, and that will bring me back to the comprehensive plan and a few other things. As you know, the Commission shall not recommend, nor shall the Village Board grant an
amendment to alter the zoning district boundary lines unless it shall make findings based on the evidence presented to it in each of the specific cases. And I hav e to say that I think I only missed one meeting but I read that transcript and I've been here for every meeting, and I think the -- I know that the experts that -- that I have listened to have all presented really good factual information; and I built that all into coming to my conclusion as to the fact that the proposal, as it's presented, will meet the factors -- the standards of your ordinance. So number one, the amendment promotes the public health, safety, comfort, convenience, and genera l welfare and complies with the policies and official land use plan and other official plans of the village. Now, one of the things that are looked at in terms of a court case in the LaSalle factors is has the comprehensive plan been maintain ed and adhered to. As we know, you have made some deviations. That is not all bad. In fact, I'll go to the last page of your comprehensive plan just to put your minds at ease. It's called flexibility. It says this plan has be en drafted to provide flexibility within districts. This plan should not be varied at a whim, but neither should it be considered the absolute final word. For example, auto -urban community character -- and that's what we're talking about in our area -- w as divided into two areas, commercial and business park. These land uses have similar community characteristics and both are areas of employment. The village should have discretion to adjust the boundaries. So that was the final paragraph in the comprehensive plan in terms of flexibility. Because of that, I have always been a strong advocate that it's nice to have the planning document itself. And I -- I have your document and it -- as I said, it shows red here and commercial i n here and this industrial in here and then the commercial where the pinks are, but not in your others. So in this time frame between the time of the adoption of this plan and today, you have taken the opportunity to have that flexibility but you've done it in conjunction with strong policy statements throughout the comprehensive plan. The first one was the recognition of the fact that there are -- there is a need for tax base. And I think at the time the plan was done, probably
didn't recognize how fast this area actually was going to adopt. I sometimes go back and look at the first plan I did for Kendall County and all the communities of Yorkville and Plano and Oswego; and I think, "My gosh." And for a while there I thought we had overextended ourself and shown too much development. Now I go back and look at them and see that we totally underestimated the tremendous growth potential of this particular area. So when you're in a dynamic area like this, it's very hard for a plan to keep up -to -date and that's why you are updating your plan right now because it definitely is at that point in time. But under issues, it said, growth management revolves around providing balanced growth to create a tax base that supports the village's and school district's ability to provide quality services. Balanced. And you remember I talked about having a balanced use on a community -wide basis. And so I was amazed to see this: Bala nce refers to a mixed land use with adequate nonresidential uses to offset the cost of providing residential uses with schools and other services. This mixed land use strategy is supplemented by providing a wide range of housing types, including smaller h omes for families with fewer children or elderly residents. It also goes on to say that for the village, both real estate and sales taxes provide revenues that can relieve the pressure on residential taxpayers. School districts rely solely on real estate taxes to fund educational services. A careful balancing of the residential land uses can also provide a mix of development that has less demand and provides more taxes. Unfortunately, early in the growth cycle, nonresidential u ses tend to lag behind residential. To plan is not enough. In the end, the village will have to be careful and pragmatic in its approach controlling its planning area. Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 is a critical concern. While it bears the name of Plainfield, only a third of the students come from it. And it goes on to say that it's critical to prepare for that by having additional tax base. Then it goes on to the nodes that I was talking about. And there's a whole section on talking about specific nodes at major intersections controlling the point of ingress and egress, not having strip
commercial, just as we're talking about here, having two entrances off of 59, one off 127th, meets all the planning principles of the comprehensive plan. There is a section, again, where it says major area service arterials. Area service arterials may have from two to six lanes. These roads provide regional access. And it goes on to say and then indicates that area service arterials provide local access to the regional road systems for all types of vehicles including trucks. Typically these roads have signalized intersections with commercial, slash, industrial driveways at perm itted locations. Examples of this type of facility include Route 30 and Route 59. So, again, the plan keeps emphasizing the node of development. There are probably five or six more paragraphs that all lend to what I'm saying. The plan is t here. You know what it is. I have analyzed it and I feel that the comprehensive plan test has been met by the policy standards, the changes that you have made and that you have made in terms of that ability to have flexibility. Number two is the trend of development in the area of the subject property is consistent with the requested amendment. I think I have beaten that one to death. The trend of development, character of the area is there. I went through that j ust so that -- a lot of these are repetitious and we can get through them quickly. C, the requested zoning classification permits uses which are more suitable to the property than the uses permitted under existing zoning classification. Agai n, this rezoning will allow for the property to be developed in depth, designed properly. As I come back later to the PUD, you have not only been -- or there's not only been generous landscaping and berming; but also, as you've heard from the architect, the building that's being proposed here is quite unique as opposed to other Wal -Marts in the area. The property cannot yield a reasonable use if permitted only under the conditions allowed under the existing zoning classification. The existing zoning classification is such that we already have a commercial area fronting on 59. It's the typical strip -type development. And so the logical extension of that in such a way that it
will not have an adverse effect on adjoin ing properties is what makes the difference. And, again, you can see -- and I'm going to give you a handout -- the rear lot line configuration, except for one side yard and then total rear lot lines along the western portion of the subject pr operty. So this is a commercial node just like the other signalized intersections throughout the area, and therefore I think it meets that test from that standpoint. And then the last one is that the amendment, if granted, will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood and will not be a substantial detriment to adjoining property. Again, you've heard me talk about the buffering and everything which does more than adequately take care of that transition. And, again, they use the word "essential character of the neighborhood." Not the surrounding property. The character of the neighborhood. And that neighborhood has to include that entire Route 59 frontage on both sides and surrounding the property on f our corners. After the standards for that, there's also the special use standards. And those, as I said, have to do with they're asking for a special use for a PUD which gives you the opportunity to do this review I was talking about of addi tional landscaping and things of that nature and then also for the automotive use that's on the property, the automotive use being as far away from the residential areas as possible, closer to the actual intersection of 59 and 127th. So the f irst one is the establishment, maintenance, or operation of the special use will not be detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, and general welfare. Obviously the PUD enhances it because of all the things that a PUD can do as op posed to a strip commercial center; and then, again, the location of the automotive use also meets that test. Under B, the special use will not be injurious to use and enjoyment of other property in the immediate area of the proposed -- purpo ses already permitted nor substantially diminish or impair property values. You heard our real estate consultant say it will not diminish property values. And I have talked about the berming and
everything; and, again, you can s ee that as you go through these they are very repetitious, but they all come back to this idea of you have to have distance, architectural control, landscape control, sound control, and things of that nature. And then, C, the establishment of the special use will not impede the normal and early development and improvement of adjacent property for uses permitted in the district. Obviously it isn't going to bother the Target to the south, isn't going to impede any development at th e southeast corner, which is probably going to go commercial, same thing for the northwest. And then the area to the back, as I said, those homes will actually be backing up to a berm and I do think a lot of people are going to prefer that as to actually having other single family behind them. And then the berm and the landscaping takes care -- as I recall, there are seven lots that back up to the subject property, two to three which already back up to commercial zoning. And then fortunately about 53 percent of the site in terms of that northern border -- I did a quick calculation. Only 47 percent of that entire northern boundary is -- I can show it on here -- is your residential uses. You have, when y ou first come in, the village -owned property, then you have a right -of -way, and then you have the very large storm water detention facility that actually butts up against the property. So in just looking at that calculation, it came out to ab out 47 percent residential, 53 percent nonresidential. And, again, all adequately buffered. Then the final set of standards have to do with the PUD itself, and that is on Page 570. And, again, the findings for the PUD, the design of the planned unit development presents an innovative and creative approach to the development of land and living environment. Again, because of the size of the site being almost a perfect square, it allowed the building -- w ell, the outlots in the front to be continued, the parking, and then the buildings, and to have the generous setbacks and then to have and protect a tremendous amount of setback on 127th Street to, again, break up that commercial component between the two uses. In fact, from the time you leave the
existing commercial zoning, the entire frontage, as you can see, on the north side of 127th will be landscaped, lakes, and things of that nature. So it gives you a break from the blacktop and buildi ngs and parking lots on the south to having the open space component in here. So just from a land use relationship between the two commercial uses, this plan is -- is excellent. In terms of the plan itself, again, I was amazed a t the quality of the architecture that was being proposed for the subject site. Two, the planned unit development meets the requirements and standards of the planned unit development regulations. I went through those regulations . Everything is met on this site in terms of setbacks. I think the only slight variation that has been discussed is when the development is totally built -out, there was a slight reduction in the number of parking spaces below the -- the standard. Three, the physical design of the planned unit development efficiently utilizes the land and adequately provides for transportation and public facilities while preserving the natural features of the site. That was also one of mine -- my very first one was does it adequately suit the site and for all the reasons that I gave, I'm not going to repeat it. Four, open space areas and recreational facilities are provided. I think that's in there primarily for residential componen ts. But, again, there is open space provided on this plan just to give visual relief. And then the modifications and design standards from the subdivision control regulations and the waivers in both regulations. As I understand it, we don't have any. Six, the planned unit development is compatible with the adjacent properties in the neighborhood. Again, that's a repeat. Very compatible because of the berms and landscaping and distance and things of that nature. And then last, the planned unit development fulfills the objectives of the comprehensive plan and the land use policies. That's a repeat; and as I've said, I have gone through the comprehensive plan and tabbed a number of policy things
which indicate that this is an appropriate use at this intersection. Let me just make sure... I did want to pass this out. I know it's very difficult, obviously, to see that aerial photograph that I -- that I used. And what I did -- I'm going to give the colored version to the Chairman here and I'm going to give it to you with north pointing up. What I wanted to show you is that that was the analysis -- the other analysis that went into looking at this corridor. So whe n I say you're looking at north up, that's the same -- I always make sure my maps always have north up. You'll see, starting at the bottom where the Jewel is -- and that's at 135th and 59. When you drive through there, you'll see, again, tha t the land use relationship takes place at the rear property lines. They have greater distance because of that lake area there, but there are no berms. There is evergreen plant material at the present time six feet or so in height. It's bee n there a while and it's about the same size that will be planted on the subject site except there is the 13 -foot berm and the six -foot fence and a berm along the north that, again, undulates in terms of different height. But the important th ing is the proposed development has distance, berming, height, and landscaping, whereas this particular one only has landscaping and distance. As you come north, you'll see the proposed residential development that is going to back up to the south side of the Target. In previous testimony, it seems like the only discussion has been of a park which is part of the detention facility that is to the west of the Target. But you can see the land use relationship between t he Target that's under construction and the residential area that will be there is identical to what we have, which is rear lot line but, again, doesn't have the extensive distance, doesn't have the 13 -foot -high berm or the six -foot fence. It has landscap ing and distance same as the Jewel, but not all of the things that are being proposed for the subject property. If you go to the top right -hand corner, you can see some older subdivisions, again, where single family makes the transition back to the office
and research. And then when you go over to the extreme left side, you'll see that area I was talking about that backs up to the junior high school where, again, the high school is quite an activity area and all of those homes th at on here aren't under -- look like they're either under construction or vacant are now all built and occupied. So I just wanted to show that there are many, many areas right in this area where you have the same land use relationship. And I can tell you that over the last 40 years I have literally worked on, you know, 25, 30 developments where this land use relationship takes place. I think I'll just leave it at that. I have another aerial as you go further north, but all it does is repeat the same pattern of single family backing up to non -- COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Could we see that other aerial? MR. ABEL: Sure. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: That's where the Super K is, up in that area? MR. ABE L: Yes. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Does it go that far? MR. ABEL: Uh -huh. And, again, that will just show around the various -- around the commercial there. I drove around those also. They have the same back -up treat ment. If you look at the commercial that is at the northeast and southeast corners and also the office development at the southwest corner, everything there, as you can see, is back -up treatment. It just repeats throughout the entire area. A nd, again, none of them have the berm and the fence and the extensive landscaping that we have. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: That doesn't -- does this include the Super K, this, to the north of there in the Aurora area, Naperville area? MR. ABEL: N o. I forget the uses there. The Super K is -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: That's vacant. MR. ABEL: Yeah. It's vacant. It's just not on this aerial photograph. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Is it? MR. ABEL: Yeah. B ut you can see the existing development. There's a Walgreens up there.
COMMISSIONER KACHEL: At the top of the map? MR. ABEL: That's 111th. There's a banking facility, a Walgreens, things of that nature, and then the new Super K. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Do you know what's going between the Super K and the residential? Is that multiple family? MR. ABEL: No, I don't. I can tell you in the -- the Gallagher & Henry planned unit development that I just com pleted at Bell and 149th, on one side we do have townhouses and some multiple family; but it's a PUD to include everything. To the north, it's all single family and then a portion of the commercial at the south end is single family backing up to commercial, townhouses, and multiple family, and then more single family backing up to commercial. So it didn't make any difference in that plan. We -- we made sure all types of housing units were adjacent to commercial. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Do you have additional points to make, sir? MR. ABEL: No. That's it. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Then the Commissioners are free to question. COMMISSIONER SCHINDERLE: In relation to 111th Street, where is that Super K? M R. ABEL: It'll be up in this corner. (Indicating.) COMMISSIONER KACHEL: But we don't know what the transition is between them. MR. ABEL: No. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: If it's multiple family, single, duplexes, or -- MR. ABEL: I didn't use it for that. I just took -- I just wanted to show the existing transitions that are taking place. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: You keep referring to it as a PUD. This is a PUD but it was brought to us once before with PUD; and the development, the way it was set up with the single -family homes at that time for sale in that area, we were talking about a PUD that did have transition set up. So if you look at what we've done throughout the plan, whether it be Jewel or a lot of the other ones, those have all been planned unit developments where we know what's happening into that
particular area. This is the second PUD within three years coming before us, and you keep referring to the commercial all the way th rough there. That was just brought up to us within the last year, to change that PUD from multiple family to commercial, to take the buffer, but basically to still have all single -family homes in that area. So we keep talking about it as a P UD, which it is, but it's a PUD that was just reviewed recently by us. And all the things that you said before that we have done correctly, that particular PUD did have multiple family, that did have a buffer. I can agree with you where you're coming from from lots, but one question -- and maybe I can save it for -- but you had mentioned there's not adequate parking and those homes aren't built onto this area. In relationship -- MR. ABEL: No. What I said is the -- COMMISSIONER KACHEL: If it builds out later on, if it's a Super Wal -Mart, we may need -- MR. ABEL: Yeah. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: -- some more parking. MR. ABEL: It's like 4.9 as opposed to five or something like that. It's some ins ignificant number. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: And I know you mentioned before we have larger buffer areas in between them. MR. ABEL: Right. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: I just wanted to clarify that one point. It is a PUD, but a PUD being modifi ed right now. The planned unit development before, the way it was brought before us, we did spend time, we did go through it, it did work out all that particular area and that's before the lots were really all sold along that area. CHA IRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Do the other Commissioners have any questions? COMMISSIONER MANNING: Mr. Abel, under the Rezoning Point No. 4, the property cannot yield a reasonable use if permitted only under the conditions allowed under the existing zoning cla ssification. Would you comment further on that, please? MR. ABEL: I looked at that one from the standpoint of the fact that -- again, even though it's an adjustment -- that this was set up as commercial, but it's -- what I look at is it's -- it's not the
proper kind of commercial. It's -- it's a narrow depth so you can't do the things that you can do in this kind of development. You can't get good placement of the building, parking, setbacks, berming, things of that nature. And so from the standpoint of this being a commercial node, the only way to get a good design and use of the property is to expand the commercial zoning on it. So that's where I'm coming from on that. Obviously you couldn't expand that commercial and make it a quality commercial use under the residential zoning, which is what that is saying. It just won't happen. COMMISSIONER MANNING: Thank you. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: I'm going to ask this question right now. I don't know if it's an appropriate time, but I've wondered all along. Between commercial square footage price and single -family lots sold that don't have any homes on them, what's the square footage price between the two? And you might not be the person I should be asking that. MR. ABEL: No. I'm not the person to ask. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: It's a question I've been wanting to ask all the way through here. I'm just curious. MR. ABEL: The appraiser might have known tha t, yeah. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Any other questions at this time? COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Based on your experience in the past, there was a trend, you know, in the past to -- I know you talk about the transitions. I mean, one ty pical technique was to use a higher density residential directly adjacent to commercial, you know, in other words to kind of use that as a buffer between single -family residential and the commercial. And it seems to be moving more towards the trend of wha t you're saying is providing a higher quality transition or buffer zone as opposed to a higher density residential. What do you think about that trend? MR. ABEL: Well, when I first started planning, that was sort of the way. If you g o back and look at the older communities, where is the multiple family, the old multiple family? It's up against the railroad. It always seemed to me that it's sort of illogical to put a large number of people into an
adverse living environm ent. I mean, why do you want to subject more people to the noise from the trains. So it just didn't seem logical to just dump the multiple family there. Slowly but surely now multiple family, especially condominiums and things of that natur e, developers recognize that they need prime sites. So you will see -- a lot of your better multiple family and condominiums, today where are they going? Into the downtown areas where people can walk from their condos right to the commercial areas. So they're slowly but surely being put in the prime locations as opposed to the discarded locations. Same thing in the development that we were doing for Gallagher & Henry down in Will County. We put the most exclusive c ondominiums and townhouses close to the commercial where the people can -- and we actually have made openings and paths so people can walk right into the commercial center. I'm talking about a center that's going to have a Meijer's, a Home Depot, and abou t 15 other shops. So people are going to be very close to that. So that's why we put high quality condos, townhouses, and single families against the perimeter of a very well landscaped commercial component. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: How many feet do they have between the single -family homes there and the commercial now? Is the commercial one -story commercial? Two -story commercial? MR. ABEL: Primarily one -story commercial. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: So it's a one -st ory. MR. ABEL: It's a box because it's Meijer's and Home Depot are the two. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: But the single -family homes, though, is that the multiple family that are adjacent to the box? The lower density would be to the single -family homes? MR. ABEL: They spread out across so that they're -- as I said, there's single family -- condos and single family so that they all are exposed to the commercial component. But, again, they have a tremendous landscaping. Just -- well, you might be familiar with Woodward and Boughton Road. Just finished a commercial rezoning for that property. And there the distance is almost the same as your ordinance, the 40 feet, landscaping, extensive
landscaping, a 40 -foot dis tance, a buffer, and then a driveway. And there are existing homes to the east in the Village of Darien. That was approved unanimously by the Woodridge Village Board just about four weeks ago. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: But those were existing that wer e there. MR. ABEL: Same thing -- same situation as here. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: That's not homes not already built on like to the west. MR. ABEL: No. Exactly like this. The homes to our -- COMMISSIONER KACHEL: No. To the we st. Not to the north. MR. ABEL: No. We have -- COMMISSIONER KACHEL: To the west. MR. ABEL: Yeah. There they were all existing homes in that development. In the other one, it was all -- it was all new but there was single family existing a little bit further to the north. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: One of the statements that you've made as far as the multiple family, the better ones, I can understand that; but most of the people that buy those homes know that they're going up ag ainst the commercial before the house is built -- am I correct -- in most of those areas? It's not like single families. MR. ABEL: Not the one in Darien I just finished. The homes are all there. They've been there since about 1974. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Right. But for the new building going into it, the high end that you're talking about, high -end multiple family, those are being built now. MR. ABEL: Those are all new, yes. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Mr. Daniel. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Abel -- well, just for the record, my name is Mark Daniel. I'm with the law firm Rathje and Woodward in Wheaton, 300 East Roosevelt Road, Suite 300. Mr. Abel, just to clarify, the purpose of your testimony to night was to summarize evidence and not to present evidence; right? MR. ABEL: Oh, to summarize the evidence, but to provide evidence regarding the standards. MR. DANIEL: And that would be expert evidence and not factual evidence, new facts that were developed -- MR. ABEL: No.
