Will 2014 be the year for Settlers Hill and Longmeadow Parkway?
A year of high hopes for the start of redevelopment of the former Settlers Hill landfill turned into lost time when legal jockeying over liability of the campus stalled everything from dirt to dollars.
The other long-anticipated construction project on tap in Kane County — the Longmeadow Parkway tollway — will also see most of the progress made only on paper in 2014.
Landfill unsettled
Many future uses, from an observation tower to a small band shell, remain in the mix at Settlers Hill. The first goal is the creation of a world-class cross country track.
Kane County Board member Mike Donahue, entering his final year in office, has the motivation to see substantial progress made on the project in 2014. Donahue pushed a plan in 2013 to begin a temporary clean fill operation at the landfill that would bring the soil needed to provide grading for the track and other construction projects.
If the clean fill operation can't be agreed upon, it could torpedo all the development projects, Donahue said.
Waste Management officials have stalled the plan, and funds to reimburse lost golf course revenue caused by a gas leak, as leverage for the overall liability negotiations.
Kane County officials said in November that Waste Management wanted to rehash the legal contracts that cover liability for any possible mishaps involved with reusing the landfill site for recreational purposes. Waste Management, the county and forest preserve district share that liability at various points on the 700-acre Fabyan campus.
“Waste Management is responsible for environmental matters, and the county and forest preserve are responsible for public access issues,” Donahue said this week. “So that gas issue at the golf course a while back is really a mixed liability issue and a perfect example of the obsolete agreements governing the site.”
Donahue said top-level Waste Management officials will sit down with him, forest preserve district President John Hoscheit and county board Chairman Chris Lauzen for the first time to sort out the liability issue. If that can happen, Donahue said he believes all the other facets of the vision can progress on a swifter timetable.
“We need to show them their original long-term vision and our vision are the same,” Donahue said. “We want to have everyone on the same team, working toward the same goal.”
The best-case scenario, Donahue said, would be some visible progress on the site by the end of 2014. At that point, Donahue will exit office and a new District 11 board member will take over the project management, Donahue said. Lauzen has too many other issues on his plate, and the District 11 representative should be the lead on the project because the site is in the district, Donahue said.
Longmeadow long shot?
The Longmeadow Parkway tollway, at Huntley Road in West Dundee, has a chance to move beyond a political bargaining chip and toward the construction phase if county officials put an emphasis on the project.
County board members on the northern end of the county ran on a platform supporting the project as a main goal of their tenure.
The toll aspect of the project is somewhat unpopular with constituents, leading Lauzen, initially, to suggest voters should have a say, via a referendum, before any more money is spent.
Lauzen backed away from that position in the middle of the year, but he kept the project as a bargaining chip, using his agenda-setting ability to leverage support from county board members on some of his own initiatives.
Lauzen now supports the toll as necessary to fund the $117 million of remaining project costs.
In July, the county board inked contracts with four engineering firms to prepare bid documents and environmental permits to begin construction. County transportation officials expect to bid the project out in 2015, making the project a campaign issue with half the county board up for re-election in 2014.