West Cook News

At the March 20 meeting of the Lyons Township High School District 204 Board of Education, residents of Burr Ridge asked the board to refrain from selling a plot of land the district owns.

The district owns a 70-acre plot of land in Willow Springs on the corner of Willow Springs and German Church roads. The land is currently vacant, and the district initially bought it years ago for potential use as a new high school campus but, according to the Desplaines Valley News, the board is now looking to sell it for a minimum of $55 million. 

The district plans to use the money to upgrade and improve its classrooms and address some equipment and facilities gaps in its athletic programs. After putting it up for sale, the district received two bids for the property in early February, one meeting the minimum amount and the other below it, with the developers looking to turn the lot into an industrial park. 

Dozens of residents, including Willow Springs Village administrators, came to the board meeting where they were voting on the offer, asking the district to refuse the offer, arguing an industrial park in the area would go against the neighborhood's culture and desires. 

While the board did vote against the offer, they didn't change the asking price or stipulations of the bid, and a similar development could be discussed in the future.

According to an article in Patch, emails released by the board in late March showed board members meeting with representatives from industrial developer Bridge Industrial. The board president had also been speaking with B.I. over email for months before announcing to the public that the board would be selling the land. 

Village officials have said that they won't allow rezoning for industrial uses on the plot, but the district still appears to be interested in working with the developers and selling it.

During the March 20 meeting, community members once again asked the district to not sell the land or to consider alternate uses or developers for it. They were frustrated over both the proposed sale and the lack of communication on the issue from the district. 

Parents said that they had received no information from the board, who have made no comments about the issue in open meetings for months, and said that, unless they used the Freedom of Information Act, they wouldn't know anything about any developments. They also claimed the board erased the minutes from all of their executive meetings where they had discussed the sale over the last 18 months.

"I'm here tonight to speak about zoning," Burr Ridge Village Board Trustee Guy Franzese said. "Looking at your resumes, I don't see any zoning experience. Your attorneys don't seem to have any zoning experience, either. I may be wrong, but I don't see any. Since I'm standing here in a place of learning, I would like to educate you about the concepts of good planning and good zoning. Back in 2005 and 2006, I attended the Willow Springs public hearings where the zoning for the LT property was thoroughly discussed and later approved. As you would expect, there was much discussion by the residents, the Willow Springs plan commissioners, and the trustees as to what the zoning could be and should be for this parcel."

"This is poor planning and bad zoning," Franzese continued while discussing the idea that the land could be zoned industrial. "It places increased intense industrial uses immediately adjacent to the country club to the north, residential elementary school park to the west, and residential to the south. Industrial zoning fails to consider the seven-plus acres that Pleasantville Park District owns as well."