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player ready...The Village Board’s vote this week to revise a 16-year-old boundary agreement with Tinley Park shifted a 40-plus acre site south of Cherry Street to the Tinley Park side of the border.
Developer Crana Builders took its proposal for a residential development on the 44.5-acre Brookside Meadows site to Tinley Park after Mokena trustees failed to reach a consensus on the plan, Mokena Community Development Director Paul Gorte said.
The boundary revision won’t shut Mokena out of the decision-making process, Gorte said. It requires the development to conform to Mokena’s standards and prohibits any non-residential development other than a park or a fire station, he said. The final plat of the subdivision must be approved by Mokena officials.
Trustee Laura Rusiniak voted against the move.
“I’m not in favor of changing our boundary agreement and giving Mokena property away,” Rusiniak said.
She said the planned extension of Cherry Street–long a subject of contention in Mokena–is no longer part of the Brookside Meadows plan and wouldn’t prevent Mokena trustees from coming to an agreement.
But Cherry Street wasn’t the only problem, Trustee Jane McGinn said.
An agreement between the village and a private water company that serves the neighboring unincorporated subdivision blocks the village from providing the Brookside Meadows area with Lake Michigan water, McGinn said.
“I advised this concept based on appropriate use of the land,” Mayor Joe Werner said. “The availability of Chicago water is in [future residents’] best interest. I believe there is compromise here.”