Hoffman Estates approves 17-home subdivision
After a long downturn in the housing market, Hoffman Estates officials Monday approved what they said could be the first of several single-family home developments in 2014.
The proposed 17-home Bradwell Estates subdivision was annexed and approved unanimously by the village board, with only Trustee Michael Gaeta absent.
The development is planned for the previously unincorporated 4.8-acre site of a former farm on the south side of Bradwell Road between Chambers and Kingston drives.
The 17 homes will be arranged in a cul-de-sac just north of the Hoffman Estates Park District’s Colony Park and will use some of the surplus water retention built into the park’s design.
But the impact of the new subdivision on the stormwater capacity of nearby homes was the chief concern of neighboring Chambers Drive resident Susan McCoppin.
“I’m just really concerned about this water issue,” McCoppin said. “I don’t feel anyone is thinking about the people who are living around that park right now.”
Village Manager Jim Norris pointed out that not only does the project have to meet the standards of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, but also that Hoffman Estates has made its own stormwater standards even higher.
The developer’s engineer explained that a swale would be built to direct stormwater away from neighboring homes and toward the park to the south. For its design, an additional foot was added to the high-water mark calculated for a 100-year storm.
McCoppin also was concerned about rezoning the land from the 10,000-square-foot lot sizes it was automatically annexed at to 7,500-square-foot lot sizes.
Norris said stormwater issues are driven less by lot sizes than the amount of impervious surface, and that larger lot sizes can sometimes mean larger homes on a lot.
Trustee Karen Mills told McCoppin the board had previously rejected a more dense plan for 19 homes on the site.
Todd Polcyn, president of Inverness-based Projx Construction Group, said his firm began conversations about the site five years ago but only gradually began rebuilding momentum about two years ago.