Elburn Station vote pushed to next month
The Elburn Station development annexation likely won’t be voted on until mid-September after the board postponed a vote Monday night.
Village President Dave Anderson wants all trustees present for the vote, which was scheduled for Monday, given the size of the proposal and the controversy it has caused.
Trustee Jeff Walter had to travel out of town on business and missed Monday’s meeting. The board’s next meeting is Sept. 4, but Trustee Dave Gualdoni will be out of town on vacation.
“We’re in 2012; can’t we vote Skype?” Trustee Jerry Schmidt asked.
Elburn does not allow the president or trustees to attend meetings by telephone. Even if it did, state law says officials can only do so if they are ill or absent due to their employment. Vacation doesn’t qualify.
Given they weren’t going to vote on the development, trustees Monday refused to close the public hearing on it. The hearing has to be closed before a vote can be taken. The hearing began in May.
The development, which plans for some commercial and light industrial but is mostly residential, would straddle the Union Pacific Railroad tracks on the east side of town, between Route 38 and Hughes Road.
Monday night, opponents again asked the board to reject the plan. They fear the real estate market can’t absorb the nearly 2,000 housing units planned, and suggested the village concentrate on getting empty lots in the Blackberry Creek subdivision built first, and help residents of foreclosed homes throughout the village. They fear their property taxes will increase to provide services, such as utilities and schools, for the new development.
Trustee William Grabarek has said previously he feels the village is being held “hostage” by the Anderson Road extension and bridge component, in which the developer is willingly selling land for the right of way to Kane County. Anderson would bisect the development, and the developer considers the Anderson extension key to the development.
Grabarek would prefer that the bridge be built first and then have the village consider what to develop around it. He also thinks a vote should be postponed until after the village adopts an updated comprehensive land use plan.
Some residents who oppose the development have questioned why Kane County hasn’t taken land for the bridge through condemnation. In June the county board authorized the chairman to execute purchase contracts, totaling about $2.15 million, for the rights of way on various parcels. If the contracts were done this summer, the county had hoped to begin construction in the fall.
If the annexation is denied and the land isn’t developed, the county could still take the land by eminent domain, Anderson said. And the delay in the vote “does nothing as far as holding back progress on the bridge,” he said.