McHenry County Blog

The" Living with Trees Award" presented to the Fleming Road Alliance by The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

Sunday, the “Living with Trees Award” was presented to the Fleming Road Alliance by The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

The award is presented annually to the individual or organization that has gone above and beyond to protect, enhance, restore and raise awareness of McHenry County’s diminishing woodland resources.

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By any other name, a “Tree Hugger” award.

The Fleming Road Alliance reveals that 96% of Fleming Road is on private property in this email to county board members:

To: Ken Koehler, Chair, McHenry County Board; County Board Members,

From: Fleming Road Alliance, Re: Update on Fleming Road Alliance Position on Improvements for Fleming Road.,

Dear County Board Representatives:

Natural Heritage Corridor: As you all may know, sixteen homeowners have placed Natural Heritage Corridor easements on their property that extend 60’ into the property from the center of the road (their property line).

Five more easements are in the process of being completed and we expect several more in the near future.

The easements are held jointly by the Land Conservancy and The Village of Bull Valley.

The individual landowner continues to own the land.

This is an opportunity for MCDOT to be a leader in Context Sensitive Solutions by embracing and working with the Natural Heritage Corridor.

We have suggested to MCDOT the benefits of creating a new road classification called Heritage Road to enhance their work into the future.

We ask you to support this progressive concept.

ROW: The topic of right-of-way (ROW) is of particular interest because for the most part, along Fleming Road, there is NO ROW belonging to the County.

The only exception is where the property owner was forced to grant ROW as a requirement for the County’s approval to subdivide.

Everyone else owns to the middle of the road.

Yet MCDOT insists on drawing a line on the design options and labeling it variously as ROW, estimated ROW, existing ROW or estimated-existing ROW.

Simply put, Right-of-Way DOES NOT EXIST for over 96% of Fleming Road.

MCDOT has a prescriptive easement to the road that includes the road bed itself and nothing else.

The insistence on including a ROW line on a map by any name or proclaiming it verbally is insulting because we know better. It could also intimidate some homeowners into conceding right-of way when “the negotiator” knocks on their door with an air of authority, resulting in an unconstitutional “taking” of property. TranSystems agreed they would turn off the ROW line from the design options on display at the upcoming public meeting. That’s a start.

Now we need acknowledgement that there is no ROW.

Fleming Road residents own to the middle of the road. They want the road in the same footprint.

MDOT is constrained by the prescriptive easement and the Heritage Corridor. The Natural Heritage Corridor makes a clear statement that the residents of Fleming Road do not intend to concede ROW.

It is also unconscionable for MCDOT to state that if they do acquire ROW they will just convert the prescriptive easement that is currently the road bed, into a fee simple to “clean up the deed” (without payment). A prescriptive easement is NOT the same as fee simple ownership. It is a very limited right to the specific area – the road bed itself. Converting ownership without negotiated payment also constitutes a taking. Property owners’ taxes are based on ownership of their whole parcel in fee simple, with the property line to the middle of the road.

Fleming Road Alliance Organizing Committee

Ed Bennett, Mary Moltman. Lisa Rhoades, Marti Jadd, Linda Ramsey, Stanley Jarosz, Phyllis Keinz, Kevin Keesee, Emily Berendt, Deb Staley, Bjorn Mattsson

Advice left by someone attending the first public hearing on widening and otherwise imrpvioving Fleming Road.

The following came in an email from The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

From what little knowledge I have of Fleming Road, it is an extraordinary drive through the hills left by the retreating glacier.

Residents of the area fear that the McHenry County Board is planning to “improve” it enough to allow it to be an Eastern Bypass of Woodstock.

The Land Conservancy may offer an obstacle unforeseen by county officials.  Maybe not.  What do you read between the lines of the following part of the newsletter?

Here’s how the group explains what it is doing:

For 20 years, TLC has been working in McHenry County to provide individuals with an option for preserving their land that would not otherwise exist.

"Daffodils NOT Asphalt" the yard sign says.

From the first donated conservation easement on Alice & Leta Clark’s 5 acres at the corner of Thompson Road and Route 120, to the string of Natural Heritage Corridor easements along Fleming Road, The Land Conservancy of McHenry County has been helping individuals exercise some measure of control over the future with this powerful tool called the conservation easement.

Residents along Fleming Road turned to TLC for help maintaining the rural character of the corridor – forever.

