Home | News Index | Southern Link | Northern Link | How to Oppose | Kane 2020 Plan | Kendall Plan
Elburn Herald
August 15, 2002
Prairie Parkway opposition group denied request for additional public hearings.
by Susan O'Neill
Citizens Against the Sprawlway has called for a reopening of the public hearing for the proposed outer beltway
in Kane and Kendall counties because of what they call extensive revisions to the route since it was proposed last
December.
"Almost a third of the 193 parcels affected by the revised beltway corridor were not in the original Illinois
Department of Transportation (IDOT) proposal," said Jan Strasma, chairman of the grassroots organization opposing
the highway.
"These property owners had no prior notice that their property was in jeopardy."
According to Strasma, the initial proposal had 191 parcels.
The revised corridor, announced at the end of July, eliminated 59 of these and added 61 new ones.
"I haven't run the numbers, but that could very well be true," said IDOT's planning engineer Bob Mounts.
Two weeks ago, IDOT recorded the 36-mile corridor from Interstate 80 near Minooka to Interstate 88 just east of
Kaneville.
With the formal recording of the corridor, IDOT has placed restrictions on any improvements owners wish to make
to the affected properties. Owners wishing to build a garage, add a room, or make other improvements must now seek
approval from IDOT prior to making the improvements. IDOT would then
either authorize the improvements or deny them and purchase the property.
The changes were made in five locations, two in Kane County and three in Kendall County.
According to Strasma, there is a major rerouting of the beltway corridor in southern Kendall County, with the result
that more than half the corridor mileage in the county is changed from the original proposal.
"We acted on suggestions from the public," said Dick Adorjan, IDOT's spokesperson for Illinois Secretary
of Transportation Kirk Brown. "We did it to avoid cutting across property lines."
"(Because of this) the number of miles has grown a little bit, resulting in a little longer corridor,"
Mounts added.
Citizens Against the Sprawlway sent a letter to Brown on Thursday, Aug. 8, requesting that the recording of the
corridor beltway be rescinded and that public hearings be reopened to allow comment on the revised corridor route.
"Apparently, there is no way for us to satisfy these folks," said Adorjan. "This group wants to
do everything to block this road. At some point we have to move forward."
Adorjan added that at this point, the public hearings will not be reopened.
"We didn't have any major shifts in the corridor. We held extensive hearings on this and even extended the
public comment period," he said.
An additional series of hearings will be scheduled once the Phase I engineering study has been completed, explained
Adorjan. The study will look at the impacts on the environment, individual pieces of property, agriculture and
archaeology, and will take somewhere between three and five years, according to Adorjan.
"We will be soliciting for a consulting engineering firm to begin the work within the next week," said
Adorjan.