News on Virgil Development

Daily Herald
February 1, 2005

Group set for another fight

By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz Daily Herald Staff Writer

A group of Fox Valley residents has fought hard to keep Warrenville-based Neumann Homes from bringing more than 1,300 homes to Gilberts.

Now, that group wants to sink its teeth into Carpentersville, where Elgin-based Pulte Homes wants to build a 432-home subdivision on 296 acres southwest of Huntley and Randall roads, on the border with Gilberts.

The property is unincorporated and would have to be annexed into Carpentersville.

The group, which calls itself Citizens4Gilberts, plans to tell the Carpentersville village board tonight the Parks and Terraces of Winchester Heights would worsen flooding, add too many students to already crowded schools and overburden the area's infrastructure.

Those concerns have been voiced by other residents opposed to the Pulte proposal, but the Gilberts group has shown it can put up a tenacious fight. It has brought dozens of activists to meetings to denounce plans for Neumann's Clublands subdivision and last year got about 25 percent of Gilberts' 4,000 residents to sign a petition opposing the development.

The group hasn't decided if it will circulate a similar petition in Carpentersville, but it is calling on the approximately 700 people on its mailing list to attend meetings about the Pulte plan and notify Carpentersville trustees of their opposition to it, said group member Martin Matushek.

The land where Winchester would go, at the headwaters of the Kishwaukee River's south branch, is the most environmentally sensitive land considered for development in town, said Carpentersville Village Engineer Ronald Rudd.

Matushek said he worries runoff from the site would exacerbate Binnie Road flooding - which already is caused by poor soil absorption at the Glen Eagle subdivision, where some people have to keep sump pumps constantly running to keep water out of their basements.

"We're going to need a canoe paddle," Matushek said.

Mike Michalski, vice president at Carol Stream-based Testing Services Corp., which prepared soil reports for Pulte, said the builder wouldn't design a subdivision that would have flooding problems.

"As long as the site is properly engineered, it's a build-able site," Michalski said.

Matushek said the $1.25 million Pulte offered to give Community Unit District 300 up front is not enough to cover the cost of the 444 new students the subdivision would bring, saddling taxpayers with the remainder of the cost.

And the money Pulte offered to fix streets and sidewalks is not enough, Matushek said.

Carpentersville has asked Pulte for about $1 million in transition fees to pay mostly for equipment and personnel needs, said Village Manager Craig Anderson.

Pulte has offered to give $1,000 per unit for street repair and $300,000 for sidewalks, for a total of about $732,000, but negotiations are still being conducted.

Winchester Heights is on the agenda for tonight's board meeting, but a vote is unlikely.

A public hearing required before the board votes on the annexation of the property will likely be held at the end of February or the beginning of March, Anderson said.