PLAN REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETING BEFORE THE VILLAGE OF NORTHFIELD PLAN AND ZONING COMMISSION

PLAN REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETING BEFORE THE VILLAGE OF NORTHFIELD PLAN AND ZONING COMMISSION COMMISSION REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS had before the Village of Northfield Plan and Zoning Commission taken at the Northfield Village Hall, Board Room, Northfield, Illinois on the nd day of October, 0, at the hour of :0 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: BILL VASELOPULOS, Chairman THOMAS BOLLING DAN deloys TRACEY MENDREK TODD BERLINGHOF KATHY ESTABROOKE E. LEONARD RUBIN CONNIE BERMAN MEMBERS ABSENT: STEVEN HIRSCH ALSO PRESENT: STEVE GUTIERREZ, Community Development Director PATRICK GLENN, Village Engineer

0 0 CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the Plan & Zoning Commission. My name is Bill Vaselopulos, I'm Chairman of the Commission. At this time, I'd like the Commissioners to introduce themselves, starting with Connie. MS. BERMAN: Connie Berman. MR. RUBIN: Leonard Rubin. MS. ESTABROOKE: Kathy Estabrooke. MR. BERLINGHOF: Todd Berlinghof. MS. MENDREK: Tracey Mendrek. MR. DELOYS: Dan deloys. MR. BOLLING: Tom Bolling. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Thank you very much. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to conduct a public hearing and to consider and discuss these requests for approval of special permits located at: 00 Happ Road, Petitioner is Alan Denenberg and Todd Denenberg; and what's called the Willow Road PUD located at 0, 0,,, 0, 0 and Willow Road, the Petitioner's name is R Northfield, LLC. The public hearing format will provide an overview of these proposals and a forum for public comment and input. This Commission is a recommending

0 0 body only, and we will forward our recommendations to the Village President and the Board of Trustees for final determination on whether or not to grant these items before us today. The Board will then consider these items that are being discussed today at the next Board meeting which is Tuesday, October th, 0 at :00 p.m. right here in this board room. Commission meetings require that all persons wishing to be heard and to enter testimony must be sworn in. This includes all petitioners and individuals with the petitioners and any interested parties or other property owners. Following the petitioner's presentation and after the Commission has had an opportunity to ask questions and discuss amongst ourselves, then all other interested parties will be given an opportunity to speak. Prior to speaking, we request that all parties step forward to the microphone, be sworn in, and provide their name, address, and interest in this matter for the record. These proceedings are being recorded, and that is why we request you speak only at the podium where the microphone is located. The first order of business is to pass

0 0 the minutes from our last meeting from -- I'm looking for the date, I apologize. September th, 0. Is there a motion? MR. BERLINGHOF: Motion to approve. MR. BOLLING: Second. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: All those in favor? (Chorus of ayes.) CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Motion carries, thank you very much. Our first petition before us will be 00 Happ Road. Petitioner's name is Alan Denenberg and Todd Denenberg. But before they step to the microphone, Steve, do you have any introductory comments? MR. GUTIERREZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Petitioners are seeking a special use in order to operate a pizza restaurant at 00 Happ Road as you indicated. This particular tenant space used to be occupied by another pizzeria which has subsequently closed. The property is zoned Village Center VC, and restaurants are a special use in the Village Center, thus requiring them to be here tonight. The restaurant as proposed would be open

0 0 seven days a week. The Petitioner intends to have up to four full-time employees and part-time employees, with five employees working in the restaurant at the same period of time, up to five working in the restaurant at the same period of time, and up to five delivering pizzas. Again, this is on their busiest nights that they would anticipate. They will have counter service, takeout, and delivery. They will have some tables and chairs in the restaurant as well as have some in the patio of the restaurant front, at the front of the front doors. They will not be making any changes to the building facade or any exterior improvements such as landscaping or lighting or anything like that. They will be reconfiguring the layout slightly to install a handicap accessible restroom towards the front of the facility or the tenant space and convert a restroom they have in the back into an office. The Petitioner requires a variation to the off-street parking requirement for this center. The center has parking spaces which are commonly used by all of the tenants. There are none that are reserved for certain tenants. The code requires parking

0 0 spaces for this current tenant mix. Now, Staff would suggest that this type of use is a known commodity in the center. We have not experienced, we did not experience parking issues with the previous pizzeria. Again, that use is less or more intense than the proposed use. So, Staff is comfortable in that the parking lot should accommodate the proposed use. That said, we would still suggest, if this is approved, that the Petitioner be required to have their employees park in the remote areas of the center's parking lot. The very north portion of the parking lot is the least used as is the south portion after the workout facility has closed. So, basically, in evenings, that south portion of the lot is not used very much. So, other than that, that is what we have for you for this petition. The Petitioners are here. They're prepared to make a short presentation if you'd like, or to simply answer your questions. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay, thank you, Steve. Would the Petitioners like to step forward to the microphone? State your name and be sworn in please.

