In the community of Prairie Grove, residents shun the high-density subdivisions that in recent years have cropped up across McHenry County.
The 700 people who live in Prairie Grove never have had to worry about congested neighborhoods, because homes in the upscale community cannot be built on lots of less than an acre.
But an ongoing feud between the village and its only corporate resident, a high-powered tool and equipment manufacturer, has some homeowners concerned about preserving the community’s rural charm for future generations.
After having left the land in its natural state for two decades, the real estate arm of Terra Cotta Industries quietly is taking steps now to have its 1,200 acres developed–perhaps, in part, with an apartment complex.
Unlike the rest of Prairie Grove, the land is zoned for up to eight housing units per acre under a special classification granted to the company when the land was annexed 20 years ago.
The company already has announced a plan to construct a 279-acre industrial park on a portion of its land, near Illinois Highway 31 and Edgewood Road.
But some village trustees are hoping to block large-scale residential development, saying an apartment complex would destroy the integrity of Prairie Grove by attracting transients.
“This is a community of single-family homes, not big apartment buildings,” said Trustee Don Kopsell, who is concerned about developing the land because Terra Cotta’s holdings account for about half of the entire village.
“You can’t inject rental properties into a community like this without expecting things to deteriorate,” Kopsell said. “Apartments get rundown.”
Opponents of development say they may have found a way to prevent Terra Cotta from sending in the bulldozers.
Kopsell and two other trustees, Nancy Peterson and Bob Grzelewski, contend the annexation agreement that brought the land into the village will expire next year.
And with that expiration, the high-density zoning that the land was granted in 1977 would come to an end too.
“What we need to do is renegotiate a new agreement with Terra Cotta that doesn’t allow people to build things that are going to hurt the rest of the community,” Kopsell said.
Terra Cotta officials contend their annexation agreement with Prairie Grove won’t expire for another 11 years.
Both sides had hoped Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan would clear up the issue when the village wrote to Ryan asking for a legal opinion.
Last week, however, the issue was muddied even more when Ryan’s office said it doesn’t get involved in local annexation disputes.
“It’s a long-standing policy of this office not to issue a legal opinion on matters that require the construction or interpretation of ordinances, resolutions or contracts of local government,” wrote Michael J. Luke, chief of the opinions bureau for Ryan’s office.
The trustees now are considering asking McHenry County State’s Atty. Gary Pack to review the case.
Chicago attorney Stewart Diamond bolstered the claims of Kopsell and other trustees recently by saying municipal annexation agreements automatically end after two decades.
“No annexation agreement shall be valid for a period of more than 20 years from its inception,” said Diamond, who helped author some of the state’s annexation laws.
Trustees also have raised questions about the propriety of the annexation agreement, and have suggested the construction company was given a sweetheart deal by the village in 1977.
Terra Cotta officials said they were not the beneficiaries of any sweetened deals, although company officials said they did pay a $10-per-acre annexation fee instead of the then-standard $100-per-acre fee.
They did, however, pay nearly $200,000 to resurface and repair roads that were brought into Prairie Grove when the land was annexed. And, they said, since the agreement was struck, the company has pumped about $300,000 in property taxes into Prairie Grove municipal coffers.
If the village is successful at negating the annexation agreement, Terra Cotta may exercise some muscle of its own by seeking to attach to Crystal Lake or the city of McHenry. Or, the construction firm could reside in unincorporated McHenry County.
“We have been here since 1851,” said Thomas Hayward Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Terra Cotta Realty. “We have been a good corporate neighbor. We have helped maintain the village of Prairie Grove and its quality of life for the last 20 years.”
Hayward said that, when the agreement with Prairie Grove was signed in 1977, local officials were told the land probably wouldn’t be developed for two decades or longer, primarily because village officials wanted to be careful about the types of development brought into the area.
But Hayward stopped short of ruling out housing as his next major development on the land.
“We have no plans right now” to build homes, he said. “That’s not to say we’re not going to do it.”
Village President Michael Binkley characterized the efforts of trustees as misguided. Prairie Grove’s long-term plan includes construction of multifamily housing, he said.
“The board members have gotten too emotional,” Binkley said. “What they are doing is not in the best interest of the village.”
