After three years of discussion, Aurora and Sugar Grove appear ready to approve a boundary agreement that will not only set the border between the municipalities but also call for cooperative planning along that border.
The Aurora City Council’s Planning and Development Committee recently recommended approval of the agreement, which would last for 20 years.
The pact aims, like other agreements of its type, to limit the bargaining options of developers.
Sugar Grove’s acting village president, P. Sean Michels, said he expects the board of trustees in his town to vote on the border pact within a month.
“In concept, everybody is agreed to it,” Michels said. “It looked great. It’s nice finally to establish the boundaries, so developers can’t play one side off against the other.”
As part of the agreement, Aurora would work with Kaneland Unit School District 302 to establish impact fees on homes in newly annexed developments to help pay for the costs of new schools.
Those fees already are in place in Sugar Grove and other municipalities served by the school district.
Aurora and Sugar Grove also would agree to draw up a joint land-use plan to cover all land that is within one-half mile of the proposed border.
If development were proposed within one of the towns in that area, the other would have the right to review it and offer comments.
Michels said Sugar Grove officials were comforted that Aurora recently designated much of the land north of Galena Boulevard in the proposed border area for estate housing. South of Galena, most of the land in Aurora is designated either for estates or agricultural use.
Bill Wiet, Aurora community development director, noted that there are about 2,500 undeveloped acres on the city’s far west side.
He said much of it is owned by the Kane County Forest Preserve District or cannot be developed because it includes either flood plains or wetlands. Of the land that can be developed, about 600 acres has been designated for estates.
Under the plan, the boundary abutting a small portion of Aurora north of Interstate Highway 88 would be along Lake Run, an artificial waterway.
South of the East-West Tollway, it would run along Illinois Highway 56 to a parcel already in Sugar Grove between Hankes Road and Galena Boulevard.
It would run around that parcel to Galena and Gordon Road, then south to Prairie Street, then east until the Commonwealth Edison right of way, along which it would run south to Jericho Road.
Once-icy relations between the two municipalities thawed in June 1998, when Aurora Mayor David Stover and then-Sugar Grove Village President Michael Douglas announced a 20-year agreement that allowed Aurora to start extensive improvements to Aurora Airport, which is surrounded by Sugar Grove.
