Developer continues push for assisted-living facility Wheaton
Developers pushing for an assisted-living facility in Wheaton say they’ve made significant changes to the plans to ease neighbors’ fears about flooding and the height of the proposed four-story building at a vacant site near Main Street.
But one Wheaton official argues the plan ignores a large chunk of the property at 219 E. Parkway Drive: a nearly 2-acre wetland on the north side of the site.
“That seems to be a big omission on the part of the plan,” Laura Christensen, chairwoman of the city’s planning and zoning board, said at a public hearing Tuesday.
Christensen suggested adding a series of sidewalks and benches along the wetland area to offer more outdoor space and amenities at the rear of an L-shaped building where Skokie-based developer Supportive Living Services hopes to build Heritage Woods of Wheaton, an 84-unit facility geared toward residents 75 and older.
Construction would disrupt some of the wetland, removing soil to fill an area for the parking lot.
“It seems like you’re already making a big mess there as it is,” Christensen said. “It doesn’t seem like you can disrupt it a whole lot more.”
But the project’s engineer said the developer can’t do much more and is limited by DuPage County’s permitting process and restrictions on land that’s in a flood plain.
“I’m not saying it can’t be done,” said Mike Renner, of Eriksson Engineering Associates. “It’s just something we have to be very cautious about.”
Meanwhile, the developer has eliminated the fourth floor on two sides of the building in response to concerns raised by neighbors at a Jan. 30 meeting.
“Since that meeting, we’ve made significant changes to our plans to address these concerns by literally removing a floor from the southern and western sides of the building,” said Steven Ruffalo, an attorney for the developer.
Another option would widen the building and move it closer to Parkway Drive to reduce height, said architect David Haymes, of Chicago-based Pappageorge/Haymes Partners.
Under current plans, the building sits 76 feet from Parkway behind a landscape buffer and stands nearly 50 feet high when viewed from the south.
On Tuesday, a handful of neighbors also raised fears about flooding in nearby residential areas. A stormwater holding tank under the parking lot aims to relieve some of those flooding issues.
“Most neighbors will probably have even less problems in the future than they would now because there will actually be storage on the site where there wasn’t previously,” Christensen said.
In 2006, the planning and zoning board recommended the city council reject a plan for a 42-unit townhouse development at the site, where a nursing home previously was demolished. Both neighbors and board members expressed concerns about flooding and the height of the proposed townhouses.
After the board’s recommendation, developer Brownstone Properties withdrew the zoning application for the property, and the townhouse project died.
Christensen said the proposed height of the assisted-living facility poses the biggest hurdle moving forward.
Still, “the developers seem like they’re trying to be sensitive,” she said.
The board will continue to review the project at a public hearing set for March 27 at city hall, 303 W. Wesley St.