NIMBY folks in two Lake County towns miles apart took it on the chin last month. Instead, big business won twin rounds.
Who didn’t see municipal officials in Mundelein and Waukegan siding with commercial development over citizens’ interests? Perhaps those not-in-my-backyarders who stormed zoning meetings voicing opposition to plans laid out by Amazon and Thorntons.
Waukegan city officials went first, voting by a 5-3 margin on Nov. 15 to allow colossal e-tailer Amazon to move and park large semitrailers on a seven-acre parcel on Lakewood Avenue, off Green Bay Road and north of Washington Street. That would be a fine location, except it is by a 1,600-unit apartment complex.
For months, residents of the complex had been dogging the zoning process. They got slim satisfaction from the City Council’s approval for a conditional-use permit.
Residents had argued forcefully their quality of life — health, safety, noise, sleep, traffic congestion — would be duly interrupted by allowing up to 92 semitrailers operating 24 hours a day by their residences. According to Steve Sadin’s front-page News-Sun story of Nov. 17, one resident griped unsuccessfully to council members: “We’re going to be awakened by the beep, beep, beep” of semis backing up and pulling out.
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The residents got a concession from the City Council in the form of a sound wall as officials caved to the Amazon trailer-parking plan. Even Mayor Ann Taylor, who did not have a vote on the matter, saw the quality-of-life issues residents pointed out.
The noise, she said, “will drive you crazy.” Ninth Ward Ald. Thomas Hayes, who opposed the proposal, said the city was being “held hostage by someone who wants to do business in Waukegan.” Amazon has a growing footprint in the city, what with a sorting center four miles from the parking lot and a claim center on Belvidere Road.
And that was the rub and it sunk residents’ opposition to the plan. Second Ald. Greg Moisio was forthright when he told reporter Sadin what might have happened if council members rejected the proposal: “I was fearful if we didn’t make this work, Amazon would leave with 800 jobs.”
In Mundelein, it is not jobs but gas pumps which brought out opposition to the Thorntons’ proposal for a fuel depot and convenience store at a nearly three-acre parcel on the northeast corner of routes 45 and 176. After more than a year’s debate, village officials decided to grant the Louisville, Kentucky-based Thorntons its request, with some conditions, according to James Norman’s account in the News-Sun of Nov. 29.
Such as semitrailer rigs will not be allowed to diesel up at the location, along with diminished lighting. Building a gas station may seem disingenuous considering President Joe Biden and Illinois Gov J.B. Pritzker keep pushing for us all to eschew fossil fuels, and be driving expensive electric cars by the end of the decade. Perhaps the proposed Thorntons will include a few charging stations for e-vehicles.
Regardless, the Mundelein location will add to the number of Thorntons in Illinois. Currently, the 50-year-old company has 86 gas/convenience stores in the state, with 66 in the Chicago region.
One key to the pie-shaped property proposed for development is the empty Original Omega Restaurant. Some may date themselves knowing that where Thorntons plans to build the fuel depot was once the popular Dale’s diner, an early breakfast haunt for late-night folks during the 1970s and early 1980s. The other is the vacant manufacturing site which fronts on Route 45 (Lake Street).
Opponents — some 600 residents signed petitions against the project — noted the village has plenty of gas stations. Pollution from increased traffic and noise would be awful for the immediate environs, they argued.
Despite that, one needs to consider the old land-planning saw about using property for its highest-and-best use. In that case, Mundelein officials might not be that far off the map.
Next to the property runs the Canadian National Railway tracks which finds loud freight trains running continuously, along with Metra North Central commuter trains adding to the din during much of the day. Across the street is another gas station.