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Chicago Tribune
August 13, 2003

Outer-belt corridor suit may be refiled

By William Presecky
Tribune staff reporter

An attorney for more than 50 property owners who sued the state in September over its plan to protect a future highway corridor in the far western suburbs is scheduled to be back in court Thursday, seeking technical clarification of the latest order dismissing the group's complaint.

Attorney Timothy Dwyer of St. Charles said he wants to ask Kendall County Circuit Judge Leonard Wojtecki to clarify which portions of the amended lawsuit were dismissed without prejudice.

Wojtecki's dismissal this summer marked the second time he has ruled against the landowners along the north-south corridor, which is west of Illinois Highway 47.

The roughly 36-mile by 400-foot-wide corridor was set aside by IDOT on July 31, 2002. It is designated for protection from development while the agency studies the need for an outer-belt highway to connect Interstate Highways 88 and 80.

Dwyer's clients, who make up about half the landowners in the corridor, vowed to exhaust every legal option to have the corridor-protection process voided.

Among other things, the property owners say the state's corridor-protection statute is unconstitutional and is an illegal taking of property.

Wojtecki's latest written order, dated June 26, was issued by mail. It opens the door for a third amended complaint to be filed on two of the three counts in the lawsuit.

Wojtecki dismissed the original lawsuit in January on the grounds that it didn't allege any facts that show the corridor-protection plan constituted a physical taking of property.

"As the court has stated in its previous order, [the property owners] have not stated any facts which demonstrate either an actual taking of their property by the state ... or that the state has imposed restrictions ... so severe that the restrictions amount to a taking of property," Wojtecki wrote in June.

"This is not to say that the [corridor protection] statute is immune from constitutional attack, only that there has to be some facts pled which demonstrate an actual injury. In this case no such facts have been pled," Wojtecki wrote.