MCC Baseball Stadium Zoning Hearing Postponed Until September 19th

I got home close to 1:30 this morning after the Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission finally adjourned until 7:30 on September 19th.

Those who had not had the opportunity to offer public comment before were given that opportunity last night.

But, there was no opportunity to offer any rebuttals to the written comments McHenry County College officials contained in an August 31st memo to commissioners from Senior Planner James Richter.

That seemed unfair, especially with regard to the comments which did not speak to the points made.

In any event, it was pretty late before the public had finished and the commissioners finally got a chance to ask their pent-up questions.

Traffic was the first topic and the frustration of knowing what the infrastructure problems were without the ability to do much about it was clearly evident.

College traffic consultant Jared Cebwiski of Patrick Engineering was questioned about are called “add lane” projects. He concluded that things would be better overall with the improvements, but various members of the commission thought depending on the Illinois Department of Transportation to widen Route 14 to 4-lanes was pretty much whistling Dixie.

No one brought up the way that Huntley has managed to require those seeking developments to widen Route 47 from the tollway to the old village limits.

I believe developers paid for it all as a condition of development.

In MCC’s case, the city is being asked to bet on the come.

Chief Dave Linder seemed to pretty much convince the commissioners that his force could get the baseball fans in and out without much problem.

Concerns were raised about the effect on residents of West Hillside Avenue and Country Club Road.

Even so, one quite frustrated man who lives at the intersection of Hillside and Country Club in Ridgefield vented before leaving. The Monday before Labor Day, a drunk driver totaled two vehicles in his driveway.

The other topic discussed was the effect of the project on Crystal Lake.

Watershed consultant Gary Schaefer again pointed out his “belief that ultimately, you’re going to see better water quality,” while repeating that there would be more run off.

“It seems like there needs to be a fix before you push more water down here,” Commissioner Jim Batastini observed, reflecting on the August flooding problems.

“The alternative is not to develop at all, even at 20%,” Schaefer replied.

“The effect of MCC will be imperceptible because it’s so small,” he added.

Talking about the need for monitoring what development will do to the watershed, Commissioner Jeff Greenman elicited this comment from Schaefer:

”I think that may have been the same (charge) we were given by the city council (the night before).”

So, two nights in a row meetings have been adjourned in the city council chambers for two weeks.

If you are following the MCC/watershed manual issues, mark your calendars for 7:30 for September 18th, a Tuesday, and Wednesday, September 19th.

Here’s the Northwest Herald’s Jim Butts’ take on the meeting and the Daily Herald’s Jameel Naqvi’s.


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