At what its chairman dubbed “a historic last meeting,” the South Suburban Planning Committee closed the books Wednesday on a 3-year-old intergovernmental adventure with acceptance of a joint “vision” of future development in eastern Will County.
Underwritten by the Illinois Department of Transportation to the tune of more than $500,000, the local government planning committee concluded a cooperative effort that began in July 1994, soon after Gov. Jim Edgar decided to advance plans for a third regional airport near Peotone.
The state agency prompted the local initiative knowing that the impact of a proposed airport project would be enormous for the relatively small south suburbs that surround the 23,000 acres of farmland targeted for airport development.
The end product of an effort that officials termed unique, is a joint land-use plan for eastern Will County, both with and without an airport. An assessment of the cumulative development impacts on the region also was made part of the committee’s final report.
The 75 pages of non-binding documentation that incorporates the two reports were accepted as a consensus product of the group, which met Wednesday in Peotone for what chairman Phil Peters called a historic occasion.
Peters is executive director of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, which shepherded the overall planning effort and prepared both the composite plan and the companion report on its cumulative effects.
“The legacy of this is better preparation,” said Peters.
The committee was made up of representatives from Peotone, Monee, University Park, Beecher and Crete as well as Will and Kankakee Counties. But the planning area includes large unincorporated tracts surrounding the villages of eastern Will County as well as parts of south Cook County and north Kankakee County.
The reports point to a large amount of growth in the eastern Will area over the next two decades even without an airport. With an airport, the level of growth is projected to be enormous.
Under either scenario, agriculture, currently the dominant land use in the area, is expected to give way to homes, businesses and factories.
In the “without airport” scenario, agriculture continues to dominate with residential land use increasing significantly and commercial and industrial uses located around and within major transportation corridors.
The “with airport” scenario is similar “except that commercial and industrial land uses are increased significantly . . . within transportation corridors and around the perimeter of the airport,” according to the report.
Either way, the just-ended initiative “has given us all the opportunity to explore different futures,” said Mike Williamson, IDOT’s staff liasion to the committee.
“Regardless of the fate of the airport we have created some very valuable documents. I think we are all glad that this is over but it was a very valuable process. I think we have in fact accomplished our purpose.”
IDOT provided $40,000 in state planning grants to each of the five municipalities plus a $70,000 grant to Will County and $50,000 to Kankakee County. It also paid NIPC about another $200,000 for related and supplemental planning work.
In his final report to the committee, an assistant manager on the airport project told the local officials that a decision whether federal approval will be granted to build the aiport is expected by the end of 1998.
In addition to actively marketing the airport to airlines as well as seeking private investors to join with the state in a phased development of the facility, state planners expect to complete their environmental assessment of the project by year’s end, said IDOT spokesman Scott Burkhardt.
A public hearing on the environmental assessment is planned for the latter half of October at the Matteson Holiday Inn, he said. A 30-day notice of the exact date will be provided within the next two weeks.
Support for the controversial airport proposal has been mixed in the eastern Will area, including within the committee’s membership.
But like the airport or not, the project has forced the local governments to plan jointly for what is expected to be a boom area over the next 20 years.
