The New Lenox Plan Commission has voted 3-2 to recommend approval of a commercial and townhouse development for the area near Cedar Road and Haines Avenue that has neighbors worried over increased traffic.
The final decision rests with the Village Board, which is expected to discuss the matter next week.
Opponents of the 13-acre development, which would include 29 town homes in a gated community, said they will voice their concerns.
“I’m not opposed to building back there, but not multifamily,” said Jan Barnes, who has lived in the area for 14 years and sees traffic as a major problem.
Opponents were not surprised by the Plan Commission vote.
The commission was “just another step in the bureaucracy,” according to resident Tom Eddy.
Commissioners Robert Faford and Matt Clark sided with residents.
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Clark, who approves of the 5-acre commercial component of the proposal, which is likely to be mostly offices, said lower-density residential development would be more suitable.
Chairman Cory Lund and Commissioners Dave Stellwagen and Gary Berner favored the plan.
“I think that most of Cedar Road in coming years is going to be commercial,” Lund said.
The developer, Chuck Crescenzo, would provide some of the land the village needs for widening the Cedar Road bridge, Stellwagen said.
The commercial portion had gained approval of the village staff, according to planner Lee Cotton, who said it would serve as a buffer between residential development and the wastewater treatment plant. He called the commercial classification requested by the developer “extremely restrictive.”
Residents are concerned that the development would create too much additional traffic on Cedar Road, the village’s main north-south thoroughfare.
Rapid population growth has already added more cars to the two-lane roadway, especially during morning and evening rush hours when a growing number of commuters travel to and from the Metra station on U.S. Highway 30.
Cedar Road has been the subject of more than one traffic study in recent years as village officials grapple with the problem of how to keep traffic flowing without turning the street into a four-lane highway.
Some residents also expressed concern for the safety of pupils walking and being bused to nearby Haines and Oster-Oakview Elementary Schools.
Crescenzo said the ranch-style town homes would be marketed to empty-nesters and young professionals. The buildings would be handicapped-accessible, filling a gap in the local housing stock, he said.
The homes, if occupied by older people, would generate considerably less traffic than would 20 single-family homes, Crescenzo said.