During a meeting Tuesday with the developers who have eyed 50 acres near Didier Farms in Buffalo Grove for a new residential development, neighbors near the proposal said they were hoping to see how the plans would be revised to address their concerns.
But some said they left the meeting at Meridian Middle School, which borders the eastern edge of the proposed site, with more questions than answers after representatives with home builder K. Hovnanian Homes presented the homeowners with the same plan to build the “Linking Crossing” development, which would create 214 units of single-family homes and multi-family rowhomes on the southeast corner of Buffalo Grove Road and Brandywyn Lane.
“Asinine,” resident Mike Leissner said of the proposed designs for the project.
Neighbors near the proposed site have objected to the large residential development primarily because of concerns with overcrowding and increased traffic congestion in the area.
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But representatives with K. Hovnanian during the meeting tried to assure neighborhood residents that they are working on a revised plan to decrease the density of the proposed development, although they didn’t specify how many units could be cut from the plan.
“We’re going to have a revised plan. It’s going to be less dense,” Jon Isherwood, land acquisition manager for K. Hovnanian, told the crowd. “We’re not going to be back with 209 units, or 205.”
A revised plan could be presented by June 21, when the developer is set to meet with the Buffalo Grove Planning and Zoning Commission about the proposal, Isherwood said. The point of the meeting with neighborhoods was to hear more of their thoughts on the proposal, which has been criticized by local residents in past village meetings.
Some of the roughly 40 people who attended the meeting at Meridian Middle School said they were expecting to see changes to the plan and repeated their earlier concerns with the plan.
But Isherwood and Jim Truesdell, land acquisition adviser with K. Hovnanian, reviewed some of the existing details of the Link Crossing development.
The streets within the development would be owned and maintained by a homeowners association rather than the village, an idea that drew concerns from the audience.
The Lake County Division of Transportation also has not granted permission for an exit onto Buffalo Grove Road, they said. And they clarified that the three-story townhouses would be within the village’s 35-foot height limit, although some neighbors still said they were concerned about appearance of the development.
“It’s like a hotel,” neighbor Cathy Arvanitakis said.
Isherwood said his group understands the concern.
“You guys hate the three stories,” he said. “We’ve heard that loud and clear.”
As for the population at the proposed Link Crossing development, Isherwood and Truesdell both said they would market the rowhouses to younger millennials, the four-bedroom homes to young families and the two- or three-bedrooms to older parents who are preparing to be empty nesters.
The idea of smaller models had at least two people interested during the meeting. David and Nina Tenny, of Arlington Heights, watched for most of the meeting because they said they are thinking about buying property once the new development is built.
The big appeal to them, they said, would be living in an area that has a mixture of younger and older residents.
“You want to know how depressing it is when your neighbors keep dying?” Nina Tenny said after the meeting.
Whatever changes K. Hovnanian presents next, the revised plan likely will not affect the Didier Farms farmstead, greenhouse and playground on the northeast corner of Buffalo Grove and Aptakisic Roads.
John Didier, co-owner of the Didier Farm property, said Wednesday they still have no interesting in giving up their land near the proposed development.
“I am not selling — not at this time,” Didier said.
When audience members asked K. Hovnanian representatives during the meeting about the future of farmstead, Isherwood said they had looked into it but understand that Didier is not interested in selling.
“We don’t know if it will ever develop,” he said.
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