North Cook News

Village of Bartlett Committee of the Whole met April 3.

Here is the minutes provided by the Committee:

President Wallace called the Committee of the Whole meeting to order at 7:40 p.m.

Present: Chairmen Camerer, Carbonaro, Deyne, Gabrenya, Hopkins, Reinke, and President Wallace

Absent: None

Also Present: Village Administrator Paula Schumacher, Assistant Village Administrator Scott Skrycki, Management Analyst Sam Hughes, Economic Development Coordinator Tony Fradin, Human Resources Director Janelle Terrance, Finance Director Todd Dowden, Community Development Director Jim Plonczynski, Assistant Community Development Director Roberta Grill, Director of Public Works Dan Dinges, Public Works Engineer Bob Allen, Water Supervisor Tom Ruzicka, Building Director Brian Goralski, Assistant Golf Professional Paul Galvan, Chief Patrick Ullrich, Deputy Chief Geoff Pretkelis, Deputy Chief Chuck Snider, Village Attorney Bryan Mraz and Village Clerk Lorna Giless.

Community & Economic Development, Chairman Gabrenya:

1. Review of Bid for Village Owned Property – Site E in Town Center Subdivision

Chairman Gabrenya stated that several months ago, the Board discussed the possibility of working towards a proposal for the parcel owned by the Village on Railroad Avenue and she asked the Economic Development Coordinator to explain.

Economic Development Coordinator Tony Fradin stated that this is a result of the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Plan that was formally adopted by the Board in October of 2016. As a component of this plan, the consultants and those who worked on the plan identified several key parcels in the downtown area where new residential development could be located including a 1.87 acre parcel at the southwest corner of E. Railroad and Berteau owned by the Village. The site is identified as Opportunity Site E in the TOD Plan and was categorized as a near term development site (1 to 3 years).

Due to changing demand, a rental apartment development is more feasible than condominium buildings. Staff brought a proposed request for proposals document that they crafted with the village attorney.

Foxford Communities, an active developer of apartment projects in area communities including Lake Zurich, Oswego, Hawthorn Woods, Countryside, Lake Bluff, Barrington, Glenview and others, submitted the lone bid and submitted all of the required documents for this proposal.

Foxford proposes a 254’ x 77’ building comprised of forty-one (41) rental apartments, with twenty-one (21) two bedroom units and twenty (20) one bedroom units. They propose the one bedroom units renting in the $1,500 and up range and the two bedroom units renting for $1,900 and up.

An interesting and creative architectural aspect of their proposal is that the front elevation of the building has been designed to appear to be nine row houses rather than a traditional apartment building. Foxford has designed the building in this manner in an effort to create a tasteful transition area between the Bartlett Town Center condo buildings to the west and the Asbury Place townhome development to the east.

Foxford Communities proposes to close on the property for a price of $662,500, which slightly exceeds the minimum $660,000 price as required for bidders on this Village owned property. Please note that Foxford requests a closing credit of $8,000 in lieu of the Village providing the ALTA survey. Financials were provided to Village Attorney Mraz for his review. They would be required to pay for all building permit fees and review fees. They propose a $6.8 million dollar budget for this project.

Per the RFP timetable as presented to the Committee of the Whole this past December, staff had proposed the submittals to be sent to the Economic Development Commission for their review and recommendation. Taking into account that only one submittal was received, staff requests this item to be forwarded directly to the Village Board for its consideration.

He stated that Tim Kellogg, a representative of Foxford Communities was there to answer any questions.

Chairman Carbonaro asked how many rental units there were and how many parking spaces.

Mr. Fradin stated 41 rental units and 71 parking spaces (1.73 per unit).

Chairman Deyne asked what the timeline was for buildout.

Tim Kellogg stated that once they would close on the project, it would take about two months to get the site conditions and groundbreaking work, then approximately twelve months to go vertical (weather permitting).

Attorney Mraz stated that the RFP was set up to be contingent upon zoning. They have to amend the PUD and some other zoning requirements. Once they get all the approvals to build, the mentioned timeframe would kick in. At that time, the property would be closed on.

Chairman Gabrenya asked why the TOD stipulated apartments instead of condominiums. She asked if staff was concerned that there was only one bid for this property.

Mr. Fradin stated that it was a little surprising that there was only one because a number of other parties were inquiring and investigating. They gave several reasons for not submitting and one was the asking price and also lack of TIF incentives. He stated that there were a number of reasons for apartments versus condominiums. The largest one being general market forces and the lack of new condominium developments throughout suburban downtowns over the past several years. He would estimate that the last 20+ calls that he has had on these types of projects have all been apartments. This is happened throughout the suburban market as well.

