Pending formal approval, the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission will be hired to draft state legislation to give local governments joint control of a planned development district adjacent to the proposed south suburban airport.
The Eastern Will County Regional Council voted Thursday to enter into a projected $30,000 contract with the commission to prepare the development district legislation for review and introduction no later than the start of next year’s legislative session.
The planning commission’s Executive Committee is scheduled to meet June 14 to review the regional council’s request. “This is one of the most important things we are going to be doing,” University Park trustee Polly Bernd, chairman of the regional council, told the group.
The proposed legislation grew out of a set of principles local officials sent last month to state Transportation Secretary Kirk Brown in response to his announcement that the state was prepared to buy and strictly control 9,500 acres of “buffer” zones adjacent to a projected 23,500-acre airport.
Ostensibly, what Brown is seeking is iron-clad assurance that only airport-compatible development, which means no further residential development, would be built within the buffer zone.
No final decision has been made yet on either the airport’s boundaries or the buffer, but it could come soon, according to airport project manager Bob York.
Just over a week ago, Brown said he was “leaning toward” the request of south suburban officials that the buffer areas remain in local rather than state control.
Legislation is needed, however, to bind local zoning authorities to a joint agreement on limiting the types of development that would be allowed in the buffer.
As noted by John Paige, director of planning services for NIPC, the commission’s staff has “been pursuing the subject of a development district since IDOT first proposed their purchase and lease-back idea.”
As part of its contract with IDOT to staff the South Suburban Planning Committee, yet another airport-related planning group, the commission already has begun what Paige described as “background research” needed to draft development district legislation.
No such district currently exists in the Chicago region.
Paige said he would be presenting some of that background research to the South Suburban Committee when it meets Wednesday in Monee.
Once NIPC’s work is done, the legislation would still have to be submitted to the state House and Senate in Springfield.
To help that happen, the regional council, which includes representation from all municipalities and townships in eastern Will County in addition to some in northern Kankakee County, is trying to get local state legislators involved.
A bi-partisan panel has been invited to a June 29 meeting where they will receive an update on the council’s assessment of the airport’s projected impact and the progress of its plans if a third airport is eventually built near Peotone.
A decision on whether to build the third airport is estimated to be at least a year away.
The airport-area delegation includes state Sens. Aldo DeAngelis (R-Olympia Fields) and Tom Dunn (D-Joliet) and state Reps. Flora Ciarlo (R-Steger) and John Philip “Phil” Novak (D-Bradley).
