Residents band together against Rt. 22 development
Roughly 30 Kildeer and Lake Zurich residents united Wednesday night to develop a strategy to oppose a shopping center proposed for the southwest corner of Quentin Road and Route 22 in unincorporated Lake County.
The property owner and developer, Dartmoor Homes, have petitioned Lake County to change the zoning for the 17 acres on that corner from residential to commercial to accommodate a 44,000-square-foot big-box store, a drive-through pharmacy, a bank and three restaurants on the site.
A public hearing before the Lake County zoning board of appeals scheduled for Jan. 21 at the Ela Area Public Library may likely be canceled as the developer has requested postponing the hearing.
Lake County Board member Michael Talbett of Lake Zurich gave residents who oppose the plan some reassurances.
"In the county, this is currently seen as agricultural and we would project it to be residential," Talbett said. "The county would not approve the way it's presented because it doesn't meet our standard."
The current plan does not meet the county's buffering landscaping and conservation requirements, he said. Yet Talbett clarified that a zoning change and a planning approval are two separate issues altogether.
Though under Lake County's jurisdiction, any commercial development on that property is also subject to restrictions because of a 20-year boundary agreement between Kildeer and Lake Zurich.
Residents representing five neighboring subdivisions said Wednesday they want to keep the property residential at all costs.
"I moved here from Arlington Heights because I wanted a rural environment," said Deborah Cronberg, who lives in the Groves of Kildeer subdivision at the southeast corner of Quentin Road and Route 22 across from the site. "Obviously, it's going to mean more traffic and more congestion. We are talking about lighting and noise, not only for contiguous residents, but those who live miles away."
This is the second shopping center proposal in the area to raise the ire of Kildeer and Lake Zurich residents within the past week. Just days earlier, a group of roughly 60 residents from both towns packed a Kildeer village board meeting to protest that village considering closing a segment of Cuba Road just east of Route 12 to provide access to a proposed shopping center there.
The roughly 45 acres at the northeast corner of Route 12 and Cuba where that center is targeted falls within the purview of the same boundary agreement between Kildeer and Lake Zurich.
What happens with either proposal may hinge upon the village's re-negotiation of their intergovernmental agreement. As for the Quentin Road shopping center plan, area residents' best option might be to persuade their villages to consider annexing the property.
"Should either one of those villages annex it, it would be treated as residential," Talbett said.
Neither Kildeer nor Lake Zurich is moving to annex the property right now. If the boundary agreement between the villages expires before development takes place on the site, then all restrictions are off, Talbett said.
He urged residents to speak up throughout the county's process to show opposition, which residents are already doing.
"It certainly is not consistent with the trend of development in the area," said Ted Velanti, a resident of the Groves of Kildeer. "The community generally has historically fought against even high-density housing, not to mention commercial development in residential areas."