A proposal to replace a landscape supply business in south Naperville with townhouses and rowhouses got the green light from the Naperville Planning and Zoning Commission, despite an online petition with 214 signatures in opposition.
The Naperville City Council will now decide whether petitioner Bridge Street Properties and builder M/I Homes can construct Everly Trace, a subdivision of 26 townhouses and 42 rowhouses south of 111th Street and just west of Crone Middle School.
Commissioners unanimously recommended approval of the plan for the 10-acre site during a meeting Wednesday night, saying it provides an appropriate transition between the school and nearby neighborhoods of single-family houses.
“From a planning and zoning perspective, I think it looks great,” commission Chairwoman Whitney Robbins said.
Commissioners also said they read and understood comments from signers of a petition started by Jeff Doden, homeowners association board president for nearby Ashwood Creek. Doden said concerns center on issues of additional traffic, more students entering schools in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 and density generated by 68 proposed residences.
Neighbors who signed the petition against Everly Trace “are opposing this specific development, not development in general,” Doden said. “We understand and want the neighborhood to be finished — just finished with single-family homes, not the townhomes because of the overpopulation that we think it will cause.”
The site on which the homes would be constructed is currently unincorporated, with an agricultural zoning designation in Will County. The SiteOne landscaping supply business, a house and “associated farmstead buildings” occupy the land now, said Anna Franco with the city’s planning services team.
Russ Whitaker, attorney for the petitioner, said the proposed townhouses and rowhouses would be a better fit for the site than a “supply yard” that opens at 7 a.m. six days a week and functions as a “significant commercial operation.”
Designers with M/I Homes have planned the property to prevent excess traffic speeds, buffer the new houses from existing ones with landscaping and transition logically from the middle school to nearby neighborhoods, Whitaker said. The new subdivision would be laid out with two-story townhouses closest to adjacent single-family houses and three-story rowhouses closest to the middle school.
“I think that there was a lot of thought put into this,” Commissioner Mark Wright said, “whether it comes from the landscape barriers, to putting the two-story units closer to the fence line to make sure that it blends well.”
Everly Trace would generate a projected 27 students across all grade levels and result in a projected 30 to 37 new vehicle trips during the morning and evening peak times, Whitaker said.
Both housing products in Everly Trace would have starting prices of about $450,000 and feature two-car garages and two driveway parking spaces. Whitaker said the residences are expected to appeal to young professionals and empty nesters and would come with a homeowners association to handle snow removal, landscaping and exterior building maintenance.
The project requires council approval of five requests in order to be built: annexation; zoning to the OCI designation for office, commercial and institutional properties; a conditional use for single-family attached housing; a reduction in required corner yard setback lengths; and a preliminary plat of subdivision.
Marie Wilson is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
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