Property owner moves forward with hopes to amend Huntley’s Gateway Plan despite some public upset

HUNTLEY – At the June 24 Village Board meeting, Huntley Development Limited Partnership (HDLP) requested that the board review conceptual plans to have parcels of vacant property rezoned.

HDLP’s plan would involve rezoning property at the northeast corner of Route 47 and Freeman Road from a “C-2” Regional Retail District to a “BP” Business Park District.

Parcels located at the northwest corner of Route 47 and Jim Dhamer Drive would be rezoned from “O” Corporate Office Districts and a “P” Park and Open Space District to allow more Regional Retail Districts, a Business Park district, and a new Park and Open Space District.

For the rezoning of the properties to take place, the village would then need to amend portions of the I-90/Illinois 47 Gateway Plan to accommodate the changes.

Having gotten the village board’s feedback, HDLP moved to petition their rezoning request at the Aug. 9 Plan Commission hearing.

This is HDLP’s second attempt at having their rezoning request granted as their first request failed to pass at the March 12, 2020 Village Board meeting.

The biggest opposition against HDLP’s petition came from Sun City residents who live in Neighborhood 32B. The rezoning requests on the northwest corner of Route 47 and Jim Dhamer Drive would reduce the amount of park and open space behind homes in that area.

Sun City Neighborhood 32B resident Ken Woods highlighted the concerns that other residents in attendance shared.

“The [Gateway] plan recognized that this neighborhood at Sun City, 32B [in] particular, those residents will be affected by anything happening right behind their house. Obviously, Sun City is a high-density type area and so open space is very important to us, and putting anything right behind [our] house is going to affect us greatly,” Woods said.

Phil Waters, a representative of Horizon Group Properties a marketing consulting firm working on behalf of HDLP, stated that rezoning the currently vacant parcels would allow for better marketing to garner more interest from developers.

“What I’m trying to do is get the land developed which is a benefit to the overall community. Brings in jobs, property tax dollars. It provides complimentary services meaning it’ll bring restaurants in so that people with their jobs can eat. Under the current zoning, there can be these multi-story buildings that I can’t hide under [trees]…I’m not out to harm you. I’m out to help the overall community,” Waters said.

Plan Commission chairman Tom Kibort agreed that the market has changed since the Gateway Plan’s conception, however, he was concerned that HDLP was asking the village to make amendments to the Gateway Plan without there being any known developers interested in those properties.

Kibort asked if HDLP was willing to consider the possibility of shifting the north line of Parcel three approximately 153 feet south which would then reduce the amount of land rezoned as “C-2” Regional Retail on the west side of Route 47 by approximately 1.5 acres.

Waters said that they would need to check with the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) if that could be accommodated due to spacing requirements, but requested that the Plan Commission grant conditional approval to present to the Village Board.

Woods objected to the commission’s proposal stating that developers would run into trouble developing that area because of traffic issues and flooding that occurs in the nearby Eakin Creek. He questioned why that “little sliver of land” was so important to the village.

Plan Commission vice-chair Dawn Ellison expressed that retail will eventually come to develop that area someday, also stating that it was no different than when Del Webb came to the village 25 years ago and took away farmland through its development.

“We face the fact that we have 10,000 homes in Del Webb. We face the fact that we have Talamore. Now we have Amazon. It’s coming. So, if we can add a couple more acres on to the back of [those homes], I would rather do it now than having it ran down our throat later,” Ellison said.

Commission member Ron Hahn agreed with voting in favor of Kibort’s suggestion to try to “make the best of it for the Village of Huntley and also try to make it better for Del Webb.”

After the public hearing concluded, Kibort made the call for a motion to approve HDLP’s conditional petition request.

The motion for the request failed to pass through the Plan Commission with a 3-2 vote.

Despite the upset with Sun City residents and the unfavorable outcome of the Plan Commission hearing, HDLP will once again be bringing its rezoning request before Huntley’s Village Board at the Aug. 26 meeting.

If the motion request fails to pass at this meeting, HDLP will have to wait yet another year before they can submit another rezoning request. Additionally, each rezoning request must have significant changes from the prior requests presented to village trustees.