To reduce frustration among developers and commissioners, the Barrington Zoning Commission met Monday to consider establishing standards for the Appearance Review Commission, which makes structural, architectural and landscaping recommendations to the Village Board.
A common complaint about the review commission is that its duties are not well-defined, which can handicap developers when they go before the board and are asked to make physical and landscape changes to their buildings that were not made clear to them beforehand.
Appearance Review Commissioner Shea Lubecke told the zoning commissioners that her role would be better defined if guidelines were established relating to which materials and architectural details developers can use based on the time period the building is meant to convey.
“The difficulty with (across-the-board) standards is that buildings begin to look alike, and it’s OK for a while, but then they become monotonous,” Lubecke said. “(Across-the-board standards) limit the creativity that can be expressed in a building.”
The appearance review commissioners, most of whom have architectural backgrounds, now look at building designs in terms of how they fit with the surroundings.
Dean Maiben, president of the Barrington Area Historical Society, said, “I don’t like plastic houses next to $500,000 homes. I think it’s an atrocity to use materials that aren’t characteristic of their (surrounding) community.”
Resident Thomas Hayward Jr., a land-use expert, said the concept of uniformity is a good one.
“A (developer) shouldn’t have to spend $50,000 to $100,000 on lawyers, architects and engineers to process their property through the village,” he said.
Resident Mike Scholl, who has restored two homes and a commercial building in town, said the appearance commission lacks standards to follow when reviewing a project.
Zoning Commissioner Justin Gerak said he hears complaints that the review commission’s guidelines are “mushy.”
“Developers tell us that it takes them a lot of time going through trial and error (with the commission),” Gerak said. “Getting a well-defined Barrington character is hard for some developers to receive by osmosis. It would be good for developers to have guidelines.”
The Zoning Commission agreed to define what it thinks the appearance commission’s role should be and continue the discussion at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 in the interim Village Hall, 1301 S. Grove Ave.
