Resident concerns about traffic and parking are delaying plans for apartments and town houses in downtown Tinley Park near the planned Harmony Square plaza.
The village’s Plan Commission recently held off making any recommendation to the Village Board about the project, West Point at Harmony Square, until more study is completed including a traffic analysis.
It is tentatively on the agenda for the commission’s Sept. 21 meeting, but it was not certain whether a traffic study could be completed by then.
“I’m fearful our neighborhood is going to be turned into a parking lot,” resident John Stalmack said at a Sept. 7 Plan Commission hearing. “With this project you are going to have tremendous overflow that can’t be handled.”
West Point Builders is proposing a five-story mixed-use building with 62 apartments above commercial space on North Street, to the east of the planned Harmony Square. To the north of the apartment building, West Point plans 63 townhomes on the former site of Central Middle School.
The outdoor plaza is proposed to host events throughout much of the year, and residents living in the area said traffic from the plaza and housing will result in congestion and parking issues in their neighborhood.
Lisa Latronico, who lives on 67th Court, said there “is a certain ambience to that little neighborhood we live in” that she fears will be upended.
“I was planning to live here the rest of my life and now I’m really questioning that,” Latronico told commissioners.
“A traffic study must be done,” she said. “Traffic is a big consideration.”
Latronico and other residents said the proposed housing isn’t a good match for the neighborhood of single-family homes, and Latronico said “it is not aesthetically pleasing whatsoever.”
Another resident, Sara Nolan, said the project “does not fit our area.”
“It’s too much,” Nolan, who said she worked for 20 years at Central Middle School, told the panel. “You can’t put all those buildings in that area.”
Plans show that 173rd Street, to the north of Harmony Square, would be cut off between 67th Avenue and 66th Court, with 67th Avenue on west side of Central Middle School and 66th Court on the east side.
Residents who spoke at the Plan Commission meeting live in that area, which features homes nearly a century old.
According to plans, both the townhomes and apartment building are proposed to be done in one phase, although initial work would start on the townhomes.
The Central Middle School property has been owned by the village since 2005, and other plans have come up in the past for housing there.
According to plans, the townhomes would be three-story buildings with two- and three-bedroom units ranging from 1,500 to 1,800 square feet. Units would have attached two-car garages, and there would also be a surface lot for cars.
A private dog park for residents of the apartments and townhomes would be built between the developments, at roughly the point where 173rd and 67th Avenue meet, and a second park in the 3-acre town home site is planned.
The apartments would include five studio units, 29 one-bedroom units, 27-two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units, according to plans.
There would be two rooftop terraces on the second floor, an exercise room, lounge and club room, and the apartments “will be high-end luxury units” each with their own laundry facilities, according to plans.
Running through the property dividing Harmony Square and the apartments would be an extension of 67th Court, where additional parking would be set aside, according to plans.
North Point has built residential development in Tinley Park, such as the West Point Meadows town homes east of Oak Park Avenue and north of Interstate 80, as well as projects in Naperville, Plainfield and Skokie.
Residents living near the new development said it would disrupt their neighborhood.
“I came here to live in peace. I don’t want to have this overcongested situation,” Stalmack told the Plan Commission. “I believe it’s going to be a big problem. It’s going to make life miserable for us.”
mnolan@tribpub.com
