Village of Bartlett Committee met January 4.
Here is the minutes provided by the Committee:
President Wallace called the Committee of the Whole meeting to order at 7:07 p.m.
Present: Trustee Camerer, Carbonaro, Deyne, Gabrenya, Hopkins, Reinke and President Wallace
Absent: None
Also Present: Village Administrator Paula Schumacher, Assistant Village Administrator Scott Skrycki, Economic Development Coordinator Tony Fradin, Finance Director Todd Dowden, Public Works Engineer Bob Allen, Asst. Building Director Don Fredericks, Grounds Superintendent Kevin DeRoo, Chief Patrick Ullrich, Deputy Chief Chuck Snider, Deputy Chief Geoff Pretkelis, Village Attorney Bryan Mraz and Village Clerk Lorna Giless.
Planning & Zoning Committee:
1. Southwest Corner of West Lake Street and Route 59 Rezoning Annexation
Chairman Hopkins stated that the Village of Bartlett is requesting the following: annexation and rezoning of the east lot and the west lot be changed from the ER-1 (estate residence) to B-4 (Community Shopping) zoning district.
Community Development Director Jim Plonczynski stated that the property is located at the southwest corner of West Lake Street and Route 59 and there are two parcels – east lot 3.5 acres, and west lot 7.4 acres. The parcels were purchased a number of years ago when the Village was entertaining a retail shopping center development and the Village created a TIF District. Because of the timing of the development, the east portion was never annexed. There were two other developments proposed at this location and neither of them were built or had any rezoning. Because this is in the TIF District and time is critical, the Village hired a consultant to do marketing of these properties. Staff felt that this would be a good opportunity to not only move forward with the zoning but also the annexation of the property. If there is a successful marketing effort and they have a sale, the property will be zoned and annexed and available for commercial development.
Trustee Deyne asked if this will improve the potential of selling the property.
Mr. Plonczynski stated that the broker felt that the uses they are marketing for are more commercial uses. He felt that it would help with the potential sale of the property.
Trustee Hopkins stated that from an economic standpoint, they would rather have a community shopping district than a residential district.
Mr. Plonczynski stated that was correct.
Trustee Camerer asked if there was any way to get another entrance off of Lake Street into that property?
Mr. Plonczynski stated “no”, the Village recently took over the curbed frontage road that IDOT dedicated. In two weeks, they are going to a preconstruction hearing for the intersection improvements of that at Route 59 and Lake Street. That is the designated collection and first access point west, other than the ramps. IDOT will not allow any other access points. He felt that it may be improved with the stoplight in the future, but not another access.
Attorney Mraz stated that when the property was looked at for a shopping center, it not only included that property west of that but also south of that. IDOT would not let it be much closer to the Route 20 intersection.
Bartlett Commons Shopping Center Outlots Concept Plan:
Trustee Hopkins introduced the Bartlett Commons shopping center outlet plan. He stated that before moving this forward the applicant wanted the Board’s input.
Mr. Plonczynski stated that Bartlett Commons shopping center is owned by Nico Scardino and he has discussed with the technical staff, the ability to do something similar to what was just done in the Home Depot outlot. His development proposal is to create two outlots. One would be on Stearns Road where the farmers market is currently occupying behind the BP gas station. The building would be 7,600 square feet and would have a drive thru. The other building is on the detention basin on the south entrance to the shopping center. The detention basin would have to be compensated and filled in and would also be required to provide other stormwater requirements. He is asking for some relief for parking similar to the variance that was granted to the Home Depot outlot. He is proposing to add ten new spaces on the north side and ten land bank spaces. The required parking is 5 per 1,000 and the property was granted a 4.5 per 1,000 variance back in 1989. They would like to maintain that same kind of parking ratio. They would have to meet stormwater requirements and the Village would like to see additional traffic analysis for these uses. There is currently 390 spaces and they will get into more detail analyzing it when they get into the uses. Mr. Scardino wanted to get additional feedback from the Board before he proceeds with a formal development proposal.
Trustee Deyne inquired about the stormwater detention and asked if it will be under one of the newly constructed buildings.
Mr. Plonczynski stated that they have a number of underground stormwater detentions – Toyko Steakhouse, Oberweiss shopping center, Jewel, CVS.
Trustee Deyne stated that he does not have a problem with the current parking ratio. His concern lies with the loss of handicapped parking spaces. Will there be any reductions?
Mike Anderson from Haeger Engineering stated that he has been working with Mr. Scardino on the site plan. They are conceptual at this point so they have not delineated where the handicapped spaces will be. The intent is to comply with the code requirements for handicapped parking and they are not asking for any reductions.
Mr. Plonczynski stated that they use the Illinois Accessibility Code and it is generally one handicapped space for twenty parking spaces. They will be spread throughout all the different uses in the shopping center. They would also require some to be in the area of the new buildings.
Trustee Deyne asked if they talked to any perspective tenants.
Mr. Scardino stated that they are working with SVN and have talked to a variety of interested parties. No one has given the commitment since the outlots are not available and the square footage is unknown. They had conversations with Panera Bread and his realtor has mentioned other unnamed parties.