0 0 MR. ALAN DENENBERG: My name is Alan Denenberg. This is my son Todd Denenberg. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Steve is going to swear both of you at the same time. MR. GUTIERREZ: Please raise your right hand. (Witnesses sworn.) CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Do you have a few prepared remarks? MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alan Denenberg, this is my son Todd Denenberg. We are here in order to request a special use to operate a pizzeria in the formerly established pizzeria restaurant. Most of the items that I was going to speak of to present to you, Mr. Gutierrez has just told you about it. So, I don't want to repeat everything he said. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Stole your thunder, huh? MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes. MR. GUTIERREZ: Sorry. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: So, he took all my thunder away. My son and I have been in the business for almost 0 years, in the pizza business. We own a

0 0 couple of other pizza businesses. I think we would be an asset to the community, and in the community that we're in. We do a lot of community work and a lot of charitable work. We would continue on that same way in this establishment. Do you have anything to say? MR. TODD DENENBERG: No, I don't think I do. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: I would like to answer any questions that there might be. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: What other establishments do you currently have? MR. ALAN DENENBERG: We have two establishments in Glen View called Viccino's Restaurant, a pizzeria. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay, I didn't know that. MR. GUTIERREZ: Didn't either. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Well, this space was occupied by Viccino's at one point. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes, but we were not involved in that restaurant. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: You're using a different name now? MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes, we are. It's called

0 0 Northshore Pizza. MR. RUBIN: The burning question I have is are you serving deep dish or thin crust. MR. TODD DENENBERG: Of course, of course. Both. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: What is your favorite? MR. TODD DENENBERG: Both? MR. RUBIN: Both, absolutely. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes. The answer is yes. MR. RUBIN: Good, thank you. MR. BERLINGHOF: I'll make a motion. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Does anyone else have, one second. Does anyone else have any other questions or comments? Does anyone from the audience have any other questions or comments? MR. MILLER: I do. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: If you would please step to the microphone? MR. MILLER: Certainly. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: For Petitioners, you can just step to the side. You can stay up there, you may have to answer a question here. No, you're fine. You're fine right there. If you would state your name

0 0 0 and please be sworn in? MR. MILLER: My name is Ira Miller. I live at 0 Happ. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Great, thank you. (Witness sworn.) MR. MILLER: I sort of hate to throw cold water on what is a kumbaya moment obviously. However, I live immediately adjacent to the location of these premises. I watched the delivery people park all over the place. They park in the handicap zone where they pick up, the handicap bus picks up a person who lives in our building who is handicapped, they observed nothing in the way of decorum with regard to the way they park. For that reason and if no other, you have two other entities in that building that are also given special use because there isn't adequate parking. If the Village thought that the off-street parking limits were appropriate, they would have not, or inappropriate, they would have given you the ability to use special use on everything. But instead, every time somebody comes to rent the premises there, they appear before this Board to get special use. Either we've got a zoning ordinance or we

0 0 don't. Because of the way that prior pizza establishments have operated with their delivery people, I respectfully request that you take a real good hard look at this and perhaps deny the facility. I'll answer any questions anybody has. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: One of the things I think in our motion is that delivery people shall not park in the parking lot in front of the restaurant. Now, we can make it part of this motion, that's up to the Village obviously or the tenants that are next to it to make sure that happens. The only thing we can do other than, this is a new operator, the old operator obviously is gone, the old operator had some issues, this is a new operator. That's been in use, it's been there for a long time. So, I do think that it's important that we make sure those problems were fixed. But it's going to be also up to the Village, because these issues do happen, that you tell the Village so they can police that issue, especially when -- MR. MILLER: It's just, it's the nature of the delivery people. They're always in a hurry. They park wherever, they park without any decorum at all. In

0 0 addition, when they're hanging out in the back of the place, they throw garbage on our lawns. The delivery people like this are a real problem. But that's not -- MR. BERLINGHOF: Well, it's the owner and the manager that you should be talking to. MR. MILLER: Well, but the real problem is the parking because they do in fact occupy and block the handicap parking. This is to the south end where they park. I don't know if you're familiar with this lot as you sit here. But the south end is where they all park and their cars are askew all the time. Their parking is a nightmare and I've observed it for years when Viccino's was there. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Yes, so the delivery is supposed to be done in the back of the store, not in the front of the store, and they're parking in the southern part of the parking lot around the corner near the handicap spots there. MR. MILLER: And that's where their problem is. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Those are the ones you're concerned about, right? MR. MILLER: Yes.

