No extension for Carol Stream church just yet

The Carol Stream village board held off on giving Wheaton Christian Center more time to make a variety of improvements on their North Avenue property.

The roughly 800-member congregation, located at 610 E. North Ave., spent much of last year recovering from a March windstorm that caused roughly $4 million worth of damages.

Church officials had petitioned the village in 2006 to open a private school at the church campus, which is the site of an old Kmart. As a condition of the approval, village officials gave church leaders one year to improve the building facade and repair the parking lot.

The village gave the church an additional seven months last year to make those improvements in light of the toll the church took from damages caused by the wind storm.

But trustees on Monday balked at yet another request by the church for a one-year extension to improve their grounds, at least not until the village gets a sense of how long the improvements would take.

"My concern is if we allow another extension for 12 months then where is the guarantee to the community?" Trustee Donald Weiss asked.

No representatives from Wheaton Christian Center attended Monday's meeting.

Their absence irked Mayor Frank Saverino, who said village officials would not grant the church's request for an additional extension until he sees specific plans the church has for the North Avenue property.

Village officials said the church had indicated they were planning on redeveloping a portion of their property for commercial use. No formal plans have yet been submitted to the village.

"By not being here, this tells me that maybe they don't really care," Saverino said. "I'd like to see some action on their part."