Planning is proceeding for a renovation of the Park Ridge Fire Station 35 with a pair of approvals from the city’s planning and zoning board and the city’s zoning board of appeals.
Both commissions recommended the fire department’s pitch to upgrade Fire Station 35, located at the intersections of Devon and Cumberland Avenues, for approval to the Park Ridge City Council.
The station was built in the 1960s and is too small for a contemporary fire department, fire officials have said. The new facility will be larger and will be built to accommodate more gender diversity among the firefighting force and focus on health and safety needs.
“They’re looking toward the future,” architect Tim Weber said at the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting. “The new facility will be able to accommodate up to eight first responders. The current facility accommodates six.”
Most of the expansion will be horizontal as opposed to vertical, according to a presentation from the project’s architect and fire staff.
The project requires some departures from typical city requirements around parking, building size and yard space, per a memo from city staff to Zoning Board of Appeals commissioners.
The plan eliminates some of the current parking, which one public commenter said concerned her. A civil engineer working on the project said they expected the 16 planned parking spaces to be adequate for the facility, even with potential expansions to the size of a firefighter shift team.
Weber told both commissions that the upgraded station would have three bays instead of two for equipment and emergency vehicles and have private bedrooms and changing rooms to accommodate firefighters of different genders.
The renovation is also being planned to isolate toxic chemicals and carcinogens as much as possible, Weber said.
The fire station will remain in use throughout the construction process, Fire Chief Jeff Sorensen said to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
“We need to operate throughout this entire project,” he said. “There’s really no good alternative.”
City staff analysis supports the tradeoff between bending the rules on the zoning requirements affiliated with the lots and keeping the facility operational during the upgrade process.
“The lack of viable alternative sites in the area means the City must make do with the limited area of the subject property to provide vital services, and ensure such services are adequate and modern,” a staff memo to the board states.
The department requested a total of six exceptions to the Park Ridge planning and zoning regulations for the project, including the ability to turn a light red when the fire department gets a call for emergency services.
Public commenter Volka Shukh said she shares a driveway with Station 35 and asked about getting city assistance to construct a circle driveway to alleviate her concerns about losing some of the use of her driveway to the expanded station.
She also stated she has an agreement with the fire department regarding the shared driveway, though that document was not in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals.
This concerned Commissioner Frank Serio, who said he didn’t want to see the board approve something without reviewing the existing legal agreements the project might impact.
The Planning and Zoning Commission approved the project unanimously. The Zoning Board of Appeals approved it in a 5-1 vote, with Serio voting “no.”
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Park Ridge City Council will consider the Zoning Board of Appeals’ recommendation at its next meeting, according to Park Ridge Planning and Zoning Coordinator Claudia Hampel.