The Village Board has amended its zoning code and granted 14 variances to make way for a controversial development, but not before one village trustee was threatened with censure and police escorted two people from the meeting room.
About 120 opponents of a mixed-use development at 51st Avenue and 95th Street packed the board’s meeting in support of their only board ally on the matter, Trustee Robert Streit.
The development, called the Children’s Museum at Oak Lawn Station, includes condominiums, a five-story parking garage and a component that would accommodate business on the first floor and the museum on the second floor.
Streit led a successful drive to place an advisory referendum item on the Nov. 2 ballot that asked whether residents wanted low-income housing and a five-story parking deck in the village. Voters overwhelmingly said no. But Trustee Jerry Hurckes accused Streit of drafting a “deliberately misleading question” and called for Streit’s censure, a move that no other trustees backed.