0 0 CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: If the Petitioner would like to step forward and maybe address this? MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes, I'd like to. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: And what you plan to do about this? MR. ALAN DENENBERG: I can't speak as to what happened before. I can only say if any of these problems do arise, I would give him my name and my personal number, he can call me and I will address those and take care of the problem if it did arise. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Would you notify all of your delivery people? Some of them would maybe be new and different. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: No question about it, yes. We want to be a good -- CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Even those are not new and different, they may be violating the location that they can park. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Yes, we would like to be a good neighbor, because that's good for our business if we're a good neighbor. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay, thank you. MR. MILLER: I've done this little walk before

0 0 with the prior management. They all said we'll address that. For a day or two, it was addressed, and then the delivery people, by their nature, because of the speediness of which they are expected to deliver and do things, it just doesn't work. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: If the Petitioner is, they've reached out to you and they are willing to work with you. If they are not meeting, you know, the needs as you see it, this is a condition of their special use, that the delivery has to be in proper parking spaces in or around the back, then you can bring it to the Village and the Village can enforce the provision in the special use. So, if for some reason they are not being cooperative, which I'm not saying they won't because they will be very cooperative, but you can always come to the Village if you feel that they are not addressing your concerns. MR. MILLER: Will the Police Department enforce that? CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: I can't speak for the Police Department, but that's something that you can bring up with the Village Community Development Department or Steve. He then can forward that to the

0 0 appropriate authorities. MR. MILLER: Thank you for listening. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Thank you. Does anyone else in the audience have any questions or comments? Any other questions or comments from the Commission? Would someone like to make a motion? MR. BERLINGHOF: I do. I would make a motion to recommend to the Village Board approval of a Special Use and off-street parking variation in order to operate a restaurant at 00 Happ Road in accordance with the Petitioner's applications and supportive materials dated stamped August th, 0 subject to conditions one through. MR. RUBIN: Second. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: All those in favor? (Chorus of ayes.) CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Motion carries. Thank you very much to both of you. MR. TODD DENENBERG: Thank you. MR. ALAN DENENBERG: Thank you, gentlemen. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: The next item before

0 0 us is the Willow Road PUD. The address is, I'll read them off again, on Willow Road are 0, 0,,, 0, 0 and. Petitioner's name is R Northfield, LLC. Before I throw it over to Steve to introduce this item and give us more details, I want to announce that Connie Berman, one of our Commissioners, the business that she works at has a relationship with this Petitioner. So, she is recusing herself due to that conflict of interest. So, she will not participate in any deliberations, nor will she be able to vote. She just will abstain from voting. Steve, do you have any introductory comments? MR. GUTIERREZ: I have to apologize. The Petitioner provided us the PowerPoint at the last second. We did not have a chance to bring this up previously. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay. MR. GUTIERREZ: So, if you don't mind maybe taking a five-minute break? I'd like to get this PowerPoint running for them. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay, we'll recess for

0 0 five minutes and we'll adjourn at :. We will adjourn and resume at :, I apologize. Thank you for the correction. (Off the record.) CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay, everyone, we're going to resume our meeting. If you could have a seat please? I've already announced the next item before us. I mentioned that Connie asked to recuse herself. Before the Petitioners step up, Steve is going to give some introductory comments and recap where we're at with this. This is a petition that's been before us before. Then after the Petitioner is done with their presentation, I'm going to ask Steve to recap some of the items that the Commissioners need to focus on as we consider this. This is a multi, there are many issues within this petition and we want to make sure we're looking at everything in the right way. So, Steve? MR. GUTIERREZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to recap real quickly, on July th, the Plan and Zoning Commission held their first hearing on this project which is a proposed planned unit development and a proposed preliminary plat of subdivision. The

0 0 Petitioner, since that initial hearing, has revised, has submitted a set of revised plans which increases the land area dedicated to the stormwater facilities, it reduces the number of homes from to, and it widens the proposed roadway from feet to feet. It adds a three-foot carriage walk on the east side of the street which reduces the front yard setbacks as a result from, the closest front yard was at feet, and now it's proposed I believe at although I think on one of the plans it shows feet inches. I believe the Petitioner indicates that they're actually proposing -foot front yard setback. Again, this is the home that would be the closest to the street. They have also eliminated the walking paths that had the underground detention facilities in the first plan, as well as the look-out deck that they had proposed at the edge of one of the detention basins. The primary submittal that they've provided maintains the two restricted access entrances. So, there are two entrances, both with right-in and right-out where you can only pull up the roadway, the little road to pull into, and make a right turn into the development. Turning out of the development, you can

0 0 only make a right turn onto Willow Road. The Petitioner has also submitted an alternate site plan that provides full access at the entrance, the southernmost entrance onto Willow Road. I'm going to refer to the first with the two restricted access entrances as Plan A, and the alternate with the one full access entrance as Plan B going forward here. In this alternate plan they have, it involves the removal of a planted portion of the Willow Road right of way. There is a raised median that extends from Chapel Hill down to Wagner, and a good half of that raised median is planted with landscaping, a couple of trees, some bushes, and ground cover and grasses. In this proposed alternate Plan B, it would actually eliminate all that landscaping in order to accommodate the leftturn lane that they're proposing. The plan also, this alternate Plan B, also involves the use of a small piece of Village property that they would need to, in order to align this full access entrance with Chapel Hill where there is currently a break in the median, in order to do that, they would need to bend their roadway through this small piece of Village property at the southern tip of the