MR. DANIEL: -- during your analysis of the project? MR. ABEL: All of this is my work: the trend of development, character of the area, analysis of the landscaping plans. I've looked at all the plans. It's my professional opinion that this development will meet the criteria of my definition of highest and best use which had the three components. MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. ABEL: Adaptable to the site, providing a well -bala nced land use -- use for the community, and it will not have an adverse effect on adjoining properties. MR. DANIEL: So your testimony tonight is opinion evidence? MR. ABEL: Exactly. MR. DANIEL: And you're not presenting new facts on property values in the area? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: You're not presenting new facts on traffic because Mr. O'Hara handled that; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. I analyzed -- I listened to all the -- I read all the reports an d listened to all the testimony. MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. ABEL: So I basically built all of the other professional consultants into my final analysis. MR. DANIEL: You mentioned during your testimony a Super K -Mart at 111th Street. Do you recall what the distance across the two fairways and the greenhouse is from residential areas to that Super K -Mart? MR. ABEL: I didn't mention it. Someone else asked me about it. It was not on the aerial photograph and so that was not one of the uses I analyzed. I analyzed everything that's on this aerial photograph and what's being planned, what's existing, and what might be planned; but that's the one -- that was at the extreme northwest corner and I didn't look at that. It wa sn't on the plan. MR. DANIEL: Well, in that situation where you've got that Super K -Mart that was planned, why wouldn't that come up in your analysis if you looked at the record of what was being developed and planned for the future in the area? MR. ABEL: I just didn't. I looked at -- what was more important to me was the immediate quadrant between the Target and the Jewel. These are under construction now. The Target's across from the subject property; the Jewel is at the next intersecti on.
And so I looked at the land use relationships that are taking place and that visually show on the zoning map and the aerial photograph. I didn't take the time to get the plans for the K -Mart. MR. DANIEL: What about the Meijer sto re to the south? Did you see those plans? MR. ABEL: No. No. I just know it's there and there's -- that's it. It's at the intersection at a node where it should be. MR. DANIEL: Well, in your conversations with village staff, didn't you t alk about similar developments like the Super K and the Meijer and how they have been developed in the area or did you just ignore those? MR. ABEL: I didn't ignore them. I mean, they're there. They're at the nodes and that's the important thing. I didn't care about the actual design of those. What I'm concerned about is the design of the subject property to make sure it meets all of my criteria. MR. DANIEL: Do you know where the Meijer store is on your map? MR. ABEL: Right here. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: How far is the nearest single -family home to the north or the east, for that matter, from that Meijer store? MR. ABEL: There's -- there are no residential development in the quadrants. The closest re sidential obviously is on the west side of 59. You've got primarily utility use to the south and it's all vacant around the subject site now, but there's residential to the -- you can see the residential up in this area to the northeast. The actual intersection, which is a node, it was indicated that that probably will also go commercial. So the four corners will go commercial and residential will back up to it and preferably it will be single family, which is what has happened around all of the other commercial nodes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, let's try to get back to my question, Mr. Abel. You and I have both worked together before, and I understand you're an expert witness and I'm the attorney that has to cross -examine you. To cut to the chase, can you give me an estimate in distance between that commercial use and the residential homes?
MR. ABEL: Yes. I have a scale. MR. DANIEL: And just for the record, we're still talking ab out the distance between the Meijer use and the residential homes to the north and to the east. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but my understanding is the Meijer has not been built, nor has any other development around that future site. Is that... MR. DANIEL: I'm not sure if -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: What are you measuring if the store doesn't exist yet -- MR. ABEL: I'm going to measure from the -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: -- and there are no homes adjacent? MR. ABEL: Yeah. I was going to measure from the property line. MR. DANIEL: Why don't we go from the property line and where Mr. Abel understands the footprint of the store to be according to his analysis. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I don't think he sai d anything about the footprint of the store. You're interjecting things here that I think have no bearing. MR. DANIEL: Well, we'll find that out during my examination. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: He said he didn't look at the plans. He said he hasn't looked at the plans, and you're going to inquire about his understanding of the footprint of the building? MR. DANIEL: And the building in Lisle and the building in other communities around the state as far as Meijer and Wal -Marts are concerned. MR. ABEL: All right. The commercial that is directly to the west on the west side of Route 59, the homes back right up to the highway. That's probably a 100 -, 120 -foot right -of -way. So there's the distance of Route 59 between those uses. MR. DANIEL: That's a different kind of commercial than the Wal -Mart or the Meijer; right? MR. ABEL: No. I'm talking about from Meijer's. MR. DANIEL: Well, wait a second. You mentioned the commercial on the west side of Route 59 and how the homes abut right next to that commercial. That's a Jewel Osco; right? MR. ABEL: That's the northwest corner. I'm talking about the homes that are in the southwest quadrant behind the Amoco, which is now British Petrol eum, and will have commercial behind it. You asked me how far it is from the -- from Meijer's to the residential. I'm starting with
the residential across the street from Meijer's which is the distance of Route 59. Then I'm giv ing you the dimension of the residential that is in the northeast quadrant; and from the property line, it is approximately 450 feet to the closest side yard. MR. DANIEL: And you testified already there's no residential to the south? MR. ABE L: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: And how about to the east? MR. ABEL: To the east, approximately 750. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Now, you mentioned before that you've testified in other situations, in other cases, and you went through the La Salle factors in those cases and you've presented some evidence on the LaSalle factors tonight for the Commission. Aren't those usually applied in judicial proceedings and not used in the analysis by the Plan Commission? MR. ABEL: I u se them because so many of them are in their findings. It looks like they've taken some of the LaSalle factors and put them in their findings -- surrounding land use, surrounding zoning, comprehensive plan -- so I was just using it as an example. Even my definition of highest and best use, my definition of highest and best use is a little bit different and so that's why I introduced that. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, you -- MR. ABEL: So I didn't imply that this was going to be a j udicial proceeding. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I think the concern from me is that you're not advising, in your expert opinion, that we should look at the LaSalle factors in place of any portion of the ordinance; right? MR. ABEL: No. That's why I spent more time on going through each and every standard in the ordinance. I was just using it to set the framework for going through the standards which are repetitious. I thought if I gave them up front, then I could just say, "You've heard this already." But just the format I used. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Now, with respect to this particular project, when were you retained? MR. ABEL: After the first public hearing -- first or second, because I received the transcripts of the hea ring I missed. MR. DANIEL: So somebody, whether it was Mr. Philipchuck or Mr. Pulte, who you've worked for
before, has, this fall, before you were retained, presented you with plans that were already on file with the request for zoning changes and approvals; right? MR. ABEL: They're the same plans that were presented, yes, at the public hearing and I have a roll of them that I used. MR. DANIEL: And you knew that you wouldn't testify in this matter unless your opinion fit the plans th at were presented to you; right? MR. ABEL: That's correct. When Mr. -- I'm trying to remember who contacted me. I think it was a person by the name of Heather or something from Pulte, and she wanted to know if I would testify. I have worked for them before, and they know that I don't take a case until -- unless I'm committed to it. She sent me all of the plans. It was a hurried project, but I -- I did spend the weekend. I came out, looked at the site, and then contacted her and said at that point I would be -- I was able to testify on this case. MR. DANIEL: And it's accurate to say that you had no input at all in this project until you were first retained? MR. ABEL: That's correct. M R. DANIEL: Which was, what, a week after the first public hearing? MR. ABEL: If the hearing was on a Tuesday night, as I recall, I got a call on a Wednesday saying that they -- they had all their experts but they had forgotten an expert to look at the standards and could I fit it into my schedule. And I said, well, send me everything and I'll spend the weekend on it. And my arrangement with Pulte is if I turn it down, I still get paid, you know, for all the work I did. And I went out and looked at it. And so I -- I spent the full weekend getting ready, about 16 hours. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Now, again, I think you've been to the other hearings and you know that I ask the questions about how much. How m uch are you getting paid? What do you think in the end this will cost? COMMISSIONER SCHINDERLE: What bearing does that have? MR. DANIEL: It has all the bearing. I have explained this to the Commission previously.
Mr. Schinde rle, you, in particular, have once noted that our testimony as objectors won't be credible unless we hire an expert. And I'm trying to present a picture for you as to why we can't afford to hire all of these qualified experts. Mr. Abel is a great guy. He's testified for me before, but he costs money. So I think I'm entitled to inquire into that as part of my case in support of the objectors. MR. ABEL: I would say that the fairest way to answer that question is if -- if you're lookin g at trying to come up with an estimate of what it would cost your group to hire a person of my qualifications, I recently just finished working for a homeowners association and -- and therefore didn't require attendance at a lot of meetings. So if you were looking for a planner to review all of this, I would say you're probably talking in the range of about three to $5,000. MR. DANIEL: In the Meijer situation, you will recall that Lisle development that you testified in a deposition o n? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And I was the attorney that called you and asked you to testify; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And all you did in that situation was review the documents and plans and provide a deposition; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: How much has your bill been to date in that matter? MR. ABEL: I haven't the vaguest idea. MR. DANIEL: It's in excess, maybe double that, isn't it? MR. ABEL: I don't think so. I wish it was. MR. DANIEL: Is your estimate about 10,000 on that one? MR. ABEL: I really don't know. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, let's ask a couple other questions then. In relation to this development, you testified it's compa tible with surrounding land uses; and every time you said that, you kept latching on to the end of that phrase "because of the berm." Is a berm necessary when land uses are compatible? MR. ABEL: First of all, I don't mention just the berm. I think I have put a lot of stress first on
distance, which we have here. We have distances that go way beyond the 40 foot that is required by the ordinance. When this ordinance was developed, the 40 foot was assumed to be a more than adequate setback. As I said, many communities use that 40 foot. Woodridge uses it, Darien uses it, the County of DuPage uses it, Plainfield uses it. So distance is -- as I kept saying, was very important. I indicated that if you had distance, you probably don't need as high a berm. What I kept emphasizing here is that this particular development, because there is enough land area, can give you everything. It gives you -- it exceeds the distance, which is importa nt. It exceeds the berm height. It's a higher berm than in -- in any of the projects I have worked on recently. Then in addition, I said the fence which adds for additional sound absorbing, and then the landscape screening component. So I didn't put the emphasis on one. I think I put the emphasis on all four of those. But you can have land use compatibility. I have worked with many developments. And that's why I tried to show these where the single family backs up to a junior high school which is -- as you know, junior high kids are very noisy, they come by bus or they're dropped off by their parents, they have outside activities, there is lights. I worked on a commercial development up in Northbro ok, very expensive homes. Single family backs right up to the commercial with just a distance transition. So the answer to your question is no, I don't need all those. I'm emphasizing them because I want to keep reminding the Planning Commi ssion that they are getting way above and beyond what is necessary to create land use compatibility. MR. DANIEL: Okay. My question was, do you need a berm between two land uses when those land uses are compatible? MR. ABEL: Oh, I think it's great. I -- I did a big development for Union Pacific in South Barrington. We had high quality office development backing up to estate single family. This is in South Barrington. But the berm just gave it that extra oomph. F allingwaters in Burr Ridge, up against
Route 83. Not necessary, but the berm sure does an awful lot to take out the ambient noise level. So it's not necessary, but it just adds to the compatibility. You can go a little bit -- MR. DAN IEL: In your expert testimony -- MR. ABEL: Let me just finish. You can go a little bit further in Oak Brook where I did the plan for Oak Brook. And there, the development at the southeast corner of 22nd and 83, the homes back right up to 83 with absolutely no berming. I would never buy one of those homes; but they went like, you know, hotcakes and people live there and enjoy it. Whereas, I said, the one that is in Burr Ridge that has the berm is just preferable to me. Maybe someone else wouldn't like that. MR. DANIEL: In your analysis, are the housing markets in Burr Ridge and Hinsdale and those areas similar to the market in Plainfield? MR. ABEL: The -- the value of the homes is higher, but that -- it's -- this is still a quality area, so -- MR. DANIEL: What about demand? Don't people pay a premium even for lots along Route 83 in those areas because there are no other homes available in those areas? MR. ABEL: No. That's not true. There 's -- there's plenty of homes. There's teardowns, there's new homes. I'm working on a case for the forest preserve district where they're condemning some property, but there's a lot of five -acre estates in there. So, you know, demand is -- demand is everywhere and especially out here. I mean -- MR. DANIEL: Let's talk about this then. If the demand is out here, why is it there's got to be a 70 -home subdivision supplanted by a Wal -Mart if there's a demand fo r single -family homes? MR. ABEL: Oh, there's -- the logical answer is as you look at the zoning map, there is more than enough land available for additional residential; and as the plan says, it should be all kinds of residential: senior citizen, empty -nesters, large lots, small lot. There are only, within the Village of Plainfield, under Plainfield's control, a certain number of nodes. And the village has been smart enough to capture those nodes and bring in high quality, high
tax p aying uses. I can't think of another community that has been able to land these quality uses: the Meijer's, the Home Depot, Menard's, Target, et cetera, et cetera. That's hard to do. That's why I start out with talking about location. Loc ation is so important. This area is growing so dynamically that there is a need for every one of these uses. And, you know, when you look at the -- people kept talking about the four -mile trade area. You have to remember what fo ur miles is. Four miles takes you up into the Naperville area, it takes you to Oswego, it takes you out to Weber Road, it takes you way past Plainfield. Within that area, in the next 20 areas, if you look at the NIPC projects, this area is g oing to grow dynamically. MR. DANIEL: To what level of population? MR. ABEL: I think it was 35, 40,000 or something like that. I'm talking just for Plainfield. MR. DANIEL: Let's just look at this. MR. ABEL: But let me finish, then you can ask me the question. So you can see why it's important to capture the nodes because if you don't develop the nodes, you'll come back later and start doing the strip commercial. Now is the time, as a planner, to protect the nodes for commercial development, which you're doing. Even the ones that haven't been designated yet, your staff is saying there's a possibility. That's the smart way to plan. And that will take care of the community for the next 10 years and they won't have to do the strip commercial that some of the other communities had to do to play catch -up. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Mr. Abel, I'm actually trying to close this hearing out tonight from our perspective as well. O kay? So as much as we can, if we can try to keep the answer clear to the question, it will really be helpful. In this particular situation, you just referenced a four -mile radius, north, northeast, all the way around the store. What is the projected population in that area? MR. ABEL: I would have to go back and check the NIPC projections. I don't have those. All I have is for Plainfield itself.
