At least three times over the last 18 years, residents of an exclusive McHenry County subdivision carved out of a millionaire’s estate have debated whether or not to form their own village.
The people of Trout Valley were finally frightened into political action last year when the Village of Cary approved plans for a 316-home subdivision on land immediately adjacent to their community.
The most disturbing part of the plan was a sewer line designed to slash through what was once a 900-acre horse farm and polo grounds built beside the Fox River in the 1920s by rental car magnate John D. Hertz.
The community of about 500 residents lobbied local lawmakers for help, and on May 26 won approval of special legislation that will give them the opportunity to incorporate and have more power over zoning in their area.
It is not clear whether the bill, expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jim Edgar in the upcoming weeks, will give the community any power to halt the construction that many fear will ruin the area’s historic character.
But the same anxiety over growth that is driving the residents to organize has caused a rash of tiny new villages to spring up across McHenry County in the last year.
If Trout Valley residents vote to incorporate through a referendum, they would form the fourth new McHenry County town since November 1994-following Ringwood, Greenwood and Barnard Mill.
And as many as three more villages could spring up in southern McHenry County using the more flexible requirements in the legislation sponsored by state Sen. Richard Klemm (R-Crystal Lake).
Normally, the law requires 2,500 people living within 4 square miles before residents can vote to incorporate as a village. But with Klemm’s amendment, 200 people living within 2 square miles can vote in a referendum to incorporate as a village if they are located within 25 miles of a state border.
That includes all of McHenry County-and county planners expect several other communities to take advantage of the law before it expires Jan. 1.
“With all the growth and land-grabbing that is going on in McHenry County, I can see why communities might become afraid and want to do this to protect themselves,” said Jim Hogue, the county’s principal planner.
For most of these communities, incorporation is both attractive and frightening.
Many of these communities want to incorporate so they can create zoning laws to limit the density of the housing subdivisions springing up around them. Some also want to hire their own police departments and road maintenance workers.
But with these services come more taxes and government bureaucracy, and many residents fight incorporation because they want to keep these urban burdens from from their simpler, rural lives.
“It’s difficult for me to understand why they’d want to incorporate because usually that just means more government and more taxes,” said John Liautaud, an 18-year resident of a home built at the site of the former Hertz mansion in Trout Valley.
How much more in taxes? Nobody yet knows, for Trout Valley or the other three villages incorporated in McHenry County in the last year.
But the amount could be similar to that paid by residents of Bull Valley, an upscale cluster of 198 homes between Woodstock and Crystal Lake that voted to incorporate in 1977.
The village has only two full-time employees, a police officer and a clerk who works out of a two-story brick house that doubles as village hall. But for this, the owner of a home assessed at $100,000 pays $421 a year in taxes.
“Generating revenue is very difficult for us because we don’t have any businesses other than a golfing club,” said George Gallagher, a member of the Bull Valley Board of Trustees.
But Gallagher believes it is worth it for the residents to pay extra taxes because they would have the power to restrict development around them and a police officer to protect their homes when they’re on vacation.
“We don’t have to depend on the county to protect us from development,” said Gallagher.
Trout Valley residents know well the feeling of encroaching development. The subdivision of some 200 houses, most worth between $300,000 and $500,000 each, is now bordered on three sides by neighboring Cary.
What has concerned Trout Valley residents recently is a developer’s interest in vacant land south of the subdivision. In April 1994, the Cary Village Board approved an agreement that would allow United Homes to build as many as 316 homes on 162 acres in a subdivision called Gentry Ridge.
Part of that agreement was for the construction of a sewer line through Trout Valley that would connect Gentry Ridge with Cary’s municipal sewage treatment plant.
The Trout Valley Association, a group of local homeowners, is still trying to wage a court battle against the condemnation of land for that project, but it’s unclear whether incorporation will help that effort.
Cary Village President Susan McCabe said she doesn’t believe that the incorporation of Trout Valley would have any impact on either the subdivision or the sewer line.
But Joe Blanco, a leader of the effort to incorporate Trout Valley, said what happens to Gentry Ridge in the immediate future is irrelevant.
What’s more important is whether Trout Valley will have any say about future developments that could hurt the quality of life of local residents, Blanco said.
By law, incorporated villages have some influence over zoning within 1.5 miles of their borders.
“Gentry Ridge was kind of a slap in the face that said, `Hey, wake up! What kind of development might lie in our future? Shouldn’t we have some say into what’s happening around us?’ ” said Blanco, a 46-year-old business consultant.
“We are interested in preserving our quality of life, controlling zoning and planning within our boundaries, and having some input on issues like schools and roads in our area,” said Blanco.
But others are skeptical that such a posh little subdivision needs to become a town.
“I don’t see any point at all to them incorporating,” said James Frisch, a member of the McHenry County Board from nearby Cary. “It could be an ego thing, or it could be honest ignorance . . . whatever it is, I know a lot of people who think it’s just ridiculous.”
