Northbrook residents opposed to a proposed townhome site on the former Our Lady of the Brook Catholic Church won a temporary victory at a recent Glenview Village Board meeting after the developer agreed to reconsider plans before submitting it to the plan commission.
A packed boardroom at Northbrook Village Hall on July 11 sent a clear message to M/I Homes of Chicago, the contract purchaser of the church property at 3700 Dundee Road in Northbrook, that many neighbors were not interested in the proposed 98-townhome development on the historic church site.
The development, called Henley Woods, would occupy nearly 12 acres currently owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago. End unit townhomes immediately north of Dundee Road would have cemetery interments as side yard neighbors.
A document signed last May 5 by the Catholic Bishop of Chicago authorized M/I Homes to pursue the residential development preliminary review application. The property is currently under contract for sale to M/I homes, according to Susan Thomas, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese. The Archdiocese will not release the sales price or contractual terms of the agreement, Thomas said.
M/I Homes wants to change zoning from IB institutional building to R-8 multifamily residential district status.
“In the current process, we are in our due diligence phase, investigating zoning, investigating a lot of the physical aspects of the site,” Greg Collins, land acquisition manager for M/I Homes, told Pioneer Press.
“As part of that process, we met with residents, this is now another informal meeting to get a good direction from the board as to what could possibly be the opportunity at this property,” Collins said.
But more than 100 emails opposing the townhome plan reached village email inboxes and triggered a standing-room-only crowd at the July 11 meeting.
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Near the Dundee Road property are the Charlemagne, Carlyle, Wildebrook and Timbers Edge residential subdivisions.
The Charlemagne Homeowners Association (CHOA) has 304 homeowners and has existed since 1966 when the first of 304 homes were built by Kennedy Builders.
“We’re all here because it’s not a good fit for that property,” CHOA President Elaine Bykerk Glidden said. “It’s too dense, it’s bringing in way too much traffic, it’s just not a good plan for that land.”
Glidden suggested large single-family homes would be a better fit.
“And these would be townhomes that would be towering over our neighborhood homes, they don’t fit in, they’re trying to do too much,” Glidden said.
Many neighbors in opposition were represented by podium speaker Jason Risdon of Northbrook, a CHOA board member.
Risdon told trustees on behalf of Charlemagne and Carlyle, “The current plan contains far too many units.”
User Upload Caption: A proposal for a 98-townhome development at the former Our Lady of the Brook site in Northbrook.
Muriel J. Collison, chair of the board’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, complimented M/I Homes on its Sterling Place townhome Northbrook development along Kingsley Circle, under one mile from Glenbrook North High School.
“There’s no question that you are a quality developer,” Collison said to Collins.
But Collison felt the Henley Woods proposal is, “too dense … it’s too high, you’re asking for too much on the setbacks, the driveways are too short, the impact on the school, the traffic and the neighborhood, is too great, he said. “I do really hope that we can work with you to come to something that is a better fit for this property.”
Applause erupted several times during the meeting.
Northbrook Village President Kathryn L. Ciesla told Collins from the dais, “I would encourage you to continue to meet with the residents if you’d like to pursue development on this property and come up with something that works for everybody.”
M/I Homes still has the right to bring the 98-townhome request to the village’s Plan Commission, but Collins said the builder will postpone bringing their townhome plan to the commission due to feedback they received at the July 11 meeting.
“We’ll figure something out,” Collins said. “We’ve got a lot of things to consider. I’ll be in communication with the HOA, I’ll be in communication with staff to see what opportunities there are here.”
Our Lady of the Brook parish was formed in 1968. The two Northbrook parishes of St. Norbert, 1809 Walters Ave., and Our Lady of the Brook were merged into one parish in May 2017. The Catholic Community of Northbrook was formed and the decision to close the Our Lady of the Brook worship site occurred in July 2021.
The large silver cross over the former OLB worship site still stands at the dormant church building as people familiar with the lofty cross wonder about its future.
The Archdiocese of Chicago also indicated to Pioneer Press that no decision has been made on the status of this cross.
Karie Angell Luc is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.