I satisfied myself in terms of looking at the area, knowing the area, have planned in this area, that there will be more than adequate homes; and I have to believe that Wal -Mart has better experts than myself in terms of what can support this store. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, let's look at it this way. You we re here for the testimony previously that said they try to serve a market area with this store of roughly 33,000 or more people; right? MR. ABEL: I think that's my number. MR. DANIEL: Okay. And you know Meijer is a competitor of Wal -Mart, as is Super K. In fact, Target recently is even offering food stores; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So you have four stores on Route 59 within that four -mile circumference. Surely you don't have 128,00 0 people planned for those stores. MR. ABEL: What's your question? MR. DANIEL: That's the question. MR. ABEL: It was a statement I thought. MR. DANIEL: You don't -- is that accurate? There aren't going to be 128,000 or 130,0 00 people in this area? CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Mr. Daniel, is this for the benefit of the Plan Commission? MR. DANIEL: Oh, sure it is, Mr. Commissioner. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Let me stop you. MR. DANIEL: In every instance you wer e supposed to consider these factors. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: We're well aware of projected population figures while we have -- MR. DANIEL: I'm not sure you are. I'm supposed to present that to you, Mr. Commissioner. With all due respect, it's my job to present that evidence to you. I can do it through cross -examination, and Mr. Abel is under cross -examination right now. It's very important that you understand the discrepancies in testimony and the situation here be ing a situation with four super stores in one area possibly. Possibly. Okay? You understand the history better than I do. You know that you approved a Meijer, you know they gave a $300,000 tax rebate. It's not my job to get into that hist ory.
I'm hoping I can present a lot of documents tonight that show you what that history is just to refresh your recollection. With respect to Mr. Abel's testimony, I was asking him what the projected population was within that four -mile radius. And I think it's an important question. MR. ABEL: Okay. The fallacy to what you're saying is you're taking that trade area and multiplying it by four stores; if there was six, you would multiply it by six; and if there were 10, you would multiply it by 10 and you would have the City of Chicago. That's not how those companies base it. They are all going after the 33,000. That's what this is all about. Why do you think Marshall Field's and Carson's and all the stores go together? They collectively go after the 33,000. I don't spend all of my money at Target or all of my money -- that's the whole idea. That's why Jewel goes across from Dominick's. It's comparison shopping. They both need a trade area of approximately that much. Jewel does not say, when Dominick's comes in, the 33 has been used up. They say there's 33,000 people, there are so many rooftops, and we're going to go after our share of it. So you're using a -- you're using a bad number. MR. DANIEL: Did you review a written impact analysis to the economy in Plainfield? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, I suppose if there was a written impact analysis, basing that impact an alysis on 33,000 homes didn't speak of that competition analysis that you just provided. MR. ABEL: I'm just telling you what I know from my 40 years of experience, and I'm also telling you that I think the trade area is going to wind up being bigge r than all of us expect in the future. This area is -- I'm -- like I say, I'm the planner for Grundy County. I see what's happening even as far south as Grundy. The movement is south and west and these -- these companies know it. They don't just go out and build these things willy -nilly. MR. DANIEL: In analyzing the economic impact of this project on Plainfield, you just mentioned you didn't review a written report; right? MR. ABEL: I looked at the report from Steve
Hovany r egarding tax impact, I talked to -- I had a conference call with Mr. Danos from Wal -Mart, and then I'm relying also on my experience with working with these companies. I did the economic impact study for all of DuPage County when I was direct or of planning for the county. This is an area that I have spent my whole career in, and I can just tell you I personally am not worried about any of these stores being able to exist. MR. DANIEL: I tender to the witness Kensington Club Fiscal Impa ct of Mixed Use Development previously marked as Exhibit No. 13 submitted in behalf of Pulte Homes. Again, I have copies that I hope -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Mr. Chairman, I guess he can lay his foundation -- I mean, again, it's not a cour t proceeding; but I don't understand why you're going with this, Mark. He gave no testimony as to Kensington Club's fiscal impact analysis. MR. DANIEL: He's testified as to the impact of this project on the community and -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: As to the land uses. MR. DANIEL: As to the two land uses. Remember, he's comparison, Mr. Commission -- he's comparing, Mr. Commissioner, two items: The prior approval for 70 homes, your fiscal impact here to the fiscal impact cause d by this development. He's saying that the impact on this development is more beneficial to the community. And it probably is, frankly. It probably is. But there's some clarifications that I want to make using this report tha t was submitted in behalf of the same applicant just over a year ago. Fairly recent information and data. It's probably highly relevant. Mr. Abel, have you seen this before? MR. ABEL: No. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Again, I'm going to object as to the relevancy of the document because it says on the first page of the document, it talks about 216 townhomes. It talks about land uses that actually ultimately were not approved. This was submitted, as I understand it, with the initial application and it was something that was considered by the village. But the village chose not to follow the plan that was -- what was presented by Pulte and modifications were made to it. But this -- this document is based on a
set of assumptions that ultimately have not been approved. So I -- I guess I offer -- I don't see where we're going in trying to get through this document. MR. DANIEL: Well, Mr. Commissioner, I don't want to get into an extended argument. Obviously it's a very important document for us and I don't think you would have a strenuous objection from counsel if it weren't prejudicial to his case. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Well, I'll tell you what. This says 20 acres of commercial and there's ac tually 30 acres of commercial, so it isn't -- it's just flawed because that's not what was approved. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: I'll tell you what. We'll accept the document and we'll take its contents under advisement. And the Commissioner s are reminded that they are -- it is up to them to either accept or not accept the testimony or opinions of any -- of any of the expert witnesses. Continue, Mr. Daniel. MR. DANIEL: Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. Mr. Abel, I would like to have you take a look at that report. There's a table of contents in the report that's about 20 pages back, maybe 16 pages into the report. There are a number of tables. Do you see a table of contents? After that table of c ontents, I'm going to ask you to page through a few more pages. But initially you would agree that this is a typical study for Strategy Planning Associates; right? It's not something that you would expect to be out of the ordinary for them u nder the circumstances of a development of any kind? MR. ABEL: In no way can I answer that question. I don't know what his contract was and I don't know what he reviewed or why. MR. DANIEL: I thought you said that they were a credible firm and you were familiar with them and you had worked with them on a lot of projects when you gave the opening to your testimony today. How do you know that if you can't testify to that? MR. ABEL: No. That's not the question you asked. You asked -- you wanted to know if this was a boilerplate study. That's what you said. You said -- MR. DANIEL: I didn't say boilerplate. MR. ABEL: You said it is typical of what they do. And I'm saying he does not do -- he just doesn't take a report and repeat it. He puts a lot of effort
into it. And so there is no way that I can say, just because I read the one for our site, that they're identical. That's not the way he operates. And as -- and as Mr. Philipchuck has sai d, having gone through these -- many times I've had to present these when -- when Mr. Hovany hasn't been able to do it, so I understand what he's doing. And I'm telling you that if this report is not matched up with what was finally approved, it has no va lidity. And many of the communities I work with, once the plan has been changed, they ask Strategy Planning to come back and do an amendment and bring these figures up -to -date. So all of the figures in this report are of no valu e. MR. DANIEL: Let's take a look at Page 11 and see how valuable certain figures Mr. Pulte's firm and their experts presented a year ago were. Page 11. There's a table for nonresidential impact. Do you see that? Nonresidential taxab le value, Table 5. MR. ABEL: Yes. Real estate property tax revenue. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So as far as real estate property tax revenue, you saw -- or you can see on this chart that for the proposed commercial under the prior development, whi ch you're familiar with now because you've heard testimony over the many nights, two commercial strip centers or one commercial strip center, depending on how it was developed and approved, you eventually get $8.7 million in taxable real estate value; righ t? MR. ABEL: At the end of the 10 -year period, yes. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's take a look at 2006, 2007. That's only four years away. MR. ABEL: Right. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Is that a sign that property cannot be developed as cur rently zoned -- reasonably developed as currently zoned? That's a pretty good number, 8.7 million; right? MR. ABEL: Yeah. It's probably not as good as what it is now, but it's there. MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. ABEL: Rememb er, I suggested I wasn't looking as much at the numbers as I was at the design. I'm not much for strip commercial.
MR. DANIEL: What about Table 6, Page 12? We've got a number of categories of local sales tax revenue under Strategy Pla nning Associates' prior presentation again in behalf of Pulte Homes, the applicant here tonight. You see that bottom line there, local taxable spending? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Eventually by 2003, that subdivision was to de velop $4.1 million in local taxable spending; right? MR. ABEL: By 2003? He carries that number all the way through, yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Now, that was for the entire subdivision, right, including land north -- I'm sorry, land southwest and south of this proposed development? MR. ABEL: Don't know. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Are you familiar with the Kensington development? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I will tender to the witness, just so we're clear, what's p reviously been marked as Exhibit No. 1 and already referred to which is the Kensington Club Site Map revised June of 2001. Mr. Abel, you're familiar with that development; right? MR. ABEL: I've driven through it, yes. MR. DANIE L: Okay. Now, you would expect significant property tax revenues to arise from the homes that you see north of 127th Street in Exhibit No. 1; right? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I'm going to object, Mr. Chairman. Again, we've got a document tha t was not an approved document. Mr. Daniel can say, well, they're giving these out in the trailer and that may be the fact. But the fact is they're not selling -- they were not selling and have not sold any lots, nor were they offering them for sale nort h of 127th Street. And this -- this plan that they gave to the customers was to sell lots south of 127th Street, not north of 127th Street. And this plan is not the plan that the village approved. This is not the plan that the village approved, just like this document that he's asking questions of, and he's trying to interpellate these numbers when there were far fewer numbers of units that were approved as part of Kensington Club than what these numbers were based upon.
So I think we're -- we're wasting the Plan Commission's time. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Your objections are noted. And I will remind the Plan Commissioners that the document before you has unapproved contents, the relevance of which is subject to question. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Abel, what was previously approved for the lot where the Wal -Mart is proposed? MR. ABEL: The plan that I was aware of had commercial running the entire frontage and then a residential component in the back. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So that residential component consisted of about how many lots? MR. ABEL: I don't remember. MR. DANIEL: 70 give or take? MR. ABEL: Yeah. 70 is the number that comes across. MR. DANIEL: Okay . Now, in that Exhibit 1 that I referred you to, you see about 70 homes; right? MR. ABEL: Without counting them, I couldn't tell you. MR. DANIEL: Well, give or take a few. I'm not going to hold you to the number. MR. ABEL: Well -- MR. DANIEL: You see a lot of homes; right? MR. ABEL: This -- this shows that the -- the commercial actually goes all the way through, so that would eliminate -- one, two, three, four, five -- six lots right there. Like I say, for round numbers, if you want to use 70, that's fine with me; but I'm not testifying to that number unless you want me to count them. MR. DANIEL: Now, does this Exhibit 1 significantly deviate from what your understanding of the prior approvals w as to any other extent than what you testified? MR. ABEL: The design of the residential component and the commercial component. MR. DANIEL: Well, how does it differ? Let's take a look at Bob White Lane. MR. ABEL: Well, the commercial... MR. DANIEL: You see in Manhard Consulting's proposed preliminary landscape plan Bob White Lane to the north; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And you see how Bob White Lane on Exhibit 1 continues into the subdivi sion? MR. ABEL: Yes.
MR. DANIEL: How is stopping the street at a T instead of continuing it through compatible? MR. ABEL: It happens all the time. I mean, if it's a T intersection, that's just as good as -- as any other intersectio n, so... MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, how about a stubbed intersection? MR. ABEL: Pardon? MR. DANIEL: How about a stubbed off street with no intersection that's not a T? MR. ABEL: Same thing. Most -- most of the traffic that -- especially if it's a -- most -- when you say stubbed, that's exactly what it means. It's a short stub, so it's -- it's -- it's servicing two parcels and it then functions as almost a large driveway. If you were coming into a cluster -type development, th at's the way we design them. In fact, I'm working on a multiple -family development right now in Glenview and that's exactly what happens. The street T's up to the property, there are four lots. The people actually like it because now they'r e on a cul -de -sac rather than a through street. In this situation, to the west, that street actually -- since it hasn't been built, that street could be vacated and the land given to the two adjoining property owners so you have a little bett er variety of lot sizes in there. So there's no real problem with either one of those stubs. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Abel, if you can get back to this project, would you say the number of homes is in the range of 20 to 25 percent of all the h omes in the Kensington Club subdivision? MR. ABEL: The what? MR. DANIEL: The number of homes on this Wal -Mart site under the prior approvals, would you say it's about 20 to 25 percent of the number of homes for the overall Kensington Club s ubdivisions? MR. ABEL: Yeah. This could come down and fill this quadrant, so you could say it's 25 percent. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So let's ballpark it at even 20 percent. Taking a look at the exhibits that I referred you to befo re, the Strategy Planning Associates exhibit, the benefits from those single -family residential homes to the north of 127th Street are probably 20 percent, minimum, of the benefits presented in that report; right? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Objection.