0 0 0 site. Now, I just want to clarify, and I'm sure they'll give you all the details on the site plan. I just want to clarify that that triangle that they would use for this alternate access entrance, this full access entrance, is not within that 00-foot right of way of the old, what we call the Old Willow Road right of way. It's just adjacent to it but it's not part of that 00- foot right of way. The Plan B, the alternate access Plan B would also reposition some of the homes to accommodate the roadway bending down and through this triangular piece of property. Again, the developer will I have not doubt outline exactly which homes would be moved. It also reconfigures the stormwater facility basins. You can see that on the site plan. At this point, the developer has not provided the engineering or the technical stormwater management plan for this alternate site with the reconfigured basins. That will come back, that will be important as we move along in my presentation and ultimately how the Plan and Zoning Commission can act on that alternate Plan B. With all other respects, the alternate Plan B with the full access entryway is essentially the

0 0 same as the Plan A. homes, same width of sidewalk, the three-foot carriage walk, the walking paths have been eliminated in both plans. Now, both plans still require variations, a number of variations to the zoning code and to the subdivision code. I'm going to walk through those really quickly. You have those in the chart that we provided in your memo, but for the benefit of the audience, I want to just run through those really quickly. For the zoning code, they are seeking a variation to the minimum lot size requirement. They are proposing,000, what calculates out to, square feet per home. Again, this would require a variation, a zoning code variation. Also, they're proposing a minimum front yard requirement of feet while the zoning code requires 0 feet. They are proposing a minimum rear yard of feet, that actually hasn't changed in this revised plan but still does require a variation. They are proposing a minimum side yard of five feet where the code requires feet. Again, this has not changed from the original application but does involve a variation. Now, under the subdivision code, again

0 0 the subdivision code is a separate code from the zoning code, but it outlines requirements for subdivisions in terms of the design standards. So, the subdivision code requires sidewalks to be five feet wide and to be set back at a minimum of six feet from the roadway. They are proposing with their revised plan a three-foot carriage walk which essentially is a sidewalk just behind the curb, meaning adjacent to the street. Again, that requires a variation still. The original application had no sidewalks; they're actually adding the carriage walk. The subdivision code also requires street lights in every intersection. The original application had not provided any. They are now suggesting that, they are now indicating that they'll provide street lights throughout the roadway. I believe those are indicated in the landscape plan in their submittal, it's not indicated in the engineering plan. But again, they indicated that they will be providing those, that will have to be fleshed out a little further on the engineering plan. Mid-block pedestrian way, the code provides that you have a block that's 00 feet or longer

0 0 that there is a pedestrian way approximately in the center of that block. A pedestrian way basically is, you know, a break between the homes that would lead you back to, whether it's an open area or adjacent street or what have you. There is no pedestrian way being provided in the revised application. The subdivision code also requires minimum lot width of feet. The original application had lot width ranging from feet to. The revised application, again both plans indicate lot width ranging from feet to feet, but still requiring a variation. Then finally, the minimum lot depth, the subdivision code requires 0 feet. They are proposing lot depth ranging from to feet. Those are the variations that are being proposed in the new revised plan. Again, those apply on both the Plan A and Plan B, the revised Plan A and revised Plan B. Stormwater, again as indicated, they are proposing standard stormwater facilities. In the original application, the Village engineers did not feel that the original stormwater plan was adequate in that

0 0 it relied on a pump storage system. I won't go into the details of why that was inadequate, but they did not feel that that was a sound plan. The revised plans, again with the expanded facilities, eliminate the need for the pump storage system. Our engineers now indicate that this new plan A conforms to the Village code. Again, we don't have the technical calculations or the technical report for revised Plan B, so we can't comment or they can't comment on that point at this point in time. Pat Glenn with Gewalt Hamilton Associates is here. He's here to answer any questions you might have on that. If you'd like to ask that now, later, he's here to answer any questions you might have on our perspective on it. The Petitioner I'm sure will present their revised engineering approach. Roadway width, again they widened the roadway width. It now meets the subdivision code requirement which is feet, so at feet they're meeting that requirement. However, the Fire Chief remains concerned that if there's cars allowed to park on the roadway, this will still not allow them the clear access that they need in order to get through the

0 0 roadway in a hurry. Staff has recommended that if this application is approved at some point, that a condition be placed on any approval that would prohibit parking on the roadway, and that guest parking, some type of guest parking facility be provided that would accommodate landscape vehicles. Also, we would recommend that a guest parking facility be required that would accommodate landscape vehicles, landscape trucks with their trailers, which really are the most frequent type of vehicles you see parked on any given side street. With regard to sidewalks, the proposed three-foot carriage walk adjacent to the roadway, it still does not meet the code requirements outlined earlier. More importantly, the Village Engineer and the Police Chief and the Fire Chief are concerned that the three feet, this three-foot sidewalk or carriage walk immediately adjacent to the street is still not going to be adequately safe. As I have outlined I think in my original memo, in order to vary from the sidewalk requirements of the subdivision code, the Village Engineer, Police Chief and Fire Chief need to actually certify or find that the proposed sidewalk is adequate.

