In recent years, developers and preservationists have become the Hatfields and McCoys of the suburban real estate market. In older
communities, where vacant property is at a premium and what little undeveloped land remains is often filled with rare species of prairie plants and flowers, the two sides have been locked in what appears to be a lopsided struggle.
Developers, supported by local governments eager for the tax revenue they bring, have proven to be formidable opponents for preservationists who have attempted to slow new development with lawsuits, lobbying and historic preservation ordinances. But, to date, their impact has been minimal.
In north suburban Highland Park, the name ”Hybernia” evokes mixed reactions. To preservationists, it is a derivation of the Latin word for the white-fringed prairie orchid; to Hybernia Associates, Ltd., it is the name of their $93 million planned development of 122 luxury homes now under construction on 132 acres of the last undeveloped tract in the city.
David Weber, whose family has been in Highland Park for more than a century, says the Hybernia development is an outrage.
”They cleared 80 percent of the oak and hickory forest containing trees that date back to presettlement times and turned the entire area into one vast logging camp,” he said.
”They told the Lake County Board and the city council what they wanted to hear until they got permission to build, and now they`re doing what they really intended to do all along and with absolutely no sensitivity to the environment.”
For example, Weber says, Hybernia is using the largest earth-moving equipment available when smaller machinery could do the same job and is further degrading the area by building a construction haul road adjacent to the 30-acre conservation preserve that the developer agreed to leave intact.
In rebuttal, David Hoffman, president of Hybernia Associates, says:
”Critics such as Weber and two or three others have treated this land, which was always privately owned, as their own. For years they had the benefit of this borrowed open space and would object to any development that would limit their use of it.”
According to Hoffman, the public will still have access to the nature preserve. ”From the beginning, we`ve been on record as saying this preserve, which will be managed and supported by the homeowners association, will be open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” he said.
Responding to Weber`s charges that Hybernia Associates is insensitive to the environment and is destroying a disproportionate number of trees, Hoffman mentions the award-winning landscape construction firm of Theodore Brickman and Co., which is on site to do whatever is necessary to save existing trees, including root pruning, trimming and digging wells for maintenance.
”And in places where we had a right to cut all the trees if we wanted, we worked with an ecologist to save as many as possible,” Hoffman said.
This is not the first attempt to develop this tract. In the 1920s another developer laid out streets and began building before the Depression halted construction. Only four homes were built, and for years these homeowners enjoyed their sylvan surroundings, where deer and small animals lived without fear.
The property was later acquired by the Polk family, who had no master plan but instead wanted to put up scattered site housing.
Highland Park took the Polk Trust to court to stop the piecemeal development of the area. The city readily accepted the compromise development, which was arrived at as a result of the court proceedings. This plan called for a cluster plan with large open spaces.
”Neither side was completely satisfied with this compromise, but it was the best that could be achieved. You can`t have it both ways,” said city engineer Phil Dittmar, who concedes that there has been extensive damage to the trees that were left standing and some may not survive.
In 1989, after a great deal of public discussion, the Highland Park board approved the master plan submitted by Hybernia Associates.
In west suburban Hinsdale, a community with an eclectic housing mix but no architecturally significant homes, many residents have been battling developers who have been pulling down relatively new homes and replacing them with expensive custom homes that critics say are entirely inappropriate for the area.
”They`re too large for the lots and too big for the neighborhoods,”
said Evebell Dunham, a member of the Hinsdale Historical Society. ”They take a perfectly good house that`s less than 50 years old and in three hours it`s gone.”
Developer Tim Thompson, who has completed 50 ”teardowns” in Hinsdale, disagrees. ”There has never been a `perfectly good` house taken down in Hinsdale,” he said. ”The market decides whether a house will come down. If the value of the land outpaces the value of the building and it has no redeeming architectural significance, then it is a candidate for demolition.” Most of the houses Thompson razes are 1950s-style ranch homes built on slab foundations that have not been updated or even maintained in recent years. To prove his point, he offers photographs of some of the derelict homes he has knocked down.
”There has to be something wrong with someone who would prefer to live next door to this house instead of a million-dollar custom home,” he said.