MR. DANIEL: He's an expert. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Well, he's not an expert as to the fiscal analysis; and, again, you're talking about -- you gave him this document and you're asking him to answer questions from a document that's not even accurate. And I know where you're trying to go here, Mark, but you're trying to get back into these numbers to show what a tremendous impact it is of losing these lots on the overall fiscal abilities of this subdivision. Put it on in your c ase. Tell the Plan Commission that, but don't ask questions of my witness from a flawed document. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Commissioner, I've just presented evidence to you that this document substantially resembles what was approved. I did that after the objection by Mr. Philipchuck. You also instructed the Commission to take it for what it's worth, which means you don't buy it for much, maybe, or it means that you accept it for what it's worth, which is a fairly accurate representation of w hat you, as a commission, already know. I think it's important that Mr. Abel answer the question about the 20 percent that I asked and -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I think it's beyond the scope of what his direct testimony was. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Do you know the answer to this question, Mr. Abel? MR. ABEL: No. I keep saying the -- the report -- CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. Then please change your line of questioning. MR. DANIEL: All right. Well, I'll tell you wh at, Mr. Abel. Under the circumstances on this particular project with this particular report, the testimony that you've heard and all the evidence regarding fiscal impact, you're saying that you've never reviewed a written document? MR. ABEL: Not that document. MR. DANIEL: Did you review a written report from Strategy Planning Associates? MR. ABEL: For our proposed development, yes. MR. DANIEL: For this proposed development? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. In that report, do you recall it taking out $300,000 a year in sales tax
revenues in the form of a sales tax rebate? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Does that mean it wasn't there or that you don't remember? MR. ABEL: Don't remembe r. MR. DANIEL: Would it refresh your recollection if you looked at the report? MR. ABEL: Oh, I could read the whole report, sure. MR. DANIEL: Well, you've read it once before already and you know where to go to take a look for that figure; right? MR. ABEL: No. I haven't the vaguest idea of where he has it. I think these are excellent questions for Mr. Hovany. MR. DANIEL: I think it was your testimony that your conclusions today were based on his report and also the report of an appraiser that we're going to talk about next. MR. ABEL: I used the surplus numbers, if you will recall my testimony, to tie in with why this represents a balanced land use. I did not testify on his entire report. MR. DANIEL: All right. Well, maybe if Mr. Philipchuck can take a look for the relevant page so we can get an answer to that question, that would help. Mr. Abel, if you could tell me about the front parcel on this land along Route 59. You s ee the two green spaces on the landscape plan? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And that's to the east of the Wal -Mart store? MR. ABEL: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: Is that currently one parcel of land? MR. ABEL: I didn't l ook at the PIN numbers. All I know is that the zoning district map, which shows lot lines, shows it as one parcel. MR. DANIEL: Do you see any division where that roadway is coming in south of the northeast entrance? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Is it your understanding that Mr. -- I'm sorry, that Pulte Homes does not own that roadway? MR. ABEL: No. I looked at the entire site plan, not the individual parcels. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, you testified that you
reviewed the entire zoning ordinance and you believe in your expert analysis that this project complies with each and every requirement of the code. Now, I want you to take a look at the first one, very first requirement under planned unit developments. Even before application, there's something you're supposed to do. It's on Page 566 of the zoning ordinance, Section 9 -35. MR. ABEL: What page? MR. DANIEL: 566. MR. ABEL: I've got it. And which number? MR. DANIEL: Section 9 -35. MR. ABEL: Okay. MR. DANIEL: Do you see that where it says the planned unit development shall be designed in accordance with the following standards and criteria and there's an Item 1? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: The planned unit development shall be under single ownership and/or unified control at the time of filing the application. So you must have looked at this part of this. MR. ABEL: That's standard, yes. MR. DANI EL: Right. So it's typical and usually what you want -- MR. ABEL: Every -- MR. DANIEL: -- is to have unified control to make sure that development proceeds as the developer's committed it will proceed before the Planning Comm ission; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So let's take a look back at this roadway. Who owns the roadway, the right -in, right -out access south of the northeast entrance? MR. ABEL: Don't know. CHAIRMAN SO BKOVIAK: Where are you going with this? MR. DANIEL: I'm just establishing that Item 1 is not met, Mr. Chairman. It's not under single ownership or single control. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Roadways are generally on concept -- concept drawings, which this amounts to, roadway positions are generally put on preliminary plat and then are checked at final plat.
MR. DANIEL: Mr. Commissioner, I'll just make my record then and I'll move on. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. MR. DANIEL: T he evidence was going to establish that Mr. Pulte does not own the land on which he is saying he is going to build a road at that location. In light of that, Section 9 -35 (1) has not been satisfied and hasn't been since the date of application when it was supposed to have been met. With that, Mr. Abel, I'll move on. Again, if I'm incorrect, I understand Mr. Pulte's here and a simple clarification would help, if I'm inaccurate. All right, Mr. Abel. Let's talk about the appraisal statistics. You stated that you were here when you saw the appraiser testify and that was two nights; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And you saw my cross -examination of the appraisal witness; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And you saw the questions that I asked at the last meeting about why there were such wide differentiations in price between commercial -- between homes adjacent to commercial and homes away from the commercial in two instances presented by that expert witness; right? MR. ABEL: Again, I looked at his -- his conclusion which he kept wanting to go to. I didn't get involved with the -- with the individual appraisals. MR. DANIEL: That's because he didn't present the MLS sheet s; right? MR. ABEL: Correct. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I would like you to take a look at what was marked at that last meeting as Exhibit No. 41. You will see a number of markings on it in red and a number of markings on it in black; is that accurate? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. With respect to Exhibit 41, is that one of the tables that the appraiser presented to the Commission? MR. ABEL: I don't know. MR. DANIEL: Did you see any of the evidence t he appraiser presented in writing to the Commission? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I understand,
Mr. Commissioner, that Mr. -- I understand John presented an exhibit to the Commission. Under the circumstances, I haven't had a chance to get into that; but I think what I would like to do at the moment is invite the Commission to analyze the data prepared by that appraiser. I was going to ask Mr. Abel if he had reviewed it for his own purposes to make sure that wh at the appraiser was saying was accurate in his view. I learned -- and I'll present this to the Commission later -- that the appraiser miscalculated all of his estimates and there are some great deviations of between six and $9,000. All right. Let's move on away from the appraiser then, Mr. Abel. Under the circumstances of this particular development, do you agree that there's no impact on the homes to the north and west? MR. ABEL: From what? MR. DAN IEL: Let's start with the ones to the north. MR. ABEL: Impact from what? MR. DANIEL: No impact on property values. MR. ABEL: Oh, property values. My testimony is basically from a planning and zoning standpoint. I did not get into property values. That's what the appraiser is for and you know that. MR. DANIEL: I know I know that, but I guess the question is -- MR. ABEL: I have constantly stated my definition of highest and best use is from a planning s tandpoint. I am not an appraiser. MR. DANIEL: Didn't you testify that part of your planning perspective requires you to analyze the impact of one development upon an adjacent development? MR. ABEL: Impact, not financial. Planning and zoni ng. MR. DANIEL: But isn't planning and zoning under Section 1 of the Illinois Municipal Codes based upon a balancing of competing uses, side -by -side uses? MR. ABEL: On a balanced community and that's why I kept saying on a community -wide ba sis. As you know, and everybody in your firm, I have never testified on valuation. I am not an appraiser. And every court, every zoning board, planning commission, every condemnation case, it's always from a planning and zoning standpoint, not financial.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, I just want to make it clear then for the record that you're not relying on the appraiser then as supporting the basis of your conclusions in any way or form? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Objection. That's not w hat he said. MR. DANIEL: All right. If that's not what he said, let's get it out in the open, Joe. How did you consider the appraiser's testimony last week? MR. ABEL: I know the appraiser. I know the quality of his work. I listened to his presentation and exactly what he said he had done, which was constantly interrupted and tried to change what he was saying; but what he was constantly telling you is that based on the sales of units backing up to the properties he looked at and the sales of units, say, a block or two blocks away -- and I have listened to this testimony over and over again -- that there was not a great difference between the values of the homes, say, a block and away, assuming there were sales av ailable in terms of the time the units are on the market and things of that nature. He was giving you factual information that he got from the Multiple Listing Service. That's all he was doing. That's what I listened to. And I can tell you that that's where there is proper back -up treatment, landscaping, distance, good design, normally that's what happens. Where you get your problems -- and that's why I brought in the idea about performance standards -- is where you have vibra tions, smoke, and particulate matter. Now you start talking about some real planning issues that have a tendency to relate into sales problems. MR. DANIEL: So you're saying that his testimony had what kind of impact, Mr. Abel. That was the questi on. What kind of impact did the appraiser's testimony have on your analysis? None, a little bit, a lot, or it completely impacted it and you wholly relied on it? MR. ABEL: A little bit. MR. DANIEL: What was it? MR. ABE L: A little bit. It confirmed what I have found in my 40 years of experience in terms of doing land use relationships from a planning and zoning standpoint,
that single family backing up to commercial with proper buffering does not have an a dverse effect from a planning and zoning standpoint; and all the testimony I have heard from other experts bears it out. MR. DANIEL: This expert. MR. ABEL: Pardon? MR. DANIEL: This particular expert. MR. ABEL: This and other s. MR. DANIEL: There's only one expert appraiser. MR. ABEL: Well, I'm saying on other cases. MR. DANIEL: Let's forget other cases. MR. ABEL: Okay. MR. DANIEL: We're talking about Wal -Mart here before this Commission. MR. ABEL: I know his credibility. I'm assuming he read the ML -- the Multiple Listing Service reports correctly. MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. ABEL: And I know he did go out to the area because I furnished him with the map and told him ab out the area in Glen Ellyn. MR. DANIEL: Your conclusion is that because of the appraiser's testimony -- because of the appraiser's testimony, there would be no impact caused by the Wal -Mart on homes to the north or to the west based upon a property value analysis? MR. ABEL: What kind of impact? MR. DANIEL: Property value impact, negative or positive. He said no impact. MR. ABEL: That's what I'm saying. And I said that I combine him with the sound expert and with the landsca pe plan, setbacks. When you take it -- that's why I say a little bit. MR. DANIEL: I'm just trying to focus on this one witness, Mr. Abel. MR. ABEL: No, but it's a building process that I use. I put it all together. MR. DANIEL: Sur e it is and I've got to take it down, so allow me to do that efficiently, please. MR. ABEL: Okay. MR. DANIEL: Okay. For each step in the process, I've got to show why that building block is questionable and the appraiser is questionable. Your conclusion from the appraiser's testimony was that you could, for the purposes of your conclusions, assume there would be no impact on properties to the north or to the west based upon the analysis of property valuation; right? MR. ABEL: That's correct.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. ABEL: That's a correct statement finally. MR. DANIEL: Now, if you found it had an impact adversely where the properties immediately adjacent or within a couple homes of this Wal -Mart wou ld suffer a $20,000 devaluation or a loss in value in comparison to homes a few blocks away, further away from the Wal -Mart, that valuation being about $20,000, would your testimony be the same? MR. ABEL: You mean if I saw statistics that showed th at there was a -- no. It would be different. MR. DANIEL: Okay. And that's what you saw in the Meijer situation in Lisle, right, where you testified that the Meijer at the corner of Benedictine and Maple was incompatible with the surrounding uses; right? MR. ABEL: Be careful with that one because -- MR. DANIEL: I have to be very careful with that. MR. ABEL: -- that case is so -- that land use is so inappropriate for that location that I came out strongly against Meijer's bec ause it was totally inappropriate. MR. DANIEL: Right. MR. ABEL: I then represented Meijer's six weeks later in a very appropriate location, and I also am representing Wal -Mart in a very appropriate location. So -- MR. D ANIEL: No. I understand that, Mr. Abel. MR. ABEL: -- there are many, many factors in that Lisle that render it a poor location, so I don't think you can use that as an example singularly. You have to look at everything: wrong corridor, characte r of the area, trend of development, traffic, not at a major intersection, not at a node, everything that could be possibly wrong with a site represented in that site. MR. DANIEL: I couldn't agree with you more. MR. ABEL: Right. And everything about this site is correct. MR. DANIEL: In this particular situation -- let's take a look. That's where I disagree with you. But -- MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: -- in this particular situation -- okay? -- what's the rear distance between the back of the Wal -Mart and the homes planned on the west side? MR. ABEL: The distance from the building on the
west side is -- it ranges from 85 to 150 feet to the building. MR. DANIEL: In the case in L isle, wasn't the difference in space between the homes and the back of that store nearly 1,000 feet? MR. ABEL: But that was not the basis of the case. The basis of the case is that it was a totally inappropriate use for that corridor, which was a residential neighborhood, commercial open space corridor. The comprehensive plan stated that there was no need for commercial in that area. Absolutely. So I will not answer questions when you use -- base them on a single purpos e. That is -- MR. DANIEL: Well, you testified that lots of people have accepted your testimony before. MR. ABEL: Yeah, but you're taking one -- you're taking it out of context and that's what I disagree with. You cannot take one component of that case and compare it to this because that case, the land use was totally flawed and I built my case on a pyramid of land use problems, not just one. So you can't take one out of context. They -- they -- they blended into one and you know that. I'm just not going to get into that. MR. DANIEL: In relationship, Mr. Abel, to this particular development, you don't see the same buffering as you did at the Super K to the north or the Meijer to the south, at the Target; right? MR. ABEL: The buffering is the same as the Target. MR. DANIEL: Well, no, it's not. MR. ABEL: To the south it is. MR. DANIEL: Let's take a look at the north end of the Target. Where are those stores there? MR. ABEL: You have commercial facing commercial, you have commercial actually facing -- we're not sure, and here you have commercial facing office and research. To the south of the Target, you have single -family residential backing up without th e berm and the fence and the everything else. It just so happens that there is a greater buffer to the west only because from a site standpoint, this happened to be the location for the detention and the park, just as this happens to be the p roper location for the detention which happens to give you that open space relief I talked about.