0 0 They're not willing to do that at this point in time. Density, again they reduced the number of homes. However, the revised, even at the homes, this density is still approximately four times, just shy of four times the density that's allowed under the existing R- zoning code standards. In addition, the homes haven't been pulled apart any more than they were in the original plan. They're still very close to each other. The elimination of the two homes, that area that was gained by that, the land really was taken up by the expansion of the detention facilities, so it didn't benefit the kind of close knit proximity of the homes to each other or did not affect that. Finally, with regard to density, the Village zoning code outlines under a PUD that the density can be varied or relief can be provided to the density requirements. However, it does come with a couple of criteria that need to be met in order to allow for that, one of which is that the proposed plan be no less beneficial to the homeowners in and around the proposed site than what would be allowed under the R- standard, the one acre requirement. The second criteria for allowing this density, this variation in density is

0 0 the provision of all the R- setbacks along the boundaries of the site. So, this would essentially be the rear yards that are required by R-. Again, what's being proposed as opposed to the 0 feet that's required is rear yards down to feet on the south edge of the property within the rear yards of feet along Bracken Lane and Willow Road. So, it does not appear that this criteria has been met. With regard to traffic, we talked about the new entrance, I'm sorry, the proposed alternate plan, this plan again as it involves the use of Village property, there's a couple of different things that need to occur in addition to the zoning consideration. One is the use of Village property which is actually a separate process, it certainly would be related but it's a separate process in which the developer would come directly to the Village Board to seek the use of the property and the mode of the use, whether it's going to be acquisition, easement or what have you. That all is something the Village Board will deal with directly. The IDOT, the Illinois Department of Transportation, as Willow Road is their jurisdiction, also would need to permit the design of the proposed

0 0 full access plan. That is, my understanding is that it's in the works and the developer can give you more insight in terms of the timing of that, but that again is something that ultimately will be required regardless of the zoning discussion and zoning approvals or zoning votes, or any vote on the zoning or PUD piece of this. All that said, the Village Board would likely find it helpful to understand and get feedback from the Plan and Zoning Commission with regard to this alternate access plan. Again, in terms of the planning issues or concerns, if you get to the point where you want to discuss that as an option, then they would again prefer that you give them the feedback on that which they can then take into account and discuss this separate issue of using the Village property. The developer, it's my understanding, is seeking input on that, general feedback on the use of that Village property, excuse me, on that alternate full access plan. Now, I'll get into the, a little bit later after the developer has made a presentation, about how you deal with both plans, Plan A and Plan B, if they are different and how you're able to vote on those two. But we'll deal with that after a little bit.

0 0 That's what I have up to this point. Obviously, the developer is here to make their presentation. If you have any questions before that, I'll be happy to answer them. MR. BERLINGHOF: Steve, just a quick question. What is the Village's long-term intent for that property as well as the, what do you call it, West Willow, the right of way that runs down behind this, behind Bracken -- MR. GUTIERREZ: Actually, Pat probably can answer that in a little bit more detail. Generally, and again if you want we can give you more detail, generally there is a proposed plan, and I'm not sure where we're at with regard to consideration of that plan. MR. GLENN: It will come to the Board at the actual meeting. MR. GUTIERREZ: I'm going to let Pat give you a short overview of what's going on with that. I will say that this triangle is not a piece of what he's about to talk about. MR. BERLINGHOF: Right, I understand. MR. GLENN: Right. So, we have come up with what we're calling the West Bosworth drainage

0 0 0 improvements conceptually, and that involves storm sewer, large storm sewers from the Bosworth neighborhood, south of this neighborhood, as well as future detention, stormwater detention in that unimproved right of way. So, the answer to what's the Village's long-term use of that unimproved West Willow right of way is we would use for stormwater management purposes. We have confirmed, like Steve said, that this proposed use would not preclude the project proceeding in the unimproved right of way. MR. BERLINGHOF: Is it aboveground or an underground detention facility? MR. GLENN: This will all be open. MR. BERLINGHOF: This will all be open. Has anyone talked about putting the two together in some way, shape or form and utilizing both properties for this? I mean they obviously have created a detention area between the two sections of the homes, and you're talking about creating another brand new detention area in the 00-foot right of way which of course is going to cause, you've got some issues, right, how deep you can go and what your slopes are going to be and the whole bit unless you're going to make it wet. So, has there

0 0 ever been any discussion as to whether or not that detention area can be added to the other detention area if things are moved a little bit in order to make it even bigger and better? MR. GLENN: We're at the very conceptual stage with West Bosworth drainage. As I mentioned, we'll bring a proposal to bring more detail to that to the Board at the October meeting. I think there is a possibility, there's kind of two separate watersheds here. There's a whole book this fat explaining that. The watershed, the area that flows through, the Walden Lane side actually is largely separate from the Bosworth area. But nonetheless, we would definitely look to see if there is a way, perhaps with some piping that we could, you know, make both systems work together if things develop further. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Any other questions on this? MS. MENDREK: I want to just clarify, Steve, one thing you said about the sidewalks when you said that the Village, I think that Police and Fire weren't going to certify those sidewalks? Would you just revisit what you said there?

