Brook McDonald has seen it happen dozens of times: A longtime DuPage County resident becomes outraged when the pastoral, untouched acre next to his home is sold to a developer. Soon, instead of seeing deer and the occasional heron outside his window, he sees a mall parking lot.
As executive director of the west suburban Conservation Foundation and someone who works closely with the DuPage County Forest Preserve District, McDonald constantly assesses the county’s open-space situation, an issue important to many county residents.
First, the bad news: “There are no more large chunks of open space here,” he said bluntly.
But he is quick to point out that there still are many small, untouched parcels available.
The key is identifying the right land and working with developers to save it, officials say.
“There are a lot of little pieces of open space tucked away, and developers are finding them,” McDonald said. “The problem is, they are aided and abetted by municipalities, which are looking at one thing–money.”
Most county municipalities are looking for ways to increase their tax bases, he said, and annexing developed property is one of the most effective ways.
But when that land is not appropriate for development–for instance, if it is a natural habitat for herons–McDonald’s group, along with the Forest Preserve District, encourage developers to look elsewhere.
“We try really hard not to compete with developers,” said Bill Weidener, a spokesman for the Forest Preserve District. “We’re interested in acquiring open space in significant natural areas.
“Because the county has been built out, we do end up from time to time negotiating with different developers to acquire significant natural areas we feel are important.”
This year, that means continuing to find ways to spend the $75 million approved by county voters in 1997 to buy more land.
“If I say what the land is, the developers will pounce on it,” said Bill Maio, chairman of the district’s Finance and Land Acquisition Board, acknowledging there is a somewhat adversarial relationship between the district and developers. “Sometimes we get beat because the laws we have to operate under, as a public entity, don’t allow us the freedoms that businesses have.”
Maio said the Forest Preserve District is looking in 2000 to “make several large land acquisitions.”
Since its approval, $25.8 million of the $75 million has been spent to acquire 290 acres, much of it scattered parcels that have been annexed to existing preserves.
Maio said land prices have skyrocketed since he joined the board 16 years ago, making it more difficult for the agency to compete with wealthy, connected developers.
“When I first got on the board, we were able to buy land in the western part of the county for $8,000 an acre. Now, if we can get land at $50,000 an acre, we consider ourselves blessed,” he said.
This summer, for instance, the Forest Preserve District will take possession of two acres that cost $500,000. The land will be annexed to the Spring Creek Reservoir in Roselle.
Indeed, every spare acre is precious in the county–even the dump.
Earlier this year, the Forest Preserve District approved a plan to turn Naperville’s Greene Valley landfill, once one of the largest dumps in the region, into a sort of public-access lookout post–which, on a clear day, will provide an excellent view of Chicago’s skyline. The $1.1 million project will include a viewing platform and parking lot.
The district also plans this year to begin participating in the statewide Biodiversity Recovery Plan proposed by Chicago Wilderness, a coalition of public and private conservation groups. The plan includes long-term conservation efforts of native animal and plant species.
Other ongoing Forest Preserve District projects include the completion this year of a five-year flood-relief project in Itasca and Wood Dale.
It long has been the practice of the Forest Preserve District to purchase land in flood-plain areas, along waterways such as Salt Creek and the west branch of the DuPage River, for the purpose of easing flooding, Maio said.
The outlook for the county maintaining its open space is good, the Conservation Foundation’s McDonald said, mostly because it has been doing it for so long. Unlike fledgling forest preserve districts–such as those in Kane and Kendall Counties–DuPage has been wrestling for open space since the mid-1970s.
“The Preserve District is very sophisticated about land acquisition,” McDonald said. “They are very aggressive; they don’t mess around. If there’s something they want, they’ll pursue it, while other counties just beginning are perhaps more timid about it.”
The Forest Preserve District is helped by many private landowners concerned about maintaining their open space for future generations, and who are taking steps to ensure their property remains undeveloped.
One increasingly popular way to do this is by selling or donating a “conservation easement” to the Forest Preserve District, McDonald said.
This allows the property owner to legally prohibit the land from being developed even after his death, and, while the owner might also deny public access to the land, the space would remain open and undeveloped indefinitely to the benefit of everyone, he said.
Another ongoing goal of the Forest Preserve District is to restore preserves to their original glory. Brush burning, deer culling and the use of herbicides are some of the things the Forest Preserve District will continue as it restores natural prairies and animal habitats.
“We’re spending a lot of money to make DuPage County look like the prairies our great-great-grandfathers found, and I think our grandchildren will live to see that.”
