Naperville City Council OKs townhouse, row house development
The Ogden Avenue entrance into Naperville has been revitalized with grocery stores, restaurants and a forthcoming Jack in the Box, a burger chain popping up in the Chicago area after a decades-long hiatus.
Amid that growth, a nearby tract of largely open land is primed for development.
Naperville City Council members have approved zoning entitlements for The Residences at Naper & Plank. Real estate firm Lincoln Property Co. plans a mix of build-to-rent townhouses and three-story units billed as row homes, all within walking distance of the Growing Place garden center.
A previous development proposal called for the construction of a 268-unit apartment complex on land surrounded by Tuthill Road, Plank Road, Naper Boulevard, “and private residences,” according to an online petition that was created in 2022 and raised concerns about density, traffic, pedestrian safety and other issues.
“The big apartment complex of 260 odd units, that was very large, and this is quite an improvement in size,” Councilwoman Allison Longenbaugh said of Lincoln’s 90-unit development.
Council members also have approved the developer’s request to annex the properties — more than 8 acres — into the city’s boundaries.
“There’s major economic development success in the area,” said an attorney for the developer, Vince Rosanova, who pointed to the Costco and Amazon Fresh grocery stores. “That’s how Ogden Avenue was designed. This property is transitional, which makes it appropriate for medium-density residential.”
Some area residents, however, have continued to raise issues with traffic and would prefer a development of single-family homes instead. Councilman Nate Wilson, who was the lone “no” on a series of votes related to the project, also had traffic concerns.
“Many people who come up Naper Boulevard to shop along Ogden Avenue cut through this area to avoid the heavily trafficked Ogden and Naper intersection,” Kevin Madden told the council Tuesday night.
The development team designed five access points off both Tuthill Road and Burlington Avenue to “effectively move traffic through the area,” Rosanova said.
“I do think it was critical that those were not directly onto Plank, so I’m happy to see those,” Councilman Patrick Kelly said.
He also asked “that this be really one of staff's focuses as we go through the next couple of years of traffic planning and study to make sure if there's any larger-scale improvements that would help, that we really take a close look at that.”
The three-story units have been intentionally situated nearest Naper Boulevard and Plank Road to provide buffering, project documents state, while the two-story townhouses have been located along Burlington and Tuthill to complement “the traditional single-family homes” to the west. The developer also plans to dedicate roughly 0.62 acres to the Naperville Park District for use as a publicly accessible park.
Rents are estimated to range from $3,900 to $5,000, Rosanova wrote the city in May.
“Single-family rental communities are very popular across the country in different markets,” Lincoln Senior Vice President Bryan Farquhar told the Daily Herald that month. “And there's really a lack of inventory in this particular market.”
A neighbor and real estate broker, Alice Chin, said that “pricey rentals do not meet the need for varied and affordable housing in our community.”
“The jump in rent prices, even year to year, is stunning,” Councilman Ian Holzhauer said Tuesday. “And I think anyone in this community who's in that position will tell you the same. Having said that, I don't know of much of a fix to that problem, other than a market fix. Continuing to constrain supply overall drives up the price on the demand side.”
He wants to have a discussion later this year about an inclusionary zoning ordinance “where we could actually give some concrete guidelines to developers to talk about the future mix of housing we'd like to see in Naperville.”