Trustee Camerer stated that he was concerned about the parking. It is at a premium right now and he has heard residents that complained about towing of vehicles. Apparently, parking spaces are so prime that Mr. Scardino had to tow vehicles in order to open up spaces for the restaurants. If we lose parking spaces, how does that effect the current businesses in the shopping plaza.
Mr. Scardino stated that this occurred when Bannerman’s had an event in which there were designated reserved spots for his BBQ restaurant. If people are going to park in the designated reserved spots, it is like parking in a handicapped space.
Trustee Camerer stated “even late at night when other businesses are closed?”
Mr. Scardino asked if there was a time restraint with handicapped spots?
President Wallace stated that he would think it was just being a good neighbor.
Trustee Deyne didn’t understand how he could designate parking and then have cars towed away.
Mr. Scardino stated that when Bannerman’s had their events, people were filling up the entire parking lot and not allowing patrons that came to dine in his restaurant to have a parking spot.
Trustee Deyne thought it was a good idea to have patrons coming to his strip shopping center?
President Wallace stated that his restaurant was closed at the time.
Mr. Scardino denied that it was closed.
President Wallace stated that he had phone calls from several residents who indicated that their car had been towed.
Mr. Scardino stated that he only had cars towed during the time his restaurant was open.
President Wallace stated that the Board is making a good point. It is kind of ironic that we are talking about a parking variance when he personally had several complaints about being towed out of that lot. This tells him that there is not enough parking.
Mr. Scardino stated that there will not be any reserved parking spots in the future.
Trustee Deyne asked what the parking ratio was at Savoury Restaurant.
Mr. Plonczynski did not know the ratio but did not think they had any variances.
Trustee Deyne stated that their parking lot is consistently filled but he liked to see the businesses prosper.
He then talked about Bartlett Commons and the farmers market that occupies the south section of the parking lot and was told that they will be relocated elsewhere.
Trustee Hopkins stated that he also has concerns with the parking but he will wait for the traffic analysis. He asked for an overlay of how much space the farmers market occupied so he could compare it to the conceptual plan.
Trustee Gabrenya stated that she was not entirely satisfied with the answers regarding the traffic study at the Home Depot outlot. They did a traffic study of their parking lot and how it would affect the in/out of that parking lot. Her concern is the traffic on Route 59 and Stearns and adding two more potentially large businesses makes her a little nervous concerning volume and safety. What are we going to do as a Village to ensure that these extra outlets, both with drive-through’s, to ensure the safety of our residents in that already busy area?
Mr. Plonczynski stated that they have begun utility work on the intersection improvement which will include dual left turn lanes on all four legs. That was a safety designed intersection improvement that IDOT and DuPage County felt was necessary to handle the existing traffic. The analysis that their traffic people will do will calculate additional traffic that these uses bring to it and how they fit into that new circulation pattern. With the Home Depot outlot, they took into consideration, the future improvements. He felt that they will be able to tell us, based on the improvements made, that it will be able to support this amount of new traffic for the next twenty years.
Trustee Gabrenya stated that the difference, in her estimation, of the Home Depot outlets versus these outlots is that there are several small businesses within that development. Small businesses that could likely be more much more affected then a big box store like Home Depot. She felt it was the responsibility of this Board to also take those into consideration when we are adding more stress to that particular area. It may also be a deterrent to bring people to those businesses and sacrificing those businesses to bring in two new buildings does not make sense to her.
President Wallace stated that was a good point and he did not think Mr. Scardino would want that kind of mess in his shopping center. The changes in that intersection are going to be relatively profound and he didn’t think Mr. Scardino would be looking into making this expansion if he didn’t think it could handle the flow. We certainly have some questions to answer.
Finance & Golf Committee:
1. Standing Committee Structure Change
Trustee Deyne stated that the Village President requested an evaluation of the Standing Committee structure of the Village Board of Trustees. The cause of this review was a lack of items that fall under the Building Committee and the suggestion that it be combined with the Planning and Zoning Committee. Should the Board wish to combine these two committees, it was recommended that the Finance and Golf Committee split into two standing committees. This will keep the number of standing committees at six and better distribute the workload of the trustees. He stated that he did not have any objections.
President Wallace stated that he has been thinking about this for a year and this is the time to change the Committees as well as the Chairs.
Trustee Deyne stated that it makes sense to him to distribute the workload and make changes every two years.
Trustee Reinke stated that they should look at other communities and think about what each committee should be. It makes sense to reshuffle the deck.
President Wallace stated that he was thinking about leaving Finance and Golf alone and doing a Community Development Committee. Their primary objective would be to work with the Economic Development Commission and work on items progressing the TOD plan. He asked staff to bring other ideas for discussion at the next meeting.
Trustee Reinke stated that the Community Development Committee could incorporate things like the Bike and Run Committee and raise it up to the Board’s consciousness.
Chairman Deyne moved to adjourn the Committee of the Whole meeting and that motion was seconded by Chairman Camerer.
Roll Call Vote To Adjourn
Ayes: Chairman Camerer, Carbonaro, Deyne, Gabrenya, Hopkins, Reinke
Nays: None
Absent: None
Motion Carried
The meeting adjourned at 7:36 p.m.
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