But the relationship to the south is identical. In fact, all of the homes to the south of the Target back up. Here it's only -- one, two, thre e, four, five, six -- seven homes. There, there are many. MR. DANIEL: What about the homes to the west? MR. ABEL: The west will be up against, again, an unbelievable berm, landscaping, fence, and this distance that I mentioned which goes f rom 150 feet down to the closest point is just this one little knob that sticks out. It greatly exceeds the 40 feet that the zoning ordinance has determined is an adequate setback between commercial and residential, a standard that many, many other municipalities use. MR. DANIEL: In relationship to this particular project, you mentioned you reviewed the comprehensive plan. When was that particular comprehensive plan approved? MR. ABEL: 1995. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Let's ta ke a look at that comprehensive plan real quick. The first thing I'm going to do is ask you to take a look at Chapter 3, Page 30. (Brief interruption.) COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Mr. Chairman, can I get a clarificat ion of a statement that Mr. Daniel made earlier? CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Sure. COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Okay. And actually I'll ask Mr. Philipchuck. You made a statement about the location of this, you know, possible entry road t hrough that front parcel. I believe we heard testimony at an earlier date that Wal -Mart had a type of development agreement with the owners of that front parcel as related to types of buildings, the architecture, and I'm assuming that would a lso relate to street layout. Would that be accurate? CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: These were proposals -- COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Right. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: -- that they were talking about. They would amount to more of a concept presentati on than -- COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: That's what I wanted to ask Mr. Philipchuck. If I'm not mistaken, they actually have a development agreement with the owners of the front parcel as to the development -- the unified -- the fact
that the development was supposed to be unified. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: My only point, Dan, was that placement of roads and stuff on the interior are not settled -- COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Right. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: -- at this level. COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Right. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: They are settled later at the preliminary plat. But go ahead and ask your question. COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Okay. That was what I was asking because -- MR. PHILI PCHUCK: The answer is yes, that the application that's before you, if you look at it, there are three parties, Francis Reibel Estate -- Pulte doesn't own anything here. They're contract purchasers. Francis Reibel Estate is one of the applic ants along with Pulte and along with Mid America who owns the commercial 10 acres. And, yes, we have contractual arrangements with Mid America to secure this additional property for these driveway access points. And if it's approved, it will be developed under a unified ownership direction or control. It doesn't say you have to have that to apply because, as you know, most of the time we bring developments before the village and in any other villages, you have contracts to purchase. You don 't take the property down. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: This would be similar to -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: It's the same as we do in all the other cases. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: -- the commercial development at Renwick and 59, for instance, and then t here's probably other ones around, too. COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Okay. MR. DANIEL: Just so I can briefly respond, I only have your ordinances to work from and I hope the Commissioners understand that. I also only have response s under the Freedom of Information Act that are outside my control. I have to trust them for what they are. I did not see any covenants, any proposed agreements which will govern the use, maintenance, or continued protection of this PUD and i ts open space as required by Section 9 -37 (h). They might be there. No one's testified to them and no one's produced them. And that's a problem. Okay. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: And I would maintain that
there is adequate time to present those to the Vill age Board, who is the ultimate decider of the faith of our application. It's not the Plan Commission. They will only be a recommending body. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: That's absolutely true. The Plan Commission generally does not review the PUD documen t. The Plan Commission either recommends approval or denial of a request for planned unit development; and the -- once -- if the Plan Commission recommends approval, then staff and the village attorney work on the actual nuts and bolts of any PUD agreement. Is that right, Mr. Harvey? MR. HARVEY: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I disagree with that, but I'll let that stand for later. May I resume my questioning, Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN SOBKOV IAK: Please go ahead. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Abel, I ask you to direct yourself to Page 330 -- 3 -30. Do you see entrances underlined at the top of that page? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Did you read that section when you were preparing yo ur expert testimony tonight? MR. ABEL: I read the entire comprehensive plan. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, let's take a look at this paragraph. Do you see the section that says to create a real entrance or a gateway, special landscape treatment s, buffers, and/or public improvements are needed along arterials. While such a project is often talked about by communities, few examples exist. Do you see that? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. They mention developers do a far better job than municipalities, and surely under the prior plans you had a landscaped treed entrance; right? Right? MR. ABEL: Pardon? MR. DANIEL: You had a landscaped entrance at the southwest corner of 127th Street and the street tha t was supposed to head north into the subdivision from 127th? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Did you see that landscaped entrance? MR. ABEL: Now we have more than a landscaped entrance. We have an entire frontage of open space,
ponds, landscaping; and, again, this is the legal front yard of this development. And the front yard that's required is 3 -- is 30 feet. We actually have 330 feet to the building and the landscaping is back 220 feet, so almost -- almost like a foot ball field of open space in that thing so that's quite a better entranceway into the community than a little landscaped roadway. MR. DANIEL: Let's take a look at that entrances paragraph again. Do you see the -- I believe it's the fou rth sentence in. It's four lines down. And the sentence begins with the words, the future land use plan, and it continues, calls for estate densities to create a transition and entrance into the village. MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. How much of the village is located north of 127th Street? MR. ABEL: Oh, I don't know percentage -wise. Oh, you mean of this frontage? MR. DANIEL: Yeah. How far does the village extend? To what street? MR. ABEL: To the west? MR. DANIEL: To the north -- MR. ABEL: Oh, to the north. MR. DANIEL: -- of 127th. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: 116th Street. MR. ABEL: Yeah. It's on the zoning map here. So it goes from 127th almost to 111th. MR . DANIEL: Okay. Now, that sentence refers to estate densities. Can you take a look at the page that faces Page 3 -30. In the book, it actually has color and depicts a series of white parcels connected extending from east to west across the village's nor th tier. MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. If you take a look at the legend to the right, the land use districts, you understand, don't you, that white refers to estate densities? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. And you se e the northwest corner of 127th and 135th Street; right? On the -- on the map that I'm referring you to in the book, in the comprehensive plan. MR. ABEL: Yeah. MR. DANIEL: That's white, isn't it? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Is this plan consistent with an
estate density? MR. ABEL: Nothing in the area is estate density. You've got the Target, the commercial that's in the front of our property. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Abel, you're saying no; right? MR. ABEL: Ab solutely not. MR. DANIEL: I'm just trying to move on. MR. ABEL: There is not a single bit of estate zoning or use in this entire area, and this is why the plan is out of date and this is also why the plan is being updated. MR. DANIEL : Let's take a look at Page 3 -33. You testified as to the density of commercial to residential earlier tonight. Do you recall what that testimony was? MR. ABEL: Pardon me? MR. DANIEL: I think it was -- I think you testified earlier tonight as to the ratio of commercial development to residential development in that particular vicinity. MR. ABEL: No. I was referring to this frontage. I said if you take the entire north edge of the subject property and you take out th e detention basin, which is a huge open space area, the right -of -way, and the village -owned property, that that represents -- let's forget the -- I said 47 and 53 percent. The actual number is that the residential represents 47 percent, nonresidential is 53 percent. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, let me do this again. Remember that Exhibit 1. I'll just refer to that for ease and convenience. All the 70 homes that were there, in that same quadrant where the Wal -Mart's proposed. MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. The ratio of residential to commercial under the prior proposal was what? MR. ABEL: Well, just as I mentioned, there's about three homes that would have backed up to commercial. MR. DANIEL: Just ballpa rk percentage, what do you think? About 67 percent residential to 33 percent commercial? MR. ABEL: Oh, probably even less commercial. 20. MR. DANIEL: Because of that one extension of homes at the northwest corner you were just -- MR . ABEL: Yeah. MR. DANIEL: -- referring to? MR. ABEL: Yeah.
MR. DANIEL: Okay. And now there's no residential in that area, so it's 100 percent commercial and zero percent residential, right, in that quadrant? MR. ABEL: Well , no. There's -- this is still -- this is commercial no matter what, so these -- MR. DANIEL: Right. MR. ABEL: There's three homes that will always be backing up to existing commercial zoned land. MR. DANIEL: I'm just talking about the area within that square for the Wal -Mart proposal. I'm not talking about any other lot, Mr. Abel; just the area within these four lines which comprise Route 59 on the east, Heritage Meadows boundary with the Wal -Mart development to the north, the boun dary of the Wal -Mart development to the west, and 127th Street. Just within that area. MR. ABEL: Yeah. MR. DANIEL: That's where I think we both agreed that there was about a 66, 70 percent or greater percentage of homes in that particular square that I just referred to; right? MR. ABEL: I still don't understand what you're saying because there's -- this is nonresidential across, nonresidential here. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: I'm not talking about anywhere across the street, Mr. Abel. MR. ABEL: So it's a 50/50 split. MR. DANIEL: I'm just speaking about in the square where the development's proposed, you have an area bounded by 127th Street -- MR. ABEL: I know all that. MR. DANIEL: -- to the sou th -- MR. ABEL: I don't understand where you're going. MR. DANIEL: I'm speaking of the area on the inside -- MR. ABEL: What about it? MR. DANIEL: -- those four lines. The prior approval -- MR. ABEL: Yes . MR. DANIEL: -- was about 67, 68, maybe, percent, right, residential? MR. ABEL: Of this square. MR. DANIEL: The inside of that square. MR. ABEL: Okay. Yeah. So, no. It's about 80 percent residential and 20 p ercent commercial. MR. DANIEL: Okay.
MR. ABEL: Because you're asking me about just the land use in the square, not the boundary. MR. DANIEL: As it was approved last November; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. And now within that boundary it's obviously 100 percent commercial? MR. ABEL: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: Okay. You mentioned that there was an auto -urban streetscape in the Village of Plainfield. I believe during Mr. O'Hara's testimony he stated that the intersection there was more like a Chicago intersection which fell within the urban category. Do you remember the C and D ratings he testified to? MR. ABEL: Yeah. I -- when I use that term, I'm using th e term from the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan refers to -- I'm going back to this -- the exhibit. The comprehensive plan shows the entire -- in fact, at 119th, this entire area is labeled auto -urban or business park. So by auto -urban, they mean commercial or things of that nature. So I was not using a traffic term. I was using the comprehensive plan term. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't -- MR. ABEL: Right. MR. DANI EL: -- a conflict there. MR. ABEL: No. I took it right from the comprehensive plan. MR. DANIEL: Let's take a look at what has been previously marked as Exhibit No. 20. It's a recorded -- recorded copy of an ordinance authorizing the exec ution of a certain annexation agreement between the Village of Plainfield and Leona Fry, the Estate of George Fry, and Robert Kramer and Claudia Kramer, and Pasquinelli, Inc. I'll tender this exhibit to the witness. Did you review the annexa tion agreement for the Heritage Meadows subdivision to the north? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: So you're not familiar with that document; right? MR. ABEL: That's correct. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Let's take a look at what I have mark ed previously as Exhibit No. 29. That document is captioned, "An ordinance authorizing the
execution of a certain annexation agreement between the Village of Plainfield, Illinois, and the Estate of Francis Reibel, Deceased." Mr. Abel, is thi s the annexation agreement for Kensington Club? MR. ABEL: Seems to be. It's got the stamp of the Will County Recorder on it. MR. DANIEL: And when you refer to that stamp, it's R 2000066976? MR. ABEL: Right. MR. DANIEL: Let's take a look at this particular agreement. Are you familiar with it? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Is it something you reviewed in evaluating your zoning analysis tonight? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Would it matter to you that the Village and the Estate committed to this agreement for a period of 20 years? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: In your analysis of this project, did you consider any balancing of the impact of a loss of impact fees payable to the school distric t by the developer for those 70 homes? MR. ABEL: No. I'm assuming the demand for those 70 homes, as I said before, will wind up somewhere else and the school district will get their money. As I said, there's only a few key commercial nodes that have to be protected and developed. So the residential can go anywhere. The demand is there and it won't be long before this map will be covered with subdivisions. And, again, that's the reason that I'm sure the Plan Commission is updating t heir comprehensive plan. MR. DANIEL: Okay. How about the park district? Did you evaluate the impact of losing those 70 homes on the park district? I assume your answer's the same. MR. ABEL: Same answer. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Within t hose four lines that I referred to previously, is there any dedication of land for a park or open space? MR. ABEL: No. The open space is going to be owned and operated by the property owners, and so it's open space -- visual open space at no cost to the public. MR. DANIEL: And in relationship to the detention pond that you referred to, it's quite a structure. It's a big pond; right?
MR. ABEL: Probably not as big as the one right across the street and not as big as the one around th e Jewel. MR. DANIEL: But that particular structure is a very important part of the development; right? MR. ABEL: Again, that's why you need a large parcel of land, yes. MR. DANIEL: Now, you read the zoning ordinance, didn't you? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Each page? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Did you know that open space couldn't be occupied by a structure, say, a detention facility? MR. ABEL: Pardon? MR. DANIEL: Did you know that open space could not be occupied by a structure? Let's take a look at the definition on Page 547. MR. ABEL: Are you -- you're referring, though, to required open space, aren't you, where you have to have a certain percentage in a residenti al development? There is no requirement in the commercial development. We're just providing the open space but it's not required. I think that provision is for residential development to make sure that you can't double count -- and, again, each municipality is different. Some municipalities I work for allow for 100 percent credit for wetland, detention, floodplain; some are very restrictive and don't allow you to compute it at all, so -- but that's primarily for residential. MR. DANIEL: Let's just talk about that. I mean, you are aware that structures aren't included in open space calculations then. Let's just disregard the reason why -- MR. ABEL: No. I don't know -- MR. DANIEL: -- I'm ask ing the question. MR. ABEL: -- because when I looked at the ordinance, it didn't apply to commercial property. Since I'm not reviewing a residential development, I just didn't pay any attention to it. MR. DANIEL: Let's take a look at Sectio n 9 -39 on Page 570, Sub 4. MR. ABEL: What page? MR. DANIEL: Page 570. Entitled findings of facts.
MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: You went through each of these and you pretty much concluded in your opinion that all of them were met. 9 -39 says the Plan Commission shall not recommend, nor the Village Board grant, a PUD unless it shall make findings based upon the evidence presented to it in each specific case that, colon, they list 1, 2, and 3, and then 4 says, open space areas and recreational facilities are provided. Is there any open space area or recreational facility within the four corners of that parcel? MR. ABEL: As I said, there is visual open space. There is no usable open space per se . I'm assuming some of these areas might be used for seating areas or something like that depending on how it's designed. I have always concluded when I have gone through these sections that this pertains to the residential PUD, not commercial. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Do you see that -- MR. ABEL: And there's no -- and there's no standard. The residential always will say 15 percent, 20 percent. There's a definite standard for how much open space. MR. DANIEL: R ight. But you -- MR. ABEL: This is -- this is wide open. So I guess if you want to be a nitpicker and say you have to have some, yes, there is 10 feet of parkland in here for the use of the customers to have a sandwich. Now it's met and that's the only -- there is no standard so it's met. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Your testimony previously, Mr. Abel, was that planned unit developments are basically mechanisms by which a commission can recommend and a village board can approve, somet hing that's flexible and not governed by strict standards. So you wouldn't need a standard here; right? Something that's reasonable. MR. ABEL: No, no, no, no. You have to have a standard. When I write zoning ordinances, I advise my clients they better have a standard or they're going to wind up like the Lisle Village Board did. MR. DANIEL: In the situation where there are no standards, though, do you still disregard a requirement that something be provided even if it's minima l? MR. ABEL: No. No. There's no reason here.
Again, I think when they do the final analysis here -- I remember when we did The Home Depot in Wheaton, we did provide a nice little seating area around the wetlands in the thing; and I think there's probably room to do that here. MR. DANIEL: What happened to The Home Depot in Wheaton? MR. ABEL: It got purchased by the forest preserve district. It would have been approved by the Wheaton City Council. MR. DANIEL: I will tender a document entitled Ordinance No. 2013. The exhibit number on that one was 7. It's an ordinance rezoning the property located at the northwest and southwest corners of 127th Street and Route 59 from A -1 to B -3 in the Village of Plainfield. You're familiar with this ordinance, Mr. Abel, in the fact that it rezoned the Target area and the area to the north of 127th Street but closer to 59 commercial; right? MR. ABEL: No. I did not see this ordinance. I relie d on the village's zoning district map. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Are you familiar that those are the northwest and southwest corners of 127th Street? MR. ABEL: That's what the official zoning map for the Village of Plainfield shows. MR. DA NIEL: In your experience as a planner for private and public entities, isn't it customary that an ordinance approve rezoning and this particular ordinance follows in line with that custom? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I will tender wh at's been marked as Exhibit No. 6. Again, it's another ordinance, No. 2014. An ordinance rezoning the property located at the northwest and southwest corners of 127th Street and Route 59 from A -1 to R -1 in the Village of Plainfield, Illinois. Now you know, since it's R -1, it's probably not for the commercial properties but it's for the residences in Kensington Club that are north and south of 127th Street; right? MR. ABEL: I don't know it until I look at the legal description, but I'll take your word for it. MR. DANIEL: Well -- MR. ABEL: Since I know you, I will take your word for it. You wouldn't fib me. MR. DANIEL: Nitpicker.
MR. ABEL: I guess I won't be working for him again. MR. DANIEL: If it weren't for the nitpicker comment, we would've made it. (Laughter.) MR. DANIEL: All right. Mr. Abel, in reviewing this particular project, you said you mentioned -- or you mentioned a few conversations with staff. Did any of them provide any of their prior memoranda or summaries of previous village concerns regarding the prior project? MR. ABEL: No. All I wanted to do was confirm what I had on this map, and so I wasn't trying to put words in their mout h. We were just talking from a planning standpoint what -- I guess I was concerned primarily about areas that had originally been shown for the auto -urban use that had changed to residential and the residential areas that had changed to -- fr om residential estate to commercial. So just in, you know, inquiring about those changes, how they would affect the comprehensive plan that is under consideration now. And that's where these little red dots come from, where staff indicated, again, because of the nodal concept, those probably will wind up being commercial but no guarantee. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So no individual at the Village talked to you about village concerns of prior hearings as to the density of the residential subdi vision and their concern that they should lower that density? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Okay. How about increasing lot size so it was more proximate to the estate zoning contemplated by the comprehensive plan? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Mr. Abel, has a comprehensive plan been adopted in 2000 to supplement or supplant, either one, the comprehensive plan from '95 that you reviewed? MR. ABEL: I don't know. All I know is that the subject site area was left in a gray area which I couldn't quite figure out what that meant. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Have you talked to anybody about the changes in the comprehensive plan as recommended by the Commission or discussed by the Commission or as discussed by anyone in the elected o ffices of trustee or president? MR. ABEL: Elected offices? No. MR. DANIEL: How about the Commission?