0 0 MR. GUTIERREZ: So, the subdivision code says that if the subdivision doesn't provide the required standard sidewalk of five feet to six feet gap from the curb, that in order to approve that, the Village Board ultimately would need a report from the Village Engineer, the Fire Chief, and the Police Chief indicating that they are satisfied with what's being proposed. And they're not satisfied with what's being proposed, so they're not able to provide that report. MR. BOLLING: That's not just with the sidewalk, that's with the sidewalk and the density? MR. GUTIERREZ: Density isn't an issue for them. MR. BOLLING: Okay, it's strictly with the sidewalk and the width of the lane? MR. GUTIERREZ: The width of the roadway meets the subdivision standard, okay. In addition to that standard, the Fire Chief is concerned that if parking is allowed, so this is, they met the technical requirement for the roadway width, and the Fire Chief is a little concerned that if parking is allowed or happens on that street, that that would impede their ability to get through with their trucks.

0 0 MR. BOLLING: Yes, so as proposed, they feel that the sidewalk is not safe and the width of the roadway, though it meets the standard, would not -- MR. GUTIERREZ: Be adequate. MR. BOLLING: Be adequate for if cars were allowed to park on one of the sides. MR. GUTIERREZ: Correct. MR. BERLINGHOF: So, is it smaller than a standard road in our Village? MR. GUTIERREZ: No. MR. BERLINGHOF: So, why would Ingram and Bosworth and all the other ones that are out there -- MR. GUTIERREZ: If they were being approved today, we would apply the same comment. MR. BERLINGHOF: Okay, so is it a new standard? It's the first new road -- MR. GUTIERREZ: I don't know when those were built so I can't tell you if the standard existed at that time. MR. BERLINGHOF: Just for curiosity, if they eliminated the sidewalk all together, they'd ask for a variance of no sidewalk, right? MR. GUTIERREZ: Correct.

0 0 MR. BERLINGHOF: Then the Fire Chief would have nothing to say about it, right, because there's no sidewalk. Does that mean -- MR. GUTIERREZ: No, Staff would be concerned that that would force people to walk down the roadway. MR. BERLINGHOF: Yes, no, I'm not suggesting that we do it. I'm just curious how the ordinance works. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: The original proposal did not have any sidewalk. MR. BERLINGHOF: Right. MR. GUTIERREZ: Right, right, and we were concerned. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: It was suggested to them to put sidewalks in. MR. GUTIERREZ: Yes, yes. Sorry, I didn't repeat that earlier. MR. BERLINGHOF: Right, because most of the R- doesn't have sidewalks, right? MR. GUTIERREZ: That's correct. MR. BERLINGHOF: So, it's a matter of what we think is, given the opportunity with a new subdivision, what we think would be advisable?

0 0 MR. GUTIERREZ: Sure. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Okay. Yes? MS. MENDREK: I know we were going to talk about this afterwards, but I wonder if we all understand what our options are here tonight. MR. BOLLING: Yes, what are we -- MS. MENDREK: Before we get into the discussion of those. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Yes. Steve was going to let the Petitioners make their presentation and immediately review that. Would you rather he do that now? That's what you're suggesting I assume? MS. MENDREK: Kind of. MR. GUTIERREZ: Absolutely, absolutely. MS. ESTABROOKE: Well, I kind of have to agree with that because then you can be thinking about -- MR. GUTIERREZ: Sure, okay, absolutely. So, essentially for Plan A with the two restricted access entrances, they have provided all of the application requirements for that, the engineering, the landscape plan, everything that the code requires for applications that you have so you can review and use in deliberation. That's all been provided with Plan A.

0 0 So, a couple of things. Actually I should have prefaced all of this with there is a provision in our zoning code, actually our subdivision code as well as in the Plat Act that requires that the Plan and Zoning Commission vote up or down on a subdivision, a proposed subdivision, up or down within 0 days of its submittal. That would be this week essentially, so you would need to vote on that tonight, on the plans that you have. Again, there is a, technically they are asking for a PUD as well, and there is a document referred to as a preliminary plat of subdivision that also has to be voted on separately, so there's two things. So, again, so there is that 0-day requirement. So, you actually need to vote on the primary plan, Plan A tonight unless the developer indicates he would be willing to, they would be willing to waive that 0-day requirement. Now, as far as the alternate plan, again we don't have all of the required documentation on that plan. So, you really are not in a position, you really aren't able to vote on that plan tonight. So, if after you, and I would suggest that you may want to, as I

