West Cook News

The Village of Burr Ridge met on Jan. 23 to discuss a proposed change to the Shirley Ryan Ability (SRA) Lab parking facilities, approving some changes and denying other additional spaces that were requested.

One request was for eliminating some of the landscape islands in the parking lot to make more room for parking, and another was to put five parking spaces in the front lawn. The SRA leases spaces from behind the village hall, but would like to increase the amount from 10 to 30 spots. This is due to the cancellation of bus transportation services since the pandemic, which, in turn, has increased the cars in the lots daily.

“By reconfiguring this parking lot, we are giving them some accommodations by allowing landscape islands to be eliminated, trees to be eliminated and pervious surfaces to be eliminated as well, which we have done in the past,” said board member Guy Franzese. “Precedent has been set in the past. We've eliminated a landscape island, and we're doing it, allowing it here. However, it's about well above and beyond our standard. So this parking lot will be more dense than what we normally allow. We have less landscape islands than we normally allow. And what we've done in the past with other businesses, in other big commercial buildings. However, we haven't allowed the parking in the front yard.”

Three public hearings were held by the planning commission on the changes, with the public mostly concerned about the aesthetics from removing the landscape island and increasing the lights from headlights from the cars. The lab put screenings in their windows to prevent light pollution and is also adding landscaping around the building and the edge of the lot. The commission unanimously approved the lot changes, but could not approve additional spots.

Council members discussed the changes for about an hour and agreed that they were needed due to the high daily traffic experience. This amounts to more than 100 cars each business day on average. The council ultimately voted to approve the changes to the parking lot, but denied the additional five spaces in the front lawn.