”We took down one ranch that had a rusted car in the yard that had been there for 40 years. Would they rather live next to that?”
According to Dunham, many people initially welcomed the new homes but later changed their minds. ”As the larger houses went up and overshadowed their homes, they realized they had lost their exposure to the sun,” she said. ”And after the first heavy rain, they often flooded because there is less ground available to absorb the moisture. But by that time it was too late to do anything about it.”
”If anyone floods today, they also flooded before we came on the scene,” countered Thompson. ”We actually help prevent flooding in other homes on the block because our lots are carefully graded with deep foundations and sumps. As the overflow from surrounding homes surges into the foundation of one of our homes, it is sumped back out into the storm sewer.”
A preservation ordinance prepared by the Hinsdale Historical Society and other preservationists was tabled by the village`s zoning commission and it is likely that a second ordinance now under consideration will go the same route. In 1988 there were 65 teardowns in Hinsdale and by 1989 the number had increased to 68. However, the demand for custom homes has slowed and only 14 permits have been issued by the village in 1990.
”At this time last year I had 15 homes under construction and this year there are only five,” said Thompson, who is still confident that the trend to tear down and replace will continue in established suburbs where undeveloped land is nonexistant and vacant lots command astronomical prices.
In Oak Park, which boasts two historic districts containing the greatest concentration of stuctures designed by Frank Lloyd Wright of any community in the world, the conflict between preservationists and developers and homeowners becomes thornier.
After several months of acrimonious debate, in mid-July the village board of trustees sent a historic preservation ordinance that would affect 3,100 buildings back to the historic preservation commission for more specific guidelines and to answer questions raised during public hearings.
The main sticking point is a ”binding review” provision that many residents from the two historic districts feel would deprive them of unalienable property rights. Under this clause, a seven-member board would have the power to grant or deny building permits for exterior work visible from the street, based on how the work would fit in with the historic character of the district.
”The goal of the commission is not to stifle creativity nor to legislate for good taste but to pass a reasonable ordinance that has just enough teeth to protect and preserve Oak Park`s architectural heritage,” said commission chairwoman Meg Klinkow, who emphasizes that 15 other communities in the Chicago area and 37 statewide already have a similar binding review process.
Had this ordinance been in effect, a six-unit townhouse now under construction on South Maple in a block of multi-unit buildings might not have been permitted. M&C Developing, Inc., an Oak Park firm that specializes in in- fill building in the community, razed a 20-room house that once had been a stately Victorian but for the past 40 years had served as a rooming house. The building had a long list of code violations.
Under a grandfather clause, the house reverted to single-family status when it was sold, but it was unlikely anyone would be willing to invest the estimated $400,000 needed to rehab it.
”There should be a distinction between historic and merely old,” said William McDermott, president of M&C. ”Deteriorating old buildings do not raise property values. To pass an ordinance that may make it impossible for owners to afford repairs would be counterproductive.”
But, in general, Oak Park`s historic preservation commission does not approve of razing single-family homes. ”Once you start taking down buildings piecemeal, the quality of the district becomes eroded,” said Klinkow. ”And if enough homes are taken down, the character of the district becomes so diluted that it`s not worthy of its original designation.”
The commission, however, would not oppose demolition if the house was a
”noncontributing structure” built outside the time frame of the historic district.
While other suburbs attract high-powered developers brokering million-dollar deals, Oak Park developers such as M&C are, by contrast, the ”Ma and Pa” operations of the building industry.
Another entrepreneur is Peter Thomas, who has rehabbed eight buildings in Oak Park, including his most recent project, an 1880s Victorian farmhouse in the village`s historic district. The house had been divided into a rooming house after the war and after decades of neglect was a prime candidate for the wrecker`s ball.
”I looked at the house not the way it was but the way it should be,”
said Thomas, a lifelong resident of Oak Park. ”There was a lot to work with, including eight-foot windows and a marble fireplace.”
Thomas bought the house for $70,000, put $150,000 into it and today has it on the market for $269,000. Much of the work was contracted out with Oak Park friends who work in the various trades.
”I found an old safe with $600 in it under the floor in one room,” he said. ”When I told everyone it was `finder`s keepers` you should have seen them work,” he said with a laugh.