0 0 indicated in my memo, you may want to look at the commonalities of both plans. Both plans have the homes, the -foot street, the three-foot carriage walk, et cetera. You may want to discuss that and decide if you're amenable to the common pieces of it. Then if you are, then just talk about which of the entrance options you like. Then if you were to prefer the alternate entrance, again you're not going to be in a position to vote on that, unless the developer was willing to come back at a subsequent meeting with a revised, with all of the rest of it, the revised engineering, everything else that's required. If they were willing to do that, they would also need to, here at this meeting, waive the 0- day requirement and then you can vote on that in a subsequent meeting. But tonight you're not going to be able to vote on this alternate plan. MR. BERLINGHOF: So, fundamentally though, A and B are different even though they're only different by a small amount. MR. GUTIERREZ: The biggest difference, well, the difference is -- MR. BERLINGHOF: You've got the entrance and

0 0 you've got a couple of homes that have moved. The question is, fundamentally, we could vote on A, let's say for purposes of this discussion we voted A down, they could still come back with B which fundamentally has the same things as A except for a few changes, and we could still vote positively for B. MR. GUTIERREZ: You're really not able to vote on B because you don't have the -- MR. BERLINGHOF: No, that's my point. We vote on A, they come back with B -- MR. GUTIERREZ: Oh, a subsequent meeting, sure. But they would have to waive that 0-day requirement. MR. BERLINGHOF: So, B is not, because most of B is part of A. MR. GUTIERREZ: Yes. MR. DELOYS: If we vote down A, it would be a new application, they have to go through the process. MR. BERLINGHOF: Oh, yes, okay, I understand. MR. DELOYS: If it's voted down, they're voted down. MR. BERLINGHOF: No, I see, I didn't know they were two separate things.

0 0 MR. DELOYS: Yes. MR. BERLINGHOF: Yes, you may need to decide beforehand. If you wanted B, you might just say are you willing to postpone the vote, et cetera. MR. BERLINGHOF: Right. MR. BOLLING: So, now I'm confused. We need to vote tonight? MR. GUTIERREZ: Short of the developer saying, yes, we do, yes, period. Short of the developer indicating that they're willing to come back with all of the application requirements including the engineering on B, short of them saying that and indicating they're willing to waive the 0 days, okay, if that doesn't happen, then yes, you need to vote on A. MS. MENDREK: Okay. MR. RUBIN: Or if we don't vote, it expires? MR. BERLINGHOF: No, we have to vote on it. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Yes, we have to vote. Unless they want to waive the 0-day provision. MR. RUBIN: Right. MR. BERLINGHOF: All right, okay. Let's go ahead. MS. MENDREK: All right, I think I got it.

0 0 0 CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Petitioners, step forward, state your name and be sworn in. Anyone who may have any comments regarding this petition, all please stand up. MR. GUTIERREZ: Can we do the audience as well please? CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Yes, why don't we do that? Anyone, later on the audience is going to have an opportunity, so if you think you may have a comment or question, stand up, be sworn in now, and you will state your name when you step to the microphone. MR. GUTIERREZ: If you change your mind later, that's fine. Just let us know as you come up that you need to be worn. Otherwise we'll assume that you were sworn. (Witnesses sworn.) MR. GARRISON: All right. Just quickly before I get into the presentation, I wanted to just comment on the exchange that we just had there. CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Hang on one second. Your name please? MR. GARRISON: Sorry. My name is Matt Garrison with R Companies.

0 0 CHAIRMAN VASELOPULOS: Thank you. MR. GARRISON: On the exchange that we just had there, I understand kind of what you were saying, we can vote down A and we'll come back with B. The problem that we have is we've been at this for two years, and significant time and significant expense. But that's not even really the issue. We may be willing to spend more time and more expense. We have purchased five of these homes, we own them. The last two are owned by another individual, and he's been patient with us for the last two years as we've worked through this process. But we're running out of time with him and we're running out of his patience. If we don't go to a vote tonight and go to the Trustees in a couple of weeks, the lack of a decision will be a decision unfortunately. Likely the assemblage will break apart and we won't be able to have this conversation any further. So, I understand the logistics. But you know, fortunately or unfortunately, we need to bring this to some kind of a vote and get it to an up or down vote. I can tell you as the developer and the owner of five of these homes, this is a site that's choked off

0 0 from access that a lot of people in Northfield enjoy. I mean Bracken Lane has a nice left/right-turn lane. A median just went up for these seven houses here and they're just kind of, it's impacted the value. You can only turn out one way, it's dangerous. I'm going to show you some of that in my presentation. So, as a developer, we have every incentive to come back to you and add that left/rightturn lane later. We're willing to do that and we'll make some kind of commitment to do it. I don't know if you can vote it with it subject to us doing that. But if there is an inclination that, oh, we'll just wait and, you know, they'll come back in 0 or 0 days, unfortunately we don't have the luxury of doing that. So, I just wanted to let you guys know that in the context of the conversation we just had. So, again I'm Matt Garrison, I'm the CEO of R Companies. Happy to be here tonight. My architects and consultants and team are going to come up in a little bit with a detailed presentation on where we're at with the project. But before we do that, I just wanted to give a little bit of context to where we're at in this process and speak about why we think