And they chose to give up certain rights on a portion of the land they each own in order to preserve the character – as well as the hills and trees – of this unique resource.

The Fleming Road Legacy

"Scemic Route NOT Truck Route" is the message on another yard sign.

Of all the roadways in the county, Fleming Road, with its high concentration of remnant oak woodlands, a landscape that is rich with remnant glacial landforms, and its location in the Boone Creek Fen groundwater recharge area, is perhaps the most obvious example of a natural heritage corridor.

In September 2010, TLC’s board voted to allow The Land Conservancy to partner with municipalities and landowners to preserve those road corridors that pass through areas of the county that still retain high natural resource values-the Natural Heritage Corridor Program.

Fleming Road travels through one of the largest concentrations of remnant oak woodlands in McHenry County, and approximately 1½ miles of Fleming Road passes through the groundwater recharge area for the Boone Creek Fen Illinois Natural Area Inventory (INAI) site and Nature Preserve.

TLC holds several other conservation easements on and near the Fleming Road corridor, totaling 240 acres. To date, TLC has completed thirteen Natural Heritage Corridor easements with landowners along Fleming Road, and another 15 are still being negotiated. Thank you to all the Fleming Road easement donors for their commitment to preserving this shared resource.

Lisa Haderlein, Executive Director of The Land Conservancy of McHenry County, took on McHenry County’s zoning department Tuesday night.

The Northwest Herald’s Kevin Craver had a fine article on her and other citizen’s complaints, but I thought you might like to read her entire presentation. It follows:

I want to share with you some information about implementation of the County’s new Conservation Design Subdivision regulations.

Approximately one year ago, the County Board passed a resolution supporting creation of conservation design development standards.

In that resolution, the board said it was doing this to “encourage more efficient use of land and public services…promote protection of Groundwater supplies, natural areas and natural resources…”

Specific goals included:

• “to preserve the integrity of the land and its natural functions;…
• “to preserve and restore remnant wetlands, woodlands, savannas and prairies…;
• “to preserve the hydrologic condition and infiltrative capability of the soil by minimizing mass grading and impervious surfaces…” among other goals.

The County staff are rapidly turning it into an ordinance to give developers the ability to dramatically increase density on sites, while virtually ignoring the natural resources, and mass grading the entire site (in at least some instances).

Oh, the problem isn’t the issue of “density bonuses” that some worried about, no, none of the projects that have been reviewed to date actually meet the standards for any bonuses, yet they are seeing density increases of 30-70%.

That’s right.

How about a development that was previously platted with 60 1-acre homesites that is now winding its way through the approval process to resubdivide so to have 103 one-third acre homesites!

Yep, that’s right,

• a 70% increase in the number of homes that will be built –
• a 70% increase in traffic,
• a 70% increase in spray-irrigated sewage, etc etc.

And to boot, they are mass grading the entire site – you can drive by it right now on Church Road in Coral Township.

There was a point in the conversation about the new ordinance where I encouraged people to support this step by the county board, thinking (naively) that perhaps with such a clear policy direction as is written into the ordinance, that surely, the staff couldn’t get away with screwing this one up too.

Well, I was wrong.

And I am not afraid to admit it, and had I known then what I am seeing now, I would have fought adoption of the ordinance.

To the County Board’s credit, I do not believe that the majority of you are even aware of what the staff is doing to undermine the intent of the ordinance.

Lisa Haderlein
904 N Jefferson Street, Harvard IL

Craver’s article emphasizes that Sue Ehardt, zoning czar, is about to get the boot.

Lisa Haderlein, Executive Director of The Land Conservancy of McHenry County, took on McHenry County’s zoning department Tuesday night.

The Northwest Herald’s Kevin Craver had a fine article on her and other citizen’s complaints, but I thought you might like to read her entire presentation. It follows:

I want to share with you some information about implementation of the County’s new Conservation Design Subdivision regulations.

Approximately one year ago, the County Board passed a resolution supporting creation of conservation design development standards.

In that resolution, the board said it was doing this to “encourage more efficient use of land and public services…promote protection of Groundwater supplies, natural areas and natural resources…”

Specific goals included:

• “to preserve the integrity of the land and its natural functions;…
• “to preserve and restore remnant wetlands, woodlands, savannas and prairies…;
• “to preserve the hydrologic condition and infiltrative capability of the soil by minimizing mass grading and impervious surfaces…” among other goals.

