Schaumburg trailer sparks recommendation of new regulations

Newly recommended regulations on the size of trailers that can be parked in Schaumburg driveways are expected to resolve a neighbor dispute raging for more than six months - though not as amicably as Trustee Jack Sullivan had long hoped.

"I feel bad because this is one of the rare times that I can't resolve the situation without legislation," the longtime chair of the village's planning, building and development committee said.

Since last summer, the point of contention between next-door neighbors on Whitehall Court has been the approximately 13-foot-high, 28-foot-long trailer one of them has permanently parked in the driveway - filling the space between garage and sidewalk.

But Sullivan's committee is poised to recommend approval of new regulations restricting such hauling trailers to 9 feet high and 25 feet long at its meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, at village hall, 101 Schaumburg Court.

Sullivan wants to emphasize the size restrictions would apply only to hauling trailers - not recreational vehicles, pickup campers, pop-up trailers or anything else as they're now defined.

The initial crowds of people who feared all such vehicles would be banned by new rules has thankfully thinned over the past six months, Sullivan said.

"At this point, I think the only one it's going to affect is the one that sparked it," he said. "This is not a widespread issue."

But Schaumburg Community Development Director Julie Fitzgerald said there's a possibility a few more such hauling trailers that might violate the proposed regulations have been seen in the village.

The size regulations village staff settled on were inspired by rules some other communities have on their books and create a consistency with the regulations for commercial vehicles, she said.

Only while in the process of being loaded or unloaded would hauling trailers of such size be briefly allowed to park in residential driveways under the proposed law.

Both the owner of the trailer on Whitehall Court and his next-door neighbors who first complained about it declined to comment on the pending regulations.

Though the owner had proposed making space for the trailer in his backyard, that too was complained about.

"I thought it was an honest effort to come up with a resolution before it got this far, but that met with resistance," Sullivan said. "There's nothing I can do to make everyone happy. There's nothing anyone can do."

He said the village was able to go this long without any such regulations because officials through the years never thought there might be trailers as large as houses.

"Then it became something we needed to look at," he said.

The committee on Thursday is aiming to recommend the ordinance to the full village board, which on Tuesday, Feb. 7, can then refer it to the zoning board of appeals for further discussion, review and public comment.

If the village board does make such a referral next week, the proposed law would likely appear before the zoning board sometime in mid-March, Fitzgerald said.