0 0 this is a pretty special opportunity for Northfield and why we're here. Thanks to the Committee for being here and volunteering your time. Thanks to Steve and the Staff for working with us for the past two years in what's been a lengthy process. The neighbors, a lot of the familiar faces we've seen throughout this process, many of whom oppose us, and the opposition tends to be vocal and be the people who show up. But I wanted to let them know, as I said at the last meeting, that we respect their opinions and have tried to listen to them. The highest form of respect I think that we can pay is to listen to them and try and incorporate the feedback that we can into our project, and we've done that. We think the process has worked in terms of making a compromise in trying to create a win-win situation. But it can't be perfect. We can push and we can push to the limits of feasibility, but we can't push forever from a time standpoint or from an expenditure standpoint. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last two years in architecture and in engineering in an effort to put this assemblage together and make it happen, and we think it's been an effective

process. 0 0 So, like I said a moment ago, I think it's time to make a decision if we can find the mechanism within the code to do that. The decision is do we want to improve this seven-acre site in the middle of Northfield that's got some structural issues that I'm going to get into tonight, access, water, light, traffic? These are things we can fix. Are we going to walk away from the opportunity and maybe in 0 or 0 more years someone puts it together again? That's the decision we have. So, I hope it's former and we can come to some kind of solution that allows us to make an investment in this site. Quickly, I just wanted to talk about R Companies. We probably don't look like the normal home builder that comes in here. But there's a reason that we're here. Reason number one is a lot of live in the area and drive up and down Willow all the time and are really familiar with this site and with Northfield. But reason number two and the primary reason is we want to find projects where we can create value by solving problems. That's why we're involved in this site, we want to solve problems at this site.

0 0 We've all driven by this site frequently. I've driven by it for years or however long I've been driving. But a lot of us probably haven't walked around the site, or been there right after a flood, or tried to pull our car out of one of the driveways and seen some of the structural issues with the site. Our opinion is that the site is not viable economically in its current form, and that it will continue to languish in its current form. So, we're here tonight to hopefully do something about that. We got involved in the project when I went to dinner at a friend's house four years ago who lives on the site. It's Pete, he's right over there and I think you'll hear from him later. That's him in the picture standing by the front door. Some of you guys who can't see the screen, we've handed out packets to you. But this is Pete's house and I went over there for dinner, and I'd never heard of the area. It was in this interesting little packet of Northfield where you think you know what it is and you try to go there and you drive right by the entrance because you can't even see the entrance, and then you do a U-turn

0 0 and turn around which you're not supposed to do. You know, that's what happens a lot there. I walked around the site with Pete, and Pete had purchased the house in a bank sale and a foreclosure. It was a distressed situation, he intended to fix it up. We're both real estate guys and we talked about what was going on with the site and ways we could fix it. It was interesting. If you look at the site map that I have up here, the neighborhood, Ingram in the R-, streets to the south have a nice urban, kind of suburban grid, and it just dead ends right into this site. In some cases there's cul-de-sacs, in some cases streets, literally just dead ends into the site. If you look on the second picture here, you can see the little white fence and stuff, that's just the street dead ending right into Pete's backyard. But this is a map of the site. You'll notice I have red font on the addresses on there, on three of the addresses. Those three addresses had been foreclosures within the last five years. So, three of the seven houses or 0 percent of the houses have been in financial distress and foreclosure in the last five years. The reason for that is there's a lot of problems

with the site. 0 0 It's become a little bit of a no man's land. It's cut off from the surrounding neighborhoods, and it's been further damaged and isolated by the Willow Road expansion. The median was just put in and there are six driveways that go to this site, and all six of those driveways were cut off from left/right access on Willow Road. There was always a dangerous situation that I'll talk about in a little bit. There's obviously flooding with the site. You can see the photos up there with the flooding. There is a significant watershed as the engineers have spoken about. It flows from Sunset Ridge down to this site, and this site takes on a lot of water. It flows to the site in a haphazard way and it's not necessarily engineered to handle it. A number of the houses flood and a large portion of the site floods as well. This further isolates the site. It makes it less likely that someone is going to invest in this site. By invest, I mean you can come in and fix the house up or buy a house, I don't know if someone will do it, let alone the type of investment that we're proposing tonight. It's old housing stock, you can see

0 0 the siding coming off the back of that house. There's a lot of kind of blight on the infrastructure. It's old housing stock, it's decaying and something needs to be done with. But the zoning map doesn't necessarily work to do something with the site, with the R- zoning. No one is going to probably come in and build a 0,000 square-foot, you know, $. million house on this site. That's not going to happen. It's too close to Willow Road, there's too many problems going on here in general with access to the site. So, the predictable result is that the site is blighted, and it's going to continue to get more blighted. We've had three foreclosures in the last five years of the seven houses. So, that's what we want to fix. The question is how do you fix it? I went home from Pete's house that night not thinking that I'd be able to fix it because it's very difficult to assemble seven properties like this so you can do something about it. Not only does it take someone like us who has the capital and the will to go through this for better or for worse, that's what we've done, but it takes seven willing homeowners that are