Construction may begin this year on a massive development project which could increase fivefold the population of the McHenry County village of Huntley, if officials accept an annexation agreement that would let a developer control more land than there is in the village now.
The plans for the 2,650-acre project, strategically located north of the Northwest Tollway along Illinois Highway 47, include thousands of housing units and office towers up to 30 stories high that would radically transform the former farm town of 2,453 people. As the project is completed over 15 to 25 years, it is expected to bring 11,000 new residents.
It is a ”master plan community” where people will be able to ”live, work and play,” Jim Manskey, principal of The SWA Group of Dallas, the project planners, told the Village Board Monday. The developer hopes to fill the homes with people attracted by commercial and industrial expansion along the Northwest Tollway.
The land`s owner, The Prime Group Inc. of Hoffman Estates, would build the major infrastructure, such as a water treatment facility and arterial roads, said Timothy Edmond, senior vice president for Prime. It would then sell off parcels of land for development by other contractors, while keeping control and using building standards set by the annexation agreement.
Such planned communities have been developed in other parts of the country, but this is the largest in the Midwest, Manskey said.
But because it is a centrally planned project, rather than being developed one site or one subdivision at a time under municipal control, village officials must make many decisions upfront that they otherwise would consider on a case-by-case basis.
The Prime Group has been working on the project for two years, said Edmond. Environmental, traffic and marketing studies, as well as an archeological survey and land planning, are nearly complete, he said.
The project has also been studied by Huntley`s own land use and zoning commissions.
But the Village Board has yet to approve the annexation agreement, which would essentially govern the entire project for over two decades. Before it is approved-perhaps this fall, after public hearings-a number of issues must still be resolved.
The Prime Group, for instance, wants to concentrate open space in large public areas and leave less space between buildings than the present village ordinances require. It is seeking a 6,500-square foot minimum lot size for single-family homes, for example, when the village presently requires 8,400.
Some village trustees also aren`t sure they want to allow buildings as high as the Prime Group wants to build. On the 15 percent of its land that is slated for office use, the developer plans buildings up to 30 stories high within 1,000 feet of the tollway and up to 15 stories high elsewhere. The plan also includes a 15-story hotel, and about 70 acres, or 2.7 percent, for commercial uses.
The project would include a variety of housing. Between 3.2 and 5 percent of the land is slated for multi-family housing, and 42.8 percent for single-family houses ranging from starter homes on 6,500-square-foot lots in the $125,000 price range to estate homes on full-acre lots, Manskey said.
About 36 percent of the land would be open space. The site now contains about 80 acres of scattered wetlands.
The open space would be used for parks, pathways and possibly for two golf courses with ponds and waterways.
Some Village Board members are still uncomfortable with turning so much future control over to the developer.
Since the Huntley development is expected to take so long, Prime is asking for considerable latitude in changing its land-use plans in the future. ”We don`t want to be left with land uses for which there is no market,”
said Glenn Reschke, Prime executive vice president.
But that makes some Huntley officials uneasy. ”You want us to give you flexibility without our having a future say in it,” Trustee Roger Borowicz said.