MR. ABEL: No. Just the staff. MR. DANIEL: Okay. And what did staff tell you about the first goal in Plainfield's communi ty character which is Plainfield shall plan a ring of lower intensity development around the village's central area to provide the majority of the community with a distinct identity? MR. ABEL: Didn't ask about that and didn't discuss it. As I say, we only discussed the major nodes. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Can I ask you a question about infill? Can you tell the Commission what infill is? MR. ABEL: I'm working on an infill piece now in Glenview. We have single -family homes, as I said, ba cking up to a long narrow piece that was used by a landscaper. There is a multiple -family development to the south, single -family rear lot lines to the north, and we're proposing townhouses in there. So it's an infill piece and we're using a n average density. So we -- we took the density of the multiple family to the south, the single family to the north, took an average, and that's what we're doing. So that is a typical infill piece. Everything else around it is developed, hos pitals, the schools, fire stations, you name it. It's an infill piece. It was used by a landscaper and now he wants to develop it. MR. DANIEL: Now, you know the corridor on Illinois Route 59 south of the railroad in Naperville? You k now that area; right? MR. ABEL: Sure do. MR. DANIEL: Okay. And you recall how it developed with one center at one node and another center at another node and infill in between eventually developing that was more average -- or an average of the development at the nodes? MR. ABEL: Well, that's a downtown situation. Again, that's what I was saying you don't want to do here in a suburban location. You don't want to have commercial at the nodes and then strip commercial in between. I usually refer to that as a dumbbell plan. You have a node and a node, and you strip commercial and it's like a dumbbell and that's -- it's a dumb way to plan, too. MR. DANIEL: Well, let's talk about this. You've got a Me ijer store south of this and a Super K to the north and now somewhere in the
middle you're gradually adding more development. You've got a Target, you've got possibly a supermarket that will come online in one of those vacant properties, and now you've got a Wal -Mart. MR. ABEL: Right. Right at the proper nodes. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: And would that be infill on a greater scale than just block by block? MR. ABEL: No. Infill, as I said, is land that is left over in between complet ely developed land. Here you still have plenty of opportunities to make sure that this strip of 59 -- and the State's going to help you here because they no longer allow curb cuts on an SRA, so you've got the State helping you, you've got you r Planning Commission helping you. It's not going to -- what happened up north is not going to happen down here. MR. DANIEL: Let's talk about strip development. Let's take a look at Page 5 -18 of what I had tendered as a partial porti on of the comprehensive plan. MR. ABEL: 518? MR. DANIEL: 5 -18. MR. ABEL: Are we in the zoning ordinance or the plan? MR. DANIEL: We're in the plan. MR. ABEL: Oh. COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to take a break maybe for the public for a couple minutes here, if the counsel wouldn't mind. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Pardon me? COMMISSIONER KACHEL: Because I think it's going to be quite a while. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: I was going to wait for an opportunity -- MR. DANIEL: I'll wrap up in 10 minutes. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: I was going to wait for an opportune moment because I -- COMMISSIONER KACHEL: If it's five or 10 minutes, that's fine. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVI AK: Because I also have to confer with the reporter. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Let's take a look at Item 5 on Page 5 -18, expanding commercial use along major roads. Did you see the last five lines that are actually over on Page 5 -19 that re ad, the street facade is critical to the health of the village center to draw its small town character, if the character is lost due
to poor quality conversions. Do you see that? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Did they talk to you about how th ey were going to protect the small town or small town character downtown environment that they have here in Plainfield with you when you met with staff? MR. ABEL: No, but I noticed it in the plan. MR. DANIEL: And you see it's a pretty consi stent issue in the plan; right? MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. DANIEL: They want to protect their downtown? MR. ABEL: Uh -huh. MR. DANIEL: What issues arose since last fall that caused this great change that rendered those front two parc els undevelopable in a reasonable fashion? MR. ABEL: What great changes took place? MR. DANIEL: Yeah. Did you see any traffic analysis that arose since the approval for the subdivision homes in Kensington Club? Do you remembe r those 70 homes you were talking about? MR. ABEL: Yeah. I think the change that became very evident is that the strip commercial, which this would wind up being, is not the highest and best use for this node. MR. DANIEL: Well, circum -- MR. ABEL: To develop -- can I complete? MR. DANIEL: Sure. MR. ABEL: To develop a complete node, you have to do it as was done on the opposite corner with some outlots but the major use and -- going back so you can get good site desig n and good site planning. This type of strip commercial is obsolete. Nobody's doing it anymore except, like you say, in older infill areas. So the realization came that here's an opportunity to get additional tax base, develop the node to its highest and best use, and expand the commercial that was zoned to now make it a fully integrated commercial area. MR. DANIEL: So why was it -- MR. ABEL: And so that's what changed. MR. DANIEL: I interrupted you and I know -- MR. ABEL: That's okay. MR. DANIEL: -- we can't speak over each other. If it changed, then why is it that those two front lot owners or the one front lot owner, whatever it might be, wouldn't sell the lots to
Wal -Mart? MR. ABEL: Because they -- they are part of the design now. There's not going to be any other curb cuts. There will be the main curb cut. And they are actually going to benefit. Just as with the Target, there are outlots. You see this in all your traditional shopping centers. These will be enhanced now by the traffic that is coming both to the Wal -Mart and to the Target. So there -- you're making this -- now you're taking it from being a poor commercial development, you're now expanding on it because it's going to capture traffic from the Wal -Mart. So you've really gotten a double whammie there. You've taken a negative and made it a plus. MR. DANIEL: Has anyone told you any predilections of the Village Board in relation to this project? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Well, I guess the question is, the confidence level that everyone had on these front two parcels must have been pretty high if they were to refuse a lot sale to Wal -Mart. I mean, were they positive that the Wal -Mart was going to go through? MR. ABEL: Again, I haven't -- all I know is that looking at the site plan that those are going to be outlots and they will benefit from being part of the planned developm ent. That's all I can tell you. I don't know any of their business decisions or what they're doing. MR. DANIEL: Okay. Just a couple more minutes so we can define the actual development. Everything -- let's see here -- between 59 an d roughly -- all right. MR. ABEL: Do you want a scale? MR. DANIEL: Yeah, if you don't mind. All right. Let's just say this. Everything between 59 and the -- MR. ABEL: The scale is one inch equals 80. MR. DANIEL : There we go. So about 240 feet off Illinois Route 59, you see that detention pond? MR. ABEL: Right. MR. DANIEL: The smaller detention pond? MR. ABEL: Uh -huh. MR. DANIEL: The land between a line drawn at the 240 -foot point roughly all the way to the north edge of the property just behind Lot No. 65 is not
included within the planned unit development; right? MR. ABEL: I didn't look at the legal description; so if you say so, I'll go along with it. MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. ABEL: Because somewhere along the line, this -- this landscaping and everything is going to be tied to the PUD, so I have to assume that at least as a bare minimum, that is tied to the legal description for the PUD. MR. DANIEL: In your experience as a planning professional, what generally do you see the real estate tax benefits being of apartments, rental units? MR. ABEL: Again, it depends on the rent level, size of the units. So I've seen them -- everything from a negative to a slight positive mainly because they -- again, and bedroom size is the most important. If they're all efficiencies and one bedroom, they'll obviously be a plus because there are no children. You start gettin g up into the two -, three -bedroom range and it starts getting a little iffy. MR. DANIEL: So it's accurate to say then that the Village of Plainfield were to have a higher demand for rental units, say, two -bedroom apartments, three -bedroom apartment s for families of the Wal -Mart employees, that those families might be more of a demand on the local taxing bodies for public services, for example? MR. ABEL: I don't understand the correlation. If everybody that works at Wal -Mart lives in a -- I m ean, in an apartment, that's not exactly the way I understand. MR. DANIEL: I'm not making the correlation. It's been referred to before in referring to the Commission the levels of income and the expected hours of Wal -Mart employees. They're not going to be the big home buyers that would have bought homes in this particular subdivision most likely; right? MR. ABEL: I happen to know a retired gentleman that lives in a house much bigger than mine and he enjoys working at Wal -Mart . So I -- you know, I think you have -- that's -- that's a real cross -section there. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: That property is commercial, isn't it? MR. ABEL: Which one? This? (Indicating.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: In the gree n.
MR. ABEL: Yeah. That's zoned commercial. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: There can't be apartments there. MR. DANIEL: I'm not -- I'm not asking about that. I'm just asking about the stock -- housing stock in the village. You're going to b ring in all these new employees, maybe a few retired employees. COMMISSIONER SCHINDERLE: There is no rental property -- COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Why would they live in the Village of Plainfield, sir? I mean, they could live anywhere; right ? MR. DANIEL: They could live anywhere, but the question is -- COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: Okay. Then why did you make that statement? Why did you make that statement? MR. DANIEL: For the most proximate living. Sometimes when you pla ce work demands in an area, you may have an issue where there's a demand for different type of housing. Right, Mr. Abel? MR. ABEL: You know, I find in a market this big, these -- the employees are going to come from all over the place. And I said , they're going to live in every kind of housing unit you could think of, from rental to own, from large to small. I mean, you just can't generalize like that, especially today, because they -- they do go after the retired people who want to get out and have a little conversation with people. MR. DANIEL: Okay. How about your home, Mr. Abel? Do you have a berm in your backyard? MR. ABEL: No, but I wish I did. I have the dog and the fire pit and the compost. That's what made me think about it. I have all of them. I would love a berm. MR. DANIEL: How about at the time when your kids were growing up? Wouldn't it help to have some kids that they could run from the yard and play with, to be close to? MR. ABEL: T hey got there. They would've get there with a berm or without. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I don't have any -- AUDIENCE MEMBER: How close does he live to a Wal -Mart. MR. DANIEL: -- further questions for this witness. I would l ike to present one other exhibit that I might have to ask the witness about briefly and
that's just with respect to the prior Pulte approval. Did you have any role in that process? MR. ABEL: No. MR. DANIEL: Okay. I would like to present the tax records that Pulte Homes presented for that notice requirement. It's a public document certified by Chicago Title. This is marked as Exhibit No. 21. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: For what purpose, Counsel? MR. DANIEL: Again, to sho w the impact of some of the residential homes on the local taxing structure. No. 21 is an authentic tax record search presented by the applicant under the prior subdivision approval. It contains records of several property owners surrounding the area and relates to their contribution to taxes paid to various entities and assessed valuation. Some of them are farms, some of them are residential. I would just like to have that in the record. That's all I have of the witness. Tha nk you. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: I'm going to -- does anybody have any questions of Mr. Daniel at this time? MR. DANIEL: I'm not a witness, Mr. Commissioner. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Or Mr. Abel. I'm debating whether to just cal l a short recess here or not. MR. ABEL: I could use a drink of water. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Yeah. I think what we'll -- we'll start with questions for Mr. Abel when we come back from a short recess here. (Recess taken.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. The Plan Commission is back in session. I have to swear in anyone who will speak tonight. Anyone who has not been sworn in at a previous meeting, please stand up and raise your right hand. Is there anyone here that will be making a statement or asking a question, presenting evidence who has not yet been sworn in? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. Then I'll assume that everyone who will be speaking has been s worn in and I will remind you that you remain under oath. We don't have the usual facilities here, so please -- I'm going to start on this side of the room and move back, and then I'll go over to this side of the room. Please raise your hand if you have a
comment or a question to ask of Mr. Abel. Okay. On this side of the room. Yes, sir. Please state your name. MR. ONUSAITIS: Dan Onusaitis. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: And please spell it for our reporter. MR. ONUSAITIS: O -n -u -s -a -i -t -i -s. I just had a couple of questions just for my own clarification about things that you mentioned. You repeatedly referred to the section up here as a commercial node? MR. ABEL: Ye s. MR. ONUSAITIS: And I was just wondering, does the copperheads of plan state that the commercial node is specific and does it say like that that area is specifically a commercial node or is it kind of general to a whole village? MR. ABEL: That's why I went through the -- the policy statements and the goals and policies and things of that throughout the plan and that's how you get to the conclusion that it's the major nodes. There is one provision there that it should be at major intersect ions. I'd have to go through the whole thing, but generally that's where you put your commercial. That's what the plan is showing. I was asked when you look at the plan itself, this area, it does show in the '95 plan as an estat e area. Living there, you know that this is not an estate area. I mean, there are small lots, single family, and then you have the Target there, the zoned commercial, and the nonresidential across the street. So the plan was almost useless from that standpoint, so you have to go to the text and look at standards. And that's why, at the very end, I read that paragraph regarding the comprehensive plan should be flexible. And obviously it was flexible for Meijer's, Amoco, Jewel -- I'm sorry, Jewel was on the plan, Target, and some others. So that's how I got there. MR. ONUSAITIS: Yeah, because I guess one -- the thing I was confused about is how you were referring to it as a commercial node if it's currently zoned residen tial, so -- MR. ABEL: You have to look at the policy statements. MR. ONUSAITIS: Okay. You had mentioned that there's -- you know, everybody knows there's going to
be huge growth in the village. Is there -- in your opinion, do you think that Wal -Mart or any of the big box stores or any commercial development that we want to bring into Plainfield for tax revenue, as part of the comprehensive plan, do you think any of them would actually be hurt if we chose something off of Route 59, maybe in some areas where there isn't any development yet, and used it as a plan that we could start from scratch and use -- you know, a plan where there isn't existing residential and better roads and draw some of the traffic maybe a little bit off o f Route 59 so all the way up until Barrington or wherever, down all the way through Shorewood isn't constant light after light after light of commercial areas? MR. ABEL: Well, yeah. First of all, there are only so many nodes. There's only so much trade area. The plan does say in the future there will be some new commercial areas to the west along the WilKaDuKe, and I worked on that one, in Grundy County to get that alignment which goes from Interstate 80 near Minooka up to 88 in Nape rville. And so when that road -- but, you know, it's so far off that you can't tell Wal -Mart that's after a market that's expanding in this four -mile radius to wait until the WilKaDuKe Road goes in. MR. ONUSAITIS: No. No. I'm talkin g even -- even like a mile or -- southwest, you know. I mean, there's a whole bunch of areas right off of Route 30 that there's immense amounts of land that, you know -- MR. ABEL: Yeah, but it -- MR. ONUSAITIS: -- in Plainfield that's unto uched that could be a perfect site for commercial development. MR. ABEL: But, again, there's that whole idea I talked about Dominick's and Jewel going together. It actually helps to have them at these nodes because you can -- if you mention -- lis ten to the fellow who was talking -- and I have heard this just about in every study that we have done. A good percentage of the traffic that is going to go to any of these is already on the road so it's not new traffic, so that's one of the advantages to the community and also to the consumer of being on a major roadway. Most of them are not going to go off of the major roadway. MR. ONUSAITIS: With that statement in mind, you said that it's already existing traffic that would be pass ing off of Route 59. If it's existing, why are we
widening 59 for anticipated growth and why are we widening 127th, you know, if this is existing traffic? MR. ABEL: Because the traffic is going to grow at conservatively five percent a year no matt er what and probably more. And that means there's even a greater percentage of people who are going to be on the road that will peel off and come into these stores. So that's why you remember when I made my presentation, I started with locat ion first. That's the number one criteria. Then you build on all the others. It's -- it's inevitable this is where they want to be and you're doing it the right way -- you being the Village of Plainfield -- by concentrating it at the nodes and not doing strip commercial. MR. ONUSAITIS: I guess, you know, I was just curious as to how come it seems like planning is reactive most of the time with villages. I mean, we solicited businesses to come into Plainfield and then we put them on the -- you know, we just followed the plan all the way from every subdivision north of us to south of us based on market studies, I guess, for traffic, you know, the amount of traffic, the most exposure to a potential site, when it seems like -- you know, I mean, Bolingbrook just did that revamp of Weber Road and everything and it's a really nice development now. But, you know, originally they threw everything in there based on the traffic patterns of, you know, the most exposures to those sites and then they ended up having to spend all this money to redo it when it seems like, you know, Plainfield's growing and we can take a proactive approach, I mean, especially if you're soliciting businesses to come into the village for a tax base. I don't see why anybody doesn't just brainstorm and actually come up -- I guess the first thing I think is just a major mess -up would probably be putting us where we are now is like what you said, you know, Dominick's across from Jewel. Once Target came in, that forced us, you know. It's almost like, you know, that's one of your arguments: Now that this is here, you know, it's a commercial node, major node, and, you know, it's a good fit for Wal -Mart. But ju st -- it's kind of disappointing to see that, you know, everybody sits in traffic every day. I work like five miles from here and it takes me a half hour to get to work.
CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Do you have additional points to make, sir? MR. ON USAITIS: No. That's it. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. Next person. State your name and spell it, please. MR. BYRNE: Yes, sir. James Byrne, B -y -r -n -e. 12453 Falcon Drive, Plainfield. Sir, at the beginning of your presentation, you noted at the north entrance to the Wal -Mart property that due to traffic patterns and other reasons it would be your recommendation to not allow truck traffic to enter in that north entrance. Is that your recommendation? MR. ABEL: It would be not only my recommendation, but it was -- as I said, I had a discussion with the real estate manager who was -- testified here. I called him down in Arkansas, and I -- I said it didn't seem to come out at the public hearing. You were -- people were always asking questions about gearing down and gears, all kinds of testimony on gearboxes and everything. It didn't make any difference because the trucks aren't going to come in there. He said the same thing. He said he didn't know why he didn't just come out and say it. But he said, you're right, Joe. Based on your experience with these kinds of developments -- I have worked for Meijer's, Target, you name it, Wal -Mart, Osco. They will instruct their truc ks, the Wal -Mart trucks, two to three a day, they must come down and do this. They're going to do it logically because that's where the truck dock is. Even when it's expanded, it makes sense. And he said that they can also dictate to the ot hers that they must come this way, and then that's when we got into the discussion about hours of operation. There will be nothing at night because the latest Wal -Mart truck is on the road no later than 10:00 p.m. and they want all the other deliveries done by 10:00 a.m. So that's how I got into that discussion. MR. BYRNE: I understand. MR. ABEL: So my recommendation is what they're going to do which is no truck -- MR. BYRNE: And would commit to the Planning Commission -- MR. ABEL: I'm sorry?
