A townhome project that takes its name, “Ostara,” from an old term for new beginnings may need a fresh start after being rejected this week by the Naperville Planning and Zoning Commission.
Neighbors raised a litany of concerns about 25 townhouses being built on 2.3 acres at Spring Avenue and Mill Street north of downtown.
A hearing Wednesday night for the conditional use requested by Naperville-based Kramer Homes to allow single-family attached homes to be built in an R2 zoning district lasted more than three hours.
Nearby residents decried the Ostara plan as too large for the site and brought up worries about traffic congestion, safety for walk-to-school routes and increased crowding at Naper Elementary, among many other points of contention.
Commissioners took the concerns to heart — especially those about traffic and pedestrian safety in an already car-crowded area — as they unanimously recommended the project be denied by the Naperville City Council.
“The project’s name, Ostara, is an old word for spring and new beginnings — fitting for a corner on Spring Avenue the city has long hoped to see renewed,” project attorney Jimmy Calvo told commissioners during the meeting.
As proposed, each of the 25 three-story townhouses would range in size from 2,900 square feet to 3,400 square feet and include three bedrooms, four bathrooms, a two-car garage and a second-floor balcony. Prices would range from $1.37 million to $1.45 million.
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But it appears the development will need to start anew as far as its traffic analysis and site design goes since commissioners said it fails to hit the bar required for a conditional use or a requested setback variance.
“I don’t believe this development meets the conditional use standards that this would not be detrimental to public safety as it is proposed right now,” Commissioner Courtney Naumes said. “And therefore I cannot support this.”
Earlier this year, Kramer representatives hosted a meeting with neighbors and then made several adjustments to incorporate feedback, Calvo said. They decreased the number of proposed townhouses by one, reoriented all buildings along Spring and Mill to face those streets, switched the roofing design from flat to gabled, and added decorative fencing and more sidewalks.
The plan also includes 114 parking spaces, which Calvo said is double the code requirement of 57, in order to discourage on-street parking among future residents.
But current residents said Ostara’s proposed density of 10.8 dwelling units per acre is too high and questioned how the addition of new resident vehicles would fit safely within an area that already has dicey traffic conditions.
“The community was concerned about the number of units and how it would affect traffic and school capacity,” nearby resident Jason Weese said, summarizing thoughts shared at the neighbor meeting earlier this year. “The traffic study that I saw was a trip count and wasn’t really a count of the actual traffic that comes through the neighborhood and where the new traffic would flow after the units are built.”
Calvo, however, said the Ostara plan was designed to fit what city planning documents envisioned for the site.
The city’s 2022 Land Use Master Plan identifies the best use for the land, located on former industrial property just south of the BNSF railroad tracks and east of an Ozinga concrete plant, as “medium-density residential” with a primary use of townhouses, said Therese Egner, a member of the city’s planning services team.
Staff was supportive of the Ostara plan and called it an “appropriate transition between residential property and the train corridor,” Egner said.
Calvo said they were being guided by the plan when developing the project.
“The 2022 Land Use Master Plan calls for exactly this transition at this site. The design fits the neighborhood. The neighborhood’s feedback is built into the plan,” Calvo said. “In other words, this site is precisely want the Land Use Master Plan wants to see transitioned from what it currently is to the project that Ostara intends to deliver.”
But with a unanimous negative recommendation from the commission, Kramer Homes must now decide if it wants to proceed to the council with its current design or withdraw and make changes.
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Safety is the biggest hangup, Commissioner Mark Wright said.
“The conditional use requires us to make sure that safety of the public is No. 1, and I just don’t feel that we hit that mark,” Wright said.
Marie Wilson is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.