Responding to residents’ complaints that an extended-stay hotel might increase traffic, jeopardize children’s safety and bring transient residents to the neighborhood, the Villa Park Village Board has unanimously rejected plans for the 132-bed hotel.
Trustees, who previously indicated no sign of opposition to the plan, turned down two variations that would have allowed Suburban Lodge to build an extended-stay hotel on what are four residential lots at the northwest corner of Villa Avenue and Roosevelt Road.
Neighbors like Janet Hillebold criticized the transiency of the hotel’s clientele and its low rental rates. She and several others among the approximately 80 neighbors in attendance suggested that the proposed hotel would be comparable to the troubled Parliament Square apartment complex nearby.
“We found the hotel was not what they said it was,” Hillebold said. “This will create more traffic only one block away from a grammar school.”
Mike Sexton, an attorney for Suburban Lodge, reminded trustees that the property has been zoned commercial since it was annexed to Villa Park several years ago. Because a hotel is a permitted use in the property’s zoning class, Suburban Lodge would be free to build without Village Board approval if it weren’t seeking two variations.
In fact, the village’s Planning and Zoning Commission, which recently recommended approval of the hotel, suggested that the village’s current 25-foot height limit may be too restrictive when compared with those in other DuPage County communities. Suburban Lodge was seeking a height variation in order to build a 33-foot-tall structure, as well as a parking setback variation.
Although extended-stay hotels have not created problems in the Chicago area, they have attracted some criticism in the Atlanta area for their transient nature. Village officials acknowledged that Villa Park has been contacted by other national extended-stay chains, including one that is interested in the former Flame restaurant property across the street from Suburban Lodge’s proposed site.
While the Suburban Lodge plan initially seemed to appeal to Villa Park officials’ thirst for new sales-tax dollars, trustees indicated that the hotel use didn’t seem right for the property. Because the property is commercially zoned, village officials and residents agreed that the land eventually will be redeveloped.
