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Aurora Beacon-News
August 10, 2002

Outer-belt opponents want more hearings

Reopen discussion: Citizens Against the Sprawlway say minor revisions not so minor after all

By Mike Norbut
STAFF WRITER

YORKVILLE — Saying nearly a third of the parcels in the state's revised Prairie Parkway corridor are new, opponents of the proposed highway are calling on the Illinois Department of Transportation to reopen public hearings on the issue.

IDOT, however, has no plans to hold additional hearings for what it has characterized as minor revisions to the proposed 36-mile outer-belt highway connecting interstate highways 88 and 80 through Kane, Kendall and Grundy counties.

"We've actually gone way beyond what the law requires," Dick Adorjan, IDOT's Springfield spokesman, said. "As a matter of policy, if we had moved it to another corridor, we would have more hearings."

But changes within the same corridor "certainly don't warrant us going back and reopening everything again and delaying it further," Adorjan said.

The state unveiled a modified plan for its preferred central alignment at a press conference last week. The revised plan follows almost the same route as what originally had been proposed, with the exception of five adjustments. The biggest changes were in Kendall County, where the corridor was adjusted to limit splitting of agricultural land, state officials said.

However, the revised route brought new landowners into play that previously were not affected, according to Jan Strasma, spokesman for Citizens Against the Sprawlway.

"IDOT characterized the changes as minor, but when you consider almost one-third of the parcels are new, that's significant," Strasma said. "In Kendall County, more than half the mileage is new."

Of the 193 parcels in the corridor, 61 are new, while 59 were removed from the original proposal, Strasma said. The new alignment affects six new homes besides the original three.

"This is affecting a whole different group of property owners, many of whom found out about it from a notice in the mail," he said.

The opposition group this week sent a letter to Illinois Secretary of Transportation Kirk Brown, asking the state to rescind its recording of the highway corridor and reopen public hearings on the revised route. Strasma said opponents plan to file a lawsuit against IDOT, challenging the state's corridor protection process. Affected landowners are meeting later this month, he said.

Adorjan said the state would hold informational meetings in the future, once it completes its Phase I engineering study. IDOT hopes to receive a $15 million federal grant to begin the study this fall.

"We've done the best we can," Adorjan said. "Any kind of major infrastructure improvement has opposition. Everybody wants these things, but no one wants to be disturbed."