MR. BYRNE: And would commit to the Planning Commission as a stipulation for the development of the property? MR. ABEL: All I'm saying is it's my recommendation. The Planning Commission will do what they wan t. But I can tell you from an operational standpoint that's what's going to happen, that's what I was told by their real estate manager. MR. BYRNE: And in your 40 years of planning experience, you don't see this creating a safety risk for the children who leave Kensington Club to go to Heritage Grove School at a nonstoplighted only -- unidirectional going north -south stoplighted, not east -west stoplighted, exit from the Wal -Mart and the Target lots, all that truck traffic coming in bet ween 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. when children are walking to school. You have no safety concern. MR. ABEL: Why wouldn't the children just go this way? (Indicating.) MR. BYRNE: They live across the street in Kensington Club. MR. ABEL: You mean you down here? (Indicating.) MR. BYRNE: Yes, sir. MR. ABEL: They can do the same thing. They don't have to come through this area. (Indicating.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: They're kids. AUDIENCE MEMBER: They're kids. Come on. MR. ABEL: Yeah. MR. BYRNE: When we're not going to have logic, we'll move on. MR. ABEL: There are -- there are sidewalks -- MR. BYRNE: We'll move on. Thank you. When you referred to the consistency of the development on the zoning chart with the commercial nodes, you noted that this would be consistent with the development from as far north as 119th or 111th down to 145th, but noted basically in a 1,000 -foot band along Route 59 when, in fact, if you take t hat same four -mile stretch, north -south, and apply it as a square, which would be a proper analysis in my opinion, in fact, 80 percent of that property will wind up residential or schools. MR. ABEL: Yes. I did a corridor analysis. That's what -- w hen you look at trend of developments, the trend of development along 59 at these nodes, then you can study the trend of development going east and west if you want.
You're right; as you go east and west, the trend of development and characte r is agriculture or residential. MR. BYRNE: So this is not a propensity for a majority of commercial zoned? MR. ABEL: It is on Route 59. That's the corridor that we're studying. MR. BYRNE: No, sir. I would disagree. Using your -- MR. ABEL: I respect your disagreeing; but as a planner, we look at corridors. MR. BYRNE: Yes, sir. But if we take that entire distance north -south on Route 59, go from 145th to 119th -- MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. BYRNE : -- and assuming this is the largest development property, as the Wal -Mart representative testified, the largest available property -- MR. ABEL: No. Target is the same size. MR. BYRNE: Available property. MR. ABEL: Meijer's is la rger. MR. BYRNE: Available property. (Continuing.) -- where we throw in and look at the entire map, north -south, in fact you have subdivisions here at Graver Estates and the Ponds. You have Golden Estate Meadows -- AUDIENCE ME MBER: Golden Meadows. MR. BYRNE: -- or Golden Meadows. Sorry. You have Sterling Estates, Heritage Meadows, Kensington Club, the future Estates at Heritage Meadows -- AUDIENCE MEMBER: Riviera Estates. MR. BYRNE: -- the development that Pulte is building here as well as Champion Creek and the development here. (Indicating.) So the propensity is residential in terms of acreage. In this corridor the majority is residential, not commercial; correct? MR. ABEL: Th at was my point. That's where the rooftops are coming that support the commercial. MR. BYRNE: You stated you have three principles that are tenets in how you looked at planning. MR. ABEL: Yes. MR. BYRNE: Are those from the Illinois State Code or the Plainfield Municipal Code? MR. ABEL: No. Those are mine. I've been using them for 40 years, as I said, in every court in the Chicago metropolitan area, before every zoning board, every plan commission. Every one of them has ac cepted it.
MR. BYRNE: Plainfield has five criteria then -- MR. ABEL: I have three. MR. BYRNE: -- which do not match yours? MR. ABEL: Right. MR. BYRNE: Okay. Fair enough. You stated that the population the Wal -Mart will draw from is a four -mile basic concentric circle from this proposed property. MR. ABEL: That's what the Wal -Mart representative testified to. That's -- MR. BYRNE: How much of the concentric circle for the four miles aroun d the Bolingbrook store which hits in the four miles from this store at Weber Road is an overlap? MR. ABEL: There can be small overlaps between radiuses, yes. MR. BYRNE: Four miles from basically 111th and Weber Road doesn't come into this property -- MR. ABEL: No. MR. BYRNE: -- substantially? MR. ABEL: No. Four miles takes you over to Weber Road to the east, approximately -- the outskirts -- the eastern outskirts of Oswego, north to almost the DuPage County line in Naperville, and then to the south, and that's it. And there was very little overlap in there. MR. BYRNE: Okay. In your 40 years, sir, have you ever testified or seen a lawsuit which a developer was denied rezoning and sued to force rezoning a pro perty and won? MR. ABEL: Oh, all the time. MR. BYRNE: Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. MR. ABEL: Did I understand it, where a developer has been turned down -- MR. BYRNE: Right. MR. ABEL: -- goes to court and wins? Oh, yeah. All the time. MR. BYRNE: Finally, my last question. I know you weren't here at 4:30 this morning the way the residents were. There was a four -alarm fire in the pink property immediately east of the Heritage Mea dows subdivision -- I believe Dave's Auto Body -- where respondents had to come from southern Bolingbrook, Joliet, Shorewood, and Plainfield. We have had the traffic expert testify that Route 59 and 127th will become a D rated traffic stoplig ht, nearly impassable during rush hour from a reasonable standard.
If that fire were at 4:30 or 5:30 in the afternoon instead of 4:30 -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Mr. Chairman -- MR. BYRNE: -- in the morning -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: -- I'm sorry. I'm going to have to object. MR. BYRNE: -- would this be a public safety issue -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Excuse me. MR. BYRNE: -- in your 40 years of service -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Excuse me. Excuse me. Are you goin g to ask a question of the witness -- MR. BYRNE: I just did, sir. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: -- or are you going to give testimony? No. You are making statements here about intersections and nearly impassable and -- and fire response. That's not what the testimony was of our expert witness. That's not the rating of the intersection. It's in regard to wait time for a normal vehicle that is not under an emergency situation with sirens and lights. They obviously would pass around and t hrough the intersections because they have the right -of -way, sir. MR. BYRNE: I'm sorry, sir, but logic defies me that if both lanes of traffic are blocked by people waiting for a stoplight that somehow a 15 -ton fire truck will fly over them. I understand your objection. I'll ask my question. Sir, in your 40 years of experience, do you view that as a safe way to zone this property? MR. ABEL: Yes. Probably the majority of the -- what Mr. Philipchuck was trying to tell you is that the D level is still acceptable in the State of Illinois. Most of the intersections in the entire -- especially DuPage County, all of DuPage County is a D, maybe a few C's, and all the fire vehicles get through. People go of f to the edge. They get through because it has nothing to do with gridlock. You're confusing a D with gridlock. D just means that you might have to wait a couple of seconds more than you'd like to to make the turn. It doesn't mean you're si tting there for three cycles. You probably will get through during the cycle; it's just going to take you longer than you should. So don't confuse D with gridlock. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Anyone else on this side?
(N o response.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: No other public comment? Questions? Yes, sir. MR. ONUSAITIS: I just wanted to make the comment that I didn't find it very professional of you to cut me off and for him to get belligerent with h im when we've all been waiting here, just as you have, through all these meetings until midnight and all this other stuff. I just wanted to put that on the record. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Your criticism is noted. MR. ONUSAITIS: Th ank you. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Is there anyone else who -- MR. WEIFFENBACH: Were you asking for general public comment or just with regard to this witness? CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: I'll take general comment if you have something new. If i t's issues that have been brought up and identified before, repetition does not add weight. Do you have some additional information or testimony that you would like to offer? MR. WEIFFENBACH: Is this the best time for general public c omment or would that be after everyone else is done? I'm not sure how you're conducting this. MR. DANIEL: Just a point for the Commission, there are a number of people in the audience that I have consulted with, a few of whom I represent. I don't want to get in the way of their public comment. But I think if Mr. Abel is finished and it doesn't relate to him, maybe he can sit down, the residents can speak their piece on evidentiary and factual issues, and then we can move forward and try to get that finished up. A number of them know to keep things streamlined to certain facts and not to repeat what's already been stated except to say that they agree with what someone else may have said, to the extent they can. CHA IRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Sir, would you state your name for us tonight. MR. WEIFFENBACH: Me? CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Yes. MR. WEIFFENBACH: John Weiffenbach. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Thanks. Are your comments falling into the c ategory that Mr. Daniel just identified? MR. WEIFFENBACH: My comments are general and I'd like to reserve them until we're done with all of
the expert witnesses, but I wasn't sure if you were all done with them. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. I don't think there's any other questions for Mr. Abel. MR. ABEL: Thank you very much, sir. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Okay. We'll take general questions, comments, whatever. I guess you're the first. MR. WEIFFENBACH: John F. Weiffenbach. I reside at 13154 Thomas Circle in Graver Country Estates and also own property at 2802 North Division in Plainfield. W -e -i -f, like Frank, f, like Frank, e -n -b, like Bob, a -c -h. I guess I have a couple of things. One would jus t be a clarification. The nearest residential to the north of the Meijer property is right across the street, not 600 or 700 feet. I think the gentleman was looking at the southern edge of Graver Country Estates thinking that was the nearest residential. It's actually to the west of Normantown Creek or east of the fire station and immediately across the street on 135th. The nearest residential on the west side would be the property I referred to that I own in Plainfield. With regard to the plan in general, it seems to me that while there are a great many people who would not like to see anything commercial right next door to them, that there's been a great deal of care to try and mitigate the number of the issues that would be involved. I think that this kind of a store would be good for Plainfield if the Plan Commission finds it to be the best use at that location. I would ask you to make every effort to mitigate the circumstances, including safety i ssues of children crossing across that roadway to the schools, and anything else that can be done to accommodate the residences. Beyond that, I have no further comments. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: On this side. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: This side. Yes, sir. State your name and spell it. MR. FRANKEN: Good evening. My name is Martin Franken, F -r -a -n -k -e -n. I would like to just present to you my RESPA form her e -- I don't know who I would give this to -- just for the files as far as --
CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Give that to Doug over there. MR. FRANKEN: -- my -- the value of my home, to get it on record. And this is what I purchased -- you can have t he rest of these -- when I purchased my home. I wanted to take an opportunity to talk to this Commission about what it was when I moved to this village. I -- I recognized early on that this village is not going to remain a small village and that in the event that Plainfield were to try and just remain a small village, all that they would succeed in doing is be enveloped by much larger villages. This town is going to have to grow and commercial development is an inevitability. B ut when I moved here, too, I did place my trust in the public officials as far as how these decisions would be made. I did my homework. I talked to landowners. I did all of the above. I was one of the original homeowners. I'm aware of the agricultural zoning on the land; but as soon as the -- as soon as Pulte endeavored to build a subdivision, I made myself aware of what decisions were made. I was told by my builder, although it's not binding -- I don't mean to suggest it is. I just want to take you through the steps here. I was told that this land would eventually be residential. I don't hold this Commission to any standard there, but that is what I was told. When we learned that this land was zo ned commercial, I thought that was a reasonable compromise. I thought that the village, recognizing the issues that were at hand, I thought that was a reasonable decision. I made myself aware of the proceedings, I kept myself informed, and I agreed with th e decisions of this village. When Pulte endeavored during a second rezoning hearing -- because a lot of people, including the media, are not actually aware that this is our third excursion down this roadway. We need to keep that in mind. Th is is not the first. This is not even the second. This is our third excursion down this roadway. Even during the second one when they endeavored to extend this all the way north taking all of the land along Route 59, I personally thought th at was a reasonable proposition. It's obviously viable commercial real estate. Obviously. And as a homeowner
and as a resident of this village, I thought that was reasonable. But here we are on our third endeavor, our third commercial rezo ning hearing. We need to remember that. This is the third time down this pathway. We have heard a lot of expert testimony here tonight and in past evenings. A lot of it. But it helps to take us back to what exactly it is we're talking abo ut here. Regardless of berm height -- and by the way, I do want to point out one thing. There is a point of diminishing return. There is a point where this thing just becomes an eyesore. You do have to keep that in mind. I wo uld much rather have a 13 -foot -high berm and a six -foot fence than look at a Wal -Mart. Don't misunderstand me. But there is a point of diminishing return here, and I think we've passed it. We're basically trying to -- we're trying to make th is work is what's happening. And I have to ask myself is that the job of the Commission. Now, before I go on, I do want to say one thing. As you know, I've had the opportunity to sit here and watch you over the span of probably about four m onths. And before anyone says -- anyone else says anything, I want to take the opportunity to thank you for what you do. You've put up with a lot, and I have not seen anybody stand in front of you and thank you, regardless of what your decision is and re gardless of whether you support this or oppose this. Thank you very much. But in the end, I do want to ask, is it our job to make this work or determine whether it -- or to make it happen or determine whether it should happen. A commitment has been made in that this land had been zoned, regardless. Regardless of what they endeavor, it is zoned residential. What is it you're being asked to do. In the end, when all is said and done, you are being asked to approve what will quit e likely be, according to their own testimony, a 210,000 -square -foot 24 -hour commercial establishment that will be frequented by literally thousands of cars each and every day. All of that to be built upon land that we had been told from the inception of our subdivision would be residential, that Pulte, since the inception of Kensington Club, has actively advertised as residential, and, as a point of fact, is residential.