The County staff are rapidly turning it into an ordinance to give developers the ability to dramatically increase density on sites, while virtually ignoring the natural resources, and mass grading the entire site (in at least some instances).

Oh, the problem isn’t the issue of “density bonuses” that some worried about, no, none of the projects that have been reviewed to date actually meet the standards for any bonuses, yet they are seeing density increases of 30-70%.

That’s right.

How about a development that was previously platted with 60 1-acre homesites that is now winding its way through the approval process to resubdivide so to have 103 one-third acre homesites!

Yep, that’s right,

• a 70% increase in the number of homes that will be built –
• a 70% increase in traffic,
• a 70% increase in spray-irrigated sewage, etc etc.

And to boot, they are mass grading the entire site – you can drive by it right now on Church Road in Coral Township.

There was a point in the conversation about the new ordinance where I encouraged people to support this step by the county board, thinking (naively) that perhaps with such a clear policy direction as is written into the ordinance, that surely, the staff couldn’t get away with screwing this one up too.

Well, I was wrong.

And I am not afraid to admit it, and had I known then what I am seeing now, I would have fought adoption of the ordinance.

To the County Board’s credit, I do not believe that the majority of you are even aware of what the staff is doing to undermine the intent of the ordinance.

Lisa Haderlein
904 N Jefferson Street, Harvard IL

Craver’s article emphasizes that Sue Ehardt, zoning czar, is about to get the boot.

The following invitation was received from Lisa Haderlein, the Executive Director of The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

She says, “Yo’all come!”

Well, those were not her exact words, but that’s the gist of the message.

On Saturday, August 4th, we hope you will be able to join us at Glacier Oaks Nursery near Harvard to (in part) launch the creation of the Third Generation Oak Endowment Fund at TLC! Mary McClelland & Joe Beeson are also celebrating three decades together, and their good friend Suzanne Malec and her son Jonah are celebrating his third birthday. In lieu of anniversary or birthday gifts, Joe, Mary & Suzanne are asking their friends to make a contribution to the Third Generation Oak Fund instead.

This is an exceptionally generous idea to kick-off this Fund. These two families decided that they want an occasion for celebration to become an opportunity to create a lasting legacy that will affect the lives of many future generations.

McHenry County’s oak woodlands are a mere shadow of what they once were, but through the tree planting, preservation and stewardship efforts of the local oak conservation collaborative, we have a good opportunity to ensure that future generations of local residents will experience the majesty and wonder that is found in an oak grove! The Third Generation Oak Fund will be an important tool to ensure that there are resources dedicated to the preservation, regeneration, and restoration of our McHenry County oak resources forever.

So, join the party! Come celebrate with Joe & Mary, Suzanne & Jonah! Dust off your bib overalls and big skirts, and plan to dance the night away!

And if you tell me that you came to the party because of this email invitation, I’ll even dance a square dance with you (or, if you’d rather, I’ll promise NOT to dance a square dance with you!)

Lisa

The following invitation was received from Lisa Haderlein, the Executive Director of The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

She says, “Yo’all come!”

Well, those were not her exact words, but that’s the gist of the message.

On Saturday, August 4th, we hope you will be able to join us at Glacier Oaks Nursery near Harvard to (in part) launch the creation of the Third Generation Oak Endowment Fund at TLC! Mary McClelland & Joe Beeson are also celebrating three decades together, and their good friend Suzanne Malec and her son Jonah are celebrating his third birthday. In lieu of anniversary or birthday gifts, Joe, Mary & Suzanne are asking their friends to make a contribution to the Third Generation Oak Fund instead.

This is an exceptionally generous idea to kick-off this Fund. These two families decided that they want an occasion for celebration to become an opportunity to create a lasting legacy that will affect the lives of many future generations.

McHenry County’s oak woodlands are a mere shadow of what they once were, but through the tree planting, preservation and stewardship efforts of the local oak conservation collaborative, we have a good opportunity to ensure that future generations of local residents will experience the majesty and wonder that is found in an oak grove! The Third Generation Oak Fund will be an important tool to ensure that there are resources dedicated to the preservation, regeneration, and restoration of our McHenry County oak resources forever.

So, join the party! Come celebrate with Joe & Mary, Suzanne & Jonah! Dust off your bib overalls and big skirts, and plan to dance the night away!

And if you tell me that you came to the party because of this email invitation, I’ll even dance a square dance with you (or, if you’d rather, I’ll promise NOT to dance a square dance with you!)

Lisa