For decades, growth and development in the six-county region has followed a hit-and-run pattern, with towns extending their boundaries, improving the land and then pushing development ever outward toward their more-rural neighbors.
Such has been typical of suburban sprawl.
Now, officials in Will County are saying it’s not fair that, just as growth is at their doorstep, the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) is considering ways, via policy changes, to manage an expected population boom in the county through 2020.
The Will County Governmental League has overwhelmingly voted to propose a change in state law that could help buffer Will County from some of the influence wielded by NIPC.
The agency believes that the Chicago region’s suburban frontiers already have been extended too far and at too great a cost. It’s a pattern, NIPC officials say, that shouldn’t be perpetuated into the next century.
“I guess to some people `growth’ (and) `management’ are bad words,” said John Paige, NIPC’s director of planning services and liaison to Will County. “But growth management means trying to anticipate potential flooding or degradation of streams because of soil erosion.”
“We’re not trying to stop growth in Will County. What we’re trying to do is to promote quality growth,” he said. “Our forecasts have Will County more than doubling in population over the next 22 years and we want to work with them to plan for that.”
But communities such as Joliet, Plainfield, New Lenox, Shorewood and Channahon see it differently. They say they want the option of growing, in a responsible way, under the same competitive rules that have brought development to their counterparts north and east of Will County.
“Other collar counties have enjoyed the growth that they’ve been able to have,” said Channahon Village Administrator Marian Gibson.
“When it happened in DuPage County it was (called) economic development. `Look at this great financial boon.’ Now that it’s come to Will County, it’s being characterized as `sprawl’ and shouldn’t be happening. I don’t think that’s fair,” said Gibson.
Gibson and her Will County colleagues hope to have NIPC partially stripped of its authority to review the boundaries of so-called facility planning areas, a key growth-control mechanism. The planning area is a set of boundaries within which a municipality may construct certain specified sewer facilities.
Governmental league members propose a statutory change, applicable only to Will County, that would give the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency sole responsibility for review and approval to extend municipal sewer systems and to expand treatment facilities.
The IEPA currently contracts with NIPC to review municipal sewer expansion plans in the six-county Chicago region and to make recommendations to the state agency.
With the exception of two other, smaller planning regions in Illinois, all applications for expansion of sewer service in the state are reviewed directly by the IEPA.
While Will County officials aren’t optimistic that their legislation will be acted on this year, given the limited nature of the General Assembly’s election-year agenda, Will County Governmental League president and New Lenox Mayor John Nowakowski said the bill’s introduction tells NIPC “we’re ready to fight this.”
The league’s legislative proposal was prompted, for example, by NIPC’s recent rejections of what the municipal officials say were reasonable facility planning area expansions for member communities. They subsequently were forced to mediate the expansions with the IEPA.
League director Alan Anderson said the current NIPC process is too time-consuming and ultimately adds cost to Will County taxpayers.
“A direct review by the IEPA would add efficiency and a statewide perspective to the facilities planning area review process in Will County,” said Anderson.
Illustrative of the growing conflict between NIPC and Will County is Joliet’s pending westward expansion, along Caton Farm Road, into rural Kendall County.
After NIPC advised against it on grounds that it would contribute to sprawl by “leapfrogging” over empty land, the city appealed to the IEPA, which ruled in its favor.
Joliet argues that it isn’t leapfrogging, considering the city has “plans for every parcel all the way out on Caton Farm Road,” according to James Haller, the city’s director of community economic development.
Created by the Illinois General Assembly, the 41-year-old, Chicago-based NIPC is supported by state and federal grants and contributions from counties, other units of local government and corporations.
Given the agency’s long-term growth forecasts for Will County, Nowakowski said NIPC’s regional strategy and actions seem contradictory.
“If we are to follow their own projections, then we should be proceeding with being prepared for the growth patterns that are inevitable. We don’t necessarily agree with their philosophy on growth management,” he said.
Gibson said Will County is probably the fastest growing county in the state and one of fastest in the nation: “If we’re willing to take on the responsibilities that go along with (growth) . . . then why should we be reviewed by an outside agency to see if it makes sense for us to do that?”
