New developer seeks to adopt previously approved plan for 69 townhouses in Prospect Heights

A developer is asking the Prospect Heights city council for permission to take over a controversial proposal to build 69 townhouses that was previously approved, but never built.

The council voted 3-2 in November 2020 in favor Lexington Homes’ residential development north of Muir Park. However, Lexington Homes and the landlord didn’t finalize a sale before the developer’s special use permit for a planned unit development expired.

Wheeling-based Neder Capital Services LLC now has a contract with the owner of the 5.2-acre site occupied by the long-shuttered Jolly Fun House Academy building at 1001 Oak Ave.

Though the nearly 5½-year-old plan would remain the same under Neder Capital — including a land swap with the Prospect Heights Park District — critics see this process as a second chance to voice their concerns when it comes before the council April 13.

“Our complaint is that it’s too dense,” said Steve Drake, whose family developed the half-acre home lots along neighboring Drake Terrace. “The people are not behind this at all.”

When casting their dissenting votes in 2020, council members Michelle Cameron and Kathleen Quinn said they were at least partly acknowledging the feelings of concerned neighbors as well as disliking the use of public funds as an economic development incentive.

Some contend the incentive should spur major commercial developments instead of residential growth, which often increases the demand for services on local governments.

Prospect Heights officials and their consultants argued school and library districts would benefit financially from the project and incentive package. They also noted the Jolly Fun House Academy site previously generated no property taxes at all due to an earlier zoning classification.

Drake said he and his neighbors had initially welcomed the lack of progress on the townhouses.

“It was nice to not happen, but then we have to relive this all over again,” he said. “It’s gut-wrenching because we have to go through this twice.”

Nevertheless, one of the 12 residents who spoke at this month’s Planning & Zoning Board of Appeals hearing welcomed the development as an improvement over the current eyesore of the abandoned school.