All of this being built in addition to already existing ra ther sizable commercial outlots that, according to their own traffic expert, will be frequented by equal number of cars. All of this to be built immediately adjacent to previously existing single -family residential homes. All th e expert testimony that's going to be offered to you will not change any of that. I'm not detracting and I'm not adding to any of this. That is what you're being asked to do. At the end of the day, regardless of what testimony has been given, regardless of how high this berm is, at the end of the day, this proposal is unreasonable in its detail and it is unreasonable on its face. This is not -- this is not an acceptable precedent for future decisions. What we're d oing is we're trying -- in the event that we're trying to approve this -- and for the record, I don't believe that this Commission has made that determination. But in the event that we approve this, we have to make it work. We have to kind o f bend a little bit here, give a little bit here to try and accommodate this proposal. Please don't do that. All right? Please don't do that. I understand that tax revenue is an issue, but it is not the issue. There are more variables at p lay here and please take them all into consideration, as I'm quite certain that you will. Thank you. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I have a couple questions for Mr. Franken, if you would. MR. FRANKEN: Yes, sir. Absolutely. MR. PHIL IPCHUCK: Could you please show to the Commission where your home is actually? MR. FRANKEN: Oh, absolutely. Actually, that's a very good point and I'm glad you brought it up because I had every intention of doing that. And I will ans wer your questions, give me a little lead here. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: No. Just answer my question. MR. FRANKEN: Sure. Absolutely. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Please point out where the house is. MR. FRANKEN: I am right here. Right above my finger. (Indicating.) MR. PHILIPCHUCK: So you're up in this area, so --
MR. FRANKEN: Right above my finger. Yes. Absolutely. (Indicating.) MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Okay. So you're a block and a couple of houses, maybe a block and a h alf from the site? MR. FRANKEN: Does that make this any more reasonable? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Could you just answer my question, please? MR. FRANKEN: I just told you where I live. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: About a block and a half; is th at correct? MR. FRANKEN: Absolutely. I live right there. I'll point right to it. (Indicating.) MR. PHILIPCHUCK: And you mentioned that there were three instances, that there have been three excursions into this. The first one was when th e property was initially rezoned for residential -- MR. FRANKEN: The annexation agreement. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: -- and commercial? Excuse me. Would you just -- MR. FRANKEN: Sure. Go ahead. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Just a nswer the question. MR. FRANKEN: Yes. Absolutely. Go ahead. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: The first one was when the property was zoned residential and commercial; correct? MR. FRANKEN: What exactly are you referring to? MR. PHILIPCHUCK : Your reference to the -- this is the third time we've been down this road with regard to the property. MR. FRANKEN: Regarding this corner, yes. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: The first time was with regard to the addition -- MR. FRANKEN: You'r e not identifying the property. This corner here is our third excursion. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I'm talking -- MR. FRANKEN: Yes. Go ahead. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I'm talking about the subject property. MR. FRANKEN: Yes. MR. PHI LIPCHUCK: The first time was the initial zoning of the property for residential and commercial. MR. FRANKEN: Yes. The original annexation agreement. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: The second time was to accommodate the driveway realignment at the north end of the commercial piece; isn't that correct? MR. FRANKEN: The driveway realignment. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Yes. Yes. Because there
was -- there was no -- the driveway had to be moved to accommodate across the street -- MR. FRANKEN: Why would you -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: -- is that correct? MR. FRANKEN: -- need this drive here? This hasn't been zoned. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Do you know or don't you know the second time -- MR. FRANKEN: I know about the rezoning. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: The second time was to actually relocate the driveway to the north end of the commercial piece; isn't that correct? MR. FRANKEN: I know about the rezoning. That's all I know. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: And the third one is t he one that we're here for tonight? MR. FRANKEN: Exactly. Yes. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Thank you. That's all. MR. FRANKEN: Absolutely. Anything else? CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Do any of the Commissioners have any question s? (No response.) MR. FRANKEN: Thank you. MR. CONNORS: My name is Calvin Connors of 12440 Bob White Lane. I think Marty's talking about three times, one was originally when Pulte had presented their home p lan. They had asked for a little commercial along with the Target, and that was back in August of last year. They came back and asked for an additional for November. I came to fight both instances. But when I seen Pulte's plan, I said it w as a beautiful plan, I'm not going to fight it with just the retail up front. Mr. Sobkoviak made the comment that we need more commercial on the north side and I agreed. But not this. For the retail that was up here, I agreed be cause I'm thinking of beef stand, White Hen, a video store, nice and convenient. Okay? Target over here was okay. But this is the third time. And it went -- it's a classic case of give them an inch -- give an inch, they take a mile and thi s is wrong. This is wrong. I also would like to present my home value.
MR. DANIEL: Mr. Commissioner, if I might follow up with some questions for Mr. Connors. He is one of the individuals that I represent. Maybe I can help streamli ne his testimony. Mr. Connors, you tendered to the Commission an exhibit. How much did you pay for your home? MR. CONNORS: 208,000 -- or $205,000. MR. DANIEL: And why was it that you came to this particular location? M R. CONNORS: I liked Plainfield. I almost moved here about 12 years ago and came back to this location, although I did look at other sites; and had I known this, I certainly would have moved there. MR. DANIEL: Did you look at any other sites that were less attractive because of surrounding development? MR. CONNORS: Yes. Oh, yes. MR. DANIEL: Can you tell the Commission about those? MR. CONNORS: I almost bought a home years ago in Chicago next to -- MR. DANIEL: Just i n this particular location. MR. CONNORS: Oh. MR. DANIEL: When you were debating whether or not to purchase the home that you're currently in -- and while we're talking about that home, why don't you identify it for the Commission so that we can get past that. MR. CONNORS: My home would be right here. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: Do you know what lot number you are? MR. CONNORS: 43. MR. DANIEL: And Lot 43 is one lot north of the proposed Wal -Mart site or is it two lots? MR. CONNORS: I'm across the street. MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. CONNORS: Right there. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: Northwest corner -- MR. CONNORS: I would have -- I would have a frontal view from my loft, from -- a s ide view from my side window, and a back view from my bay extension window. MR. DANIEL: So you're saying that even with the berm that's been described, you could see over the berm to the roof of the Wal -Mart? MR. CONNORS: I've got -- I beli eve from my loft, yes. In fact, I'm almost sure of it. The loft,
the bedrooms, the front bedrooms, back bedroom. I'm going to see front, side, back. MR. DANIEL: Okay. We never did identify it for the record. If anyone else is testifying, they should just identify their lot by address or the northwest corner of an intersection. Why don't you tell us what northwest corner of what intersection. MR. CONNORS: Of Bob White Lane and Prairie Grove, slash, Falcon Lane. MR. D ANIEL: Okay. Now, when you were purchasing that particular home, what other parcels were you considering with homes on them in competition with this particular home? MR. CONNORS: At this subdivision? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Yes. MR. CONNO RS: I had looked at the end of the block at the -- at the model homes. There was -- it was limited on my particular house -- MR. DANIEL: And did your decision -- MR. CONNORS: -- the builder was building. MR. DANIEL: And did your d ecision to purchase the home at the intersection at that particular location have any relation to the continuity of Bob White Lane as it may have been planned to continue south? MR. CONNORS: My decision was my view. I enjoy my view all the way. I get to see land straight down this street, the -- part of the school is all grass, so I get to see that grass. I love my retention pond view. There is almost land that I can see from every -- from every angle. A very few houses that are ar ound me or close to me that would be. MR. DANIEL: Okay. With respect to your decision to purchase this home, were there other subdivisions that you looked at? MR. CONNORS: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And were those subdivisions located near a ny commercial development or planned commercial development that might have had an impact? MR. CONNORS: No. We -- we have encountered that in our past and we specifically targeted away from that. MR. DANIEL: Okay. With respect to the dete rmination of how you would list your home, once the Wal -Mart is in place, are there any considerations that you would think are factually relevant in your determination of your listing price for your home?
MR. CONNORS: Having encountered a possible purchase of a home in my past, I -- I would think I would have to market my house at -- at a very lower rate in order to sell it. MR. DANIEL: Why don't we just try to keep it to facts now. With respect to this development, how do you think this d evelopment would relate to that statement you just made? MR. CONNORS: I'm not quite sure I understand. MR. DANIEL: How would the development reduce your estimation of your expected sales price or list price? Let's say list price. MR . CONNORS: Because in -- in -- originally I'm thinking neighborhoods and we have kids and bikes; and now all of a sudden, I've got this big, huge commercial development next to me. I -- I would not buy next to it so, therefore, I wouldn't ex pect that somebody's going to buy my home. MR. DANIEL: You've seen the Exhibit 1 previously which is a drawing of the subdivision. In general terms, it showed 70 homes in that area where the Wal -Mart's proposed? MR. CONNORS: Oh, yes. Yes. That's what I went to fight for -- MR. DANIEL: And did you -- MR. CONNORS: -- last year. MR. DANIEL: -- see the planned -- did you see the planned extension of Bob White Lane? MR. CONNORS: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And how it continued to a point on 127th Street? MR. CONNORS: It was -- it was beautiful, yes. MR. DANIEL: Did you think that had any impact upon your use of traffic lanes, traffic patterns in the area, roadways that were available -- MR. CO NNORS: Definitely. MR. DANIEL: -- to you? MR. CONNORS: It would have made easier access to 127. I had different options then to get in and out of the subdivision. MR. DANIEL: You have children; right? MR. CONNORS: Yes, I d o. MR. DANIEL: And does this development impact how they may go to and from school or adjacent parks or other services that your children or your family uses? MR. CONNORS: Well, I will definitely be concerned when they go to Wilding Pointe and they've been rotated enough already through about three
schools. But somewhere over here is Wilding Pointe and that could be quite a danger -- dangerous walk now that I'm seeing the construction going on on 127 and no lights that seem to be in place. MR. DANIEL: Was it your understanding that your kids -- strike that. Are your kids walking to school today? MR. CONNORS: No. MR. DANIEL: Are they being bused? MR. CONNORS: But they're being bused t o Walker's Grove -- MR. DANIEL: Okay. MR. CONNORS: -- which they're moving next year to Wilding Pointe. MR. DANIEL: Have you received any -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Maybe I could take this down so he could show the Plan Commission. I think this aerial photo might help you. MR. DANIEL: Great. Thank you. Just so we can clarify the record, Wilding Pointe is located south and west of 127th and 59; right? 127th being right below the white square Mr. Abel superimp osed and 59 running to the east of that? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: This is Wilding Pointe and that's the school right there. (Indicating.) MR. CONNORS: The school I was talking is Walker's Grove. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Oh, Walker's Grove is right here. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: Where is Wilding Pointe to your understanding? Where is the plan for it? AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's not even built on that map yet. Right there. MR. CONNORS: I'm getting the impression it's here. (Ind icating.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. Right in there. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pretty accurate. MR. CONNORS: This is where Wilding Pointe -- COMMISSIONER SEGGEBRUCH: It's farther down. Keep dropping down. Right there is th e school. (Indicating.) MR. DANIEL: Now, did you receive any indication as to how your kids would get to school and home from school once Wilding Pointe was there? MR. CONNORS: Have I received any kind of notification? MR. DANIEL: Yeah.
MR. CONNORS: None that I know of. MR. DANIEL: Okay. So let's talk about how this is going to impact -- MR. CONNORS: But I had heard previous testimony that our children might have to walk, that they won't be bused. So if tha t is true, then it's going to affect me and my children, yes. MR. DANIEL: Was that at a public hearing of the school board? MR. CONNORS: No. It was at these meetings. I can't say who said it, but it certainly concerned me when they said t hat. MR. DANIEL: Well, if that was the fact then, it's your belief that it will be more dangerous for them; right? MR. CONNORS: Correct. MR. DANIEL: Okay. How about your commute, your driving in the area? How does the access from your home out Pasquinelli Drive change, if it changes at all? MR. CONNORS: Well, my morning starts at a little bit of an off hour and it doesn't take me long. I go up to Route 59 and Butterfield Road, and I'd say it takes me 20 minutes in the morni ng. Coming back at night, it -- during rush hour at 5:00 o'clock, which is the normal time that the rest of the people would get home, it takes me 45 minutes. So my 20 -minute ride is more than doubled and I'm going to presume wi th extra Wal -Mart traffic, it's going to increase. MR. DANIEL: Well, you heard the testimony about traffic impacts caused by the Wal -Mart when you were at these proceedings; right? MR. CONNORS: Yes. MR. DANIEL: And from that traffic impact, do you gauge any effects upon your ability to turn onto Route 59 from Pasquinelli in any direction? MR. CONNORS: It's very difficult to turn left or right -- or even right now and left is -- is very difficult. MR. DANIEL: Well, how do -- how do you see this development impacting your use of that intersection? MR. CONNORS: With at least a few thousand cars, it's going to be a tremendous impact. MR. DANIEL: What would your resulting action be if your use of that inters ection was more dangerous or involved more delays? MR. CONNORS: I've got to find alternative ways
to work and I think those are going to be longer. MR. DANIEL: And would those alternative ways carry you through neighborhood streets? MR. CONNORS: Oh, definitely. MR. DANIEL: And could you describe those streets for the Commission generally? You don't have to do it specifically now. I think they're familiar with the streets in the subdivision. MR. CONNORS: I mean, I wo uld definitely have to go out west towards -- towards Route 30 and then I'm going to have to backtrack from Route 30 back towards 59 when I get up -- up by Butterfield and get onto -- I forgot the name of the street -- Eola Road. MR. DANIEL: You re call the testimony from the appraiser, right, about different comparable locations that he selected in Northlake? MR. CONNORS: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Have you driven North Avenue near the intersection of 290 and 294? MR. CONNORS: Oh, yes. MR. DANIEL: And are you familiar with the rock quarry located behind the Wal -Mart there? MR. CONNORS: I can't say. MR. DANIEL: We'll take that as a no. How about the homes to the north of the Wal -Mart, the single fami ly? Are those homes anything similar to the home that you purchased or the homes that were planned for the area? MR. CONNORS: No. MR. DANIEL: And is it accurate to say that they are much lower priced homes and usually ranches or bungalows? MR. CONNORS: I would think so, yes. Being ranches and bungalows, yes. MR. DANIEL: Do you consider traffic patterns in your area to be different than those near 294 and 290 -- MR. CONNORS: Definitely. MR. DANIEL: -- at the intersection of North Avenue? MR. CONNORS: That's -- those are extremely busy intersections. MR. DANIEL: And you also heard testimony about the Wal -Mart store located in the City of Chicago, 103rd or so and Harlem, was it? MR. CONNOR S: Yes. MR. DANIEL: Are you familiar with that area of Chicago? MR. CONNORS: Vaguely. I'm familiar with
Harlem. 103rd I'm vaguely familiar with. MR. DANIEL: Do you recall the testimony about the industrial uses along the main tho roughfare north -south near that Wal -Mart? MR. CONNORS: Uh -huh. MR. DANIEL: Are there any industrial uses that you're familiar with that are in the immediate vicinity of your home or Champion Creek? MR. CONNORS: Not like it was descr ibed, no. MR. DANIEL: And there really aren't any industrial uses on the west side of 59; right? MR. CONNORS: No. There's all homes on -- on Route 59. MR. DANIEL: Is it accurate to say that you use downtown businesses when you can? MR. CONNORS: I -- I try to, yeah. Sure. MR. DANIEL: For what purposes? MR. CONNORS: Keep -- for one, keep Plainfield flowing and keep it going and -- and keep businesses going. MR. DANIEL: What about when you go out and bu y a product, say, sporting goods stores? Is there a sporting goods store or a golf store in downtown Plainfield? MR. CONNORS: I used to work for a sporting goods distributor, so I've got -- MR. DANIEL: I don't think I have anything further . Thank you. Mr. Philipchuck may have some questions. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: I've just got a couple of quick questions. MR. CONNORS: Sure. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Were you at the hearing when our appraiser gave his testimony? MR. CONNORS: Yes. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Do you recall the testimony that he gave with regard to the property values of the Wal -Mart at Higgins and Meacham in Schaumburg? MR. CONNORS: Yes. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Do you recall whether those property values were comparable or even higher than the values in your subdivision? MR. CONNORS: He had -- I think he had indicated they were comparable. I -- I don't think they're comparing an apple and apple home. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: And if the Wal -Mart wasn't constructed and the single -family development is delayed in being constructed, how would you then enter and exit the subdivision to your home?
MR. CONNORS: At this time? MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Yes. I mean -- MR. CONNO RS: I have that -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: -- right now there is no Bob White; correct? MR. CONNORS: Correct. Right now -- MR. PHILIPCHUCK: So if nothing's built there -- MR. CONNORS: Right now I have to try to get out on Route 5 9 or take the back roads and try to go up Route 30 and try to take the backside which is way out of the way. It's extra miles, so it's very difficult. MR. PHILIPCHUCK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Anyone else? MR. FRANKEN: Again, my name is Martin Franken, F -r -a -n -k -e -n. I apologize. I've been sitting here for four months itching to get in front of you, then I had a couple other points that I wanted to bring up. Actually, one of the most important ones that I wanted you to know. I remember the day, it was Wednesday, and I was reading the Plainfield Sun where I read about this, I first heard about this, this endeavor. And I wanted the Commission to know that after knowing -- learning of the annexation agreement, being intimately familiar with the additional rezoning, when I read that article, I went -- I don't know if you have ever truly been had, where you got hooked -- hook, line, and sinker and you -- that moment of realization. I wanted this Commission to understand that when that happened, that's how I felt. I felt like I had just been had, haven't I. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOBKOVIAK: Let's take 10 minutes. (Recess taken.) * * * * * STATE OF ILLINOIS ) ) SS. COUNTY OF K A N E ) I, Amy K. Bateman, CSR No. 84 -003803, RPR, do hereby certify that I reported in shorthand the proceedings had at the hearing of the abo ve -entitled cause and that the foregoing Report of Proceedings, Pages 1 through 194 inclusive, is a true, correct, and complete transcript of my shorthand notes so taken at the time and place aforesaid. I further certify that I am not counsel for nor in any way related to any of the parties to
this suit, nor am I in any way, directly or indirectly, interested in the outcome thereof. This certification applies only to those transcripts, original and copies, produced under my directi on 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 26th day of December, 2001. Certified Shorthand Reporter No. 84 -003803