Chairman Camerer stated that he specifically asked staff to go to the condominium association for Bartlett Town Center and get feedback and information from them. Was that ever followed through on? What kind of feedback did we get from the condominium association?

Ms. Schumacher stated that they have heard from some of the condominium owners regarding the rental price point of the apartments and they felt that it was commensurate with the condominiums.

Chairman Reinke stated that with the market conditions being what they are, if you can’t lease it at the published price point, theoretically you would drop your price point.

Ms. Schumacher stated that the condominiums marketed for rent in the Town Center have similar rent prices.

Chairman Reinke stated that one of the perennial concerns he has is parking. Once something like this is built, it is very difficult to add additional parking. He believed that a successful project such as this will rise and fall because of parking. People don’t have the patience for parking issues. If there is spillover parking in adjacent developments, people are going to be unhappy about it.

Chairman Gabrenya inquired if bringing in an apartment building affects the values of the condominiums? Do we as a Board, need to be cognizant of that?

Mr. Fradin stated that it is not part of the submittal to determine what kind of affect these apartments might have on property values. In terms of the architecture of the site, the number of units, the way they fit in with the existing buildings, are not greatly at odds with surrounding area. They are not anticipating it to have a negative effect on the downtown. He thought it would bring some new construction, new projects, new customers for local businesses as well. Because of the transit oriented nature, some percentage of them are people who use the Metra station to commute downtown. It will be more of a plus to the downtown area than a detractor.

Chairman Camerer stated that ultimately, we don’t have any control over those price points. It is simply the builder’s choice to indicate the rent amount. He stated that they are not anticipating low income housing but that is certainly something we would not want.

Chairman Reinke stated that the $8,000 for the ALTA survey is a little bit heavy but considering that the developer’s proposing to pay the freight, review fees and the connection fees, etc. it seems a relatively reasonable amount.

Administrator Schumacher stated that their next step is to bring this to the Board for approval and move it through the traditional site plan approval process.

Building & Zoning, Chairman Hopkins:

1. Discussion of Chickens in Residential Districts

Chairman Hopkins stated that during the “New Business” portion of the January 16th Village Board meeting, he brought up the issue of a resident who was denied a chicken license due to a smaller than required lot size and the current regulations do not allow for a variation request.

Community Development Director Jim Plonczynski stated that they had a discussion because one of the chicken license applicants did not meet the minimum square foot lot size of 8,000 SF and there is no variance process. At that time, the consensus was to wait until the first year had passed. The Village has issued four licenses in the last year and denied one, with a maximum of 25 lots to be licensed throughout the Village.

Chairman Deyne asked why there was not a variance process.

Village Attorney Bryan Mraz stated that they did not include a variation process and Chairman Hopkins had raised this issue as well. He stated that even with a variation process there is still a maximum variation and you still have to get into the standards for what a variation is. Our variation standards now that we have for zoning variations did not apply. It could be amended to provide some variation process. It cannot be open- ended, and there will always be somebody who is just beyond that. It may just be square footage of the yard, it is really just a function of how close the chickens are to the neighbors. There was not a process built into the original ordinance and it became an issue when a couple of interested parties were just below the threshold that the Board set. The Board wanted to sit back and see what the demand and impact was. If the Board wishes to modify the ordinance or add a variation process, we can do that.

Chairman Deyne asked if the demand was pretty steady for the four permits or the one that has not qualified?

Mr. Plonczynski stated that they have had other inquiries that had not met the 8,000 SF requirement. So far they have not received any applications.

Chairman Hopkins stated that he thought the variance process was very typical in construction and building. This particular instance he thought they were better off just allowing people in residential zoning districts to have chickens as long as they meet the requirements of the setbacks and have the area for the run and the coop. He thought that was enough restrictions. He thought that 8,000 SF was just an arbitrary number that doesn’t really mean anything. You allow people to have cats and dogs that don’t even have yards.

Chairman Camerer agreed with Chairman Hopkins. He asked what the square footage was on smaller lots in the village?

Mr. Plonczynski stated that the smallest single-family lot size is 6,000 SF.

Chairman Camerer stated that they have had only four permits in a year and agreed if they have smaller lots, but still meet the setbacks, they should be allowed.

