Arlington Heights OKs disability housing plan, but one trustee calls process ‘despicable’
Some three years and more than a dozen public meetings after the initial proposal, revised plans to build 25 apartments for people with disabilities and veterans has finally earned zoning approval in Arlington Heights.
Grace Terrace at 1519 S. Arlington Heights Road will be two stories tall instead of three, and have its entrance and parking lot facing the busy street instead of neighboring single-family homes to the east, under changes approved 7-1 Tuesday by the village board.
Those were key factors for trustees Jim Tinaglia and Jim Bertucci, who voted against the initial proposal a little more than year ago but changed their votes Tuesday. The four zoning actions taken required a six-vote supermajority after neighbors submitted a protest petition to village hall last year.
The lone holdout, Trustee Scott Shirley, acknowledged he likes the changes, but criticized how developer Full Circle Communities approached the process.
“It’s lousy the way this whole thing went down,” Shirley said. “And I think Full Circle — you’re going to be a terrible neighbor if you treat these people the way you did during this process. I hope you turn that around. Because this was just despicable.”
Shirley said he doesn’t oppose the type of housing in Arlington Heights, but thinks it isn’t “the right use at the right location.”
Trustee Nicolle Grasse, who is also the 53rd District Democratic state representative, called Shirley’s criticism of Full Circle “unacceptable.” She described the process as “messy,” but “sometimes, that’s how it works.”
“Something better has come from this process,” Grasse said. “It took all of us as a community and village working together through the messiness of it to find a way to compromise, to find a way where everybody unfortunately had to give up something. But it’s turned into a better project.”
Grasse said the apartments would help with the increased need for affordable housing in town, fill a long-vacant space on Arlington Heights Road, and fit in better with the neighborhood than first proposed.
Denise Reyes, the project manager from Full Circle, said she hopes the Chicago-based nonprofit’s efforts to revise the plan in response to neighbors’ concerns show “we intend to be good neighbors here in Arlington Heights.”
Joshua Wilmoth, Full Circle’s president and CEO, approached Shirley after the vote and shook hands after a brief exchange.
For supporters, the board’s decision to rezone the 4-acre site from an office-transitional designation to institutional use, among other approvals, was a victory years in the making. Members of the North-Northwest Suburban Task Force on Supportive Housing for Individuals with Mental Illness — who approached Full Circle and sought out potential development sites in Arlington Heights — filled the boardroom and applauded after the vote.
Fewer opponents attended compared to previous meetings. Among them was Celina Micko, who lives next door.
“It’s going to destroy my kind of living for 36 years. I’m there and want to be there, but you’re not going to let me,” she told the board.
Plans calls for 20 one-bedroom and five two-bedroom independent living units available to people with physical or mental disabilities, with a preference to veterans. Tenants would receive rental assistance through vouchers from the Housing Authority of Cook County.
The site plan includes 51 parking spaces to the west and north of the building, a stormwater detention area to the south, and landscape buffer and 6-foot fence to the east.