Misplaced worries about Navistar move

It is difficult to discern the basis for nearby residents' objection to Navistar's proposed move to the Alcatel/Lucent site. Perhaps it's a fear of reduced property values or of a degraded environment. Neither makes much sense, considering the real alternatives.

This land, zoned as a portion of the "I-88 Research & Development Corridor" since before most of these folks' houses were built and indeed before they were of sufficient age to buy them, has housed benign research, development and like corporate activities. But Alcatel has now vacated the property and will sell the parcel, if not to Navistar, then to someone else.

I have left the public hearings convinced that Navistar would be a good corporate neighbor, one which has carefully considered and addressed the impacts of its occupancy of the site, one which will take pride in aesthetically maintaining and improving the property, and one which will maintain our tax base and employ and support local residents.

I don't know what theoretical use the NIMBYs would propose for this site or how they would pay for it. But the logical end result of their opposition is something quite different from what I think they intend: a devalued, trash-strewn, weed-choked brownland, its unoccupied buildings falling into disrepair, owned by an absentee landlord indifferent to the community in which this (to it) faraway property happens to be sited.

One doesn't have to travel far to find real-life instances in which this has been allowed to happen. For my part: I want Navistar in my back yard.

Jefferson Perkins

Naperville