Out amid the tall corn and verdant soybeans, where Chicago TV signals start fading, little Plano is being asked to welcome a project that could bring it more than 2,500 homes and up to 7,000 new residents.
Plano, population 5,100, is 52 miles from the Loop and several miles west of the demarcation line that separates suburbia from the agricultural countryside in Kendall County. The proposed development is so big and so far out on the fringe of the metropolitan area that it is likely to invite criticism of sprawl.
But landscape architect David Yocca sees an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past–the inefficient use of land, sole dependence on the automobile and general sense of isolation that characterize most suburbs built in the late 20th Century.
“We see this as more the solution to suburban sprawl, to expand an existing city while staying within the scale of a small town,” said Yocca, a principal with the Conservation Design Forum of Elmhurst. The company was hired by the British trust that owns the property to draw up a development plan.
If the city approves the plan for the subdivision, Plano Properties, the trust would begin selling land to home builders. The project is expected to appeal to people who work in Naperville, Aurora and other western suburbs and take 15 to 20 years to complete.
“We will have a wide diversity of housing,” Yocca said, “with shops and services within walking distance, bicycle and pedestrian trails encompassing the entire area, lots of transportation alternatives and greenways at the eastern and western ends of the development to define the edges of the city.”
Plano’s existing street grid would be extended into the new development. Residents could walk or ride a bicycle to city’s downtown and, possibly, a future Metra station. Kendall County communities on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line are looking at extending commuter rail service west from Aurora.
Mayor Susan Nesson acknowledges her community–“a rural, small town, very neighborly, blue-collar”–would experience growing pains.
“But I think this is a wonderful opportunity. Most communities don’t get to plan something this large all at once,” she said.
An unlikely new suburb, to be sure; the DeKalb County line is only 3 miles west on U.S. Highway 34. Then again, similar things were once said about Schaumburg and Naperville.
A British peer, Lord Peter Palumbo, acquired the land as an investment about 20 years ago. Palumbo was familiar with the area; he also owns the nearby Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
When the Palumbo family’s City Acre Property Investment Trust Ltd., London, decided to start liquidating its U.S. real estate holdings, it retained Conservation Design Forum to draw up a plan for its Plano properties.
CDF previously worked on Mill Creek in central Kane County and Coffee Creek Center in Chesterton, Ind.–developments in the “new urbanism” vein that, like Plano Properties, emphasized walkable neighborhoods and extensive open space.
The Conservation Foundation of Naperville ordinarily is a critic of development. In the case of Plano Properties, though, it is heading up a watershed committee advising the city and developer.
The committee is looking at issues of drainage, flooding and the protection of wildlife habitat along Big and Little Rock Creeks, which bracket the property and the city of Plano on the east and west.
“Though we’d like to see farmland remain open space, if development is going to occur, we’d rather see this kind”–clustered housing surrounded by lots of open land, said Brook McDonald, executive director of the foundation.
“No question, it’s a huge project,” McDonald said.
But Plano is bound to grow anyway, so the question is whether it can combine growth with the protection of natural resources, he said.
“We think you can do so with this type of design,” McDonald said.
Plans call for 2,502 single-family homes, duplexes and townhouses. Prices are expected to range from roughly $100,000 for the attached homes to $500,000 for the larger single-family dwellings.
Eighteen of the site’s 821 acres would be reserved for a future elementary school, and 273 acres would be open space, largely wetlands. These would form a natural filtration system and flood buffer for storm-water flowing into the nearby creeks.
Representatives of the landowner and city officials began meeting about a year ago. Last month, the Plano Plan Commission recommended that the City Council annex the land and consider the owner’s request for approval of a planned unit development.
A special committee of City Council members and plan commissioners will open negotiations opposing CDF’s request for smaller front and side yards for its cluster housing than existing ordinances allow. On some homes, officials said, front porches would come to within 4 feet of the sidewalk.
Officials also are unsure about the idea of “mixed-use” neighborhoods with both residences and commercial uses like offices and small shops.
By size alone, the project is daunting.
Plano probably has had only 10 or 12 building permits a year for the last four to five years, said Dave Williams, chairman of the Plano Plan Commission.
Growth is coming, he said, whether residents want it or not.
“We need it if we’re going to attract more businesses to the community that would generate new sales taxes for us,” he said. “We won’t stay a small town forever.”
