Some Bloomingdale homeowners who are fighting a neighboring steel company’s request to rezone its property for industrial use say their feud now centers on a fence and a crop of trees.
Karen Barnes said she thought that a plan approved by the DuPage County Zoning Board of Appeals in January had settled the matter. At that point, the board ruled that it would approve rezoning if Crane & Steel Inc.–located off Rosedale Avenue near Lake Street in unincorporated Bloomingdale–met specific conditions to buffer residential neighbors from the sights and sounds of steel fabrication.
But the company’s owner, Gene Kinser, modified the plan after finding some conditions too stringent. Now, staff members of the county’s Department of Development–who describe the deviations as minor improvements–will resubmit Kinser’s latest plan to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
“It’s very confusing to us,” said Barnes, whose home overlooks Crane & Steel property from the east. “We understand it’s his livelihood. We’re not stopping him. We just want protection, that’s all.”
Kinser’s 11 1/2 acres on the site are currently zoned for a combination of business and residential use. He said he has worked hard to improve the property, which sits next to a county-owned quarry used as a dump, as well as several auto body shops and a tavern.
He has been chopping down trees–to the neighbors’ chagrin–while filling in the land where it had been stripped 10 feet to 15 feet lower than neighboring properties.
Cranes and other equipment sit on the site, where Kinser plans to build a 24,000 square-foot building if his request for rezoning is approved.
He said a county official visited the property and told him it should be zoned industrial.
“Now it’s a battle between (the county) and the property owners,” Kinser said. “Every time we go out there, it seems they want more and more and more. You have to stop somewhere.”
He also has support from Bloomingdale Township Supervisor Floyd Sanford, whose office sits next door. Sanford, emphasizing his experience serving on county and municipal zoning boards, said the residents should recognize that Kinser will move much of his noisy work into the new facility.
Otherwise, Kinser will continue operating, anyway, but the work will continue outdoors.
Also, Sanford said, Crane & Steel will pay more taxes that benefit the community if the business expands.
“It’s the squeaky wheel,” Sanford said of the homeowners. “They don’t want to face up to the fact that no matter what they do, he will still be there.”
Yet the homeowners are not alone in their opposition to the rezoning request. Since last fall, the Bloomingdale and Roselle Village Boards have approved resolutions opposing rezoning for industrial use.
The rezoning request “places an intense industrial use–more intense than anything we would allow in the village–and places it next to single-family homes,” said Dan Wennerholm, village administrator for Bloomingdale. “Reasonable zoning is to not put those kind of land uses so close together.”
At issue now are the height and placement of a fence separating the neighbors, and the number of trees that will be planted over a conservation easement used to buffer the property. The neighbors wanted 120 feet of trees separating their property from Kinser’s, and a 10-foot-tall fence at the 120-foot line.
Kinser’s latest plan calls for a 60-foot conservation easement of trees closest to the neighbors. An 8-foot fence would be constructed at the 60-foot line. The next 60 feet of property would be used, in part, for a detention pond. Fourteen trees would be removed to make way for the pond; Kinser would replace them with 38 trees within the conservation easement.
“We are still getting the setbacks and still providing the buffers,” said Dalip Bammi, director of DuPage County Department of Development. “The trees cut will be replaced. That is what we will be presenting to the ZBA.”
Once approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals, the request would next go before the County Development Committee, and then to the County Board for final approval.
Bammi said it is not unusual for the county staff to resubmit a zoning request to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