Chairman Reinke stated that he thought there should be some sort of simplified variance process. He stated that there was a lady in his neighborhood whose lot backs up to the Route 59 sound wall. Clucking chickens are not going to be a sound issue at this location. Things like surveys, site plans, landscaping plans, are part of the currency of what you do for a living but for most residents they are very intimidating and can be very expensive. If we could just make it so a resident could come in, file some paperwork and have some meaningful standards for staff, he thought it would be a great thing to do.

Chairman Hopkins inquired about Provision “B” – removing the sunset clause that expires on March 21, 2019 which would basically repeal this whole ordinance.

President Wallace stated that he did not want to repeal the sunset clause since anyone acquiring chickens in this first year would have started with chicks. He wanted to wait until we had full size chickens for a year.

Chairman Camerer suggested bringing the “bee” license requirements down to a minimal lot size as well so more people can have bees.

Chairman Reinke suggested extending the sunset provision for number of years to allow the chicks to mature and for us to build experience in town.

Chairman Hopkins suggested changing it to 2022.

President Wallace suggested extending it for a couple of years. He stated that he was not a big fan of making the lot size smaller.

Attorney Mraz stated that at least two Board members supported the smaller lot size of 6,000 SF and Chairman Reinke talked about the variation process. He asked for some direction on how to proceed.

President Wallace stated that the Board was in agreement for allowing chickens on the smaller lot size as long as the setbacks are met and it is a single family home.

Chairman Reinke stated that staff does need to look at the setbacks and the context of the 6,000 SF lot so we don’t put ourselves into a corner, in case you would need a variance process.

2. Southwest corner of West Lake Street & Route 59 Annexation

Mr. Plonczynski stated that this was brought before the Board at the Committee level it is now being marketed by a broker. They have gone through the process with the Plan Commission and they looked at:

A) Annexation of the east lot (3.6 acres)

B) Rezoning the east lot (3.6 acres), upon annexation, and the west lot (7.2 acres) from the ER-1 (Estate Residence) to the B-4 (Community Shopping) Zoning District.

He stated that they would like to at least move on the annexation of the property. When they have the development proposals for this site from the brokers they can determine which way we are going to go with zoning. The development proposals may not take the entire parcel. Years ago, this area was planned for commercial development and some of it is zoned commercial and some remains ER-1 zoning. He stated that where Mr. Thomas lives, it is zoned multi-family SR-6, primarily characterized by townhomes. They would like to move forward with the annexation of this property which would require a public hearing in front of the Board as well as an annexation ordinance approving this.

Attorney Bryan Mraz stated that it may not require a public hearing since there is not an annexation agreement with ourselves or a plan as to what the development may be. He stated that the public hearing would be on what the zoning proposal would be after it has been annexed.

Chairman Reinke asked why the Village did not annex this property when they bought it.

Mr. Plonczynski stated that when they bought this property and created the TIF district, the piece to the west was going to be a church. They were worried that they would lose a parcel that was commercially zoned and developed so they bought it and moved the church site further west.

Attorney Mraz stated that the owner of this piece was not interested in selling or annexing it at the time the TIF was created. He was not sure why it wasn’t annexed after that.

President Wallace asked if a developer owned the adjacent B-4 property?

Mr. Plonczynski stated “yes” and they have a meeting with the owner tomorrow. They were the owners and developers of the townhome project developer to the west (Town and Country Homes).

President Wallace stated that he didn’t see any hesitation in annexing it.

Chairman Reinke stated that it is not only the annexation but the rezoning. He understood that Mr. Thomas was concerned for his neighborhood. However, when this property is reasonably developed, he is going to see the increase in traffic and there is going to be changes. That is unfortunate because the rezoning makes sense, and it is consistent with the area. When they do finally get a developer he hopes they will get somebody that will pay attention to the traffic and the traffic flow as well as site access.

President Wallace stated that this is the outfall and downfall of Lake Street - there are a lot of cars going down there.

Mr. Plonczynski stated that the unfortunate thing about the adjacent B-4 property is that it will have access through Horizon Drive. Even though they touch Route 59 there is no access to it. IDOT will not give them a curb cut. They would need to get some land assembly with the property owners to the south to get access onto Route 59 or from the Village parcel.

There being no further business to discuss, Chairman Deyne moved to adjourn the Committee meeting and that motion was seconded by Chairman Carbonaro.

Roll Call Vote To Adjourn

Ayes: Chairmen Camerer, Carbonaro, Deyne, Gabrenya, Hopkins, Reinke

Nays: None

Absent: None

Motion Carried

The meeting adjourned at 8:24 p.m.

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