Residents in Orland Park subdivisions near a proposed business park along Interstate Highway 80 have been assured that a concrete plant, mini-storage facility or slaughterhouse will not be built there, but they still do not know what will be allowed in the final plans.
They learned at a recent Plan Commission meeting that the businesses must conform to the current zoning for industrial, office and research.
They also heard commissioners direct the developer to consider building a frontage road on one side of the project to help alleviate traffic concerns and to keep all buildings at one or two stories.
Those suggestions stemmed from complaints by the 50 or so residents at the meeting who had been expecting a golf course. They said the proposed Orland Park Business Park will negatively affect their lives and property.
The concept for a 21-lot industrial park on 67 acres is being proposed by developer Jack Mayher, owner of MGM Construction Inc. of Orland Park.
The property is west of Wolf Road and south of 179th Street, directly behind the Preserve at Marley Creek, a subdivision by Mayher’s MGM Development.
Residents in the development have said they were told the property behind them would be a golf course.
“When we bought there, we had no idea this is what was proposed. We were told it was going to be a golf course . . . Even when we called the village, no one told us it was industrial,” said resident Janice Fluery.
“When you go in knowing what is going to be there you make the choice . . . But this is after the fact,” she said.
On Sept. 22, Orland Park Mayor Dan McLaughlin and Village Board members said that the rapid development of a subdivision on adjacent property had changed the dynamics of a three-year-old deal to move Davidson Concrete Co. to the I-80 corridor. The Plan Commission then canceled a public hearing planned for Sept. 26.
“If it hadn’t taken so long and if the homeowners had seen the modern plant already in place . . . they would know what they were getting into. But now they were faced with having this plant behind them, and it really changed things,” McLaughlin said at the time.
The developer submitted a new plan for the industrial park, minus the concrete plant and storage facility. The parcel falls under the zoning category of office, research and light industrial, which is consistent with the village’s comprehensive land-use plan, said village planner Greg Dreyer.
Plan Commission Chairwoman Pat Gira said all businesses that come into the park will fall under that zoning and could not include slaughterhouses or food-processing plants, as was rumored throughout the neighborhoods.
“If people buy property, they can come to us and request [a use], but that doesn’t mean they are going to always get it. But slaughterhouses are not allowed and toxic dumps are not allowed and they will never be allowed,” Gira said.
Neighbors do not want an industrial use of the site and are concerned that increased traffic would come through their development on Marley Creek Drive between 183rd Street and the park. The developers are proposing a “no-left turn” rule out of the park onto 183rd Street. But traffic would be allowed to enter the development from 183rd Street.
Dreyer said load limits would be placed on all residential streets to eliminate truck traffic on those roads.
That didn’t pacify Donna Strok.
“You have school buses coming down that road. You have a park with a parking lot. What happens when we add all this traffic?” she asked.
Several commissioners agreed with the traffic concerns and suggested that the developer look at the frontage road for access.
The park’s designer, Duane Linden, of Linden, Lenet and Associates of Orland Park, said planners would consider a frontage road but weren’t sure how feasible it would be.
A revised plan will be submitted for Tuesday’s Plan Commission meeting.
